LIVE
Welcome to the Fixed Ops Friday Show, where we bring you high quality guests speaking about how to take your fixed Ops department to the next level. This
Car Guy Coffee production is brought to you by Fixed Ops Digital, powered by Trade Pending. Let's prove what's going on, car guys and cargals. It's
Lubramirez, the car Guy, and I am here with the One the Only, Owen Moon. What's going on, brother? How you doing? Hey
Lou, Happy Friday, Buddy. Good to see you man Friday, and
not just any Friday, Owen, it's Fixed Ops Friday. It's time to
have some fun talking shop with incredible guests, but really just with you, brother. Things are popping with you. A lot of things are moving and
grooving. You look like you're definitely inside of well in the flow of enjoying
the golf season that's upon us. How are things where you are right now?
Yeah? We had a little snowstorm earlier in the week, but I've
been traveling like crazy and March so got this spend a lot of time and some really nice climate. Snuck in a few rounds of golf in between conferences
and meetings and all the good stuff. So yeah, it's been NonStop this
month, but it's been a really good month, had a lot of really good successes and you know, fishing off strong here with you know, with a fixed house Friday and the last Friday of the month, so heck yeah, it is the last Friday of the month, and like the fifth Friday of the month, which is that special Friday that we always love to try to make sure that we take our month to the next level. So we
appreciate each and every one of you that are joining us that are taking time to listen, whether you're going to watch this on the live or you're enjoying this on the replay, or you're listening to it on the podcast version.
Thank you so much for taking some time to pour something inside of your cup, to encourage you and to just enjoy what it is that we have access to in this industry, which is some great people that are always brewinged solutions.
But there's some great people out there that need to be in here.
So help us out and tag a car guy, and tag a car gal and share, share, share, share, share, share, get the message out there. As you can see, the subprime hero isn't with us
today. He is having an incredible, incredibly great news day with a twenty
five year reunion with his father. Today, folks, if you are paying
attention to what is happening right now inside of the forty slightly over forty competition, go ahead and give a brother, give him a vote, give somebody an unvote, and give him another vote. Whatever it is that you gotta
do. Help out our brother right now who is competing inside of that.
And we are so pumped up to have him watching. I know he's probably
gonna chime in here, but we appreciate you, Fred, thank you for all that it is that you do for the industry, and thank you for setting up what it is that is a great lineup for today on Fixed Ops Friday. Owen, we got somebody that's pretty special that's jumping on here today.
He comes from a little bit of a different vantage point, doesn't he.
Yeah. Absolutely. Obviously as a marketing company, we've got a lot
of marks, and we've had some fixed Ops directors, we've had some BDC people that helping helping with the service side of the business and BBC and even just some leadership conversations. But today I think we're gona get a little all
that but what we're really gonna get is someone that's in the trenches every day, that's working with stores. And when I when we when I first reached
out to him to ask him to be a guest, we literally could have talked for two hours and just did the show right there. But we finally
got him on here, and I'm excited for the conversation today, so pumped up about it. So we got to go ahead and do what it is
that we do everybody. We got to get loud, we got to get
proud about who's coming up on the show and who's entertaining you right now.
He's already got some stories for us. I'm glad that we got him on
the microphone today. But help us to make welcome to this Fixed Ops Friday,
brought to you by Fixed Ops Digital and Trade Pending. We are welcoming
in the one the only ready went on. Randy, Welcome to the port.
How you doing, hey, Randy Day. I understand you said you
had a little bit of snow A little bit yeah, weird that end of March snow stuff. I'm coming to you live from Scottsdale, Arizona. Refrigerator
is not as cold as where you are right now. Although it is like
sixty degrees, it's all gone. It was one of those like I actually
like it because it's like, hey, get a little snow. He put
some moisture on the grass. Gonna be green out there pretty soon. So
heavy frost, heavy frost. Yeah. No, Well tell you what,
north of us, into Minnesota, I think they got hit with maybe a couple feet of snow. So it wasn't It was definitely that spring snowstorm.
We were just a little farther south. And what helped us is the weather
stayed over freezing. It got to thirty six to thirty eight degrees and so
it turned into a lot of rain and just a little bit of snow.
We like our winners here in Arizona. Yeah, I like your winters there
in Arizona. I come down to visit Brandy, thanks for jumping on today.
