The Secrets To A Quarter Million Dollars With Your Phone Calls | EP3 | Shop Fix Academy Podcast

0:00Did you ever listen to yourself on phone calls? Oh my gosh, I sound like that? When they are actually used, they sound like they're reading. The advisors don't treat it like it's art. Have you ever done this? And I've done this once. It burned me once. That is big. That is, that is massive. It is just a deflection mechanism. It absolutely is.

0:18To go, I don't know that I trust you. Welcome to the ShopFix Academy Podcast. I'm your host, The Berg. The Berg. That's his name. First name, The. Last name, Berg. My name is Guy, and we're going to talk a little bit today about service advisor. Service advisor. And that's where I started 15 years ago as a service advisor. Love it. How about you?

0:41I was actually a technician for 10 years and then moved into the service advisor position only because the shop I wanted to work for didn't have a spot for me. As a technician. And did you go by Berg? No, no. I gave you that name. You gave me that name. You went by Mike. Never Mike. Whoo! Guy Roberts. That's a hot button.

1:02Guy Roberts. And I like to push that hot button. Never Mike. Never call him Mike. He's Michael or he gets angry. This is a Mike. This is a Mike. So, so what makes a good service advisor? Yeah, I think let's talk about that. Like the attributes of a great service advisor. And we've seen a lot. I mean, especially with you and Sales Fix program, you've had a ton of advisors come through that program.

1:24Yeah. And, and we can kind of highlight some of those and spotlight those. But like, what are the top attributes of a service advisor in your opinion? Yeah, for sure. I think, and just coming up as a service advisor and being a manager of service advisors, definitely the advisors who were the most successful were great communicators. That's the— I think the biggest attribute of a great service advisor is communication.

1:52Just great communicator. And I think that a lot of shop owners feel like you have to have a lot of auto knowledge, you have to have a lot of knowledge about cars to sell work. Oh yeah. And that's— and back in the day, that was, that was the truth, right? Yeah. Because nobody trusted anybody unless they knew all the things and they could run out to the car and tune the carburetor real quick and, you know, send them on their way.

2:14Yeah. A full service, what's the Mayberry? The Mayberry. Gomer. Gomer Pyle. Gomer Pyle. Yeah. Let's get off Gomer. But yeah, so definitely my experience and I don't know if this was your experience because I'd love to hear you coming from the back to the front as well as a technician going into service advisor role. What were some of the things that you struggled with?

2:37Well, A, I struggle with technicians that didn't do the full inspections. Yes. And I was telling customers half the story of the car, I felt, a lot of times. So I struggled with that a lot coming from the technician world. Okay. And you felt like you had to lean on your technician knowledge a lot. 100%. The, the biggest thing I struggled with is when a customer called and said, hey, I've got this going on with my car, I wanted to fix it.

3:01Yeah. I want to fix that sucker right over the phone. Do this, do this, do this. And— you know? Yeah. And it's hard to shift that gear to that communicator. Right. Because you're facilitating and trying to get them over the curb. You're trying to get them into your store. You're not trying to fix the car over the phone. Correct. They don't want that.

3:20They don't. The car's still broke. Exactly. And they don't understand a lot of what you're saying, right? I'll just say a lot of what has connected with service advisors being in Salesfix and talking with advisors, many advisors who don't have that auto background have been phenomenal salespeople. Phenomenal. Yes. I didn't have auto background. I don't feel like I was an amazing salesperson, but I did a really good job.

3:47And I feel like it was leaning on— actually, I know it's because of just the way I communicate with people. Because, I mean, think about your Aunt Donna, right? My Aunt Donna, 70-something years old, and you're throwing out words like hydroscopic fluid because what does that mean? What is it? I don't know. She doesn't either. And she doesn't care. Right. Customers just want to know how much and when do I get my car back?

4:13Sure. But they do want to understand what's going on. Right. Absolutely. Well, they want to feel safe. They want to feel like they can trust you. Correct. They want to have that relationship. They don't care about all the terms. They just want to know, can I trust this guy? Absolutely. Yeah. And car knowledge does not make trust. Yeah, necessarily. No. Right. Oftentimes we talk over their heads, customers' heads, and they're just thinking in the back of their head, how do I get out of this conversation?

