What are some other, some other competitors in the space of the
Dms that are pretty common? Yeah, I.
Think you've named kind of the bigger hitters there.
We have dealers that join us from Lizzie is one of them.
Black Pearl we hear of ideal. I mean, there's a.
Number of systems out of there, you know out there that dealers
use and and many of us do certain things very well.
You know as you mentioned I'll just say that right up front
doesn't matter which Dms it is, we we all have room to improve.
So you know, ultimately, but those, those are some of the
other competitors that we see in the marketplace out there, just
people who come and go. Everybody, welcome back to the
latest episode of the Dealership Fix, a podcast.
I am your host, My name is Jacob Berry and today we've got a
special guest with us. His name is Justin Quinn, now he
is the Product Manager DX1 in their DMS field.
And today we're going to talk about exactly that, the DMS in
your dealership. So I'd like to welcome Justin on
to the program here. How you doing today, man?
I'm doing great, Jacob. Thanks for having me.
Good man. Good.
So we were talking a little bit before about a little of your
history. Can you just kind of recap a
little bit for us your dealership industry experience
and the kind of different roles that you've had within the
dealership itself? Yeah, sure.
Well, it started early at a young age, far as just like a
lot of people getting in the. The dealerships, it was part of
my family racing, being out the track, you know, big groups of
stuff. And as I got a little bit older,
I got to know these dealers a little bit better from
sponsoring at the races. Had one close to my school, so
got to go in there. And my first experience, yeah,
was pushing brooms and pulling parts and, you know, things
you'd probably let a young teenager do in the dealership.
Who just kind of loves it. And then as time went on, I was,
I was chasing a professional racing career.
So dealerships are always a great spot, you know, for trying
to have a job. They could understand a little
bit of what I was doing. There were some fringe benefits
to discounts on parts and and other stuff.
But overall it worked. And yeah, so I I spent time in
in dealerships in Memphis, TN when I was on the East Coast, I
was racing out there that was you know, probably the first
real working dedicated to working job and and started at
shipping and receiving. That was really my first, my
first imprint in a dealership really working, which I was
really glad, glad about because you know, as time got on, you
know, either at that moment or as a parts manager or anywhere
in the dealership, you realize how important that shipping and
receiving position can go. So I think it kind of got my
brain geared up towards more of a management side.
And then as I continued trying to get that professional
motocross career, I worked back out to the West Coast, which is
where I'm from. And had a chance to work in a
big multi store dealership on the coast, same thing was in
shipping receiving there. I mean I just think I really fit
that role. You know, I'm sure we'll talk
about it, but most dealers are looking for good, dependable
people who. Could not cut corners and do
things right. And that's how I was taught in
that dealership. And then later on I was
fortunate enough to work for KTMI was worked in their racing
program early on. So not quite the dealership, but
certainly working with an OEM. And then after that I worked my
way. It went with the distributor at
the time was motorcycle stuff. They were purchased many years
ago, but I actually had an opportunity to work as a Rep as
a distributor. You know, in dealerships you
meet these guys all the time. And you always wonder what it's
like on that side of the fence. So it's nice to to exactly do
that, be on that side of the fence and understand, you know,
what it's like again to meet a lot of dealers.
I think that was really the time I started meeting dealers, you
know, really understanding there's not just one way to do
it type of thing and how diverse the industry can be.
So yeah, I was able to do that and then eventually settled into
Sacramento, CA and work with the dealership group there for five
years. And came in to manage their
parts departments for both stores and then eventually ended
up working my way into a general manager role with them.
And then yeah, eventually decided I wanted to go back to
school, kind of increase. I got a degree and at the same
time started to do some consulting for dealerships.
Again, just trying to help. Dealers understand how to match
their DMS with their processes. You know, no matter what DMS
you're in, that's always a challenge.
So did that for quite a few years.
And then, yeah, eventually, as the most recent before my time
here at DX1, I was up with one of my good friends, purchased
the dealership up in Montana and had a chance to work with him.
So back in again doing that. And then eventually one thing
led to another and now I'm with DX1 that that that dealership
ended up signing up with DX1. So we got to know each other and
they said, hey, we're, you know, looking for a right.
Kind of. Person and asked me if I was
interested. And so here I am now, almost
three years in as a product manager for a DMS.
Wow man, what a career, what a career.
So you've got a lot of longevity in there.
And I just before we get into the DMS conversation, cuz that's
what this podcast is gonna be about, I wanted to ask you a
couple questions about your history there.
First of all, when you were on the KTM Racing team, did you
know any of the pro riders that that were part of that whole
racing organization back in the day like Roger de Coster and
some of the other champions? Yeah, I I got to meet, you know
guys like Roger. So my boss at KTM is in the the
AM A Motorcycle Hall of Fame. He's been on the MIC industry
council. His name Silverage and Ariana.
I think you know if you've been around the industry you probably
know that name. He's everywhere.
He's out there races, he's at business.
He's at shows. And he really imprinted a lot of
this work, not work ethic per se when it, you know, I thought my
dad did a good job. But when it came to stepping it
up and again, working at KTM and seeing all the intricacies,
yeah. And he introduced me to, to many
of those racers, the Roger de Coster's of the world.
I mean, we were competing against them.
And then of course, I was the team coordinator.
So at the time, we had Grant Linkston, Brock Sellers, David
Pinkrey and Kelly Smith. Being a privateer, you get to
know some of those guys, but they're your competitors.
So it was much different, yeah, to to get to know people.
I could always say, yeah, I know of that person, but I don't know
them personally type of thing. So yeah, there was a great
opportunity to meet a lot of some childhood Eros, some some
peers, and eventually form some friendships of people who were
competitors. At the time, it was really
great. That's super cool, man, super
cool. A lot of people dream of that.
So and then you mentioned that you, the last dealership that
you were working with, doing some consulting and ultimately
signed on with DX1. What?
What's the name of your friend there in Montana?
Yeah, Blitz Motorsports up in Montana.
He's a good friend, goes back a long time.
He's like a lot of us. He's why he's in the dealership
game. Just a love, you know, It's been
in his life the whole time. And yeah, right before COVID, he
got a call, I got a call and he said, hey, I got.
Yamaha dealership and you know looking for some help to get it
going and we went up there and you know thought maybe there
could be you know something we could do in the long run.
And yeah we got him going and and I think business was going
good and you know like I said this opportunity came up and and
yeah just it looked like a good opportunity to take and I think
he was very happy for me and and he's thriving and doing great
today. Good deal man.
Shout out to Bliss Motorsports up there in Montana enjoying
that cool weather in summertime here.
Okay. Cool.
Well let's get into the meat and potatoes right So DMS dealer
management Software Dealer Management system, right.
It's it's an acronym that could it could bring some, you know
some rough feelings for a lot of operators right there's there's
certainly some some good points to a DMS.
There could also be some some rough points some hard edges
right that a lot of a lot of dealership operators and staff
rub up against. But let's kind of break down a
couple of the points of the DMS, right.
So let's let's talk about the available products that are out
there that someone listening to this might be using, you know at
that time, right. There's the big one, right?
There's DX1, right. You guys got a a pretty cool
DMS, right? I know a lot of dealers have
been using it as of late last couple years.
You guys got a lot of new on boards, you know throwing out
some competition names for you here just to kind of draw some
comparisons. CDK Global with Lightspeed is is
obviously the big, the big one, right?
And then you got some factory back ones like Harley, they use
Talon. What are some other, some other
competitors in the space of the Dms you know that are pretty
common? Yeah, I think, you know, you've
named kind of the bigger hitters there.
You know, we have dealers that join us from Lizzie is one of
them. Black Pearl we hear of ideal.
I mean, there's a. Number of systems out of there,
you know out there that dealers use and and many of us do
certain things very well. You know, as you mentioned, I'll
just say that right up front, doesn't matter which DMS it is.