Obviously, Randy and I know each other really from a clubhouse room that we do on Monday mornings where we talk a lot about fixed operations and that type of thing. And Randy's really impressed me both with his background and just
even with his contributions to that room, and so I reached out to him and just say, hey, I think you'd be a great guest on our show. Give the audience maybe a little different to look into the fixed operations.
So before we jump into some of that, Randy, why don't you at the stage here just tell us, tell us in the audience your background, what you guys, what you've done, what you're doing, and for us boring but sure, Let's say started in our business in nineteen eighty four, so I'm forty years into car business as another career before that, so I'm old. So I guess my biggest accomplishments are four great kids and five
great grandkids, because I guess at the end of the day, that's that's what you really do all this stuff for. But I started in my first
day in the car business was the auto show in Washington, DC, and I thought you had to know something. I started there and work my way
through the ranks with the dealership in Washington, DC area, and I was there for about nine years. My dealer, who had a son who had
quite a few boys, said, look, I don't know what's going to happen when I pass, so I want to try to get you ready so that you could have everything you can so you sent me to NADA, to the Dealer Academy. So I went through, and then once I finished with
the Dealer Academy, they made me an offer to come be an instructor.
So I was actually with NADA in the Dealer Academy for nineteen and a half years. So think about this for a minute. For nineteen and a half
years, nineteen and a half years, every other year, i'm sorry, every other week for nineteen and a half years, I would have thirty two to forty two of you guys every other week. So when you that's Monday
through Friday. So when you steal from one person, it's plagiarism, and
when you get to steal for many, it's research. You get to see
a lot of stuff. So I did that, and then in twenty ten,
my wife, who was a she was a dealer a single point Viewick store and had been a dealer for many years. She said, what do
you say we go out on our own. She had sold the dealership and
GM was trying to channel for Pontiac and GMC and they couldn't make the deal together, so they just bought it back. And this was right before the
crash. So being a single point dealer, she would have got the letter,
so she was really blessed with that. So we started Randy Brinkman Solutions
in April of twenty ten, so next month will be our fourteenth year.
So we've been really blessed to be able to do this. Yeah, that's
all fourteen years. That means you're doing something right. First off, we
hope, So we hope. We are very blessed with the clients that we
have and the calimber of the clients that we have, and everything I've done, except for one manufacturer, everything has been on a handshake. I haven't
signed contracts for anything, and you give people a little bit more than what they want and you just just do the right thing. That's all. Love
it, love it, and that's so true. Love that type of business
because really it is fused together by the relationship that we all keep together.
If we're giving inside of this relationship, we're going to the next level.
We're each making each other better. I'm sure that there's many ways that you
have gone to the next level because of what you've just had exposure to that has been relationship based, not just always transaction based. Right, Absolutely,
in this business, what you know is important. Who you know is important,
but who knows you is the absolute most important. That's good. Better
write that down everybody, especially you car guys out there trying to build your brand and build your reputation and all the companies out there. There's a reason
why we are as rigid about who it is that we build relationships with in this industry because there's so many ways to get burnt. There's so many ways
for things to just fall apart, and at the same time, there's so many things that change, whether it's the face of the people that you're dealing with inside of companies, or it's the way that the company operates themselves.
There's so much changing inside of the business. How is it that you've been
able to make sure that you've kept things steady for yourself, for your business, and for the people that you've been able to help out going to the next level while dealing with all the challenges that the car business always throws at us. I guess to that question humbly, I would say it's a crowded
space being a consultant or in our business, whether it be marketing or any type of online programs that you have, or anything that you have. It's
a very very crowded space. So it is relationships, but it's offering something
that's a little bit different now for me personally, I will never get into a philosophical discussion with you about your business. I will never get in a
philosophical discussion with you because I'm going to lose, especially when I'm right.
I'm math based. I'm all about the financial statement. That's one of the
things we do. Actually, we've been very blessed to go to Woodcliffe Lakes
in New Jersey and we continually go and help train them on how to understand and read their financial statement. People that call on dealerships. This is the
biggest there is eleven pages, and when you break it down to simplistic, ninety percent of all your problems and a dealership are found in an inventory and ninety percent of your solutions are found in an inventory. One hundred percent of
the time. It always is how does your sales commissions get out of whack
as far as percentage of grows, spiffs and bonuses? What are you stiff
and bonus but old age units? Do you order your advertising or do you
advertise your mistakes? Just little things. One of the things that I've had
success with for other people that has not been my success. But I will
get calls from people and say, look, i'm starting this marketing company and I've got this great idea and this, that and the other. And I
listened to them. Someone might know someone we don't know. And I say,
okay, I'm going to stop you right there. I'm the general manager
and I'm ready to hang up on you. I said, don't take this
the wrong way. But you're not giving me anything that I don't already have.
