Service Drive Revolution with Chris Collins

Great service managers don't simply survive the month—they build stronger teams, improve the customer experience and create consistently profitable service departments. In this episode of Service Drive Revolution, automotive fixed operations expert Chris Collins reveals five overlooked habits that separate great dealership service managers from average ones. Great service managers: 1. Reject the status quo and continually improve their processes. 2. Know their numbers and understand how to change them. 3. Become "people collectors" who constantly recruit, develop and retain talented employees. 4. Make the customer experience easy, trustworthy and worth returning for. 5. Find coaches and mentors who challenge them to keep learning. Chris explains why dealership service departments are closed-loop systems, how tribal knowledge keeps managers trapped in outdated processes and why exceptional performance can actually make a manager's job easier—not harder. The conversation also examines service department profitability, net-to-gross, unproductive wages, CSI, NPS, technician recruiting, service advisor performance and customer retention. You'll learn why sales scripts and objection handling cannot replace customer trust, why technology such as video multipoint inspections cannot fix a broken process and why successful service managers are always recruiting. Chris also discusses former CIA intelligence officer Andrew Bustamante and his book Outsmart Everyone: Spy Skills to Gain an Unfair Advantage in Work and Life. The team explores charisma, vulnerability, intentional leadership, parenting and the ability to make genuine connections with people. This episode is for: Dealer principals General managers Fixed operations directors Service managers Parts managers Service advisors Automotive technicians Dealership and repair-shop leaders. If you want a healthier, more profitable automotive service operation, this episode provides a practical leadership framework you can immediately apply. 🛑 SDR Live Academy Online Training For Huge Results: https://chriscollinsinc.com/op/sdr-live-weekly/?=sdrpod 🛑 Book your Profit Gap Analysis Now: https://calendly.com/byron-webster/30min 🛑 Best Selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: https://chriscollinsinc.com/shop/ 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR 🛑 Want to work with the best? https://chriscollinsinc.com/careers/ 🛑 Chris' Top-Selling Leadership Book I AM LEADER: https://iamleader.com Chapters: 0:00 Introduction — Five Things Great Service Managers Do 1:02 Andrew Bustamante's New Book and CIA Wisdom 7:35 The Jason Kelce Lookalike Story 14:06 Team Travel and the Airbnb Debate 18:00 Credit Card Roulette 21:38 The Five Traits Great Service Managers Share 22:17 #1: They Reject the Status Quo 28:18 #2: They Know Their Numbers 30:20 #3: They're People Collectors 34:09 #4: They Make the Customer Experience Easy 40:57 #5: They Have Coaches and Mentors 46:10 Real Dealership Results and Momentum 50:23 Recap: All Five Traits 51:02 SDR Academy and Closing

What if your service drive became one of your dealership's most powerful—and consistent—vehicle sales channels? In this episode of Service Drive Revolution, Chris Collins, Hogi, and Adam reveal how dealerships can turn everyday service appointments into organic sales and trade-in opportunities without making customers feel pressured. The key isn't occasionally sending a salesperson into the drive—it's building a dedicated system where sales and service operate as one team. You'll discover how to: • Embed dedicated salespeople inside the service department • Use equity mining to identify the right opportunities • Incentivize advisors to facilitate strong customer handoffs • Introduce trade-in conversations before the appointment • Acquire valuable used inventory without relying on auctions • Use maintenance programs to create familiarity, trust, and retention • Build toward the future "portfolio manager" model—one person managing the customer's entire ownership journey The team also breaks down leadership lessons from Hard Knocks, explains why attention reveals a leader's true priorities, and explores how great systems make exceptional performance repeatable. If your dealership has "tried selling from the service drive" before and it didn't work, this episode will show you what was probably missing. #ServiceDriveRevolution #FixedOps #AutomotiveLeadership #AutomotiveSales #ServiceDrive #DealershipTraining 🛑 SDR Live Academy Online Training For Huge Results: https://chriscollinsinc.com/op/sdr-live-weekly/?=sdrpod 🛑 Book your Profit Gap Analysis Now: https://calendly.com/byron-webster/30min 🛑 Best Selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: https://chriscollinsinc.com/shop/ 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR 🛑 Want to work with the best? https://chriscollinsinc.com/careers/ 🛑 Grab Chris' New Leadership Book I AM LEADER: https://iamleader.com Service Drive Revolution - Episode #371 Transcript How to Sell Vehicles From the Service Drive Service Drive Revolution — Chris Collins, Inc. Hosts: Chris Collins, Hogi, Adam Craig Summary Chris Collins, Hogi, and Adam Craig explain how franchised car dealerships can consistently sell vehicles out of the service drive. The core argument: dealerships that succeed at this dedicate salespeople to service full-time rather than rotating them in occasionally. The episode covers compensation structures for advisors, equity mining inside the service scheduling process, using salespeople for appointment confirmation calls, and why Chris believes dealerships will eventually merge the service advisor and salesperson roles into a single "portfolio manager." The show also answers audience questions on new-vehicle maintenance packages and covers a fake forum post attacking the CCI program. Key topics: selling cars from the service drive · dedicated service-drive salespeople · advisor bird-dog compensation · equity mining · trade-in acquisition · new vehicle maintenance packages · the portfolio manager model Key Takeaways Dedicated salespeople are the single biggest factor. A salesperson assigned to service full-time — present at the 6:45 AM shift meeting before a 7:00 AM service open — works. Rotating salespeople through service a few days a month does not. Top-performing dealerships convert about 4–5% of RO count into vehicle sales. That's a handful of cars a day out of the drive. Compensate the advisor. An advisor loses the RO when a customer buys a vehicle. Without a bird-dog or bonus, they have no reason to want the sale. Lead with acquisition, not sales. "Your vehicle is in high demand and we need it on our used car lot" outperforms "do you want a new car." Have salespeople make the appointment confirmation call. It creates a warm, casual introduction rather than a predatory one. Stores that sell well from the drive also acquire well from the drive — sourcing used inventory outside the auction is a major competitive advantage in the current market. Maintenance packages aren't the enemy — the one-item RO is. Add declined multi-point items to those tickets before judging profitability. 50–60% of customers never use their free oil changes. Phone calls, not emails, are what get them in. How to Sell Vehicles From the Service Drive Service Drive Revolution — Chris Collins, Inc. Hosts: Chris Collins, Hogi, Adam Krey Summary Chris Collins, Hogi, and Adam Krey explain how franchised car dealerships can consistently sell vehicles out of the service drive. The core argument: dealerships that succeed at this dedicate salespeople to service full-time rather than rotating them in occasionally. The episode covers compensation structures for advisors, equity mining inside the service scheduling process, using salespeople for appointment confirmation calls, and why Chris believes dealerships will eventually merge the service advisor and salesperson roles into a single "portfolio manager." The show also answers audience questions on new-vehicle maintenance packages and covers a fake forum post attacking the CCI program. Key topics: selling cars from the service drive · dedicated service-drive salespeople · advisor bird-dog compensation · equity mining · trade-in acquisition · new vehicle maintenance packages · the portfolio manager model Key Takeaways Dedicated salespeople are the single biggest factor. A salesperson assigned to service full-time — present at the 6:45 AM shift meeting before a 7:00 AM service open — works. Rotating salespeople through service a few days a month does not. Top-performing dealerships convert about 4–5% of RO count into vehicle sales. That's a handful of cars a day out of the drive. Compensate the advisor. An advisor loses the RO when a customer buys a vehicle. Without a bird-dog or bonus, they have no reason to want the sale. Lead with acquisition, not sales. "Your vehicle is in high demand and we need it on our used car lot" outperforms "do you want a new car." Have salespeople make the appointment confirmation call. It creates a warm, casual introduction rather than a predatory one. Stores that sell well from the drive also acquire well from the drive — sourcing used inventory outside the auction is a major competitive advantage in the current market. Maintenance packages aren't the enemy — the one-item RO is. Add declined multi-point items to those tickets before judging profitability. 