4:42Yes. Right. Yeah. So that's what's, that's what's going on with that. Absolutely. So what are some other— so communication. Yep. It's interesting because communication is 80% visual. Yes. Which means you have to be even more of an effective communicator over the phone because they can't see you. True. Absolutely. So getting those scripts down and just knowing how to communicate and how to talk and scripting is so crucial.

5:07And it's not done right. I mean, we hear it in Salesfix all the time. Sure. When scripts are actually used, which is not that often, when they are actually used, they sound like they're reading. That's the biggest problem with scripts. The advisors don't treat it like it's art. Yeah. If they turn that script into an art that they're actually owning that and that's their masterpiece, it would completely change the difference of a script.

5:33Yeah. It has to be turned into art 'cause they have to own it. Yeah, make it their own for sure. Absolutely. Absolutely, and those are some of the things that we teach is taking those scripts and, internalizing them on your training time, not while in the moment and in the call with the customer, internalizing them so it naturally comes out of you.

5:53So, you know, when you, you know, you can liken this to anything. Let's just use music, for example, and a musician. You have to do your practice and you have to learn all the parts and all the different tools. Like if you're a guitar player, all the scales and understand melody, things like that. You can't just do that. I have zero melody, just FYI.

6:12You do have zero melody. We're going to have him sing a little bit. We're not. At the end of this. Actually, you played the intro, didn't you? The intro music? No? Anyway. But it's exactly like that. Learn the parts. Learn drummers, learn your rudiments, learn all the tools on your tool belt so it comes out of you naturally. And listen back, like after you've played it, like you've gotta, it's practice, it's art.

6:36Did you ever listen to yourself on phone calls? I hated it. I hated it too. But when I did, I got better. I was like, oh my gosh, I sound like that? Yeah. I thought I was doing X, Y, and Z. Oh yeah. In your head you make up these stories. You're like, I sound like this. It's just not true. Absolutely. Yeah.

6:54But listening to them. But it was interesting when you listen to recordings, you actually listen to the customer. And I never felt like I listened to the customer well. You feel like it was because you were trying to think of the next thing to say? Yes. Yeah. I was trying to fix their car. So I was just, I was listening a little bit to them, but it's like, what's the fix?

7:16Oh, I already know this. You drive a Toyota Camry, it's gonna be an ignition coil, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, that's interesting. So that's something that as a technician moving to the front counter that you're gonna struggle with because you are hearing what they say. Oh yeah. And like, I know exactly what that is. Yeah. Spark plug, I know it. See it 100%.

7:33Right. Yeah, I'm already building the estimate in my head. Yeah, nice. Which the price would come out for sure a lot of times. Okay. Which is also a mistake to give a price because you don't know. Nope. You just, you don't know what the car needs over the phone. Yeah. Come on. I thought I did. I was a technician. That's true. I didn't know.

7:51So communicating, listening. I think a lot of advisors fail on the listening part. They don't take time and they don't pause after the customer. Guys, when you listen to your own store, and you listen to your advisors, it's never a good day. No, it's never a good day. But they constantly talk over the customer. Constantly. I'm like, guys, just slow down, pause, think, listen.

8:15Yeah, for sure. And I do hear a lot of the corny jokes. Yes. Are you sitting down, Mr. Smith? Oh my gosh. And I feel like it's, please God, don't say that. Don't. But I feel like it is, it's because you're nervous. Most often it's because you don't know what to say and you're— Absolutely. You feel like you are being a good communicator by tying things together with little corny jokes.

8:40Please don't do that. Please, no corny jokes. Have a conversation. Just have a conversation. Just have a conversation. Simple conversation, that's right. The advisors who don't have auto background, a big struggle is they feel like they need to lean on auto knowledge. And when they don't know the answer to a question a customer has, there's these long pauses where they're trying to, because they're trying to think of the words to say because they want to sound like the expert.