You might have a little I don't know you and I'm doing it, But why don't you do this? Why don't you contact your next client?
Say look, and first of all, do a little research by going online and say, look, I'm a marketing company, YadA, yadia, but here's what I do. It's a crowded space, and I know it's a
crewded space. All I want to do is to help you move your aged
inventory. Stay with who you've got on everything else. Just let me concentrate
on your aged inventory. Be surprised how many people get through. I said,
you're going to do it all when you get there. But you use
this as you are finding a niche of what is the problem. That's the
point. Oh, and then the Deewer Academy. For all these years I
taught a lot of the variable classes, taught a lot of the variable classes.
I do very little variable training right now, very little. It's all
fixed operations, service and parts because even when people are losing money, they don't want anybody to help them because they figure out they know what they're doing.
But let's face it, most general managers not their fault. They don't
unders stand fixed operations because they'd never been there. And when it comes to
parts department, they don't go back there because it's dark and they're spiders and there's always white fans of place with tape on it holding it up. They
just don't understand it. But if you think about the parts department, if
all of your new and used vehicles are on floor plant, your parts managers spending more of your cash to anybody in the dealership, and you figure why I need parts of service to be working together and not against each other.
Because as a service director, unless I do front end alignments and diagnostic work, I need a part for everything that I do. Yeah, you got
to bring this together, and that's what I want to get into today, Randy. Obviously I've heard you talk several times on Monday mornings about this and
stuff. But as a guy that started in this industry in two thousand,
I was at full service agency for years, and obviously during that time we were doing mainly variable but we did dabble on the service side with direct mail and things like that. Early two thousands, and one of the things that
they always talked about, and the only thing they really talked about, was absorption rate. It was all about Hey, fixed operations. It pays for
the rest of the building. So how much of our fixed operations business puts
us out a break even? So then the rest of it is all about
the plus side with car sales. That's obviously changed here. We now know
that it is getting more of a retail mentality, and I think that's something that you are driving home. Obviously, our good friend Totally Williams, who
just jumped on there impeccable timing, right, Yeah, totally totally says it's all about the hours. Randy. You say it's all about the hours.
Tell me how that shift has When did that shift start to really happen in your mind? And really how are they how are the dealership internally taking that
mentality now to that next level because you just started hearing about it, right, it hasn't been something that's been years in the making. Sort of speak
right, ask that question of Tully, asked Kelly when he got the shift of out and answer the question, added text Owen, right now, when did you learn about hours? And I'm going to have him read it instead
of me saying, like one of the things with our business, you've got to remember, we've got general managers that are really they don't use their mental name, and I do not mean this in a bad way. They're general
sales managers because they've come up to the variable end and they only go back in the fixed operations if there's a problem. It seems they don't have the
skill level necessarily, they might think, but they don't. Now you take
different groups and collectively when dealers get together, you know what I'm talking about, and they use a lot of old metrics. Some old metrics are hours
per arow, effective laboring, and dollars per card. These have been metrics
forever and they're always measured. Unfortunately, one size does not even fit most
because a Chrysler, a GM or a four dealer ship is going to have completely different metrics than a Subaru, Honda or a Moza just because of the work mix. So now we go after hours perro. There are several ways
I can achieve higher hours perro and effective laboring for that matter. The easiest
way to do that is just simply to close on Saturdays. If I close
on Saturdays, my hour's perro will go up because all the maintenance work that you do on Saturday just lowers it. Take it to the variable side.
How many FNI managers want to take the last two or three days off because it hurts their pay plan, because their PDRs and all their averages and everything go down. So we're foolish not to recognize this. If I am a
used car salesperson and you come to me and say, Randy, if you get an average of three thousand dollars front end gross on all the used cars you sell this month, I'll give you a thousand dollar bonus. I'm at
three thousand and one dollar. Your answer has got three letters in it.