50–60% of customers never use their free oil changes. Phone calls, not emails, are what get them in. Opening: Hard Knocks as Leadership Training Chris Collins: Welcome everybody to Service Drive Revolution. Hope you're having a great morning. I'm Chris Collins. Hogi is here. Adam — what's up, everybody? We have a great show for you today. Should we start off talking about Hard Knocks? Anybody watch the greatest leadership training available today? Hogi: I did. I watched it on the plane last night. Chris: Adam, you hate leadership? Adam Krey: I don't hate leadership. I just missed the episode. Chris: It's good. Hard Knocks is really, really fun. It's the Seattle Seahawks this year. The NFL dropped the rule — they used to have a rule that if you made the playoffs you could pass on Hard Knocks. In the new collective bargaining agreement, I think they changed that, and they picked the Super Bowl champions. The Seattle Seahawks, Super Bowl champions, on Hard Knocks. It's an interesting thing to see a team coming off winning the Super Bowl now trying to figure out how to get back there. I think it's harder to get back there than it is to get there, in a lot of ways. Don't you guys agree? Adam: Yeah, totally agree. Not too many do it. Chris: Your team, Hogi — the Chiefs have done it. But it's not common. Hogi: One of my favorite things with that episode was there's just a vibe coming off a Super Bowl win. Those rings are pretty awesome. Whoever designed their Super Bowl rings — they had some cool surprises with it. They hit that little button and it opens up into a stadium. Chris: When we go to Cut in the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills, that jewelry store is in there — Jason of Beverly Hills. When Adam and I went there a few weeks ago, they didn't have it for sale yet. They have one they'll sell to fans. It's like $20,000 and it has real diamonds. It's not the one the players get, but you do get your name on it, and your number is 12, which is the number for the fans. Then they have another one with Swarovski crystal or something that's about $1,500, which doesn't look that cool. Adam: What's the reasoning that you don't get it, Chris? Chris: There are a bunch of reasons, Adam. I know you made the comment that if the Bears won it, you'd buy one — and then I think you kind of backtracked. I'm not going to spend $20,000 on a ring I didn't earn. I don't do anything as a fan. Adam: You were here at our Super Bowl party. Chris: I did nothing. I ate and smoked a cigar. I did nothing but yell at the screen. Football's the best. I'm so excited football's back. It's so nostalgic for me. Football reminds me of my grandpa. I was born a Seahawks fan — my grandpa was so excited when Seattle got a football team. They were an expansion team. I think the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Seahawks came in at the same time, and they never won through my whole youth. I played Pop Warner football and got to play at halftime at a Seahawks game, meet the team, sit on the sidelines. It was such a connection between my grandfather and me. He'd take me to the games, and Mariners games too. The Mariners have never won a World Series, but he would fall asleep listening to Dave Niehaus, a legendary broadcaster in Seattle who called the Mariners games. I still can't believe the Seahawks won the Super Bowl. I love our coach. Why leadership shows up on camera Chris: I'd recommend everybody watch Hard Knocks just from a leadership side. You can look at the teams that have been on Hard Knocks before that didn't win, that didn't make the playoffs — you could tell why by paying attention to the mannerisms and the behaviors. There was an interesting clip I saw the other day of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger doing their annual shareholder meeting. They take questions, and one of them was: how do you avoid getting ripped off in business? Buffett says a lot of people get ripped off — he sees it quite often. And he says they have this way of doing things where they pay attention to what people say, what they're interested in, how they behave, how they act. If you're really paying attention to that, it tells you who somebody is. One of the red flags for them: if they're going to buy a business and the owner says it's easy to run the business, they're out. They're not buying it. Because nobody who runs a successful business long-term ever says anything is easy. If they say it's easy, they know they're just trying to sell something. Their model is to buy out the owner, make them the CEO, give them a bunch of stock and the resources to grow it — they want the owner to stay around. And if somebody says "business is easy," they're not honest. Because it's not easy. Watching Hard Knocks — I think it was last year, maybe the year before — it was the New York Giants. You see the head coach at the combine talking about doing the 40 and foot racing, and he's on his phone the whole time. He's not talking football. He's not engaged in what he's doing. He's not even watching the people on the field doing drills. He's just messing around. He thinks everything is funny. He's gone. He's fired. You can tell by where he's spending his attention. If you think about attention as commerce — as a source of revenue or money — you're spending your attention. You're spending your money by where you put it. He was goofing off. You're at the combine for a week. Your goal is to figure out who the players are that you want to take in the draft. Even if that decision is made by the general manager, you want to be involved in it. You want to be part of it as a head coach. So as a fan of football and leadership, it can be very insightful. Adam: I want to watch it. The clip you played for the running backs coach has got me intrigued. If there was a commercial, they should just play pieces of that. Chris: Thomas Hammock is the running backs coach. In pre-production I was playing it for Adam because it's so good and so funny. Adam: He's from Illinois, right? He's from NIU, and he took them to a bowl game where Notre Dame — that was their only regular season loss. That's a huge deal for NIU, the Huskies. He reminds me of one of my football line coaches, and I won't repeat what he said, but it was very similar. You put your beep into the dirt and you just keep fighting. I keep envisioning the lineman drills with the chutes. I'm having a little bit of trauma flashbacks, but I'm going to try to somehow get a recording of that and make it my ringtone in the morning. I just want him to yell at me. I want to wake up to him yelling at me about "don't wait for the hole to open up." Chris: It would be great if we could do something with our coaches where we break that down, like how we do book reports. Hogi: When you're listening to it from a leadership standpoint, try to unpack what he's building. He's calling out the obvious right away. He's firing up their emotions right away. He's immediately coming with how their brand — which is really the Seahawks brand — is to be physical. No part of what he was saying was just emotion. It all had functionality and purpose with it. He didn't write down that speech five minutes before he walked into that room. He was prepared. It had a pathway and an intention. He'd been waiting to give that speech for a minute. Chris: There's a lot of pent-up energy there. Adam: It gets me excited for November 2nd. Chris: For anybody listening, Adam wants me to go to Seattle to watch the Seahawks beat the Bears at home on November 2nd. I won't go — because I'm not going to sit there with somebody in a Bears jersey in Seattle. All my fellow Seahawks fans going, "You brought this guy?" Adam, we should be able to talk about someone else's team without you bringing up the Bears. Adam: It's worse than Cowboys, because I wasn't alive when we went to the Super Bowl. Chris: Do we have a Cowboys fan on our team right now? Is this the best team of coaches we've ever had? Best coaching team we've ever had, and we don't have one Cowboys fan. Adam: I just want to be part of the championship club, guys. I connect dots. That's what I do. Chris: There's one other one-on-one in there that Coach Mike does with number three — our phenom safety-linebacker who's hurt. He just had surgery on his foot. The kid's kind of depressed, going through rehab, wants to be out on the field, and then Coach is talking about all these things people are saying about him in the media, and he takes that and turns it around. It's a pretty cool intimate one-on-one that we get to see into. Adam: That's what I like about that show. It really brings the human element to leadership. Chris: They've said in press conferences that after two days they forget the camera is there and they're just functioning normally. Which is the best. That's what I want to see. Housekeeping: Academy and Top Dog Chris: Today on SDR Academy, Hogi is going to be teaching the secret weapon of systems, and