Latest / Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers / Ep.55 - Innovation vs. Tradition: Finding the Balance

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Ep.55 - Innovation vs. Tradition: Finding the Balance · Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Within our organization we're able to take let's take ad campaigns, for example, and we can run one at one store and one at a different store than to be able to see how did they perform.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: You know we've ran and we haven't scaled this up, we've talked about it.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: You know we ran pickup and delivery and mobile service just at a single Ford store, not at both the Ford stores.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Then to say, ok, hey, let's go all in here and let's pilot it and then see if it's something we do need to scale up and duplicate at the other stores, you know we've got the ability to do that.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Hey everyone, Welcome to Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers, where we aim to share real stories about running a successful family business while working through adversity and pouring back into our community that keeps our doors open every single day.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: We're your hosts, Shelby, Matt and Taylor, and we'll be bringing you real, relevant, local business advice, maybe some automotive insights that are sure to change the way you look at running a business or buying a car, and maybe you can throw on the plug for you to do business with us here locally.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: We're your hosts, the Lewis Brothers.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Episode 55, fully breaking down innovation versus tradition and finding the balance.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: So we'll talk through balancing the old way versus the new way in leadership, family legacy versus future changes.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: We'll talk leading teams through change, protecting tradition and finding real innovation.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: We're really going all the things here, all of them.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: And then every business struggles with innovation versus tradition, not just dealership.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: So hear me now that this is not just dealership talk here, this is business talk.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Relevance of EVs or AI or digital sales, handshake values and customer trust, how to earn those and how to lose that.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Leadership takeaways, how to avoid losing yourself or your team throughout the entire process.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: That's what we're going to break down.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: That's got to be a good one.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: That's a lot hey, diving real quick into last week Gut check, when to follow it, when to pull back on the reins to know that it's okay to move forward.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: It was a really good episode of diving in and knowing that a lot of people say, hey, I go with my gut on it and there's some data that you have to follow with sometimes and be able to follow that up.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: It's always okay not to make a decision, a split decision, on that exact second.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: So great episode.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Go back, check it out and, as always, check out our latest specials on lewissuperstorecom and catch all the relevant information that we go over on crossroadsconversationpodcastcom.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: That's so good.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Hey, it's back to our segment about what's in the garage.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: This week, we're talking about the iconic Jeep Grand Cherokee, and when you talk about SUVs, the Grand Cherokee has to come up in the list.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: You know, it's the most awarded SUV out there, and today we've got one on special that they came out with some new incentives, kind of as they look into their fourth quarter close.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: You know all the manufacturers.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: They're looking at their market share.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Hey, what's it looking like?
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: What are the values of it?
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And then they start hammering down on some of the incentives, and the grand cherokee got the benefits of all that this time.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about the l, which is the third row.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It's the x row, it's the X.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: So it's got the sunroof, it's got the leather suede seats, it's full-wheel drive, it's got all the off-road capabilities.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Here's what I love about this thing, though, is you hear about all the fancy stuff.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: This thing right now we've got it discounted where it's just over $40,000.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: $40,500 for a third row Grand Cherokee, four-wheel drive, leather, sunroof, big screen, and that's for a new one.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: That's for a brand new one and that's not like a leftover.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: That's not a leftover.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: It's not hail damaged, it's not two-wheel drive.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: That's a crazy price point.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: It is a crazy price point and you know, I know we're talking about the Grand Cherokee here, but I'll talk about the Explorer for just a second too, and this was kind of a fun fact for you.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: The Grand Cherokee, not the Cherokee, because it goes back far.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the square one.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: But the Grand Cherokee came out in 93.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, which is about the same time that the Explorer came out.