9:08Oh yeah. Right? All the time. And I remember listening back to a specific, I have a specific advisor of mine, sitting her down and having her listen to herself. When she didn't know what to say, there was these long pauses. And what it sounded like when you listened to it is she's trying to make up something. Oh boy. Right. And it sounded very dishonest.

9:24She wasn't being dishonest. She just— Do not make up a story. Don't— do not lie to your customer. Easy script for that. Oh man. Great question, Mr. Smith. Yeah. Let me get an answer for you on that. Can I put you on a brief hold? Absolutely. Really quick. Sounds very natural. Yeah. Sounds very trustworthy. You know, I'm making things up. On the lying topic, like customers would call in, you make up all these different excuses, blah, blah, blah.

9:50Just tell them the truth. Yeah. They would much rather know that you forgot to order the part and that's why their car is not getting out of the shop. For sure. Hey, I'm sorry. I'm human. I messed up. I did not order that part. I missed the cutoff. I'm sorry. Every time they were— they just worked with you because you, you talked to them like another human being.

10:10Correct. Do not tell stories. Yeah. It never works out. It doesn't. It always leads into a deeper hole and a deeper hole and a deeper hole. And we've all been caught with those things. Another one, another thing that a great advisor, when a customer calls in and says, hey, have y'all checked out my car yet? Oh, all the time. It's like, oh yeah, I was just about to call you.

10:39They always say that. I was just thinking about it. Please do not do that. Just go, Hey, let me check on this. I know they were getting super close. Let me call you back in. Can I call you back in 5 minutes? Have you ever done this? And I've done this once. It burned me once. Have you said, yeah, Mr. Smith, they actually already pulled it around and it's still sitting out there and the customer drove by, saw their car.

11:02That's why they called. I had a customer actually do that, but he was walking in the door on the phone with me. Oh, I've never had that happen. Womp, womp, womp. Tell me what happened. Tell me all about it. Burke's face got real red. Oh, yeah. Backpedaling like crazy. Oh, I just ended up just apologizing like— Love it. I'm so sorry. I learned a big lesson on that one.

11:25Yeah. Big lesson. Yeah. The no update update. Yes. Speaking of communication and all the ways not to communicate. Yeah. Yeah. No update update. So many advisors are scared of that. Yeah, what do I do? Or, or, or the, um, when things are slow, calling a customer, just doing callbacks. But yeah, the no update update is wonderful as long as you have a script for it.

11:46Yeah, it's great for me. Like the, the no update update, the technician's still back on the safari trying to figure out the car. Yep, has no clue what's going on. But wait a minute, I thought you on this— so we're not in Africa, it's an actual safari? It's an actual safari, that's what I call them. They're on, on these massive Safaris. They have no clue where they're going on this car.

12:06Yeah. Okay. Maybe they're under the dash with the wiring harness broken out. I don't know. Does Chevy make a Safari? They did. That's what I thought you meant. There have been some Safaris on Safaris. On Safaris. Gotcha. Okay. But the technician has no clue where— they haven't figured out what's going on. Correct. Well, advisors are a lot of times scared to call the customer and just tell them, like, hey, I have no idea what's going on with your car.

12:30Yeah. When in fact they need to do that. Yeah. And they need to go, hey, Bob's back there on the car right now. He hasn't figured it out just yet. Can I call you at this time? Yeah. Managing expectations is the biggest thing. So the no update update, just saying, hey, Mr. Customer, I know about you, I hear you, I feel for you, and I'm communicating about the process.

12:56Yeah. Right. And just managing those expectations, especially when it's the car's there for multiple days, even though you told the customer, you know, it's dropped off on Monday, this is gonna— we'll have it ready for you on Friday. Yeah, they're still thinking about it Wednesday. They're wondering, are we still on, on target for this? This is a great time to use texting, but sure, leaning too much on texting.

13:20Talk about that for a minute. I've experienced that. Oh yes, on the sale. On the update. I never hear the voice of the advisor at all when I've brought my car to a shop and it's just, you know what I mean? Here's this, here's this, here's this, here's this. Yeah. Texting is like the least communication you can possibly do. If you think about communication as a whole, like it's 80% visual.