coming out of that we're going to go into specific systems. Just about every one of these systems we're going to teach you is worth $50,000 a month in additional sales. You could directly tie a number to each one. If you're not in Service Drive Academy, go to chriscollinsinc.com, sign up for OnDemand, and you'll get a link. Every other week we're going through and teaching you how to be the best leader in the service drive. Have we ever told the audience that we have Jefferson Fischer coming to Top Dog this year as a speaker? Hogi: No, I don't believe so. Chris: Adam and I had the honor of seeing him. I actually got to have dinner with him at an event last year. If you're not familiar with him, go to YouTube and type in Jefferson Fischer. He's an attorney from Texas who really digs into how you can word things, how you can overcome objections, how you can neutralize a bully or a negotiation. He's really smart and has a great way of nicely changing somebody's perspective in a way that doesn't create resistance but still makes your point. Adam: What helps in digesting that is his facial expressions as well, along with the message. He's grown up on a lot of different platforms, and I don't know many people now who haven't heard of him. Chris: He's a good get. He'll be at Top Dog this year, and we're working on some other fun stuff for Top Dog. Follow-Up: The Fake Forum Post Chris: We talked last week about this fake-news service advisor forum on Facebook that had a critique of us — of me, but of us basically — that is totally fake. It's some sort of plant. It's a Jeff Cowan forum, so the forum is run by Jeff Cowan. I don't believe Jeff Cowan would be doing that on purpose, but it's so fake and odd that it's hard not to think that maybe he is. I don't know. Adam went into the forum and looked around. Do you think it's a plant from Jeff Cowan, or a random person making up the post? Adam: I think it's a random person. But when you read it, there are a couple hundred different postings back and forth. Honestly, I love the back and forth of all the other various people. There are more people telling them, "Please stay away from my operations — if you're like this, I don't want you working for me." So we don't have to do much. There's a little bit of a realization, of looking in the mirror. With change, there's always going to be some sort of resistance. I don't know if it's him or one of the folks who work with him. It could be. Is there any truth to "any publicity is good publicity"? The truth is going to come out in the fact of people going back and forth. It's actually kind of an interesting community that has the discussions, because there are a lot of people with common sense. Nobody goes in there and starts raising everything just for the fact of not having a value behind it. And there are people going to bat for us as well, ironing out the truth. Chris: How many comments are on it? Adam: There are like a couple hundred. Back and forth. It's a series. I've been out of the Facebook game for a while, so it's just like — oh, man. A lot of thumbs up, a lot of thumbs down, smiley faces, the little emojis, people laughing. There are a lot of anonymous posts that go in there. How can you be anonymous on Facebook? I don't understand that. I got out of that whole thing a long time ago, so to see this just makes me shake my head. Sometimes people just want to be heard in silos. I keep thinking of the angry kid in mommy and daddy's basement who wants to drum up some sort of drama. But then again, there are some cool discussions on there of people actually trying to help people. That's what should be happening in those types of forums — not just a complaining fest. Chris: Jeff should just moderate it. If Jeff isn't the one doing it, he should moderate. If we had one of those, we would moderate it for sure. If you can be anonymous online, you can be very opinionated and make up all kinds of stories. What do they call that — trolling? Main Topic: Selling Vehicles From the Service Drive Chris: Let's talk about the subject we wanted to highlight today, and that is how you sell vehicles from the service drive. One thing we need to do in fixed ops is run a really good department that's consistent month in and month out — and we need to help the other departments. We need to transcend our department and help other departments prosper in these times, because a lot of dealerships are struggling with sales on the front end, and there's a lot of opportunity in the service drive. At Top Dog this year I was thinking about asking somebody we know whose dealerships convert about 4% of their RO count into car sales in the drive. Four to five percent is doing a really, really good job — you're selling a handful of cars a day out of the service drive. I want to talk about what I've seen work, and at Top Dog we'll probably go deeper into this and have a real step-by-step guide. It's time for us to start embracing this and not waiting for sales to come and try to do it — go out and seek it out and help. Most of the time what happens is sales starts selling in the drive and then it goes away. It only lasts a month or two, because you have to staff it differently. 1. Dedicate salespeople to service Chris: The first thing on my list of what makes it work: you have to dedicate salespeople. They have to be dedicated to service. That's their job. They're there Monday through Saturday, or Monday through Friday, whatever it is. They're in the drive. They're there. So they'd be at the shift meeting at 6:45 in the morning — if service opens at 7:00, which it does in most places, that salesperson is in the shift meeting at 6:45, ready to go, communicating with the advisors, talking about what's coming in, highlighting customers they want to make sure they get face time with. It's a planned thing. They're dedicated. That is their world. They live in service. Not this "hey, we'll schedule a salesperson in service every once in a while" — that never works, because sales usually runs at a different time. Sales opens at 9:00. Service has been going for two hours. It's a completely different business. The really big stores will also dedicate a manager. 2. Compensate the advisors Chris: The service manager and advisors should be part of that. If I'm devising it, I'd have some sort of bonus for the advisors for their customers who bought a vehicle — some sort of bird dog. And maybe some sort of override for the manager, just to get the attention and the focus going that way. But the advisors for sure. Because if you think about it, an advisor loses the job if somebody buys a vehicle — and they're not getting paid. You want to make sure they're compensated in a way that makes them look forward to it, so they're excited about somebody buying a vehicle. The other part is understanding that you're getting the customer back, which is the circle of life. Whenever sales sells them another vehicle, we get them again in service. The trade cycle is usually three years or so — it's even longer lately — but getting them back. So compensating them on that. 3. Understand the equity math Chris: There's a bunch of stuff on the sales side that if I was a service manager, I'd want to understand. Depending on what software they're running, they have the ability to look at the cars coming in and see where they are equity-wise compared to the value of the vehicle they have, and what sort of terms there are on models. Is there a vehicle where they can have the same payment without much down? Are there new programs? Sometimes manufacturers will do pull-ahead programs where there's a bonus that makes that sort of deal work. Understand how that math works. Really understand it. 4. Lead with acquisition, not the sale Chris: A lot of the scripts they'll use aren't so much about selling them another vehicle. What they'll talk about is: we need your car on our used car lot because it's in high demand. That's the thing they'll say — hey, your vehicle is in high demand, it'd be a great time if you want to trade it in, because we really need it. Which makes the customer perceive that they're getting more value for their trade-in. So a lot of times the conversation starts with "we need the vehicle on the used car lot" versus "hey, do you want to get a new car?" Hogi: Today, more than ever, that's pulling really well. People are shocked at how much their car is worth today. People who bought a new car a few years ago, close to COVID, don't know what that thing is worth today. That piece pulls really well. 5. Make them part of the department, not visitors Hogi: When you see this work very effectively — part of having dedicated salespeople, being part of the shift meeting, all of those things — they become part of the service department. If it's somebody where you're rotating a schedule and a salesperson just has to work service three days out of the month, they're still coming over to the dark side from the other side, and both sides view it as an inconvenience at best. When they're part of the department — our service scheduling process, I've seen several people use equity mining within it. The advisors have a process called pregame where they're going over their ROs, looking at the opportunities, checking history. There ends up being a pregame for the salespeople in service also, whether it's equity mining or looking at the vehicle they have and preparing for that. When there's that level of preparation on the service drive, the engagement with the customers is way more organic. It's a weird thing to come in for service, if you don't set it up right, and have me try to sell you a car. There can be a level of that little voice in the customer's head — when they go to a car dealership there's that little thing of skepticism, and it gets louder when they feel like they're being sold to. There's a way to make that whole process very organic. But if it's something you're just going to try, and you're going to make salespeople go over there every so often — that's where a lot of people get it wrong. Chris: You make a really important point, Hogi. When Dealer Tire has somebody dedicated in the drive, we sell more tires. When we have a body shop that has somebody dedicated in the drive, we sell more bodywork, checking windshields. The focus and that human connection makes the sales go up. It never doesn't. It's 100% that that works. It's the same sort of thing. 