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Yep, the Explorer came out in 91?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or 93.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: One of the two We'll have to look it up.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: But right around there we've got the top two SUVs over decades, not just last year, whether it's the Explorer or the Grand Cherokee.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Both of those always started off as a two-row but they found that people loved them, but they had family and they needed a third row.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: So Explorer went third row.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Now Grand Cherokee with their L has gone third row.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: So we have great solutions to what you're looking for and a very capable, a very robust SUV, whether it's the Grand Cherokee or the Explorer.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: I love about the Grand Cherokee and them and Explorer have always done it.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: The best Came out in 93 as the first the Grand Cherokee did Explorer, I think was a couple of years that, but great of you go back of nameplates that they put on there.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: But Grand Cherokee debuted and it was the Orvis edition, was the outdoor overlanding.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: They knew that's what it was.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: And that was to combat the Eddie Bauer.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: So the Eddie.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Bauer Explorer and the Orvis Grand Cherokee.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, just to confirm, to go back there for all you fact checkers out there, Explorer was 91.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, so a couple years before there and Jeep said hang on, hang on we can take our Cherokee that they already have, and let's church it up a little bit and go Grand Cherokee Love that Absolutely so.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: a lot of good that they've rolled into modern day of being able to still have all the fun outdoors but then carry the whole family so diving in.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Today, leading teams through change.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: This sometimes is very difficult to be able to do and be able to roll into.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: But first segment of it resistance to change is natural.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: Employees cling to what they know.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: How can we help them adopt, adapt to a new form?
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: So I'll tell you our fixed operations, parts and service and collision.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: They are very much naturally or not naturally they become it of a process driven.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: They don't have near as much variable as sales does.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Right, Generally there's a workflow.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: This is how this goes, and so one of the times going through the process of making a change, you realize you're really disrupting their process and you have to figure out if it needs to be disrupted to grow or to go from a system that wasn't working or an antiquated system.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: You got to help them understand why that makes sense and one of the times I remember the book being handed out of who moved my cheese right and for them to understand and read through that of understanding.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: It's okay for something to change in depth, but you really have to give them a whiff of what's in it.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: For me.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: And I think that's one of the biggest things.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: And it's funny you bring that up because I was going to bring up that book Um had hired a and I'll admit this, we had hired an outside consultant to help me when I had first gotten in the GM role of.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I knew fixed ops, I had worked in fixed ops but I wasn't as well reversed in fixed ops as I was in variable.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So I was working with a new parts manager.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: This parts individual had worked for us for a little while.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: We had just lost our parts manager, who was an old school parts manager guy.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: You know knew this stuff from back in the 80s, back in the 90s.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: But we needed to evolve some, you know, and it just didn't need to be this stuffy parts department.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: You know we needed to look for solutions and this consultant had us all go through the book who Moved my Cheese.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: So as a department we read through that and each week we would talk about another chapter.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: You talk about getting some parts guys and the book club.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Hey, I want you to read a book and then we're going to sit down a bunch of men and let's break it down, right?
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: So, but we did it.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: We did it and you know our parts manager Ryan, who's still with us and does a fantastic job.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: He's like okay, you know he was new into trying to get their buy-in when we all worked through that and there was hesitation the first couple of weeks.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Then, after we got three or four weeks in, then everybody started thinking about okay.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Weeks in, then everybody started thinking about okay, how could we do this different?
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: How could we answer the phone?
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: How could we be more serving instead of just a checkout clerk?
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: And the whole point of the book is who moved my cheese?