13:45Yeah. Well, texting is just, oh, just got a text. How many times have you misread a text? Oh yeah. Especially from your wife. Yeah. And you're like, oh, I didn't mean it like that. Correct. But it's all caps, Berg. Yeah. Why were you yelling at me? I wasn't, I was just excited. You were yelling, I saw it. I was excited. Well, I mean.

14:06It's different. They send you a quote over a text and. Oh yeah. I'm in this industry and some of those quotes, I really, I need some help. And I don't even, I can't even, I can't make heads or tail of this. And I'm in the industry. Right. And I'm trying to read through it and decipher it. Yeah, you don't even know. Yeah.

14:22So keeping those, shoot a text with the quote, call immediately. Hey, I just sent you a quote. Do you have any questions? Absolutely. Maybe a text here and there to update. Now, if you prepared me as a service advisor, hey, by the way, I'm going to send you a text. It's going to read like this. Here's how it's going to flow. This is what it's going to look like.

14:40I need you to look at it first. You might be confused, but I need you to call me as soon as you get that and I'll walk you through it. Sure. Yeah, that's completely different. Yeah, it's so communication, but managing expectations. Yeah, those are in my book, those are the top two. Yeah, I love it. If you can do those two well, you, you are on your way to being a great service advisor.

15:01Yeah, managing expectations is not handled well in shops. It's really hard. We just don't hear it. Yeah, I mean, we get calls all the time, Sales Fix calls are uploaded, and even calls for, um, our certification. I want them to send their best stuff in. It's clearly not their best work. Oh my goodness. That they're sending in. I hope maybe it is their best work.

15:22I don't know. But it just doesn't sound good, right? It's not good conversation. It's not clear. Yeah. You know, there's no advocation for the customer. It's, it's order taking. Yeah. It's reading what's on an RO to a customer and checking the yeses and nos. So that kind of brings us to maybe a third point, which is preparedness. Yes. Talk to me about an advisor prepared because like you're managing a million things.

15:48Like the parts just went wrong on this car. That car went south. There's another thing. I've got to call Mrs. Smith back. Yes. You're managing a ton of things. Like, how do you get prepared in the moment? You've got an $8,000 invoice that gets put in your lap as a service advisor. What does that preparedness look like? Processes for sure. You have to have processes, but being less reactionary and more proactive.

16:09With everything. So a lot of wasted time is on taking incoming calls all the time because they're not doing the outgoing calls. And I know— So hold on. Go ahead. For everybody listening out there, that means if you're not doing the updates properly— Correct. —you're going to have an influx of inbound calls, which puts you on a defense in a reactionary state.

16:32Which takes more time. So think about it. You take an incoming call, you don't know who it is, you gotta bring up the customer's information. Hold on just a sec, Mr. Jones, let me look, let me bring up your ticket. Okay, this, you know, maybe it's not your customer, it's the other service advisor's customer. Let me talk to Berg and get some information for you, whatever.

16:51There's a lot of wasted time before you get to the whole reason why maybe they called was what's going on with my car. Yeah. When on the front end, if it's like, okay, at this time, I'm gonna call these 3 customers. 90% of the time you're gonna get a voicemail. You're gonna leave a simple voicemail script. Okay. Just giving you an update on your car.

17:12It's still in process. You know, we're still on track to have that done by the end of the day for you. I will give you a call when it's ready to go. Sure. That's it. That took 10 seconds. Sure. Would you also send a text message? Sure. In today's— If you're taking, send a text, make a call. Perfect. Calls are great. You know, oftentimes that's a great for— send a woof, the fax, the text, the email, the letter, the— oh, woof.

17:37We need to cut to the clip of The Office right here. But yes, that's— to get to your point, you have so much going on as a service advisor. Let's say you got 20 cars in the shop at one time that you handle. 4 of them are drop-offs that you've got to get checked in. Another 4 are we have to get parts ordered for them.