6. Flag the equity customers in your hat system Chris: We have this system in the drive where we're hatting customers' vehicles. The color of the hat is the advisor they're for; the time on the hat is the time of their appointment. It's a system that takes away decision-making for the customers and is very organized. The advisors come out and meet the customers at the vehicle. One thing I've seen work really well a couple of times: we pre-mark those pre-writes of the customers the salespeople have tagged as the ones who have equity and might be interested in a trade-in. You can put a different colored hat beside the other hat so they know that's them and the salespeople can greet them also. Or you can put a little flag on the hat — there are these little flags you can get. Just marking them so we know they're one of the customers the salespeople need to talk to, and the advisor facilitates that introduction. 7. Have salespeople make the confirmation call Chris: It helps a lot in the customer's experience if the person calling to confirm the appointment — if you have a BDC calling to confirm appointments, that's great, but on the vehicles that have equity, having the salesperson call and confirm the appointment and then mention it. "Hey, your car is one that we've highlighted to have equity, and it's something we're looking for on our lot that we have interest in. I want to meet you tomorrow when you come in. You're coming in at 8, I'll be around. My name is Chris." So those customers get their confirmation call from the salespeople, which is a nice warm introduction under the premise of reminding you about your appointment tomorrow. It's very casual versus predatory. A lot of times you get this "whoa, I'm being sold something" versus "oh, they're trying to help me." Using the salespeople to do the confirmation calls is a really good way of softballing that and making a friend. Those are the biggest ones on my list. Like anything, if you dedicate people to it, you're going to learn and get better over time. But it doesn't take that long — it's a pretty linear process. The opportunity is coming in every day, and it really is unbelievable that we're not doing this. The Portfolio Manager Model Chris: I believe — and I've said this for a very long time — that car dealerships in the future will not have salespeople and will not have service advisors. They will have portfolio managers. You'll have somebody who has 200 customers assigned to them. They handle their trade when their trade cycle is done and they want another vehicle. They handle the service appointments and writing up the service. All one person doing all of it. It's one relationship. The thing we run into is we have different relationships. If they like the salesperson but they don't like the advisor, that dramatically diminishes our chances of getting them to buy another vehicle from us. I ran into this when I was a service advisor. I would introduce a customer who really shouldn't be doing the repairs on the car — the repairs they need to keep that car functioning the way it should exceed the value of the car, or it's very close. So you'd tell the customer, "Hey, it needs $6,000 worth of work, and that kind of exceeds what the car is worth. What I'd suggest is talk to somebody in sales and trade it in and get something new. If you use the $6,000 you'd spend on this as a down payment, you'd just be in a much better situation." And I would introduce them to a salesperson — and then the vehicle would get towed out. They didn't sell them the car, and I didn't get the work. That relationship is so important. If you have a salesperson who's at the shift meetings every morning and is basically part of the service department, and if we're tracking how many cars we're selling out of the drive and everybody is vested in that in some way — even if it's tiny — that makes the world of difference. That's where I see this becoming portfolio managers. Because it isn't that hard to write service in today's world, and it isn't that hard to sell a car. They're kind of the same thing. If you just think about what an advisor produces in gross and what a salesperson produces in gross — if that's one person, you'd have somebody producing a tremendous amount of gross. You have these scenarios on the front end where there's not enough gross in the cars or enough volume for salespeople to really make the kind of living they used to make at certain brands. So you have tons of turnover, and you don't have the career salespeople you used to have. They still exist, but there aren't a lot of younger kids coming in and becoming that like they used to. Combining those two jobs creates a scenario where you can make a really good living, take really good care of your customers, have a portfolio of clients you're serving, feel really good about what you do every day, and produce gross in a way that benefits the customer — because they don't have to go to two different places. It benefits the dealership tremendously, and it benefits you, because you can make a really good living doing that. So I believe that's where it's going to go. Audience Q&A Q: Focus on the handoff, or focus on the relationship with the service team? Hogi: I think part of the answer is what you mentioned about having the salespeople make the appointment reminder call. But I think it's both. Chris: It's both for sure. That's why those salespeople — when we've seen it work really well, and it's mostly high-volume dealerships that do this, which is a shame — those salespeople are in service. They're part of the service department. It's where they live. They exist there. Think about it in terms of: if you were a customer, how would you want it to be? If you have a relationship with your advisor and your advisor is making the introduction, that's probably better. If the salesperson is calling and saying, "Hey, I just want to remind you we have you tomorrow at 8:30 coming in for service and you're with Hogi." Customer confirms. "And just one other little thing I want to mention — my name is Chris, and I've seen that your car is in high demand on our used car lot. I don't know if you've thought about selling it or trading it in, but I'm going to say hi to you tomorrow. Just think about that." A light little touch on it. No pressure. You don't have to make a decision now. Let it start working. Let it start cooking. What they're thinking is, "Oh, how much is it worth?" You could even say it's worth more than you think. Hogi: The people who are doing this well — it's probably another whole topic that's equally important to anybody operating a store today — the people who are selling well out of the service drive are also acquiring very well out of the service drive. With what you're paying for used cars today, you just can't afford to get them at the auction anymore, hardly. It's a racket. There are stores doing this very effectively, and it just so happens that there are stores out there sourcing all their cars externally and not through the auction right now. It puts them in a crazy competitive advantage. Q: What is your opinion of new vehicle service package programs? Chris: When I'm buying a new car, I'm buying an oil change package or a maintenance package, something like that. I've been counter to most of the opinions out there, which is normal. I started working in a service drive where customers were not making appointments for advisors — it was an open floor. What I have always tried to set up is forced relationships with customers, where I'm having the BDC check who the previous advisor was and putting the customer back with that advisor, because it creates familiarity. If you see the same person over and over again — even if it's not some love match or overwhelming chemistry — you get familiar, and you start to trust the person. And in service, trust is the thing we want more than anything else. So forcing that familiarity is the secret to it. The reason I said the thing about familiarity