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Meaning here's how I normally do something and you're asking me to do something different.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: That feels uncomfortable.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: But it was a great example of you know what.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: If you want to improve and you want to get better, it's going to feel uncomfortable for a little bit.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be the normal every single day.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Put your pants on the same way, put your car, drive, and it's just this groundhog day.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: And I think about that movie all the time as, like you know, it just keeps replaying itself, and that's not the business we're in.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so important of just realizing that you know there are certain traditions that need to stay Right, but innovation, of being able to continue to grow with the times, you know.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: So a consumer sees hey, this still has the familyness that I like, but they're also not like still using the machine where you scan the credit cards that made the carbon coffees.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Right, so it has enough of that home yeah, that hometown feel but is also adapting with the changes and can be innovative, and so it's so important that you show the team that there's opportunity in there for growth for them or to save them time, and that sometimes is a whole lot harder to do than to say.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I think it's important to remember when you roll out something, something that disrupts their normal behavior.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking about rolling out a new social media campaign that, behind the scenes, is working.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about new software, new process, a new way of doing business that is going to change how your employees conduct business on a day-to-day basis.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: You got to remember, as a leader, when you step into that which you should you know business should evolve that you need to be very patient and very consistent and you have to micromanage it.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: At first, Micromanaging gets a bad rap and it shouldn't.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Now, if you micromanage forever, that's a bad deal.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: But when you're installing something new, there's some micro that's got to take place and you got to remember you are reinstilling new habits into these individuals.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: That's not normal, it's not comfortable, and if you're not there holding them accountable and talking about that, guess what do we see if we try to introduce something and then set it and forget it?
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: It gets set to the die, it just goes back.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: It just goes to knee jerk.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: What happens is then the phone starts ringing.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: There's three people standing in front of them, they're getting behind and they're like I know I need to learn this new process, but I can do the old one so much faster.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: They just go back to that.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Yep, they just go back to that.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: It's so important to learn exactly what y'all just went over.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: More times than not in business, we get so comfortable of, hey, I just know these ways, I know this is going to produce, I know this is going to happen.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: If you want your business to evolve and be able to move forward, you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable and moving forward.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: So no, you have to be the leader of that and be involved with your team.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: So that's so great of y'all going over that.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: How about any other stories of going through?
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: So we kind of talked about parts wise, how, how you got involved, matt of going through there.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: But uh, training staff for, maybe, ev sales or digital sales tools, how we've adapted and involved that.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk EV.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: So Ford wanted to be.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: The early adopter was Tesla.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Let's call that out.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: They were there, the inventor not the inventor, but the modern day inventor of that.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: So Ford was one of the first early adapters adopters of that and they went all in.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: It's funny I was yesterday at a return to council dealer meeting with Ford and we were going over some stuff and it talked about EV and the changes with the new bill that came out cafe standards from the government.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: What rolls down the hill say, hey, it's not as strenuous as it has to be anymore.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: So they went all in, and they went all in so hard that they redid some plants to be EV production only.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: They built a battery plant, still building a battery plant, and we're talking about millions of square feet.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think it was over billions of dollars spent.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: They built another plant in Kentucky to build specifically and they said if we're going to do it, we're going to go all in, and so then that came down to infrastructure for us.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Well, it happened to be we were building these all new facilities, and so then we went over the top Some of it's still not done right, Waiting on level two, level three chargers.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: And we saw da, da, da da.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: So we went way Some of it's still not done right, Waiting on level two, level three chargers.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: And we saw da, da, da da.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: So we went way over the top Investment was millions for us because it got pushed all the way down to us.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: So then we had to continue to push that down.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: So it was relevant to the salespeople because it was new for them and they were like why should I sell this?
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: They're getting a lot of pushback for customers and so it was changing.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: So we said no, go drive this.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: No, go practice this, let's figure it out.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: And so we came up with test drive routes and we took our salespeople on it and said here's how you get to the charger, here's how you find it in the system, not on your phone in the system and it shows you what charge is available and precondition.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: So we had to fully do that and we kept having to push that and kept having to push that.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: And we kept having to push that and kept having to push that.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: But then slowly it's kind of like hey, that is a side piece of the business, but that's not the mainstream of the business.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Some manufacturers said, well, no longer make gas, we're only making electric, and it's like whoa, that's pretty harsh.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Right.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: And so then we've had to adapt, to figure out and help the team adapt that it might be the right thing for this person.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of a needs assessment what's relevant, how far do you drive, how do you normally commute?