Am I in the bonus? My next guest is here on the oldest car
in stock off the internet that we have still priced at a twenty one hundred dollars profit. What must I do? I've got to walk them because if
I take it, I lose one thousand dollars because I can't sell it for more than what the internet price is. Again do it. Same is true
with a service advisor. So now you have them on an hour's perro bonus.
The easiest way for me to do this is to have defection. Put
somebody else's name on the ticket. A clean car comes in for an oil
change, only I'm screwed. Randy, get me the two hours per row
and I'll give you a bonus. I'm at two point oh one and a
brand new clean car comes in, and what do I do. I've got
to have a urinary track infection and run to the restroom or something of that nature. Or to act like I'm on the phone, or put somebody else's
name on the ticket. Now, if you had a used car salesperson,
some put somebody else's name on their deal jacket to let somebody else get paid.
So when hurt of you fix that in ten seconds, we'll do that effective liborate. I constantly ask service directors, constantly ask them, I'm an
advisor, and I just wrote a repair order, and I've got two technicians standing in front of me, both capable and available to do the job.
Matter of fact, if I put a stopwatch on them, they'll both begin and end at the exact same second. So there's no question about skill level,
ability, or even attitude for that matter. But there's a difference.
One of the technicians makes twenty dollars a flat rate hour and the other one makes forty dollars a flat right now, So I ask, if I dispatch you to the higher paid forty dollars an hour tech, what's going to be the impact on my effective labrate? Nine nine times out of one hundred,
they'll say it goes down, and I cribche No, it doesn't. Your
gross profit retention goes down, but your effective labory is exactly the same.
It's a sale price divided by the time paid. Then I asked them,
would you like your effective labor rate to go up? Yes? Do you
have a pay plan for your service advisor so that they get rewarded if their effective laboring goes up? Yes? Do you have coupons that you send to
your customers to bring them in yes? Are you effective with the coupons.
Yes, congratulations, you're the one lower in the effective labry because you're the one that lowered the price, and of course you didn't shave the technicians time, so you're lowering the effective laboring. So all you should really concern yourself
with your advisors so whether or not they're discounting. Because the more tires I
sell, the more in cabin filters I sell, the more success I have with same day selling off of the multipoint inspections, I'm probably going to get a lower effective laboring because it's maintenance items. Multipoint inspections. Inspections are not
designed to create major big tickets. It's for the maintenance, and maintenance is
what maintenance is retention, So powers perro and effective labry actually fight retention, then dollars per aro. Shoot, all I got to do is take an
engine job just counted to a loser and I'll be the top of the page as far as my dollars per repair order. Yes, what are you doing?
This is about selling time. A new vehicle, a used vehicle,
and a part not sold today can be sold tomorrow. Technicians, time not
sold today has gone forever. So if I don't get it today. It's
time now to our guests and to every our listeners. Right now, I
wonder how many of them within the next three days are going to have an ro closing party. Why in the world are you having an ro closing party?
And I've found this to be true. I've actually seen service managers not
close ros in order to post a higher hours per roh so they can hit their bonus and they'll worry about it next month. Yeah, But pushing it
in the next week in order to accomplish that has something wrong there. So
it's all manipulation, right, And that's I think that's what you're really outlining here, is that it's you always say it's how tell me show me their pay plan and I'll show you how they run their business and let me.
We have some people that that might doubt what I'm saying, but I'll just ask this simple question. Can I manipulate ours parro? Yes? Can I
manipulate effective labor? Can I manipulate total hours sold? No? Not really?
The defense rests. That's good. That's good to Randy. You got
Tully definitely answered the question while you were going on. He said that he
learned it at a Randy class. Tully is a great friend of my wife's
body love the guy to death. I've known him forever and when we first
met him, we went ahead and and we put this out to him, and he goes, he walks up to me. He says, I don't
like you anymore. He says, because what you are, what you're saying
makes all the sense in the world. And he says, I'm gonna change
it, and he's run with it ever since. Yeah's thing that really makes
sense, because you're right, and it goes against all thea I guess you could say, the legacy metrics that you were lining out. And sometimes it
goes against just the mentality of just being better every day. Some people like
to just show up and push the clock, hit the time clock and be done. When you're pushing hours, you're pushing for maximum efficiency and aggressive revenue
type thing, and that's not It does fight a little bit with the mentality of the service department, because the service department is there to serve the deal of the customer and make sure the customer is getting the services that are needed and nothing that's maybe extra. And so you're constantly I always say that,
like advisors aren't salespeople. I disagree with that, but that's the mentality.