is that those new service packages create familiarity. If you have two or three free oil changes, it's going to entice you to come in and use those. Then you're familiar with the service department. All of the stats tell you that if you get them to come in a couple of times, you're going to be the place they come. So oil changes are really, really effective. The thing we miss as an industry, which is terrible: one, we miss the introduction to service. It's rare that anybody does that well. But we also forget that when somebody buys a car, there's so much going on. You could tell them, "Hey, you have three free oil changes, this is worth $300, and you call this number to make an appointment." You could be really thorough in going through that in finance. They will still forget, because there's just so much going on — and then they've got their new car and the new car smell, and they don't remember. I've seen stats where 50% of customers don't use those things. Even the free oil change. As high as 60%. The way to make it effective: you have to have somebody calling them and reminding them they have it. As soon as they buy the vehicle, send them some sort of email. This works especially in dealerships that sell trucks or vehicles people are going to modify with wheels or lift kits. Say, "Hey, I'm from service, I'm your liaison. Remember, you have those free oil changes." And then have somebody call. Let's say it's a store where customers are due for oil changes six months or 6,000 miles out from buying it. At five months I'd be calling them, making an appointment for the next month, and reminding them. Don't leave it to chance. Run everybody we sold five months ago, and we should be calling them this month reminding them about next month. Emails are good, but phone calls are better. Emails go to spam. That's a good first line of defense, but your closing ratio and open rate on those is going to be less than 50%. Hogi: When I get that question, it's often "the maintenance programs don't pay well, they're hurting us." Take 25 customer-pay ROs that have those maintenance packages on them, go look at the declines from your multi-point inspections, add one or two of those items to the ticket — and then see if that ticket looks like a winner or a loser at that point. The maintenance programs aren't the enemy. I know a lot of times they don't pay what we want them to pay. But they're not the enemy. The one-item RO is the enemy. Chris: Good point, Hogi. Q: How often do dealerships actually sell from the drive intentionally? Adam: Coming more from the commercial side — is it just "we try this and then it gets thrown out"? Or are there a lot of groups or stores doing this and they just don't do it consistently, or they wait until issues arise, like currently in the market where sales are down? Chris: We have a lot of clients who ask us for help with sales, because of what we do in service. The difficulty of running a sales department is having a manager who's good with process and systems, which is very rare. Second is finding salespeople — because salespeople don't make a lot of money in this current setup. They could work 60 hours, and there isn't a lot of gross in the cars, so it's a hard gig. A lot of dealerships are paying salary now, and they're not making the kind of money they used to make. So it's hard to dedicate salespeople to the service drive when you can't cover your floor. A parallel would be: we want to dedicate technicians to internal, but we're backlogged in the shop right now. How are we going to pull two techs out and dedicate them to internal when we can't get techs to work on customer vehicles? Same sort of thing. It's a leadership thing. The managers in sales aren't always that good at process and systems and holding people accountable, and salespeople are coming and going with a lot of turnover. It's really hard to then dedicate somebody and focus on that. You have to have a really strong system in sales, and then add this on it. If you don't have a strong system and you try this, it just becomes an afterthought. You're just shifting salespeople over there when you can — and it's not a "when you can" thing. It's every day. That's your job. Today, you're looking at what's coming in tomorrow. Hogi: It's pretty polarizing — the places where it works and where it doesn't. If you bring it up, a lot of people are like, "Yeah, we tried that once, it didn't work." The Commercial Truck Parallel Adam: With you guys reviewing this — it's like a bridge within the commercial truck world. There are mostly fleets. You were talking, Chris, about owning that entire relationship and having that portfolio manager. We'd call them a customer or client manager on the commercial truck side. I've been in so many situations where service helps sell the next truck. That might be a statement that gets made — but no, I actually saw it where there was intentionality behind it, because of the particular owner or the number of vehicles. If it was a fleet, it's probably better to get it out with an earlier trade with the residuals that were happening. I saw the bridge between both sides, because there are ways to definitely sell the next vehicle in the customer's best interest. If you're trying to get a mom with a family out of a high-mileage vehicle that has a really costly repair, into something safe and reliable — I know Hogi says a lot when it comes to the maintenance piece. But if those repairs are very costly, get them into something more safe, dependable, and reliable, and don't spend all that money. It's the same thing within truck. If the residuals and the repairs are so costly, having that sales mentality on the service side — actually working with them and partnering — can be a really good selling point. Chris: On the other side, the thing we miss is: the guy's got a Corvette from two years ago, but the new one came out and it has more horsepower. I experienced that a lot running a BMW store — they want the new M5. There's a handful of people who just want the latest and greatest, and they're not even aware it's out until you tell them or they drive it. On the heavy truck side, the parallel is what we hear from parts: a lot of people won't come here for service because the service department does a terrible job, but they're still buying their parts from the parts department. And how many times does a fleet sales manager have to go back into service and intervene and get a truck to the front of the line? Imagine if that bridge was closed. Those fleet managers aren't going to buy another thousand trucks from us if nobody's called them back for two days. That's where we miss the customer experience. Because to us in our industry they're two completely separate departments — but to the customer, it's one experience. That's where we miss it. Wrap Chris: Thanks everybody for hanging out with us today. We're going to shift over now to the Academy. Hogi is going to be teaching about systems. I'm excited about this — it's going to go for a few sessions, going into specific systems you can leverage in your drive. I encourage everybody to watch Hard Knocks, and we will see you next time on Service Drive Revolution. About Service Drive Revolution I know from experience that a lot of dealer owners won't invest in training for fixed ops. But eight service managers in our coaching group have been promoted to general manager — something that doesn't happen enough in our industry. Proof that when you're given the right tools and the right mentorship, you can do amazing things. I'd like to personally invite you to something that should already exist, but unfortunately doesn't: a live fixed ops academy, a mentorship, a community. But what it really is, is a service drive revolution. Anybody can afford it. Anybody who wants to invest in themselves. We're going to teach what we know about running a healthy fixed ops service business. Our average coaching client performs well above the industry average, and a handful of them are in a league completely their own. In fact, if I told you their numbers, you wouldn't even believe it. They're so good. Learn more at chriscollinsinc.com Terms Used in This Episode RO (repair order) — the work order for a service visit. RO count is the number of service visits in a period. CP RO — customer-pay repair order, as opposed to warranty or internal work. One-item RO — a repair order with a single line of work and no additional sold services. Equity mining — identifying service customers whose vehicle value exceeds their loan payoff, making them candidates for a trade. Pull-ahead program — a manufacturer incentive allowing a customer to end a lease or loan early without penalty. Bird dog — a referral payment to someone who sends a customer to a salesperson. Pregame — CCI's process where advisors review upcoming ROs and vehicle history before the customer arrives. Hat system — CCI's method of placing a colored, time-marked hat on each vehicle to identify the assigned advisor and appointment time. BDC — business development center, the team handling inbound and outbound customer calls. Multi-point inspection declines — recommended work a customer chose not to authorize.