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: And just because we've seen a lot of fails in that, Some people throw their hands up.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: It's a high cost of entry for us to invest in that and we've had so much pushback from every level, from customers to salespeople to technicians.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: There was extra tools that were needed what do you do when the battery's done and all these things.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: So there was a lot of money invested, but even more time invested to get the entire team to drink that Kool-Aid.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree and I think what's really important and EVs is an easy one to talk about here, because everybody listening on the other end.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: You don't have to be in our business to have an opinion about EVs Almost anybody.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: You bring up the word EV and they'll quickly give you their opinion on it.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: It's going to be one Whether you ask or not, it's.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: You know it's not like a lot of other subjects.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: They'll be like I love it.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I think it's stupid, you know.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I mean like pretty much that what we had to remind our staff and I'm going to go into this on changes is that we don't need our staff's opinion.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: No, and it's not that I'm not being nice here, you talk, we talk about culture and buy-in all the time, but the buy-in is the consumer's point of view.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, we're in the business to sell what the consumer demand is there for.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: And if that's a pink EV three-door car, that's what we're doing.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: That's where most people fail at and, just in pure honesty, if you're leaving it up to your front force to sell that across, more often than not, the natural tendency is to go to what you know and that's your opinion, which will get you in trouble because it's your opinion.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: It is not the person who is transacting or giving money for that.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: I think I listen to people in all different industries all the time, and they don't we talk about it all the time in here.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: They don't slow down enough to listen.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: They don't.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: We talk about it all the time in here.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: They don't slow down enough to listen.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: So then they're given their pitch, and their pitch is solely based upon what they think what they would do, and then what they buy.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: But the customer is different.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and who's buying it?
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: The person selling it or the consumer on the other end?
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Well, the consumer is.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: So you need to listen up, because here's what I know too is naturally, humans do not want to be confrontational.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: So if you just come out and talk about how this is, tires are easy to talk about.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I only buy Michelin tires and only buy this and that, and if you you go with anybody else, you're just wasting money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, you're a big Nitto fan and instead of saying Matt, I think you're wrong, you're a big Nitto fan, and instead of saying Matt, I think you're wrong, I really like Nittos You'll say hey, let me do some research and I'll let you know.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: What you're really saying is you didn't listen to my wants and needs and you're going to the place down the road and buying the Nitto tires.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: That's where most sales are lost.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be a thousand percent honest with you.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: That's where you're like man, I don't know, like the numbers weren't right, like the numbers were fine.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: You just never slowed down and you might completely have run over the thoughts or opinions or feelings of that customer.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: And then the next person, they walk into the pool store, they walk into the golf store and they're like, hey, I want nike.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know golf clubs, but I want a nike driver and a whole wood set, and I want this, this and this.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: And the guy's like I, man, do you want a bag too?
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: And he's like, yep, give me a bag.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: And he's like you got balls.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: He's like I got it.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: And he's like dude, that was so easy.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Now, someone else had just really messed up and so they weren't going to allow that to happen again.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you walk into somewhere else and they were Callaway Nike's junk and blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Well, this guy might have a relative that worked for Nike forever and he's wanting to support their business.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Or you're at the pool, or hot tub store and they're allergic to chlorine and they wanted to have the other type of bromine or whatever you know, and you never slow down to say, hey, have you ever been in a hot tub?
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Do you have a preference or would you like my opinion on it?