17:56Another 4 are in process, and some of those may be snowballing into other issues that you've got to call the customer and sell more work to. Yeah. And some of those might be being wrapped up. We've got to get the QC done and call the customer and let them know it's ready to go. So you're thinking as an advisor, I've got all of these cars at different levels and different sections of the process.

18:18Yeah. I've got to keep straight up here. You got to make that time and knock these things out and have a process. So that's number one in preparedness. Yes. There's so many service advisors that rush into selling an $8,000 ticket or $4,000 ticket. And you're not really selling. I don't really like that word. You're educating. You're guiding. You're guiding them on what the vehicle needs.

18:41There's a whole reset process for that. Oh, for sure. Because you've got all these other things that you're managing and juggling. Talk to me about that reset process. Yeah. So you've got an $8,000 ticket. But what happens most often, even $3,000, $1,000, you're in the middle of all those things. So what happens is you're picking up the phone, you're dialing the customer's number.

19:01Is that— they even do that anymore? This is very 1987. You call the customer, the phone is ringing while you're bringing up the RO and reading about Oh, so you hadn't even reviewed it. You haven't even reviewed it. And we hear this in the calls. Sure. I mean, when they upload these calls, we can hear it. Oh my goodness. Hey, Mr. Jones, I'm just going over your RO here.

19:21Bup, bup, bup. Make all those noises. They do it so often. Let's see. And then we're going to go online. Yeah, the technician said that. I'm not sure. Yep. They're reading technician notes. The technician says that, blah, blah, blah. So before you do that, just bring up the RO, get yourself situated with, okay, Mr. Jones came in, we talked about his car.

19:43He loves this car. Here are the things going on with his car. Here are my options. What's some pushback that he might give to me? I need to prepare for that. Okay, now I'm going to call. I'm going to pick up the phone. I'm going to call and I'm ready to go right out of the gate. Do you feel like an advisor should know what the customer is willing to do before they call the customer?

20:04Yeah. For sure. Like if you're a great service advisor, this is a big deal. Yeah. If you don't know on that, you're about to dial and go over that ticket. If you don't know, you should do a pre-call to that call to find out where, what is, what is the appetite to keep this car for a long time if it needs a lot of this work?

20:25Yeah. I mean, if you, you should have done that on the check-in process. On the check-in, I was going to say, yeah, check-in, there's a lot of— All of that should have processed through there. Correct questions that you ask. And if you don't know what the appetite or where the customer's going to go with what the journey is with this car. Yeah, you should make that call first before bringing in the estimate and prices.

20:42Yeah, for sure. Very quickly. I would not bring those questions up before you're about to deliver the news of what the car needs. Oh, 100%. Because it's— because, I mean, think about what that sounds like. Yeah. Hey, Mr. Rosenberger, um, how much do you like this car? Yeah, before, you know, don't do that. What are your— what are your future plans with this car?

21:02Because I've got a list You know what I mean? So yes, very quickly after the car's checked in, it's kind of like there's some questions I should ask the customer. Mr. Jones, what are your plans for this car? Just while we're doing this inspection. That's great. On the car, just want to know what are your future plans for the car? How long are you wanting to keep this car?

21:23And just lead that customer. Oftentimes customers will say, I want to drive it till the wheels fall off. I love this thing. Most people, when they buy a car, they picked a car because they like the car. We treat customers like most of them absolutely despise buys the vehicle and they're ready to sell it at a moment's notice, right? Yeah. So, uh, that— and that's not the case.

21:42No, I mean, you like your car, right? They brought the car to you to fix, for sure. They didn't bring it to the dealer to trade in. That's right. But they revert to that, uh, I'm just gonna sell it. And then you're working on it again in 6 months, 9 months, 10 months, 10 years later, because that is their response. Yes. To them not trusting you.

22:00100%. Yeah, that is big. That is massive. It is just a deflection mechanism to go, "I don't know that I trust you, guy." "I'm gonna do some more research." The go-to responses are, "I'm gonna sell it." "I need to talk to my wife." "I need to talk to my husband." Most often they don't. But you should have a response for that. "I can give your husband a call right now.