In this episode of Service Drive Revolution #369, Chris, Hogi, and Adam take on one of the most widespread profit leaks in dealership service departments: the massive gap between your posted labor rate and your effective labor rate. The team pulls back the curtain on why so many shops posting a $200 door rate end up collecting an effective rate of barely $99 to $101—and why your effective labor rate should actually be higher than your posted door rate. The guys break down the silent revenue killers, including hyper-busy, heavily discounted quick lubes that drag down your entire mix, treating all labor like "competitive" labor, and letting service advisors discount repair orders willy-nilly just to cash out a customer. We also expose the danger of unbuilt op codes, inconsistent labor times, and giving away cheap labor on fleet accounts when those fleet managers actually care far more about turnaround time than price. Plus: The crew introduces "Robo-Hogi"—a hilarious, high-tech studio experiment to put Hogi in the room while he's remote—and discusses how shifting from struggle to strategy brings the fun back into running a dealership without destroying your personal life. (Note: While this episode is pre-recorded due to the team traveling to Indiana, Hogi is heading straight into the SDR Live Academy on Zoom immediately after this broadcast to teach mindset and leadership!) 🔥 KEY TAKEAWAYS - Effective Rate Mastery: Why your effective labor rate can and should exceed your posted door rate, and the exact mindset shift needed to achieve it. - The Quick Lube Trap: How high-volume oil change lanes at a zero or near-zero effective labor rate dilute your department's overall profitability. - Desking Their Own Deals: The shocking reality of letting service advisors freely adjust ticket prices without fixed op codes—and why no General Manager would ever let salespeople desk their own car sales. - The 4 Types of Labor: How mispricing competitive labor, maintenance, diagnosis, and repair labor forces your department to bleed gross profit. - The Fleet Relationship Myth: Why fleet accounts value rapid turnaround time and reliable communication far more than cheap, discounted labor rates. - Life Beyond the Drive: Overcoming the industry's high divorce rate and burnout by bringing strategy, systems, and shared family goals into your personal life. All that and more on Service Drive REVOLUUUUUTTTIOOON! #ServiceDriveRevolution #FixedOps #AutomotiveLeadership #ServiceManager #ServiceAdvisor #DealershipLife #CarBusiness #ChrisCollins #AutoIndustry #DealershipTraining #ServiceDirector #FixedOperations #BusinessStrategy #SDRAcademy #EffectiveLaborRate #LaborRates #RoboHogi 🛑 SDR Live Academy Online Training For Huge Results: https://chriscollinsinc.com/op/sdr-live-weekly/ 🛑 Book your Profit Gap Analysis Now: https://calendly.com/byron-webster/30min 🛑 Best Selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: https://chriscollinsinc.com/shop/ 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR 🛑 Want to work with the best? https://chriscollinsinc.com/careers/ 🛑 Grab Chris' New Leadership Book I AM LEADER: https://iamleader.com

In this episode of Service Drive Revolution #367, Chris, Hogi, and Adam count down the top 5 dumbest things service managers say on the drive. While this list is packed with humor, it exposes the exact blind spots, excuses, and circular logic that keep service departments trapped in perpetual chaos, losing money, and alienating their highest performers. The team breaks down why waiting for "staff buy-in" is actually the ultimate form of leadership procrastination, why letting a technician walk away over a $2 raise is a mathematical failure, and why stalling execution to get a process "dialed in" is costing you real gross profit. Plus: Chris breaks down his frustrating experience troubleshooting an aggressive high-end aftermarket stereo on his new royal blue Sea-Doo 325, the team contrasts the stagnant energy of Los Angeles with the thriving, patriotic community of downtown Indianapolis, and Hogi preps for a deep dive into live financial training. (Note: Chris is away filming an automated lineup for "Books That Changed My Life," but Hogi is heading straight into the SDR Academy for a live financial statement breakdown immediately following this episode!) 🔥 KEY TAKEAWAYS - "I Got to Get Buy-In From My People": Why running your shop like a consensus-driven democracy is the quickest way to attract the wrong talent and let the inmates run the asylum. - "I Just Want to Get It Dialed In": The polarity trap of artificial perfection, and why speed and execution will always beat sitting on a process measured twice but never cut. - The $2 Pay Dispute Blunder: Why middle managers get emotionally wrapped up in tech entitlement instead of realizing the customer pays for the technician's cost of sale. - "I Wish I Had More Time to Recruit": The hidden operational cost of reactive hiring, and why failing to recruit continuously guarantees a six-month backlog of shop chaos. - "I Need to Hold Myself Accountable to Hold My People Accountable": Unpacking the circular therapist logic that stalls active department management and tortures your top performers. - The Washington "Better Brakes" Trap: A real-world look at how state-level environmental regulations create sudden, low-competition vendor monopolies that decrease parts quality. 📞 GOT A QUESTION OF YOUR OWN? Call 833-3-ASK-SDR — we answer on the show! Get special deals on our books and training at offers.chriscollinsinc.com! #ServiceDriveRevolution #FixedOps #AutomotiveLeadership #ServiceManager #ServiceAdvisor #DealershipLife #CarBusiness #ChrisCollins #AutoIndustry #DealershipTraining #ServiceDirector #FixedOperations #BusinessStrategy #SDRAcademy #TechnicianRecruiting #LeadershipSkills #Indianapolis 🛑 SDR Live Academy Online Training For Huge Results: https://chriscollinsinc.com/op/sdr-live-weekly/ 🛑 Book your Profit Gap Analysis Now: https://calendly.com/byron-webster/30min 🛑 Best-selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: https://chriscollinsinc.com/shop/ 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR 🛑 Want to work with the best? https://chriscollinsinc.com/careers/ 🛑 Grab Chris' New Leadership Book I AM LEADER: https://iamleader.com

In this episode of Service Drive Revolution #365, Chris, Hogi, and Adam take the show on the road to beautiful Indiana! Broadcasting completely LIVE, Chris shares a deeply personal origin story, from the childhood humiliation that fueled his entrepreneurial drive to the grueling process of pitching over 100 banks just to buy his first store. The team breaks down how transitioning from a Fixed Ops operator to a full Dealership Owner permanently altered Chris's approach to the service drive. We dive into the "Circle of Life" in a dealership, why standard industry departmental silos are destroying the customer experience, and how to weaponize vehicle personalization and accessories to drive massive profitability. Plus: The crew discusses why poor dealership processes chew up good employees, and why a bad user interface in a rental Ford Expedition got them thinking about subconscious customer trust. 🔥 KEY TAKEAWAYS - The Dealership Circle of Life: How understanding the 10,000-foot view reveals that customer retention in Fixed Ops directly dictates sales floor volume. - The Sunday Evening Turn: The defining childhood moment of humiliation that set Chris on a path to completely reject poverty and trust his own entrepreneurial vision. - Pitching 100+ Banks: The brutal reality of educating traditional lenders on automotive margins and raising capital as a self-made operator with no mentor. - Breaking the Silos: Why separating parts, service, sales, and finance into isolated businesses ruins the customer experience, and how "Client Advisors" will replace traditional roles. - The Lifestyle Goldmine: Why the most enthusiastic customers want to accessorize their vehicles, and how Fixed Ops leaders can break down barriers to capture that revenue in-house. - Managing Personality Types: The massive difference between motivating extroverted front-end sales teams versus introverted, analytical Fixed Ops teams. 🛑 SDR Live Academy Online Training For Huge Results: https://chriscollinsinc.com/op/sdr-live-weekly/ 🛑 Book your Profit Gap Analysis Now: https://calendly.com/byron-webster/30min 🛑 Best Selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: https://chriscollinsinc.com/shop/ 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR 🛑 Want to work with the best? https://chriscollinsinc.com/careers/ 🛑 Grab Chris' New Leadership Book I AM LEADER: https://iamleader.com