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: And I know if you're listening right now you're like you guys kind of just got off course there.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Well, let me bring it back.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Here's why I wanted to go on that little bit of a tangent and thank you guys for jumping in on it is that it's about the consumer and change is necessary.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: When the world's changing around you, you must adapt, even if it's uncomfortable, because the consumer is the one paying the bills.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: The consumer is the one doing it.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: You're just a bank transferring the money.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: So a lot of times we'll go into a new system.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about online scheduling, like appointment scheduling online, and our guy's like, oh no, I just prefer doing it the old way because I can look in the computer and I can do this and that Meanwhile down the road, your competitor has got an app and it's easy to schedule.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: People like convenience Again, it's not about the price.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: People like convenience.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: And if down the road, and then your second competitor and your third competitor and your fourth competitor all have confrontation-free, easy scheduling for appointments and you're still doing it because your staff has told you what to do, hey, no, we've always done it this way and you know it never crashes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and you're letting them pour into you the tail's wagging the dog it is.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Like there is time when we get input from our employees, but this time when we, it's our job to see what's going on and say no, here's what we're doing, here's how we're going to stay relevant.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: And I.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: So we say you need to find innovation and find change to continue to grow.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: I might take that another step back and say you need to do it just to sustain what you're currently doing, for sure To not erode.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: So if you're saying, hey, no, this is the course, I know we're going to do this, this works.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, down the road, they have an online scheduler, they're texting all this stuff and you're like, nope, I'll just keep this, this will allow me to make $5,000 a month.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: That works for me, that works for the family.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: And no, it will start eroding away.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: So you're like, no, I can just do my thing and I can cover myself.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: It will erode away, you'll never stay the same.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: We've all heard that quote there.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: You know you either get better or you get worse every single day, and some people it doesn't red shock.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: I get worse.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Well, if you're not innovating, everybody else around you is, and your market share, your business, is slowly eroding.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: You're not going to wake up tomorrow and lose 50% of your business.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: You might lose 1% and then half a percent the next month and then so.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: But then, five years down the road, you're like why are we down 40%?
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why it slowly eroded, because again, the tail was wagging the dog and your job as a leader is at that point in time.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: You say it's time for change.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I know we've been in business in our case 79 years or a hundred years or whatever but our grandfather, our great grandfather, they evolved as the times and so should we.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: We should keep our core values the same, but we should adapt.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: With the way you buy a car, yeah, you know.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: And, and another great example this is an easy one here, but hey, go back to when dad and uncle were selling cars in the seventies and eighties and nineties.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: They didn't have delivery specialists, you know, there wasn't a phone to sync up, there was no Apple CarPlay.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Can I tell you, the most difficult thing that they went through was how to adjust the time on your radio during time change and your presets on your radio.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: People don't even know how to do that now I care that you had to get in and click.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: That was it, and then when we got really high tech in the 90s, it was programming your garage door opener.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: So if you could do garage door opener, change the time on your radio and presets on your radio and maybe if you had an eddie bauer you had a memory save seat.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: If you could do those four things, you were an expert at delivery.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's changed a little bit.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: It it has you know.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, hey, going over that.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: what I loved hearing as we talked about that you as the leader, you have to be able to absorb any frustration from your team and be able to handle that and model the change, model the adaptability and show them which course to go.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: And then don't forget to celebrate small wins.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Make sure you're with the team, and no matter how small it is, because some people don't need a pat on the back at all and some need a pat.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Every single way, yeah, every single way.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: So make sure that you do that to help your team be successful that's super important.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: All right, automotive fun fact quiz of the week this week who made the first electric car?
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: It's funny, we were talking electric car.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Who made the first electric car that you could drive?
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: See, they made some electric cars.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, you know, I don't know what they were doing, but they weren't drivable, right?
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: So, uh, in the 1830s, robert Anderson.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Great Nice guy.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: B Thomas Parker you didn't know that guy, but 1884.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: C Henry Ford, 1908.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, or D Nikola Tesla in the 1890s.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: I get that with the Tesla every time.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: These are going to throw you off.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Now let me throw you those dates again 1830s, 1884, 1908, or 1890?
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: .