We we all have room to improve. So you know ultimately, but
those those are some of the other competitors that we see in
the marketplace out there, just people who come and go.
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today. Okay, cool.
And let's talk about just like the core dynamic of what a DMS
is supposed to do for a specific dealer, right?
So if you can just in a nutshell, just give us a brief
description, regardless of the product that a dealership is
using or maybe someone has listened to this first time,
they're they're just a regular sales guy and they're like, what
the hell is a DMS, right? What is a Dms's function within
the dealership life? Well, at the core of a DMS
system, it's an inventory management system.
You know that's that's that's at the heart of everything.
Yeah, you can sell stuff and use all these tools that are
provided to you, but it all starts there whether it's units,
whether it's parts and and even as units come into your service
department, so you know you're, you're managing inventory.
So you know to me that that's where it all starts And you
know, depending on your size, your structure, your philosophy
towards things. That's when you start to see you
know kind of pulling those layers back, you know where what
does my business do and how can I utilize those tools that are
within a particular DMS to kind of get us to where we want.
So you know from there, you know and in today's, today's climate
things are really changing for a DMS.
You know, what we were talking about, you know, even 10 years
ago is changing fairly dramatically with, you know.
Technology. So you know those are, those are
some of the things that are starting to come into play too
that you used to think Okay. Well, yeah, I received parts, I
sell parts, I send out some receipts, maybe I managed some
books within the system and that's what I do.
I'm just kind of turnkey. But yeah, you know now it's, you
know there's there's lots of pressure on dealers to be
providing numbers and meeting quotas and and really justifying
what they're doing and maybe with a particular manufacturer
or not so. You know today it's really hard
to just say what it is because the demand on the dealer is so
high. You know ecommerce and and brick
and mortar for we're almost at odds against each other for for
years. You know the dealers were still
trying to figure out what to do and some of those early smart
pioneer dealers figured it out quick which is we can do this
together and. You know, once COVID came in, I
I definitely think it made people kind of rethink their
businesses one way or another. You know and during that time we
all know people had the luxury being usually very busy.
So again I think it really started, you started to find out
as a dealer what it is we need to do to meet the high ends of
the business. So again, I think that's what a
DMS again is designed to do, let you bring in that inventory and
then eventually through many different tools.
Manage that process of distributing that inventory and
of course you have you know all kinds of stuff that comes behind
that, you know reporting, managing customer satisfaction
leads, rapport, business development management.
So it's it's, it just really starts to finger out right you
know based off of what you need, but at a core that DMS is the
best way for you to keep track of what your business is doing
and we still know a lot of dealers that are running their
businesses on pen and paper. Which, you know, we're not going
to say good or bad, but you know, that's really what we're
talking about, especially to these folks out there that you
might be saying, well, we don't know what a DMS is or shy away
from the topic of a DMS. You know, ultimately keeping
track of those things and being able to do something with your
information is pretty valuable. Yeah, well, let's, let's, let's
talk about that, right. Let's address the people out
there that may be still using pen and paper, Excel
spreadsheets or you know something outside of a
traditional DMS, you know from all the available vendors that
are out there now, right. You know, so it gathers all your
data, keeps it kind of in a core, you know nucleus
centralized area that you can access and it's really made for
you know mostly the sales department, mostly the P and a
department right, for that inventory, you know type of
management system that you were talking about.
But it can serve a lot of functions also for service,
right, can serve a lot of functions like you said for
reporting all these counting type systems, right.
Some people have bookkeepers that use that for their open
quotes of deals. They use it for their systems to
collect taxes in. I mean, there's a whole bunch of
functions for it, but let's take DX one's system, DX one's DMS.
What is the main department that DX1 really focuses on?
If you could choose any of the department's parts sales or
service or even motor clothes? If it's a Harley-Davidson
dealership, right, because they like to keep their apparel kind
of separate from parts, what does DX1 mostly focus their DMS
on if you had to pick any one of those departments as a priority?
Sure. Well, I'm going to be a little
bit difficult for you and throw in another department which is
our customers. You know, ultimately we are a
cloud based agile software and you know, somebody's saying well
what's agile mean, We release each month.
So when you ask that question, where do we put our focus, We
put our focus where our customers are telling us we need
focus. You know we we are very open
with our group in particular ways to quickly and enter in
idea submissions. You know our support team wants
to talk with you in less than a minute.
We have, you know, specifically designed account managers that
are reaching out and managing this process and internally we
are all meeting. So you know although that's not
exactly what you asked, that's exactly what we do is focus on
the customers and and let our customers tell us what's going
on. In particularly I think that was
a strategic advantage for us and our customers.
When you think about times like COVID where things seemingly
overnight just drastically flipped and changed, you know
our ability to respond to that was paramount to our success and
our customers to set success during that time.
So, but to kind of go back to, I know what you're asking there
too. You know, I would say parts is
definitely seems to be a lot of the hubs, right?
You know, you bring in stuff for service.
You're still moving parts from your dealership into the service
department. You know, as you're selling
units, you are installing parts and selling accessories and
selling gear. And you know, as people
establish reports with customers to try to get those longterm
relationships, that still continues to usually happen in
your parts. And your service department, so
you know I'd say over this year we've definitely been focusing
on parts the year before. Again, kind of looking at you
know what we can see data wise and what we know the industry
was doing while COVID was going, we were prepping up our service.
Area our service module, you know we had a feeling and and
and the numbers kind of still support that today.
That service would really continue to be busy, busy and
grow after COVID and and we kind of made that decision to put
that work ahead of time and and for us and our dealers we feel
like that's paying off right now.
So again, you can see how we're trying to be more responsive to
dealers needs. Then just focusing on what we
think the dealer needs in a particular area, that's great.
I don't think a lot of the other Dms, you know, options out there
could say the same thing, right? It's just kind of like, hey,
this is our product. It is what it is.
There's really no advancements in that product, buy it or don't
buy it. But I think what a lot of those
other other guys, I'll say that is what they're counted on is
the stickiness, right. So once, you know, once they
sign that contract 10 years ago, they're kind of stuck because a
lot of their business revolves around, you know, keeping that
customer locked into their business practices within this
DMS, right? I know, I know of 1 in
particular that likes to do that.
I want to switch a little bit to using the DMS in the sales
department, right, because that's that's who I think a lot
of these operators who are making the business decisions to
either fully utilize the DMS or not, it's really their, that's
their background, right. A lot of these operators are
going to be former sales managers, desk managers and
they're talking about quotes and deals, right?
How would, how would, how would a particular DMS be used in
sense of writing quotes and deals looking at some of the
profitability in these quote systems?
I mean, tell me a little bit about that function in your
eyes. Yeah, I mean, I would say, you
know, having used systems over 20 years, you know,
fundamentally. When it comes to doing things
like invoicing, we're all not terribly far away from each
other, right. You're adding parts or in this
case if we're talking about major units, you know at the
core of it you're, you're putting units in inventory and
then you're adding them to invoices and then getting them
out. You know, in terms of one of the
things that I think we do really well and and when I mentioned
you know being in the process of having to choose a DMS provider,
before I worked for a DMS provider, one of the big
components here was what we do is end to end.
Meaning, you know this DMS thing we've been talking about, about
you know departments or it is a DMS and talking about how it's
changed over the years. Well now you know it used to be
before many years ago, if I get a unit and I receive it in
inventory, I want to list it on my website and I want to list
it, you know at these other third party destinations where
I'm going to be selling products.
It was a really manual process and it still is for many people,
you know, on the sell side leads.
I mean, leads are just so valuable for dealers.
Again, getting in a competitive market, being able to get that
information quick and do something with it.
And our system, we haven't really talked about, but does a
lot of integrations. That's kind of one of the big
things that the industry's kind of moving to and has moved to is
integrations. So for our dealerships, thinking
about using a dealer management system and the benefits of it,
particularly within that sales office.