In this episode of Service Drive Revolution #363, Chris, Hogi, and Adam make history by officially broadcasting the show completely LIVE on YouTube for the very first time! This unannounced launch marks the beginning of a brand-new chapter for Fixed Ops training, complete with real-time community interaction, unfiltered insights, and zero room for second-guessing. The team breaks down how this new live format leads directly into the newly launched SDR Academy, a dedicated space designed to give managers, advisors, and dealers the exact tools they need to run high-profit departments. From personal development to hands-on shop strategies, Chris outlines why you need a week to apply what you learn and why waiting around for the "perfect moment" is costing you real money. 🔥 KEY TAKEAWAYS - The Big Shift: Why the team decided to pull the trigger on going completely live on YouTube without giving anyone a heads-up. - The 10-Minute Break Blueprint: Behind the scenes of how the new Wednesday schedule works, transitioning from the public show straight into the private Zoom academy. - The Value of Application: Why spacing out deep core business training every other week gives your team the critical "saddle time" to execute what they learn. - Bonus Leadership Training: Chris reveals plans for the off-weeks, focusing heavily on personal growth, mindset shifts, and leadership psychology. - Building For Effect: Why high-performing service departments don't happen by accident, but through a committed, real-time community that holds you accountable. - How to Gain Entry: Step-by-step info on how to join the On-Demand membership at chriscollinsinc.com and get access to the live Zoom calls. #ServiceDriveRevolution #FixedOps #AutomotiveLeadership #ServiceManager #ServiceAdvisor #DealershipLife #CarBusiness #ChrisCollins #AutoIndustry #DealershipTraining #ServiceDirector #FixedOperations #BusinessStrategy #GoingLive #SDRAcademy #PersonalDevelopment 🛑 SDR Live Academy Online Training For Huge Results: https://sdr.chriscollinsinc.com/ 🛑 Book your Profit Gap Analysis Now: https://calendly.com/byron-webster/30min 🛑 Best Selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: https://chriscollinsinc.com/shop/ 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR

In this episode of Service Drive Revolution #361, Chris, Hogi, and Adam continue our origin series by jumping back in time to the moment Chris realized that financial statements are the secret key to everything in a dealership. ] Chris shares a wild story about trading his own consulting services just to get a back-door education on how dealership financials actually work—and how a chance meeting with a former Kansas City Chiefs player changed his perspective. Plus: A deep dive into the trap of fatalism in America today, and why understanding the numbers is your ultimate industry superpower. 🔥 KEY TAKEAWAYS - Trading For Secrets: How Chris bartered his skills to learn the financial blueprint that most GMs keep behind closed doors. - The Financial Trap: Why trying to fix a service department without understanding the statement means you're just doing a lot of work for nothing. - The Broken Industry Average: Why the average service department barely breaks even, and how numbers tell you exactly where the leaks are. - The Kansas City Chiefs Connection: A chance encounter that completely shifted the room's perspective on success and leadership. - Defeating Fatalism: Why giving up on systems or assuming "that's just how the business is" will kill your growth. - SDR Live Is Coming: A sneak peek at the upcoming Service Drive Revolution Academy launching in June to help you master these exact numbers. #ServiceDriveRevolution #FixedOps #AutomotiveLeadership #ServiceManager #ServiceAdvisor #DealershipLife #CarBusiness #ChrisCollins #AutoIndustry #DealershipTraining #ServiceDirector #FixedOperations #OriginStory #FinancialStatements #DealershipMath #BusinessSuperpower 🛑 OnDemand Training For Huge Results: https://shorturl.at/j7J8u 🛑 Book a free 30-min discovery call for coaching that grows your profits: https://chriscollinsinc.com/chris-collins-method/ 🛑 Best-selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: https://chriscollinsinc.com/shop/ 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR 🛑 Want to work with the best? https://chriscollinsinc.com/careers/ 🛑 Grab Chris' New Leadership Book I AM LEADER: https://iamleader.com

In this episode of Service Drive Revolution #359, Chris, Hogi, and Adam kick off a brand new series diving into the origin story of the Bulldog. Chris reminisces about the pivotal moments that shaped his career, starting with a life-altering piece of advice from a soccer coach that led him away from the field and into the car business. Plus: A look ahead to our upcoming Service Manager University Live certification starting in June! 🔥KEY TAKEAWAYS - The Soccer Coach's Ultimatum: Why a single conversation about commitment changed Chris's entire career trajectory. - The Decision to Pivot: Choosing between professional soccer, a music career, and the world of business. - Service Manager University Live: A sneak peek at our new virtual community for certifying elite service managers. - The Value of Focus: Why going "100% in" is the only way to make something of yourself. - Reminiscing on the Journey: Part 1 of a new series exploring how the industry's best training content was created. - The Tacoma Stars: How close Chris came to a completely different life in professional sports. 📞 GOT A QUESTION OF YOUR OWN? Call 833-3-ASK-SDR — we answer on the show! Get your On-Demand Training & See Huge Results: https://shorturl.at/j7J8u 🛑 Book a free 30-min. discovery call for coaching that grows your profits: https://chriscollinsinc.com/chris-collins-method/ 🛑 Best Selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: https://chriscollinsinc.com/shop/ 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR 🛑 Want to work with the best? https://chriscollinsinc.com/careers/ 🛑 Grab Chris' New Leadership Book I AM LEADER: https://iamleader.com #ServiceDriveRevolution #FixedOps #AutomotiveLeadership #ServiceManager #ServiceAdvisor #DealershipLife #CarBusiness #ChrisCollins #AutoIndustry #DealershipTraining #ServiceDirector #OriginStory #CareerAdvice #SuccessMindset #AutomotiveHistory