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously I want to go Henry Ford, because he was an innovator in 1908, but I'm probably wrong.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: The correct answer is Robert Anderson in the 1830s.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know what that means Today our range is pretty dang good, right, Because it probably wasn't far back then.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: Probably not A lot of people get thrown off by that because they think the majority of people that get in there think Henry Ford created the vehicle that drives down the road.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: No, he just created the system that produces it.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: The assembly line.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: He did not create the vehicle.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: He created and modeled the assembly line.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Which made affordability for the mass majority of people to be able to own a car, so 1830 is a long time ago.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: That is pretty good.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: So you know, as we talk about change and evolving, there's the point we've got to pause and talk about.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: This is tradition in business.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: So I'll throw this to you guys to answer.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: But you must not lose sight of your core values.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Those don't change and I'll get your thoughts on that.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: But as you change and evolve the way you do business, the way you hire employees, the positions, how you position yourself in the market, what traditions are worth holding on to?
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you, the first one that comes to mind is having that personal relationship between a customer and an employee, and by that I mean when they walk in, it's familiar, that they're greeted, that this is not awkward, that this is not unknown, that you could have all the systems of the AI and the text message simple and simple and easy, simple and simple and easy.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: But when it comes down to, I want to go to a place where they're warm and friendly and oh yes, I know that person and they're going to take care of me, they're going to give me their unsolicited professional advice, and I think that tradition is super important to have that face-to-face.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: I know this place, I know this person and I can trust them.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I think, when you talk about the subject I'm going to unpack that for just a minute, because in all industries that's not a hundred percent right.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Like, if you take commodity things like toothpaste, okay, milk, anything you might buy that's a $25 item, $50 item where that relationship isn't really that necessary because if it doesn't work, it doesn't work and it was $25.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but when you take our industry, which is the second largest purchase you make, you take a house, which is the first largest purchase, or you take anything that is a reoccurring service industry service industry so HVAC, plumbing, yard maintenance, roofers, doctor, anything like that where you have an ongoing service to prolong whatever it may be, whether it's your body or your car or your HVAC that tradition of building that relationship is so key because in the consumer's eyes they're like, okay, everything's great now, but I do know that this is something that I'm not just going to throw out and buy another one if it breaks down.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: How are they going to be after the sale helping me?
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: And you got to remember that.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: So let me tell you this, because you started saying that and it was like, how do I break that down?
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: And so I looked and said, hey, what's the purchase price that triggers that a person wants face-to-face communication.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Ai overview says there's no single purchase price point that triggers universal desire for face-to-face.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: But customers often seek face-to-face interaction when they perceive a high degree of risk.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, right, so should I take this medicine?
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: They probably want face-to-face interaction when they perceive a high degree of risk.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, right, so should.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I take this medicine.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: They probably want face-to-face.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, am I going to wake up tomorrow?
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or when they purchase involves significant financial or personal implications.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: So is this going to put me over the edge if it doesn't work Right?
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: So when you get to that level, human interaction helps build trust, resolve complex issues and provides empathy that automated systems cannot do.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: And I think you brought that up and I talked about these pieces and there were some predictors out there, you know, as internet really started cranking up, that some of us were going to go away yeah, Realtors, dealerships, some of those services that it would now be a click of a button like everything else on the internet.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: However, we found out that that's not true, which matches up exactly with what you were talking about, and I'll even throw another case on top of there.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: If it were ever going to work, where you could buy a car online without any interaction, any interaction it would have shown its face during COVID.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when everybody was at their house, all these digital retailing tools and we signed up for them.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: All you know where you could buy, you could finance, you could praise your vehicle, you could get instant pricing, we dropped it at your door, so on and so forth.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: What we found is consumers liked the digital retailing, but they all got to a certain point and stopped when they had more questions, no different than people like looking at houses online, you know.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: But how many people just call and say I'll pay that for it?
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I don't even want to look at it.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Is there a one-off out there Probably, but is it the normal?