Is that ability to manage the time and still manage the
customers that's the that's a challenge for dealers.
I feel all the time is keeping up with these tasks and you know
that we will talk about or can talk about you know what's it
take to do at the same time just run your business and you know
dealerships don't necessarily have the hugest profit margins.
So you know, always finding those balances between staffing
and seasonality and market conditions and all those types
of things are difficult enough. Let alone you know trying to
have to understand am I paying somebody each day to just pound
on a keyboard to put stuff up and down.
So I think you know from that side, you know providing tools
that interact with the DMS to help manage those processes to
make it seamless all the way from when the customer
eventually leaves with the unit. And then again you know some of
those other processes when the DMS outside the inventory
management where you're you're doing follow up, you're you're
you're sending your customers newsletters, scheduling events.
Again, really trying to keep that business under your
dealership and in your dealership.
So you know on the major unit side, I think particularly
that's one of those important areas in our system.
When you when you add in a unit it goes to all those
destinations automatically. When you sell a unit it comes
down automatically. So just right off the bat, you
know when you think about a DMS and again on the sell side,
that's a lot of time. You know, so thinking about how
to use it, Vms to take a lot of that manual labor, a lot of that
manual clicks out. It's just as important as
anything else you can do in a system.
Well, let's expand about that on the sale side, right.
So the major unit retail side, you're almost talking about this
as a function of a CRM, right? The followup, the lead
management, some of the automation, presale, post sale
emails, text messages. Are you saying that you envision
almost the DMS being a CRM as well?
Well, yeah. And that's, that's what we are.
I mean we have a CRM product that integrates with us as part
of us TLP product. And but yeah, I mean that's the
reality of it. You know, I have that unique
view as a product manager even though we get in lots and lots
of requests, you know, to be able to talk to people to see
the big picture. You know, somebody may ask for
something, but my job is to pry. Why?
How? What are your workflows?
What do you do? And it's.
It's really always interesting to find out that I start talking
about something that's within the DMS, but by the time we talk
about the workflow, it has started with a lead or has
started with some other process and again, customer retention
and all that stuff that comes before and after the cell.
I think that's what the, the founders in the current team did
a great job with this software is realizing that's really what
it's about. You know, not going to five, 6-7
different things. You know, dealers still have to
do that today. I need to go here to look up
part availability. I need to go here to create a
warranty. I need here to do this and that.
And the reality is, dealers are really wanting to have it all in
one space. So, yeah, you know and and that
cell sits right in the middle of all that, right.
You know getting them in and then keeping them there and that
process within the cell is is you know I still think the
easier part, you know adding units again we all do that
fairly similar I think is DMS is go but you know understanding
that it's it's always an end to end process for the dealer.
I think that's what's been successful about what we've done
up to this point and what I hope our dealers feel is a successful
tool for. In fact, I know they do.
That's why they're with us. That's interesting, Okay.
So let's take two different roles within the dealership,
right? You've got the sales manager who
is mostly gonna spend his day in the DMS, right, in terms of
major unit sales. And then you've got a
salesperson, right? And he's gonna be in the CRM,
following up with leads, making his phone calls, doing his logs.
How would those two systems interact with your kind of all
in one system, right? Would would one person have
access to certain things and not others?
And the sales measure has access to everything?
How does that? How does that typically look on
the interface? Yeah, our system is
configurable. So almost anything in our
system, most things you can go in and decide whether you
somebody wants to be have access to this or that, you know, Yeah,
in terms of what you're asking, you know the.
The lead can be generated through the lead management
system. Even if you don't have our lead
management product, we have our lead system also built within
straight within the DMS. So if you're participating with
a program, say with an OEM or even just your standard website
leads, when a customer's interacting there, those leads
are coming into the DMS in real time.
You're getting real time notifications, you know we have
that's one of the big things we're we're really focusing on
or real time notifications because that's really what
dealers are asking us for. You know, So in the case of the
lead, you can know right away, you know in terms of helping the
dealer, you know understand what the next steps are.
You know that's something I think that can be assumed.
You know we can assume a salesperson is going to handle
the CRM. We can assume the general
manager is going to be kind of sitting at the desk.
But again, you know, working with over 600 dealers, this is
the interesting part is sometimes dealerships have three
people doing every, you know, five people that are running
around. So again, you know, I think they
have the same problem, smaller, large, which is how do we keep
up with it all, you know, when we're trying to communicate and
that's what our system is focused on.
So yeah, you'll get a notification right away saying
hey, this leads come in. It'll show them the important
information and then we we have a product that kind of guides
them on a road to sell, you know.
So again it kind of lets them manage that process right within
the DMS to say you know we've made first contact or we've
scheduled appointments, we have to do's, you know you can build
information into potential trade, you can send brochure
information. So again that first part, you
know, really kind of trying to lock the customer come in and
then once you get that commitment that can seamlessly
just turn into a quote. Right.
You know, so you have that information in the beginning,
you're not having a lead over here and then later going in and
then typing all that customer information again and then
manually tying back the cell back to that lead.
You know as that stuff comes in, we tie that all to the customer.
So that way as dealers and and this is you know again that
important part of that management system when we said
you know why is it important to get off of paper and pen or what
does a DMS do well it gives you quick access to lots of data.
And managing your customers data is really important.
You know how many times they've come in, the types of purchases
they're making, you know, your internal notes, leads, all these
things we're talking about. So you know in that case you,
our dealers could decide who has that, you know, in the
traditional sense, sure, the sales guy can get the lead, he
can make the contact with the customer, start working it up
and then yeah, eventually bring it to the desk.
But even within the DMS, you know when we talk about things
that are more lead related. So we we put out a feature a
couple years ago that got the Nifty 50 award and this is an
example again respond our responsiveness to market
conditions. Right when COVID started, man,
we were just flooded with I want to advertise units I don't have
and I want to sell them inside my DMS like they're in stock.
I want to be able to take payments and say that they're
coming soon and all this type of stuff.
So we were able to respond to that.
And that was able to really increase leads, increase that
conversion rate for the dealers to eventually get people in, get
deposits and get them committed to units.
You know anybody listen to this who's been in the dealership
period during COVID knows, yeah, that was a pretty tough period.
You know, it's good everybody wanted something, but you know,
getting product, getting stuff, keeping customers satisfied was
tough. So again, that's what I think
our system really helps with. By the time that lead comes in,
we give them the ability to manage the product whether it's
in or out of the store and connect with that ecommerce
value and again bring it to the brick and mortar.
You know, it's just not separate anymore.
You know you still can't necessarily just sell a bike
straight through your website. You know you can get really
close, but still most people are coming down and obviously
signing paperwork, taking delivery of items, using tools,
but eventually they end up under the dealership, so.
And then after that, you know we have a lot of management tools.
I mean you know when you talk about a sales manager sitting at
the desk, you know that's when we start talking about reporting
and managing inventory and flooring.
You know, it's a big topic right now.
You know, flooring has not been a topic for anybody for two or
three years because stuff ran out as fast as you got it in.
And now a lot of that ordering, a lot of that product that was
was brought in is now sitting. So you know having systems that
can help you, you know manage that, you know inventory,
dating, all those types of things, how are how we're
turning over inventory. That's a really important part
to think about what's going to happen within a DMS in the sell
side. I want to move back to that CRM
DMS component real quick. Just for the lead management,
what is, what is your take on some of the automation, right.
So a lead comes in to to the CRM or to, to the DX1DMS, where is a
particular dealer, you know what?
What is there want for some of this automation, right?
Meaning auto responders go out, some scheduled sequence, emails
go out, day one, day 2, day three.
Are you able to write that stuff?
Are you able to manage that stuff?