And then you throw hours at them, and all of a sudden, it's, oh, man, we have to maximize the time we have in front of it. So I love that it's changing because it's really bringing the sales
and service team together in a unified approach. But it probably has been tough
in a lot of dealership. So I don't know that it's necessarily changing.
It's just coming to the forefront. Yeah, I think retention had a lot
to do with that. I think it's always been there, but we've never
really taken the time to look at it. Those legacy metrics you talk about.
Interesting Tom dall Man, I love this man. He's retired. Good
for him, but I love Tom Dall to death. And so Tom got
with us one time, says, look, we want you to go to all the regions and we want you to tell when they were concerned about there they can't make their service departments any bigger. How can we go ahead and
increase this, that and the other. And I told him about our program.
He says, let's do it. We're going to do it in all
the regions. I said, I'll do it on one condition, he says.
What said, I said, the general manager has got to be sitting beside general manager's got to be sitting beside him. I said, no,
they really really have to. And I told him a little story. When
my kids were small, I wanted to help be their soccer coach, but I traveled just like you. I traveled for a living almost weekly, so
I couldn't be the head coach. So I was an assistant. So it
was time to go to the first dad's meeting. So we have a head
coach and two assistants. Head coach had a death in the family, couldn't
be there, so it's just to us us two assistants. The first thing
they said to us when we walked in and do not have these kids run laps. Don't have these kids run laps. Kids run for a living.
That's what they do. If you concentrate on skills and drills, concentrate on
skills and drills, because those aren't aerobic, aerobically sound will pick up their wind through the skills and drills. He says. If you go ahead and
have them run laps, and we'll tell you what's gonna happen. You only
have them for a little bit of time. In the evenings, they're gonna
take off. You're gonna have about four of them in competition. Then you're
gonna have the pack, and then you're gonna have the daisy pickers come at the end. And you wasted all this time, so don't know, it
made a lot of sense. So we go. Now we have the first
meeting with the kids. We show up the head coaches there with a brand
new hat and a shiny new whistle. What's the first thing you had them
to do is run laps? And I looked and I said, this is
a business lesson right here. So I expressed that to Tom, and I
said, look, if they're not there, they're gonna undo everything that we've tried to do. So you've got to get the messages has got to start
at the top. Messages is gonna stop. And here's the interesting thing going.
Every general manager is an incredible fixed operations manager that's never been told.
If they will do exactly what they do in the front end and concentrate on units of inventory sold, they'll have it. It's that simple. It's an
easy metric too. The average tech wants to turn ten hours in an eight
hour day, you have twelve texts, put a zero behind the number of texts. Don't make it hard. I got twelve text I got one hundred
and twenty hours. If I have three advisors, this dog isn't gonna hunt
because that's forty hours a piece. And the average advisor cannot write forty hours
in a day. Just the numbers are against them. Four advisors, that's
thirty hours a piece. That's perfect. Does the do every sales person?
Does every salesperson know the number of units of the inventory they should sell every month? And the answer is absolutely. We've got boards up there with half
a deals and everything else. The advisor doesn't know how many units of inventory
they're supposed to sell because we don't break it down that way. We don't
break it down that way. And you've got to break it down by day.
Did I win my day? Did I win my day? And the
more hours you sell your parts of the labor ratio comes into play and you sell more parts. It's a beautiful thing. Brandy. I love, love
what you're breaking down here because it's in line with what Paul I wanted to ask you. What would you say to the lopsided general manager, the one
that really just doesn't know what it is that he doesn't know what Most general managers did make their ascension by way of being excellent inside of sales, by being leaders, by being natural and problem solving as they see the problems.
They've just never really been encountered with that problem back there, outside of keeping the relationship with the leaders to keep costs down. So it's really simple in
a way. I ask all I have to say, play with me for
a minute. How much did you make NET in service last month? Net
Let's just make it easy math. They said we made one hundred thousand.
Great. How many texts do you have? X number? Okay, do
you think each one of your texts could give you just one more hour a day? Keeping that it's thirty six to forty seven minutes? Do you think?