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: No, there is and I'll give you statistics.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: So Carvana is where you can go online.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: They copied our tower or maybe we copied theirs.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: You know that's up for debate.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: There's the last month I saw this stat In our region Northwest Arkansas region, 600,000 people.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: There were 235 cars.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: We don't have a car fund locally here but, 235 cars were purchased from Carvana.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: I clicked the button, they delivered it to me.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: That's 0.5% of the market share.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: So the remaining 99.5% wanted face-to-face interaction and here's some other things that there's six main points of why people want human interaction, okay.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: So one is complexity, or high stakes I talked about that.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Two, the need for expertise or advice.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they just want expertise or advice.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Third is building trust.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: That's exactly where I started Building trust within a person or advice.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: They just want expertise or advice.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Third is building trust.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: That's exactly where I started Building trust within a personal relationship.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Fourth is personalization.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Do you like Nike?
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Do you like Callaway's?
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Do you have a preference?
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: And then you kind of hey, welcome to our restaurant, have you ever been here?
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Do you have something?
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: And then I want something beef Perfect.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you right, people love that emotional connection.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: These are emotional purchases.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: When you get to that high ticket item, right, and then desire for an out, even when using AI, customers feel more at ease.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Knowing that the option to speak to a human is available, it's a situation becomes frustrating or confusing.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I got to talk about a couple of those key things and just some stories.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Here is one emotional connection and, and this weekend we were at an event Uh, the three of us went to an event in Georgia.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, and I'm not going to get into the whole event, but they had food trucks, they had vendors, everything else there.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: One of the vendors was an ice cream food truck from Bentonville, yeah, and you'd come over and told us that, yeah, hey, they're from Bentonville.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I didn't need to go eat any ice cream.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I like ice cream but I didn't need to eat it and I very rarely eat it.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I went over there, had a conversation, bought ice cream from them and then tried to network with them to get them to come to the dealership.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Because, emotionally, I wanted somebody from our area.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't know these people from Adam, no, but I wanted somebody from this area to be successful.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: They had made the trip over there.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: It didn't matter what the I don't even remember how much it cost, but I wanted to help them be successful.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Emotionally, I wanted to see them succeed yeah and people are like that.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: So so the other day a new bike repair place opened in town, okay, over there by the smokehouse sorry, I don't know the name of it, but uh, dad had gone in there, okay, and you're gonna know where the story goes.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: But dad went in there just to kind of check it out.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: He wanted to check it out before he was hiking up mount kessler and then came back down and he kind of needed some tune-up and stuff on his bikes and he goes.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take it to him and he doesn't know him from Adam, but he had gone in there.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: They were a startup business and emotionally he was connected that he wanted to try to help somebody else succeed.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: So he's taken multiple bikes to them just to try to help them out to succeed.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: So that just nails the point on.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: You're talking about emotions there.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: You know people want a good and a fair deal, but emotionally they want to be connected there and one of the things we talk about is not only that we're going to be here for you during the sale but after the sale and I know, yeah, by the way, more than likely we're already supporting your local school or your kids' events or everything else in the area.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: That's where our money goes.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: And I love that because you see more and more of an entrepreneur that will go out and I appreciate that and that's why we talk about salesmen.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Love being sold, love going in, love supporting.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: But that's the customer that we all just yearn for.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: I, I don't want the 0.05 percent of the pie, not to say I'm not going to put it where it's available.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: We're going to offer it to everyone.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: But I'm not going to put all my eggs in the basket because I don't have to say that I want it all.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: I want the good majority that does good business, that allows me to be able to pour back into the community.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: It allows me to be able to support X, y or Z, allows me, allows our dad, to be able to go into a different place and say, hey, I want to see you be successful, because the true root of an entrepreneur, you want to be successful, but you love seeing other people successful.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: 100, yeah, yeah that small portion is the transactional business, not the emotional.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: The transactional, that small 0.5.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Those people are hard to please at the beginning and completely throughout the entire process.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: And you, you and we've all chased, oh, we have, we have all chased them.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: We have, we have all chased them, tried to get the whole pie and it's like okay, well, I had to be ridiculously cheap, like losing lots of money, to earn their business.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: I thought maybe once I earned their business that I'd have a customer for life.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Well, what you realize and you can see vehicle records in the system that they had been here at this service department, this service department, and if it's a warranty, you get the whole story and you can see they complained over here, they complained over here and you're like we've talked about before, you need to fire that customer because they are just a transactional style customer.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: And if they're simple and basic transactional, like no, I need a new Maverick every two years, give me the best price.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: There's still a little bit of emotion there, like you took care of me.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: You made it simple and easy I never bought a car via text but you did it but just the pure transactional.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: They're looking for the bottom, the bottom, the bottom, the bottom bottom, and you know they never had kids.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: They don't go to any events.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: They're not out, they don't like people.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: They don't care if you saved anybody yeah, that's where, but it's that one sticks in people's mind because your emotions get involved and we went through this with a manager the other day.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: We said they brought up an issue.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: We said how many times does that happen?