Tell me a little bit about that. On the communication side, for
some of these, you know, salespeople, BDC managers,
Internet managers, work in these various web leads that are
coming through them, you know, through the work, through the
virtual sense of things. You know you can manage a lot in
our system. You know and if if you're that's
where our TLP product comes in, If you're really one of those
dealerships that's really looking to maximize that lead
process because you know not not all dealers are is committed to
certain processes and others, you know some with what our DMS
does is exactly right and others are looking for deeper features.
So, you know, yeah, those integrations, those asks, that's
a lot of what it is, is. Taking out the manually manual
entry, you know, sitting and just constantly rekeying stuff.
And additionally again it's this, this notification.
So like in our system we have a lot of configuration around
leads. You know ultimately the most
important part is, is that the lead is addressed, you know, but
you know for example somebody could be sick on a day.
So it's important to know if a lead comes in on a day that
somebody's on vacation, sick or out that that lead could still
get followed up on. So I mean it's a simple concept
that's what we're talking about. You know the ability to to
continue to profile that customer to understand what
their needs are document and again get them those those items
or tools or whatever they need in their hands to get them a
little bit more committed to you as a dealer which is you know
what those. Business development managers
are there 100% for right? Just, you know, forming that
bond in that relationship, So giving them those tools and of
course communicating with your customers fast as possible, you
know, getting people on the phone is harder and harder these
days. Been hard for a long time
getting people on the phone. So, you know, even e-mail,
traditionally stuff goes to spam, stuff goes to junk, but
getting stuff to people's phones?
That's where people want it. So again being able to to
utilize that technology within that lead process and and within
DX1, we haven't really talked about it yet but that's one of
those nice features that we have built in that's not necessarily
traditionally ADMS item but as the the the markets change and
and and consumers want different things, our system can
communicate in real time with your customers if you like
across the dealership special orders.
Service all kinds of stuff. So I again, that's what we're
hearing is real time and anything you can do to help take
out the manual entry. You know, cuz after that it just
really depends on the dealer about, you know, what they're
equipped for, what their philosophy is and what they can
maintain or handle. 100 percent, 100% efficiency is the name of
the game when it comes to dealing with all these different
opportunities coming to any given dealer at any given day,
right. So let's let's switch gears over
to the inventory on the P and A side, right, because that was
one of the topics that you brought up.
And you certainly have a long experience in that field doing
ship and receiving inventory manager, parts manager.
Tell me a little bit about the day-to-day when a dealer needs
to manage their their P and A right.
They got a lot of different skews to go through.
They got well. Just let me hear from you tell
me what the day-to-day from a parts manager using a DMS.
How would that look like? Yeah, well, I think, you know,
just the day-to-day for a parts manager is a fight and a
struggle, right? Because there's a parts manager,
You know, I think it's very traditional.
They get grouped. Well, I'm a parts manager, but
I'm also a purchasing agent. You know, I'm a manager of
people. I got HR, I got customer
relations and of course I have all my traditional duties.
So you know, traditional duties I got to get drawers open in the
morning, right. So DMS is important to balancing
your drawers, you know, in your end of day that's that's a
really important process that most people in the dealership
don't think about because they don't have to do it.
But you know how transactional things happen during the day,
the mistakes, the things that don't get done.
You know, that's usually something the parts managers got
the traditionally the most volume, the most transactions,
the most credit card swipes. So I think first and foremost,
as a parts manager, when you're getting up in the morning and
getting your dealership going, that's exactly what you're
doing. It's usually chasing your tail
from the day before. You also have to maintain your
inventory. I mean, again, dealer management
system, we talked about that. And if you don't have inventory
in a store, well, what are you selling?
And inventory, you know, small dealership, large dealership,
you could go from a dealership having you know, less than 1000
parts in the sum that may have you know half a million parts.
And if you're old, you may have stuff that's built up over 20
years. So you know, at a core, I think
unfortunately for a parts manager, if that's what they're
getting chased down on. Is you know, why are we out of
this part? Why is something negative on
hand, Why isn't this special order gone out?
Why don't we have this oil for my service department.
You know, you're essentially just running around and trying
to facilitate the other departments.
So I think, you know that's kind of a a general, a general day.
You do spend a lot of time, especially our parts managers
now educating people. I mean, this is something
definitely that's definitely changed.
Really big time with COVID is dealers seem to be really
struggling finding people who can do certain tasks.
So I think managers, particularly parts managers are
are being tasked with that today to either do more themselves
because it's just sometimes easier when customers are
standing in front of you or trying to educate people around
you new employees to get going. So you know, that's kind of the
constant what you know, somebody being asked, hey, what about
this oil filter? Where do I find this?
Where do we, how do we do that so?
You know Parts Manager really is utilizing the DMS to facilitate
all of that. You know of course they also
then at some point during the day have all the ordering
responsibilities or most dealerships I will say.
So you know looking through that list, understanding you know
what we need, but we don't need special orders.
My service department again and then you're in the middle of all
that ordering. Of course you're receiving stuff
from the day before, or, you know, prior days.
And so you also have to manage that information that that's a
spot. I told you, you know, I'm very
passionate about that position because it can all go wrong
there. You know, you really rely upon
your shipping and receiving person to do things right.
So you know, if you struggle in that area, usually your parts
manager is busy doing that a lot or spending most of their time
undoing that type of stuff because you got to remember at a
dealership level and and I know I didn't spend a lot of time
thinking about it. This all impacts accounting.
You know, I think I was off by a penny or two.
What's the difference or you know these types of things,
categories or what we do, you know, not all the time does that
reflect to somebody at the counter receiving and typically
a parts manager is going to be the person dealing with that.
So I think, you know, you can see it's just it's kind of this
daily struggle to keep up with my tasks, train my people.
And report you know a lot of dealers for some time, but I see
it more and more especially with COVID, again we're looking at
Commission type structures. So you know once you do
something like that of course on both sides numbers need to be
right. You know if you're you're on
Commission at your parts county, you're surely going to be
reading reports and as a parts manager you're going to want to
make sure things are going right.
So you know I think that's probably one of the more
understated parts of that job. It's it's the hardest to get to
because you're, I think most parts managers are so busy.
Running just the daytoday operations, but I you know
sitting down and and then having the time to analyze all that is
probably the big trick and it's tough.
You know, not everybody has experience with trends or all
that, but either way that's that's probably one of the more
important parts that's just tough to get to or overlooked.
I want to keep, I want to keep scratching that, that itch,
right, of the parts department with inventory, right.
So I came from, you know the sales side, did a lot of
inventory management on the major unit side.
What types of tools could a dealer use within the DMS or
maybe just from your own experience outside of the DMS?
You know, we have a little real problem with age, right?
You like you said, you know there could be parts stacking up
that are you know 10/15/20 years old and they're in the shelf in
the back covered in dust. What is a good dealership
operator use, or what kind of processes are available to them
to help manage some of the age of this old inventory that's
been sitting on a shelf forever? Yeah, that's a great point.
Traditionally, the tools that are out there, most systems I've
been in, you have a very traditional kind of print pages
thing, right? You batch up an inventory or you
run a report and they're count sheets.
You hand them out to your people and you go run around and you
start to count. Traditionally, traditionally you
will probably do this while you're closed depending on your
DMS because it's it's hard to do inventory like that while you're
open, right, Because things you might have counted in the
morning might be getting sold. You know, I'm going to to our
own home for a minute. In DX1 you can do inventory
while you're open. So traditionally count sheets
are are one of the ways of scanners.
I would say that's the 2nd way. I mean, I was using scanners in
the 90s just when that kind of technology was starting to come
in with DMSS. So I think scanners are probably
a very traditional way of doing it.
There's a couple of different types of scanners.
You know, I'd say most of our customers within their budget
are using scanners that you know, connect directly to a PC.