And then yeah, I said, I'm gonna cut it in half.
Don't worry about it. So let's do that. So put the number of
texts in your calculator, multiply it by one, and if I see them go times one, I'm gonna make fun of them. Okay, So now
that's the number of text you aft. Now multiply that by a twenty day
month if they work an eight if they work eight hour day, five day week, there's the number of hours you have. So let's say I've got
ten texts on a twenty day month, would be two hundred hours. Okay,
So now you have two hundred hours. Put your effective labor eate in
there and then or I'll say, put in twenty dollars less than your effective labor eight there's your revenue. Now take sixty five percent of that because you're
holding seventy or eighty percent, go only a little sixty five percent of that.
What number do you have? I got twenty two thousand dollars, okay,
divide it by your one hundred thousand dollars. You have a twenty two
percent increase in your service department. I mean that's where the math is.
When I do that math, it's usually always double digit increase just by getting one more hour, and we haven't figured out to part. Wow, that's
all it is. It's it slaps you in the face when you really really
look at it. Now, to everybody that's on here, I went through
that very fast. Welcome to give me a call or email me and I
will I will go over it with you a little slower, but I'm just saying you always get a double digit. And think about what you're saying there.
Right, you're using very simplistic math to get to a number that shows an increase in revenue, and it's exactly the opposite of what you just went through with effective labor rate. Game the system right that way, you're trying
to game how your pay plan is. You're trying to game what those numbers
are to be good for the OEM, when in reality, it comes down to I'm open today from this time to this time, I have this many people to do the business. Let's get her done and you'll see the money
being made. Guys, think about this for just a minute. Just think
about this for a minute. We pay a service director on gross and or
net. We pay an advisor on either sales or gross. How do we
pay a tech on hours? Turn get those three people in a meeting and
try to come up with a conclusion on something, and it'll be an absolute disaster because the person that's creating the revenue for you is going to be the lowest mounttonopole is gonna lose. Everything should be about hours. Think about units
of inventory. Think about this in the variable side. If you sell between
this many cars and this many cars, you get this percentage, this many cars and this big cars. I'll increase your percentage a little bit. This
many do it service? Yeah, you sell between this many hours, this
many hours, you get three percent this many hours and this many hours.
I'll pay you three and a quarter or three and a half. You have
to figured out this many hours, this many hours you will get I mean I have to whatever. You do the math and figure it out. I
will do exactly what you are doing on the variable side. And it works.
That's so good. That is so good. Under parts guy, how
are they paid on sales or gross? They never sold a thing a day
in their life? Match? Yeah, why aren't they connected? Hours?
Go, I'll bring it to you. Go, I'll bring it to you,
I'll get it. How is that working. Let's talk in the trenches
a little bit, because that's where I want to really get in with you.
What is what's the challenging to see when you get into the store, Like, why aren't why isn't everybody just doing this? What is the what's
disconnected? Don't get in the camera. They are just stuck in their old
ways. That's my wife, and they used to change because that's the way
they've always done it. Yeah, under pressure. I used to train guide
dogs for the blind when I was in Virginia. I did it for eight
years. I was a regional trainer for a Virginia trainer for guiding Eyes for
the blinde We get these little populars about eight weeks in twenty two to twenty four months, you had to say goodbye. So you have a lab to
live with you for two years and you got to say goodbye. It's heart
wrenching, but somebody needs them more than we do. And one of the
things you find out when you're training them is you bring them into unusual situations, of stressful situations. You bring them in, you pull them right back
out. You bring them in, you pull them right back out. Eventually
they'll go in and it's not strange anymore. Under pressure human beings as well,
we go back to our historical self. So whether a general manager will
go work the desk, a service manager will go after these lead metrics or historic metrics that they always have and they're afraid, and I get it.
It's a fear of the unknown. Look. I got to where I am.