22:25I can give your wife a call right now." Or just blatant, I'm not going to do that today. In a great way. Just a pro tip here to advert that is on the initial, like, hey, I'm going to send you the inspection. Do you also want me to send it to your spouse? Yeah. And if they say no, no, no, just send it to me, then I know they're the decision maker.

22:46Correct. And they don't need to talk to the spouse. Correct. Correct. So just a little pro tip there. Also, oftentimes they'll say, oh, that's just too much money. Yeah. And oftentimes that is not the case. Yeah. That is, it could be the case for sure, but oftentimes it's not the case. It's— 90% of the time, I think we've discovered it's not the case.

23:06It's a response because they don't trust you. The too much money is actually you didn't do your job in the beginning. Yes. I think. Yeah. If they're saying it's too much money, there's something that you didn't tee up. And there's nothing you can do necessarily to overcome that yourself. Correct. Now you need to hand that ticket to the manager and go, hey, they told me it was too much money.

23:28Well, now the manager has to go, where did we lose the trust factor for them to say no? Yes. And so somebody else needs to take a second or third swing at that because the money part is actually about the trust part. It is. There isn't a magical script that always works with people and hypnotizes them to accept it. It's honestly just you connecting with a customer.

23:53That's it. They just need to lower their guard and say, I trust you. Yeah. You know, I trust what you're telling me. It might get to a point where it's like, gosh, I can't do all that. You know, it's not in my budget. Well, let's, let's figure out what's, what is in your budget. Absolutely. Let's get you a path to getting this taken care of because we want, we want to get you in your car longer.

24:13We want you to drive your car for a longer period of time, more miles to your car. Cars are not investments. You are investing in miles. That's right. So, Burke, tell me about when you became a service advisor. You didn't get that position as a technician. Yeah. So what was your training like? Well, I was paid $29,000 a year. Hey, that's a little less than me, but not much.

24:40And there was no onboarding process. There was no training. It was literally, hey, here's the phone, here's our phone number, here's the parts suppliers. Good luck. Wow. Yeah. And I sat next to somebody that was like in the shop for 15 years. So he'd been there for a long time. All the customers knew him. He would give away so much money. It was ridiculous.

25:03That's why they loved him. 100% why they loved him. But it was 4 years before I got training. 4 years, and I begged for it. Like, I wanted the training. And I— shop owners, train your people. Oh, yeah. Train your— send your people to training. The second that I got training, all of these concepts that we've talked about today, all these things, they're so fundamental from taking a store from $500,000 to $5 million.

25:32For sure. Like, the things that I learned in just the first training The pause effect, the building the relationship in the beginning. What is the plan with your vehicle? There were so many fundamental things that I learned in one day of training. The ARO jumped like $100 the next month. Training is so crucial to the business because it's all of these little things.

26:00We've probably given, what, 10 or 15 little pro tips on this call? For sure. Just a little bit. But imagine immersing somebody, a service advisor, in that training. Inconsistent. Yeah, we did same experience. I sat on the front counter, sit next to her, just do what she does. And it was terrible. I tried to quit 3 months in and was talked back into hanging in there.

26:23Luckily, the owner recognized that we've let you down, we need to support you. And service advisors want that, right? Absolutely. Because when customers are upset about what's going on, it's all projected onto the service advisor. Yes. And you're taking that on. Yeah. But what I learned was regular training was good for me. It, it helped support me. It helped ramp up my performance as far as, you know, the metrics, hitting the metrics, increasing my ARO.

26:52I mean, we were doing regular training once a month. Okay. But we did learn that, hey, after that fire hose of training on a 4-hour training after hours— sure— was fantastic. And we grab some things like drinking from a fire hose, right? You get what you need. Yeah. And the rest just hits the ground. Yeah. But between those two trainings, you revert to old habits, right?

27:15Every time. And so many shop owners don't want to invest in training and they want to send their advisors to a weekend retreat or something. Sure. To get just all this information crammed into their head. Right. When you think about it, they get the most impact on a weekend and like that, they see that impact the next week. Yes. It just trails off so fast.