You can. You can pony up some money and
invest into some stuff that's wireless and has a lots of
functionality. You can walk out, scan your
whole dealership and then just unplug it and sync it up to your
dealership. But again, a lot of small to
medium sized dealers aren't aren't looking to invest in that
way. Most of them are using count
sheets. So that's your kind of if I'm
just simplifying it, you're kind of two traditional ways of
course companies will might hire a company to come in and count
outside of just using the Dms. Last year I was pretty excited
about this. Our team was able to think about
that and we actually have now designed our physical inventory
to work on a mobile device. You know, when we started
thinking about those challenges and I was listening to dealers
about what they're really wanting was what can I do this
with my mobile device. I mean, they're they're in
everybody's pockets, you know? Yeah, Yeah, right.
You know, so you know that's one of the tools we did last August
again kind of thinking about inventory and and and ways to
really help the dealer get efficient.
So you know, I I'm not really sure.
What our competitors do in that area these days, you know what
other tools they got. I know they do the traditionals
like we did the printed sheets and you can use scanners and
whatnot. But I I was pretty excited about
that that we were able to to get that product out and at least
give dealers a different option, you know, and it it maybe it's
one of those topics for another bog, I I really feel like
physical inventory in the process of inventory could be
its own podcast. It really is that important in
the dealership, but to keep it kind of constrained for this
podcast, yeah, that's. That's certainly one of the the
more important roles. And I and I will say you know,
traditionally I would say for a dealer as a best practice, if
you're really serious about your inventory, you're most likely
cycle counting. And if you know dealers are not
familiar with what Cycle County may be, you know that's that's
constantly doing inventory, maybe you're picking a category
or a vendor and you're just constantly doing inventory.
I work for Cycle Gear for about a year at one point in time and
they working for that company was it really opened my eyes as
I've never I to this day. I see very few dealerships you
can run with the principles that that company does in terms of
keeping up with daily tasks and inventory was one of those you
know you came in. Warning and your system told you
what to count in there and that's what we've been working
on, you know, trying to get there with our system as well.
So yeah, it it, it's been an exciting time.
I still think, you know there's there's lots of room to improve,
you know and I think there's some some other technologies
that are are getting developed and kind of tested out there in
the future that can also you know bring new options to the
dealer in the future. So yeah, we're we're excited
about that. But today we feel like we offer
some dealers some some great ways to deal with that and.
I will tell you it is probably the most intimidating topic when
I get to visit a lot of dealerships and work with a lot
of dealerships and it's just something dealers are kind of,
it got away from them right. And that I think is the case
with most tasks in the dealership, but inventory
particularly. You know, having to shut down
completely which is what I think a majority of our dealers are
still doing. They're still trying to figure
out the cycle counting in some ways.
You know you're shutting down your business, you're you're
paying people when you're not bringing in revenue.
So you know again dealers I think look at that and just try
to figure out how to balance it all.
So you know, that's one area we're trying to improve and I
think you know, for the sake of talking to your podcast.
Crew out there. You know that's an one of the
areas I just think every dealership can improve in no
matter what. I think a proactive you know
parts manager who's got a good inventory mind you know that's
that's that's something that's going to be key and it's a
successful dealership, right. So let let's kind of just talk
about that a little bit more, right.
So you you were talking about the bin counting, right?
Where either you're doing it with some hardware, you've got
this new app that allows you to do it with your cell phone, or
you're just got traditional, you know, clipboard with a.
Pen and paper, right? Walking around, counting
everything, whether you're after business hours or you're
shutting down during business hours, whatever the process may
be. How often would have been count
or one of these, you know, full store inventory counts.
How often should that be? Monthly, Quarterly.
Annually. Well, you know, I would say it
largely depends on the size of your inventory, right.
I think again this is one of those things where a Parts
managers experience shows. You know, I've always known
where we. We lacked in an area.
Somehow these parts always went disappearing.
You know, somehow this the oil we always ran out.
Or to me anyways, if you know your dealership, there are
always some sore spots that just were kind of outliers.
You know, I mentioned cycle gear.
It never ended every morning when we came in.
There's just, you know, so many, there's just so many products to
count. Every bottle oil, every spark
plug, every jersey, every shirt goggle and tear off.
You know, tire anything you can think of, it's in service, it's
in sales, it's on a unit, it's off a unit, it's special
ordered, you know all these types of things.
So you know, when it comes to keeping track of that in stock
stuff, my my advice is to dealers is do two things, what's
your highest volume and what's the stuff you struggle with the
most. And that's where you would
really look at. You know, I always thought my
most one of my most important customers in my dealership was
my service department, both my departments.
In a parts department, I know some dealerships are great with
this and in many dealerships I've been in, these departments
don't really cross pollinate very well.
Not everybody always wants to get along.
So I always took the principle to treat them as a customer.
So you know, if you're not managing your inventory on a
regular basis and your service department services certain
types of vehicles or you traditionally do certain types
of jobs, then yeah, it might be really important to communicate
with your service department and understand how good of a job
you're doing for them. You know, jeez, we always go
back there and you guys always show that you have these plugs
and stuff. But every time we go to the box
at 0, can you guys fix that? You know, why?
Why? That's an inventory issue.
So you know, I think if a dealer can start there and then also
understand what your resources are, you know we're we're
talking, I'm talking a little bit of a perfect world.
You know, again I mentioned it's it's there's always something
going on. So you know we want to start
counting in the morning. We got a list of what to count.
It all looks good, but just like most dealerships, the day
presents itself. You know and you, you get away
from that. So you know again I think that's
one of the upsides of our system is traditionally, you know
trying to do this while you're open is very difficult in a
traditional system because it just doesn't account for the
stuff that's being sold. But again our system, you know
if you just pick one vendor in the morning and you start and
during the middle of the day you get pulled away, you can still
go back and finish. Think that, Counting that night.
The next day and by the time you're done and batched it and
finished the system, ours is gonna say, hey, you've also
calculated all this in the meantime, does this look
correct? And you can say, yeah, that
looks correct and manage it that way.
And I think that's one of the tougher parts of cycle counting
is keeping up with it, you know, having somebody who can
dedicatedly. Say, yeah, I'm going to do this
every day just like cleaning restrooms in a dealership,
somebody's got to do it, but not everybody does it.
So again, those types of tasks that people shy away from
because it's just not the funnest thing in the world, but
ultimately really important to make sure that we have it right.
So you know, I think that's that's probably the best way for
dealers to decide how to go at least getting started and then
they'll get a feel for it. You know you'll start to find
thing and we don't got to count, we got 10 items from this vendor
if that's easy to do versus you know a major OEM where you may
have you know. 1020 thousand hard parts, little bolts,
washers, screw shims, things like that that are just, you
know, you got to keep up because the one thing we haven't talked
about is obsolescence. So again, you know, as you
mentioned, you've seen it, I've seen it, you know, stuff that's
got dust on it, you know, from the 80s, it's sitting back
there. The reality was maybe at some
point in time that manufacturer might have actually taken that
back. Or if you're working with a a
good business department or a good accounting department,
maybe they could advise you how you could have handled that, you
know, by writing it off or writing it down.
So just as important it is to go count your items.
It's also just as important to manage those types of items that
need to go. So again, I think that's why
that, you know, routine counting process helps is because you're
able to manage that process better.
Not everything shows up on January 1st.
Right. You know, we've been receiving
stuff all year. So you know when's a year come
up on this product, when six months come up on this product
that that's usually a bit of a, a tougher go.
So that that's also one element within this inventory factor
that dealers really have to manage and look at.
And and that's what I wanted to bring up, right.
And that's what that's the point I was trying to make earlier is
on the obsolescence part, is that if you've got all this old
aged inventory, what type of tools or mechanisms will alert
the inventory person to say, hey, this thing is, this thing's
a year old, I need to do something with it because they
might take it back or I need to mark it down, I need to put it
out in the discount corral, out in the showroom or whatever it
is, right? What types of tools are
triggered should people be using for that?