I've been doing this for thirty years. You're not going to come in
here and change me on this until you show them the math. Money talks,
right. I'm a numbers guy. I just I've always been a numbers
guy. But Randy, it's also a way too right. What often isn't
the cases they don't have They don't see the path, they don't even know which way the next change would be, And so many times because they don't see that, so often they do get stuck inside of their ways. And
by all means, we're out here preaching to the masses, how important it is that that we readjust our thinking, that we reshape the way that it is, that we consider how everything is done, and by all means, keep what works, but change what's got to be changed, and upgrade what's got to be upgraded. And the philosophy behind the hours is huge, and
it applies inside of sales also on both ends. You have so many hours
that you're present and productive, and maximizing those should be the main goal of everybody present. Just like a military unit, we have this much time to
complete this mission, and this is how we measure whether or not we had success or not. And if you look at this, it's we're having a
hard time flying and texts. Don't concentrate on the hours, you're gonna have
hard time keeping them. So here's a simple thing. You don't even need
a computer. What does your shop look like an hour before you close?
If it looks like a ghost town, guess what? And you got all
the hours you wanted. Their productivity was through the roof. I'm sorry,
their efficiency was through the roof, but the productivity is terrible. Give me
a ten hour job and I do it in two hours, barring no comebacks.
My efficiency is to the roof. But if I don't do anything for
the other six hours, you're losing what one hundred and some dollars an hour for each one. So it's just about getting the maximum amount of hours and
the heck. Now here's the other interesting thing. If you will concentrate on
hours, and it pretty much comes out to me that the average advisor needs to turn somewhere between twenty six and thirty hours a day, depending upon the size of your shop and things of this nature. There's no way I can
achieve my hour through single line repair orders. I have to same day sell.
I have to send pictures and videos. I think we are guilty more
of neglect than we are of over selling. But as an advisor, I
can't get single line repair orders and hit my hours. If I hit my
hours, my single line repair orders fall into place. If I go after
my hours, I don't have the ro closing party at the end of the month because I want to get those hours closed so I can post them every day. It all just works to your point. There's a lot of unbillable
hours when you're moving cars to and from the lift, things like that.
It's a lot of things that you can't charge for, and if you're doing single line ros, you're doing a lot more of that than you're doing the work that you're getting paid for. So on the other side of it.
The other side of it is what's your first time fill rate in parts?
Not same day? First time parts manager? You thinks same day is okay,
I got it, I get it for you in two hours, But the technician is going to pull the car off the lift, half, put it together, put it off the lift, pull the back second time to do the job the same time. I've always said this, depending upon the
size of your service facility. How many bays you have your parts department,
this manager decides the number of text you're going to have because if you never have the part we needed, I need two bays, or I'm not working for you because I get me any money. Yeah, yeah, it's all
it all works together. And I think that's the biggest challenge I'm seeing out
there is that hours are the end goal. But it's connecting all those dots.
And that's where Randy, obviously you come in. That's where a good
fixed ops director comes in. But until the mission, until the end result,
how are you going to get to where you need to be? And
every one, if in every one of your departments, you've got to have a defined purpose. What are you ultimately after? What are you ultimately after?
And then any everything has to go towards that point. But that's often
the question that most general managers plugged inside of that position. They just need
to have answered what should I be looking at? And man, I wish
there was a way, And I know that NADA is very creative in how they do what they do and how we train up our people. But there
has to be a solution out there, folks, or we need to brew it up ourselves where we can take these general managers that come from either side of the dealership and get them to see things the way that they need to see them from the vantage point of those that are basically experts inside of each of those positions. Otherwise it's going to keep being You're usually going to have
a decent to good service manager leading the ship for a general manager without the general manager really knowing it to do, like some calls, just not really being the general manager making the call. It's just okay, my service manager
is saying this is what I'm gonna go with because I really don't know anything to have a contrast conversation with them. Does that make sense? And have
you seen that? Low? Humbly, very very humbly, Kim and I
feel like we have the solution because it works. It just does. And
I can't tell you the number of general managers that look at us and say, you make it sound so easy, And Kim has the same answer every time, because it is, you're trying to make it too hard. Averages
are manipulation. I don't want you to manipulate. Just sell the next one.
Just sell the next one. Like a thermometer, Just keep adding one
more, one more, one more, one more, one more. And
where am I trying to be? I need to be this many hours.