27:34It does. They're like, I need to send them back to another weekend. Absolutely. But if they just maintain that level of training every week in little bits, little bits, little chunks, it's little tips every single week. So let's do some math. Let's do the fun stuff. Oh, let's do some math. Calculator time. Uh-oh. Guy's bringing out the calculator. So if you are a service advisor, even if you feel like your advisor is good enough, right?

27:56They've got a good ARO. Sure. With training, with focusing on the things that they need to be focusing on, even if it's things that, you know, as an advisor, like you say, I know this stuff. Like we get this all the time. I know this stuff. But then we hear their phone calls and we hear that they're not doing the things right.

28:13So if they can focus on it and be always aware of the things that they should be always working on, sure, you are going to increase your ARO. Love it. So let's do a little fun math, right? Sure. Did you know the average advisor handles 2 to 300 cars a month. Okay. Google it, 2 to 300 cars a month. So let's say if you increase your ARO by $100, that's an oil change nowadays, right?

28:37Sure. Coupon oil change I got at Toyota was $94. Okay. A few weeks ago. So $100, that's nothing. $100 times, let's go the low end, 200 cars. That's a $20,000 increase in that month. $20,000 with just a little bit of training. Just, just a little bit of training. If you can sell one more thing, right? And selling one more thing, not because you're— you have this velvet tongue and you are great at talking people into things.

29:07It's, I've built a rapport, I have great, uh, workflow practices, I, I, I, I have good scripts in my head that I naturally use. All the things that go into training. I understand profitability. I build profitable tickets, right? You may be great at communicating, but you suck at building a profitable ticket. You don't understand gross profit, dollar per hour, or whatever. Now you understand those things.

29:33You put all these things together and your ARO goes up. Even if as an owner, it's like, oh, they're doing good enough. Good enough is not good enough. It shouldn't be good enough. And I wouldn't want— my advisors in my shop to feel like they're good enough. I want them to be hungry for more. Absolutely. Right? It's the art of service advising.

29:54It is. And you constantly work on yourself and you constantly improve you. Yeah. All the time. And I would argue that your advisors should want to train. If they don't, that's a sign of somebody punching a clock versus actually wanting to do this as a career. So if they're paid commission, Sure. Let's put that— put those numbers in there. Sure. Now I just increased what I sold this month by $20,000.

30:20100%. Minimum, right? What did I do for the year? 20,000 times 12, $240,000. Sure. Do the math right. Quarter of $1 million more by one advisor increasing their arrow by $100. Sure. Not doing any more work. Just polishing some skills. Polishing the skills. Yeah. Just dialing things in. Guy, why do you think that shop owners don't focus on training as much as they should?

30:45I feel like they look at that cost of training. So let's say training is $600 a month to train your people. Sure. They look at that as they don't see the immediate return on that. Sure. And so we did a little bit of math there. Yep. Let's say you're spending that $600 a month. I think they get panicky. I think they look at the bills that they're paying.

31:09I think they look at their P&L and they look at where they can cut. I think they have advisors who maybe are not taking the training seriously. That, that right there. And they feel like they're wasting money. And they compare the money that they're spending and then they look at Johnny over in the corner going, sorry if your name's Johnny. Yes. Not picking on you.

31:26We love you, Johnny. But Johnny's over there in the corner going, I don't want to do this. Or just punching the buttons, clicking through the videos and not applying anything. Because again, he's just doing this to punch a clock, not a career. Correct. And I'll tell you this, when I've— and none of this is rocket science, right? I've sat with many a shop owner and talked about this engagement.

31:48How do I get my service advisors engaged? And I always ask this question, tell me this, has your advisor been with you a long time? Have they been in the industry a long time? If yes, they often say, I know this stuff. Sure. I don't need training, boss. Sure. Right. And that's just not true. Right. Honestly, it's managing the expectations on the interview of the owner initially.

32:11Correct. Going, hey, how responsive are you to training? Like, I have a training program. Do you want to be trained on a weekly basis? That's a great indicator of if you're hiring a good person. Right? Absolutely. But they don't even talk about that in the interview process. Like, if I'm going to go work for somebody, I want to be poured into. I want to be made better.