Yeah, sure. Well, you know, traditionally
again in most systems I use, there's a report, right, a part
aging report. You can go in there and you kind
of break it down and look at it. But again, you know, depending
on your date ranges or what you're looking at, you know that
can be a lot of data to process at one time.
We haven't talked about it yet, but one of the the products that
we've built over the last couple years which are just a hit are
called smart notifications. So you know all this stuff we
were talking about earlier that just eat up time lots and lots
of time or people forget or not good at these tasks.
We have designed a system that's pretty much managing that for
you. So in what you're talking about
a part, yeah, you can have the part aging report.
But in your receiving process we've added in fields that allow
you to go and say tell me on this part, not just a category
or not just a general report so I can be notified in real time.
So you know that's one of the tools that's been being
utilized. We came out with that for parts
about two months ago and you know dealers are loving it.
You know in that process we're doing a lot of that real time
notification type of stuff. You know, I mentioned that's
what our dealers are asking for is you know, how can, how can
you help me manage my department?
Not click things, not add things.
I I really, what I need is a virtual employee.
And so that's what we've been working on is a virtual employee
doesn't go to sleep. It doesn't take vacation.
It doesn't go away. And it does the same task that
you need over and over every day in real time.
And that's one of those tools we hope dealers can use because
obsolescence. Yeah, we know what it is at a
high level. But to your point, I may want to
send something back or I may want to discount something in
seven days, 14 days. You know, I talked with a lot of
dealers who. Do a lot of buying but don't
have a lot of purchasing experience.
You know, so you know, understanding that you may buy
something in January and sell it for full price the next
November, but you don't make your profit really isn't there,
that's depreciated. You know, usually they kind of
keep within your margins as a general principle, you're going
to roll product overs, you know, 14 days at a time if you can,
you know 30 days at the most. So you know we've been trying to
educate dealers that they could also use that tool to kind of
help manage that as well. You know you take a risk on a
product. You know, it all costs money.
It's cash flow. And that's why I think one of
the big things about a parts department, you know, that'll
eat up your cash faster than anything you have.
You know you can floor units. You can do things over there.
You know the service department, you're not really tied to a lot
over there, but that parts department, they're ordering,
receiving and doing things every day.
So you know, if you're struggling with with cash flow
management or you're trying to teach a manager how to how to
understand cash flow management, that's a way to use that tool in
real time. You can say, hey, I got this
really nice carbon fiber helmet. We don't normally sell it.
I want to take a risk on it. But the reality is, if you're
really not moving that thing in 14 days, you want to mark it
down. Right.
So having a tool that you can make those decisions even at a
part by part level and again get those notifications in real time
and say now do something with it.
You know that smart notification I told you about that whole tool
is not just about saying, hey something happened, it's about
teaching people there's a closed in loop here.
So in that case, you know if we got that notification, we have
something to do, you do that task and then the notification
removes itself. Right.
So again, we're really trying to help the dealer just trust in
our system that for all these workflows that are hard to
manage that there's somebody in there managing it, helping you
manage it in real time. That's super cool, man.
Let's keep going with that just for a little bit more, right.
So we talked about the obsolescence that's in
inventory, in stock, that's aged, right.
But when you have a good, you know, suite of products or you
have a good, you know type of ordering that brings in some
popular stuff, right, and you go through it real quickly, what
types of reports should an inventory manager, parts manager
be looking at to say, hey, you know we actually sell these
things at a pretty good margin. We see some seasonality.
You know, we're not just using our gut.
We're using the data that the system is telling us through our
retail sales that, hey, we need to order more of this or we need
to order less of this. What types of reports should be
be looking at inside DX1 or any other DMS at that point to say
here's here's what my targets look like and here's what I need
to order to hit those. Yeah, you know, if you're a
dealer who self admittedly doesn't like to pull data out
and you really spend a lot of time going through and making
charts and massaging it, we have a top 100 sales report.
Right. You want to click your report
and just let our system tell you what you've been selling top 100
and that's kind of what your capacity is at.
You can do that. You know past that we encourage
we have a number of different reports, but I'd say in almost
any system you're going to have a part sale report, right.
You know what's actually happening.
So you know, being able to take that data out of that report and
and do something with it, you know that that's what I feel
like most managers have to do. The one of the things we're
looking at adding over the summer, we did this in our
service department last summer and we're looking at parts is
reports that just focus on key performance indicators, which is
really what we're talking about. You know, I always like looking
through all the data, but that takes a lot of time and not
everybody likes to do that. There's there's kind of weirdos
out there like me in those dealerships who just, you know,
obsess over the numbers, but they're important.
But for a lot of people, again, they're either not that way or
don't have that luxury and that that's not a bad thing, so.
You know, looking at those reports is helpful, but I think
you know overall there's a lot of tools that you can do along
the way. You know, once you look at those
reports, okay, good. But now how do we manage this?
So using a Minmax system, you know, most most DMS's have
Minmax. So you know, once you get to a
point where you've gone through that reporting and you
understand those trends, then the next step is, you know,
going and starting to manage that process.
Oh okay. You know, we're selling this oil
filter, this helmet or this plug or this light bulb.
Whichever times. Let's not manually do this
anymore. Let's go in and set a Minmax and
start making that process go. But again, not all dealers
subscribe to things like Minmax. You know, that's that's a tough
part about a question like this is, you know I've seen we we
have the ability to build custom reports, a dealer can do that
within our system and we can also help dealers build custom
reports. Not everybody really knows how
to get to that end result and we have a team specialist who can
help with that. With our dealers that come in.
So I think you know in our system like I said, there's a
number of reports you can look at just special orders, you can
look at stocking parts, parts you sold to your RO.
But again, I think you know depending on your capacity,
you're either in a part sale report or a top sales report.
One last question in just the parts department, right.
So one of the things that I've always tried to work on is, it
is the inclusion of the parts department into some of our
marketing materials. And you know, the most obvious I
think that you would do as a, you know, a kickback coupon or
some type of Mailer or even a digital coupon to say, hey,
here's a discount or here's, you know, say 5-10 dollars, whatever
the monetary amount is. But it's a coupon that we want
to give you as a customer or maybe we're trying to entice you
to be a customer of our dealership coupon codes, right.
It was always kind of a headache with some of these other Dms's
to where, you know, if I can remember, right, we had to, you
know, create a part number, do it as a negative value or
negative percentage, you know, limit it to a quantity.
And then we would almost make that into some type of parts,
scannable code that we would then put on some type of market
material and then deliver to the customer.
Obviously that process that I just explained is riddled with
holes and could be you know, you know, primed for some fraud, you
know people reusing the coupon over and over and over or your
your cashier, you know say hey do you want a discount on that
part, you know Boop and they do it right behind the the counter
rather than the customer bringing it in.
What is your philosophy on trying to include some coupon
code, the codes for particularly the the parts department to do
some type of discounting to entice customers to do more
business with us? Yeah, I I, I think it's a great
idea you know at at a high level concept I think it's smart.
You know again as a you know somebody who's in a BDM that's
really what you're doing. Yeah, We see that position
majority on the the major unit side, but that is the reality
and you know the fact is getting people into your store to buy
parts is harder and harder because you know they can
compete with the online market. You know, getting ecommerce,
getting things shipped directly in your house at a right price
is difficult to compete with. So yeah, I definitely think, you
know, getting coupons out and and promotions that can can
really help. The parts department is smart.
We've seen it, right? You know, buying coffee, have a
punch card, people will show up and buy coffee at a certain
place because the 12th one is free.
So incentivizing your customers is never a bad thing, especially
if you're going to save them money.
And then past that, I think it's knowing your customer base.
You know what, being smart about, not smart about giving
out too much in a coupon, but what what is worth it?