In this episode of Service Drive Revolution, Chris, Hogi, and Adam dive deep into the YouTube comment section to answer your most pressing questions about shop flow, advisor success, and the future of car ownership. Plus: A heated discussion on the 2021 law mandating "kill switches" and driver monitoring in every car sold after 2027. 🔥 KEY TAKEAWAYS - The 2027 Mandate: Everything you need to know about the law requiring cabin sensors and remote shut-off capabilities. - Kill the Dispatcher: Why traditional dispatching is a constraint that slows down your shop's throughput. - Lateral Support: How breaking your shop into smaller teams allows advisors to control their own destiny. - Connection: Technical Knowledge: Why the best advisors aren't former techs, but people who know how to build trust. - Matrix Pricing: Using a scientific approach to labor rates instead of just "straight hours". - The Stafford Beer Rule: Remembering that the "purpose of a system is what it does"—not what it claims to do. 📞 GOT A QUESTION OF YOUR OWN? Call 833-3-ASK-SDR — we answer on the show! #ServiceDriveRevolution #FixedOps #AutomotiveLeadership #ServiceManager #ServiceAdvisor #DealershipLife #CarBusiness #ChrisCollins #AutoIndustry #DealershipTraining #ServiceDirector #FixedOperations #PrivacyRights #AutoTech #KillSwitch #ShopEfficiency 🛑 OnDemand Training For Huge Results: https://shorturl.at/j7J8u 🛑 Book a free 30-min discovery call for coaching that grows your profits: https://chriscollinsinc.com/chris-collins-method/ 🛑 Best-selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: https://chriscollinsinc.com/shop/ 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR 🛑 Want to work with the best? https://chriscollinsinc.com/careers/ 🛑 Grab Chris' New Leadership Book I AM LEADER: https://iamleader.com

Service Managers, Fixed Ops Directors, and Dealership Owners — are you tired of spending a fortune on marketing just to fill your drive with one-time customers? Most dealerships focus on "customer acquisition" while their current database is leaking out the back door. In this special "Coach Takeover" episode, our elite coaching team breaks down why retention is the only way to build a sustainable, high-profit service department. In this episode of Service Drive Revolution (#355), we break down: ✅ Why the "welcome" in the drive is the most critical moment for long-term retention ✅ The psychology of why customers leave (and it's rarely about the price) ✅ Relationship building: How to move from being a "transactional" shop to a "relational" one ✅ The Sales Manager vs. Service Manager dynamic: Why sales experience can be a superpower in Fixed Ops ✅ How to handle hand-offs from management to advisors to build instant trust ✅ The "Top Golf" debate and the value of team culture behind the scenes ✅ Why "staying in the driveway" is a service manager's most important job If your service department struggles with: - High customer churn and low repeat business - Advisors who treat every customer like a stranger - Managers who hide in their office instead of being in the drive - Low CSI scores despite "fixing it right the first time." - Or a lack of connection between your service and sales departments This episode features insights from our entire coaching team to help you stop the bleeding and turn your service drive into a retention machine. The strength of your business isn't how many new customers you find, but how many you keep. #FixedOps #ServiceManager #CustomerRetention #ChrisBulldogCollins #ServiceDriveRevolution #DealershipLife #AutomotiveLeadership #ServiceAdvisorTraining 🛑 On-Demand Training For Huge Results: https://shorturl.at/j7J8u 🛑 Book a free 30-min discovery call for coaching that grows your profits: https://chriscollinsinc.com/chris-collins-method/ 🛑 Best Selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: https://chriscollinsinc.com/shop/ 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR 🛑 Want to work with the best? https://chriscollinsinc.com/careers/ 🛑 Grab Chris' New Leadership Book I AM LEADER: https://iamleader.com

Service Managers, Fixed Ops Directors, and Dealership Leaders — your technicians are the engine of your business, but most managers are driving them into the ground without realizing it. Most dealerships misunderstand what actually motivates a technician. They think it's only about the paycheck, but the highest-producing shops know that motivation is built on a foundation of respect, growth, and support. In this episode of SDR #353, we break down: ✅ Why treating technicians like "numbers" is the fastest way to kill production ✅ The power of the 1-on-1 lunch: How to build actual relationships with your team ✅ How to build a "Career Path" that keeps technicians from looking for the exit ✅ Why you should be educating your techs on more than just technical skills ✅ The "Parts Dept" factor: How empathy and speed in parts drives tech motivation ✅ Chris's take on "Land Ownership" and why he's leaning Libertarian ✅ Adam's Turkey Hunting obsession (and the "Bearded Hen" mystery) If your service department struggles with: - High technician turnover - Low morale and "clock-punching" mentalities - An "Us vs. Them" relationship between Service and Parts - Technicians who feel stagnant in their roles - Or a culture where techs feel undervalued This episode will change the way you interact with your shop and give you a practical "recipe" for long-term retention. The strength of your shop culture determines the ceiling of your Fixed Ops profit. #FixedOps #ServiceManager #TechnicianRetention #ChrisBulldogCollins #ShopCulture #ServiceDriveRevolution #AutoRepair #DealershipLife #ServiceAdvisor 🛑 On-Demand Training For Huge Results: https://shorturl.at/j7J8u 🛑 Book a free 30-min discovery call for coaching that grows your profits: https://chriscollinsinc.com/chris-collins-method/ 🛑 Best-selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: https://chriscollinsinc.com/shop/ 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR 🛑 Want to work with the best? https://chriscollinsinc.com/careers/ 🛑 Grab Chris' New Leadership Book I AM LEADER: https://iamleader.com

Service Managers, Fixed Ops Directors, and dealership leaders — your service menu is either a silent profit killer or your biggest untapped gold mine. Most dealerships treat their maintenance menu as an afterthought or a "loss leader" because they're afraid of being shopped. The truth? A properly structured menu can add $50,000 or more in monthly gross profit. In this episode of SDR #351, we break down: ✅ The 6 essential tips for building a high-profit service menu ✅ Why "Loss Leaders" belong in your advertising, not on your maintenance menu ✅ How to work from "Cost Up" to protect your effective labor rate (ELR) ✅ Why most dealerships are wildly overpaying (or underpaying) for labor times ✅ The "Nails on the Freeway" analogy for understanding supply and demand ✅ How to stop treating symptoms and start fixing the "cause" in your shop If your service department struggles with: - Low hours per repair order (HPRO) - Inconsistent maintenance sales - Technicians are complaining about menu pricing - Managers who don't know the true cost of parts and labor - Or a menu that hasn't been updated in years This episode will provide you with the exact "recipe" to turn your menu into a high-performance profit center. The strength of your menu determines the consistency of your Fixed Ops growth. #FixedOps #ServiceManager #AutomotiveLeadership #ChrisBulldogCollins #ServiceMenu #DealershipProfit #ServiceDriveRevolution 🛑 On-Demand Training For Huge Results: https://shorturl.at/j7J8u 🛑 Book a free 30-min discovery call for coaching that grows your profits: https://chriscollinsinc.com/chris-collins-method/ 🛑 Best-selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: https://chriscollinsinc.com/shop/ 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR 🛑 Want to work with the best? https://chriscollinsinc.com/careers/ 🛑 Grab Chris' New Leadership Book I AM LEADER: https://iamleader.com