32:30For sure. And so if you have a training program, oh yeah, sign me up. And if you've got someone who doesn't need it, say they don't need it, that's a good indicator of— Been to a lot of training. Red flag. Like it's a, you know, I feel like most of the training I've already mastered a lot of it. Like, hold on. But most shops already have people on the front counter, right?

32:49Sure. So now the way that person responds to being trained is an indicator of do I invest in this person? Or do I move on and get somebody? Now I can have that interview process. If this person is not open to training, I can interview someone and start the conversation out with, I would love to pour into you in regular training. Is that something that you're interested in?

33:10Sure. When I talk to shop owners about this and I talk to them about, you know, how they delivered the training, oftentimes they want the easy button. They want, I just want to buy the training and give it to them and say, do it on your downtime, and then walk away and do something else. Sure. It doesn't work. It don't. So don't even try it, right?

33:26Absolutely. So if you, number one, have to hold your people accountable. Yeah. And there is no training company out there that will do that for you. 'Cause at the end of the day, accountability looks like the person who hired, who does the hiring and firing. That's the accountability piece. Sure. The manager, the owner, that's the accountability piece. 100%. A training company can only support that.

33:48Yeah, right. That's it. And just provide the tools. Provide the tools. You've got to be the one reaching into the drawer, pulling the tool out, and actually provide visibility. Yeah, that's the extent of it. Visibility to, are my people doing the training or not? Sure. And then at the end of the day, that is the owner or the manager's responsibility to hold them accountable to what the expectations are.

34:08The other question that advisors have is, I don't— when am I— I don't have time to do this. And that's as a result of Hey, I bought you training, do it on your downtime. Sure. There is no downtime, right? As a service advisor. Absolutely. You have to make time for it. You have to make space for it. Has to be important enough to you.

34:24Yep. You have to tell them, I've created space. Here's the time you're going to do it. Mornings are great. I love mornings. If you open at 7, come in at 6:30. If you open at 8, come in at 7:30. Sure. Watch one training video and then go about your day. If you're doing that every day, little bits, Oh, sure. We treat our advisors like they are computers.

34:47If I just sit Berg in a chair and tape his eyes open and then put, put a screen in front of him and play all this stuff, he's going to get it and then he's going to perform forever. And I don't need training anymore and I can cancel the training and he's just going to perform. Is that reality? And this is why I say it's not rocket science.

35:05Most owners are like, this makes complete sense. It's kind of a, well, yeah, duh. But that's how they treat it, right? That's how they treat it. So if you treat it like something that is just an ongoing thing that's not going to end, right? You're just always going to work on yourself. That is, that's where you're going to get rockstar advisors. Guy, what a great conversation today on advisor, you know, secrets of the advisor, if you will.

35:32If you're out there and you're stuck at a certain revenue level, $30,000 a month, $100,000 a month, $300,000 a month. We have tools and we've created a program for you to get your advisor to that next level, to build that trust with your customers. Because at the end of the day, better communication, better preparedness, better— all the things that we talked about today, all of that matters so much to get you to that next level and your advisor to that next level.

36:00Can you talk to us about that program that we built? Yeah, it's designed to be a program that comes alongside you. It doesn't replace you as far as accountability, but it comes alongside you and it does all the heavy lifting of content, training content. Most owners and managers are not great trainers. That's okay, you're not here to be a great trainer, but it comes alongside you, it gives you the content, it gives you the game plan, it gives you a path to success.

36:25I love it. And yeah, that's what we're— And the average advisor in 6 months will increase their ARO by how much? Average advisor will increase their ARO by $200. That's crazy. Yeah, it's nuts. $200. Do the math on y'all. Oh yeah. 200 cars a month, $200 increase in ARO. It's $40,000 a month. $40,000 more a month on average. It's crazy. So if you're sitting there, guys, there are ways to get out of the spot that you're in.

36:51And that's what this podcast is created to do is just give you those tips and propel your shop to that next level. 'Cause at ShopFix, we fix the owner, fix the shop.