What's still going to make somebody come in and get
something. So thinking about you know using
those and maintenance parts or high moving parts or things like
that, you know I I think those are are great ideas to get get
someone into the dealership. So if I'm hearing you correctly,
maybe maybe you don't have any type of coupon code right now
that kind of has that capability of being able to digitize that
coupon, be able to send it. And I'm only using this example
because a lot of major retailers have that now.
I mean Kohl's Cash is probably the most common to where they're
just sending money out all the time in mailers or digital
format on an e-mail or text and say hey you know this weekend
only take another 10 bucks off your off your purchase.
If you come in this weekend and they scanned everything so that
it's, you know, it's no one has to, you know, punch it in as a
special code at the time of checkout.
It's just a, you know, let me scan this and boom, there's your
disk on off the purchase. Yeah, we, we're halfway there.
I mean just being honest, yeah, we, we have that first part
done, you know newsletters and events.
We have a way with again once you get a customer base in to be
able to do that in a mass way, you know via digital
communication. So yeah, I could create that
coupon. I could, you know.
Make a nice little flyer that can go to them digitally, you
know getting it processed. We're still trying to work with
our dealers to figure out the best way.
You know that's the tough part of my job is we we definitely
need to tackle that to find a better way than we do it today.
But getting a consensus on the best way to do that is still
something we're we're just trying to figure out which lane
is going to be the best way to go.
But yes, you are 100% correct. That is something we we're
hearing from our customers and has been really growing
especially in the parts department.
Absolutely. It's the easiest transition,
right. Especially if somebody buys a
major unit, right. They buy, you know, side by
side, they buy a motorcycle, whatever.
There are different communications per segment, you
know, motorcycle to off road that we can send out to these
customers and say, hey, thank you for purchasing with us by
the way. Here's a kickback coupon for,
you know, 20 bucks off a new helmet or 50 bucks off a new
light bar, whatever it is, right.
And it would just be a little easier to gather that and do
almost an ROI or reconciliation to say who came back using those
codes from people that we sold major units to, right.
Exactly. I can say the same thing about
service to here's 10 bucks off your first break in service, oil
change or your next service. Something like that, right?
And we are, we are seeing dealers looking at really and
and this is where we're really considering the most as they're
wanting to use more digitized reward points.
So yeah, you're getting it, but you know, it's just like going
to a gas station or grocery store where you're accruing
points for making certain purchases.
That's that's more the trend we're hearing versus the coupon
per se. It's the coupon philosophy we're
talking about, but just really handling it more through a
loyalty program. Again kind of looking at that
ROI. You know like let's let's put
the incentive with them. You know, versus just a one shot
coupon that may get them in once or twice just because they got
the coupon versus, hey, you know, we can get continuous
discounts by just being a loyal customer 100 percent, 100%
whatever we got to do to make that relationship sticky with
the customer after that very first transaction, right.
Or or we have 0 transaction at all, we're trying to have our
first one. That's right okay.
So let me kind of end out the this conversation here.
By the way, it's been an honor to talk to you, man.
Certainly a knowledgeable guy. You're going in a lot of
different directions here. So I'm, I'm trying to, you know,
trying to put my arms around you say yeah, let's let's try to
focus on this one thing. But you brought up an
interesting point earlier and I I, I kind of want to, I kind of
want to press on that one. You talked about the different
departments and maybe they don't cross pollinate to use your
words or maybe they're not getting along right.
I think this is a pretty common theme, you know, especially with
the sales guys to the service or service to parts or parts to
sales, right. All these departments definitely
rely on one another, right? Sales needs a nice looking
showroom floor unit to be dressed up with all the latest
PNA service needs that liaison to get the oil filters and spark
plugs to do their tuneups right. Sales need service to install
all these parts or PDI and prep a unit so that they can sell it
to the customer, right. So we all technically rely parts
to sales to service and and and all over the place on one
another's department but rarely do these departments get along
there. There certainly is a wedge
between a lot of them and I just kind of wanted to hear your own
perspective on why you think that is and a follow up to that
would be what could we do to help fix these relationships
interdepartmentally? Sure.
Well, as a manager over many years, I think I sometimes still
try to find the answer to that question.
And I think many dealers are, you know, where I personally had
success or where I see dealers having success is they're
bringing everybody together, right?
You know, we have a dealership locally and I know their whole
team meets every Friday morning. You know, they come in at half
hour before the store opens. I've even sat in on a couple of
them, just listening and just understanding what their
dealerships going through and those types of things.
And somebody is really facilitating that, you know,
that the owner, the GM, somebody who knows what the tensions are,
what the problems are and kind of flushes that out.
You know, So you're really sitting in there in a group of
people, you know, having dealership therapy.
A lot of times that's what it is.
Well, somebody's not doing this right or why are they doing
that? You know, you kind of have to
sort through some of that. So I think just making sure that
you give your employees a platform to feel comfortable, to
communicate, you know, not everybody has those skills,
right? You know, I've worked with
plenty of people who just don't want to be bothered.
You know, the last thing you want to do is go bug a tech when
he's got his head in a motor and that asks for good reason,
right? You know, and and there's other
things I don't, I don't want to go in and ask you a question
when you got a deal at your desk.
You know those types of things. So just, you know, making sure
that somebody in the dealership can explain why, why this is
important one to the dealership, but to this person over here and
then ultimately to your job, you know why it gets that way.
You know, a lot of times it just I think it starts at the parts
department and not in a bad way. Meaning, you know, if I'm
responsible for my inventory and I come back to an owner at the
end of the year and I have a $20,000 loss, I have to explain
it. So a lot of times, you know,
we've had to say nobody come back in our parts department.
You know, service cannot come pull their own parts.
Service cannot do this. I know many, many, many of our
dealerships who operate that way.
So you know, when you think from a park side, I I have a good
reason for why I'm doing that. But on the service side, they
might feel a little alienated, untrusted things like that.
You know, So I think, you know, just sitting down and maybe
being able to explain that, you know, have your parts manager
sit there with a service manager and as a general manager say,
well, I'm putting a lot of heat on him.
You know, I'm not saying the service department is
responsible for this $20,000 loss, but, you know, one way or
another, this parts manager, I'm holding him accountable and he's
got to answer and ultimately improve this in the next year.
So I think a lot of times those processes happen.
I know on the sales side, a lot of times the sales departments
are on heavy commissions, so they do only what they need to
do because that's what they're paid to do.
They're paid to sell bikes and they're incentivized that way.
So, you know, if they're not making any money off of, you
know, also selling you $1000 worth a year, you know they're
not worried about it. If they're worried about, you
know, my, my, my customers got a $10,000, you know, finance
limit. You know, I could sell them a
bike for 9 and sell them some parts and maybe a little bit of
service. You know, if you're a sales guy,
that's unless you're paid on selling that stuff.
Your ultimate focus is ultimately on the profit of that
unit. And so I think that's kind of a
traditional thing. I feel like I've seen over time
that those two kind of elements where the parts department's
trying to play lockdown so nobody can really interact in
there. A service department just
doesn't want to be bugged. They got a lot going on in the
sales department that maybe, you know, really feel like, well,
I'm just paid to do one thing. You know this I'm a sales person
and I have a BDM and his his responsibility is to be a BDM,
those types of things. So I think it's just you know
those type of situations, you know most of the dealers I think
that that manage this process well have really worked on
making sure that their customers are kind of touching all their
departments. Even if you're getting paid in
sales, you know it's important to introduce them to the parts
department and make sure they're taken care of.
And you know selling things like prepaid maintenance, you know
not just warranties, right, warranties have been around for
forever, but prepaid maintenance is a great way to generate
revenue and customer loyalty in your dealership and keep them
coming back. So again, you know, just finding
ways to maybe incentivize your managers to have a common goal.