Think about this. If you sell all your hours and you don't discount,
it's perfect. That's all you're after. That's amazing. So if all of
you, the advisors that are looking at it, if you never discount, don't let anybody criticize you for your effective laboring. Management put a price in
the computer. Management said how much time they would pay you sold it for
that leave me alone. Matter of fact, I could be the lowest effective
labor rate because I have the best same day selling. I sell more light
bulbs, in cabin filters, tires than anybody else at the dealership. But
that's going to lower my effective laboring. You just run the playbook right,
just who's next? And my technicians, most of them want to go home
tired, dirty and rich. That's right. I will say this, everybody
needs a coach, everybody needs a mentor. I think that when this business,
especially on something as important as service, everybody could use a Randy Brinkman solutions because there is so much to it, and when you're in the trenches every day and you're shorthanded, and you're constantly putting on fires and you're trying to run your business. Having that outside set of eyes that could come in
on a regular basis, whether it's daily, weekly, monthly, whatever.
The cadence is there for you, guys, Randy, I think it's almost a no brainer for people that are that need something like that to be able to help help them excel. Oh and one of the things we found,
we've actually gone and had the service and parts managers paid on a common pot.
Take wholesale out of it. I'll figure it out of the way,
but we'll pay service and parts managers on a common pot with a kicker for hours back counterparts people with a kicker for hours, advisors with a kicker for hours. See the neat thing about it is you don't have to change your
pay plan. All you do is add an hour's component to it. If
you achieve more, I will reward you more. And if you keep doing
what you're doing, you're gonna get what you're getting any house. And don't
be upset. You're not gonna get dialed back or anything. And when we
put that together, you want to see the loyalty and the spark in your technicians because they realize, wow, somebody is here listening to us on what we need. Everybody has a concern with what we get paid on, and
that is turning the hours. You'll get more customers through your store, so
you'll have a better appointment scheduling. And by the way, don't set appointments
anymore. Quit setting appointments. They're convenient drop off times. So let's call
it what it is. So what would be a convenient drop off time for
you to come in so that we can speak with you about your car and things of this nature, especially if you work four tens. These are things
that will really help you. Almost a consultation, right, exactly what it
is. Yes, I love that wrapping up here man any life. I've
thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I want more, we want more now? Just
yeah, I can go. I'd like to. We can go now with
the parts and show how the parts will help you with the hours on just doing some small little things like that. I mean, if this business was
hard, the three of us couldn't do it, you know that, So we shouldn't make this hard. Nobody went to eight year doctorate degree course in
the automobile business and we missed it. Math doesn't lie. Math doesn't lie,
and if you will just put the math to it, it just works.
We're definitely going to try to put some math to getting a second episode on Fixed Ops Friday with you on it, Randy, because you are a wealth of wisdom and I just want to sit here and take notes as a leader and consultant out there helping out dealerships too. There's so much that I
believe we can learn from you, so much more that we want to hear, especially per what it takes to make sure that you maximize what you have going on in your Fixed Ops department. But Owen, fantastic pick for this
show. Brother, you made you made one military reference what we were talking,
did you serve yes, sir, I did. I want to thank
you from my freedom, my children's freedom, and my grandchildren's freedom from art.
I honor that. It's an honored brother. Thank you, Thank you,
and thank you all those that are watching that have served. Thank you
everybody that's taken the time to be on this good Fixed Ops Friday with everybody that's been enjoying this. Have an incredible Easter this weekend, everybody. We
are so thankful that you all have been spending time with us, owen, I know that I had a good time, Randy. Thank you so much.
Man. I hope our message is valid for everybody. It is,
Man, it is much. This will be played on many different platforms people
that missed it live, and we will make sure that we share it out to our dealer community as well. Obviously we have a lot of stores that
are working with us on their website, marketing and that type of thing.
But I think this kind of fits right in it with that, sir, I'm gonna let you get back to it. I know it's Friday afternoon.
We'll do it again, man, But thank you again. I think everybody
that listening today probably left going wow. That is a whole different approach than
maybe I'm used to. Absolutely so so true. Thank you so much so
Randy. Only one thing left to do, and that's make sure that we
do drop those f bombs that don't offend the moms, and that's to forgive focus and fly so that we can keep growing all the time. So help
us out, Randy, just all and just roll with us on three one two three, forgive focus, live and growing. Thank you so much everybody
for tuning in for this fabulous good fixed Ops Friday. I am Lou Ramirez,
the car guy, enjoying this day with the One, the Only, Oh in Moon and we have been having a great time just turning wrenches inside of our minds about what we can do inside of our service departments with the One, the Only Randy Frank. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Everybody, We're out.
0:00
42:56