You know traditionally that's where your general manager is
maybe you know focused on is obviously the success of
multiple departments. But you know if you can still
get those individual departments to have a little bit of it cross
incentive, you'd be really surprised how quickly start
people start working together. You know, if they can make more
money or improve that aspect and then there's a lot of incentive
to do that. That's a great point and I like
what you said about, you know, this, this.
This general manager that you had, he would have an all store
meeting is what it sounds like where it's, you know, all
departments, all employees, managers, sales people, parts
managers, parts people, service managers, service technicians,
service advisors, right. It sounds like they would all
have like a big group meeting and kind of talk about the
dealership as a whole, not just their individual departments In
my hearing you read on that. That's exactly right.
You know, we all know when we got a customer coming in and a
critical unit and we're waiting on this one part.
So again, you know if the the dealership I'm Speaking of,
they're talking about those types of things that the general
manager and owner have an agenda.
They have a list that they've been working on the week before.
Hey, we need to improve on this. Hey, who you were so and so you
were supposed to do this last week.
You know how about this follow up.
So they're managing, right. I mean that's really the key
here. So many, so many times somebody
get thrust into a management role because somebody left, they
haven't had a lot of management experience.
So again, you know if you're a GM or an owner and you find
yourself in that situation where your parts guy overnight became
a parts manager, remember this may be his first time managing
people, managing things, not just parts.
You can do a great job with the parts, but you know, you general
managers and owners, you need to teach it is.
It's just one of those tools I still think gets overlooked.
I I think it's also a matter of all these different types of
personalities, right. And I think you kind of touched
on that with, you know, you don't want to bother a tech
while he's, you know, head deep into fixing a problem, right.
So, you know, traditionally I think service techs and I was 1,
so I can talk as one as well as sales and parts.
But I think service techs kind of have a little bit of a, you
know, a little bit of a more of abrasive, hey, leave me alone, I
got work to do, kind of a mentality, right?
I'm just going to focus on what I need to do and then clock out
at the end of the day. Parts guys, maybe they live
between a little bit of, you know, sales and service types of
mentalities where they're analytical.
There's parts numbers, you know, it's above the numbers, above
the shoulders numbers type stuff, right.
But you also have to talk to customers on the counter, try to
upsell them, but you still have to look things up and be a
little bit more organized that way where you have our, our
friends in the sales department, right, where they're just kind
of. You know that they're they're
they're dressing nice, they're looking good and they're fast
talking, right? Trying to convince people to buy
these major units, these twenty $30,000 products that we sell.
So it could be a little bit of a clashing between personalities
and the types of departments that those personalities
attract. But what do you think about
their leaderships in those departments and and how they
maybe help to, you know, I guess, lubricate the
relationship between these different departments?
Any opinion on the leadership in those departments?
Helping that cohesiveness between them, Yeah, I mean, I
think you just have to make it a focus like anything else you do
and come up with a plan and ask for help.
You know, don't be afraid to go to your owner or go to your
manager and say I want to be better in this area.
You know, I've had many managers where it doesn't matter if
you're a tech or sales, they're just not the friendliest of
folks. You know, people.
They're not a people person per se.
So you know, I first think you need to look at that yourself as
a manager and and be honest with yourself.
What type of manager am I? What type of experience I have
and how could I be better. And I think all of us, all of
us, no matter what jobs we do, you know we were really hard
internally here to make sure we don't have any walls getting
built and leave a very open platform.
And and we offer a lot of tools internally for people to get
further education and training and all those types of things.
And I think the same thing goes for really any business but a
dealership especially so and you know it's hard.
We all want to go home and see our families or go have our
private lives. And I think one thing
dealerships have always been greater route is that after work
camaraderie. You know, a lot of times people
are riding or maybe going to have, you know, a drink or some
dinner afterwards or something like that.
You know, a lot of dealerships, I see where that happens
organically. Of course they all tend to get
along better. So you know maybe if you see
that absent from your dealership think about maybe offering
something sponsored in the dealership.
Hey, we're we're all going to go out and have pizza tonight.
You know, no, no good reason. Let's just go out and and you
all have that your employees will probably like it.
You know they might be wondering why this is happening.
But you know if you're doing it just for the fact that you're
saying, I just. I appreciate everything you do.
And I want to continue to bring people together because I know
this person and this person work 40 feet apart and over the last
year have said like 10 words to each other.
They they get along. But it's just not communication
is not important. Both are very blindered into
what they're doing. And again, as a manager, if I'm
looking at that, it's my job to help facilitate better
communication. So I think just not being afraid
to get outside of the box and maybe it's not your whole group.
Maybe it, like I said, maybe it's just a couple people figure
out a way to get them together out of a, you know, work
situation. You know, even if you got to
give them time during the day where they're being paid because
not everybody wants to go do more work when they get off of
work, right? But if this is important to you,
then tell them, hey, why don't you guys go take a couple hours,
you know, go hit some golf balls, go take a walk, do
whatever you guys like to do Fun, get to know each other just
a little bit better and then let that organically grow.
And again, just try to continue to facilitate it.
And you know, in any business I work in, it's really great when
you see those relationships start to head off because it's
going to impact everybody else in the dealership.
That's the reality. It's not like you as a manager
or the only one that sees it, right, You know, so everybody in
your dealership will probably be happy to see two people
communicating better in particularly if their
communication is paramount in the dealership.
You know, right. That's the hard part when people
aren't communicating and and they might be the biggest
communication line, but nobody really knows quite how to handle
that. So yeah, you know, just being
able to be a little bit more aggressive with it, probably
because I think people get passive and a little afraid of
it. It's a great point.
That's a great point. Be a little bit more proactive
throughout the year rather than just waiting for the Christmas
party. You know, the annual Christmas
party to get everybody together. Yeah, so well man, we were
coming up on our time here. His name is Justin Quinn, He's a
product manager at DX1. We are talking all things Dms
and then it quickly turned into several different topics, but at
the end they're talking about more or less the teams.
Within the dealership and just some of the camaraderie and some
of the relationship building that could take place if your
dealership is struggling in some of these areas.
But I really appreciate your time today, Justin and look
forward to having another conversation with you here in
the near future. And any parting words, any
heartburn, any any, any types of final advice that you would want
to give to the people listening to this broadcast.
It seems like a simple thing but staying positive is really
important. You know we talked about all
these factors and and again you know, I know it's it's being in
a dealership is not the easiest place to always be.
So you know just remembering that you know trying to take
everything you got and and keep it in the positive will go a
long way. And yeah, thank thanks for
having us out today. Like you said you know that you
can see my passion hopefully are here in the passion in here for
what we do. So, so sorry if I jumped around
on you a little bit, but yeah, we, we'd love to come back and
continue to have more conversations because just like
the dealerships, this is always an evolving process and you know
staying with it and staying with what's current and and hearing
dealers and offering vices which what your podcast doing is just
a really great attribute to dealers.
So we'd love to be back anytime. We'd love to have you, man, and
I really appreciate everything that you talked about today.
And let's not forget why we came into this business in the 1st
place is because most of us started out working in all these
various dealership positions as enthusiasts, right?
And that's what makes our business.
So unique in power sports is that we come in as writers
wanting to just do it because it's fun, right?
We whether we're doing service or parts or sales, we're, we're
into it. Mostly I can speak for most
people is because we like to ride and so working in an
environment. That has other likeminded
individuals that also like to ride.
I mean, that's just a perfect recipe for a fun career that you
can do for pretty much your whole life.
And we've known lots of people that do it.
You're certainly one of them. I'm certainly one of them.
And we know a ton of people out there that are just like us.
And so I again, I really appreciate you coming on.
And that's it for the dealership Fix It podcast.
Like subscribe. Check us out online.
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We're all about the dealership life.
And remember, you are the fix It within your dealership.
So anything that you pick up from this podcast?
Definitely use it. Give us some feedback on it and
we'll have you back soon. Justin, I really appreciate you
coming on. Thanks, Jacob.
Thanks guys.