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Right, and as a business leader, we're getting off track.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: But this is good.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: As a business leader, you must verify the concern and how frequent is it?
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: No different than when we stock vehicles.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: We don't stock every single color and option they have under the sun.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: We couldn't.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: We would need a hundred acre dealership.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we would need a hundred.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: We stock the majority, what turns the fastest, and then we'll go get the rest of it if we need to.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but don't make business decisions based upon one-offs.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: No, make business decisions based upon frequency and what you do the most of.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: I think that's really important.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Any other takeaways or traditions that you think can differentiate you with your competitors over automation?
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: No, I think you just have to make sure you stay relevant and you don't have to be the flashiest, but you have to have one of those core things or the values that say, hey, this is more of an emotional purchase, and here's why this makes more sense than just the flashy right, Because someone's always going to chase that.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Really good website, really good website.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: What we've learned?
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of ship through companies that aren't even an actual physical building or a business but, they've done a good job building a flashy website until you have a problem with your product and you try to call them or try to go to them and they don't exist and you're like this guy's in somebody's basement doing this whole thing, so basement doing this whole thing.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: So realize there's a good mixture of that staying relevant with the tradition in business, but also being relevant enough that they're not going back to the fifties.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think you just have to make sure, yes, change, evolve your business, but don't lose your core values.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: So we go back to 1948, 1972 and 1988, and to 1948, 1972, and 1988, and 2003,.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: We still had a great culture.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, we took care of our employees first and we donated and we supported the community that made us what we are.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: So, however, the car business has evolved through all that, whether it's EV or gas, or two vehicles or a thousand vehicles.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: We haven't lost sight in all that, and nor should you, as running a business no, that's good.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: Hey, time for myth buster segment.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: Okay, all right what do you?
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: New technology always makes business better.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna say I'll go ahead and grab this one Within spec or realm.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: It makes it more efficient in some ways.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's probably the positive side I can take of it.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: I love technology.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: Technology is great, but whenever you mix with people that aren't good with technology they can't complete everything every single time it becomes a nightmare.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: And if the technology is not fully vetted or properly ready or able to handle what was currently doing it.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: We see this from manufacturers all the time.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: I have an Excel spreadsheet that gives me all my links of my sites that I need to visit and the manufacturer brings something new, and I'm like, okay, does that supersede?
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: And they're like, no, you still kind of need this, but you have this.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: And so when we look at new technology, we say, hey, walk us through the entire flow.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: And how many windows do I have to open?
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: That's where I would say technology is not always better, bezos, because you've just circled the wagon six times just to get around it once.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just technology is great.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: It's one of those and I'm probably too slow in some of those areas and I really do.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I like technology, I like clicktronics, I like technology.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: But we've really taken a page and we're not a Honda or Toyota dealer, but we study the competition.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: We've taken some pages out of their book.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: If you look at Honda, you look at Toyota.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: They're not the first to market with things.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Their screens aren't the fanciest.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Their technology's not the fanciest.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: They weren't first to.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: EV.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Some of them still aren't into EV, you know.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: So how much does that save them?
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: So when you look at that and when something new comes out, you got to remember you might be extremely savvy with technology and you can figure out the quirks and the firmware and this and that technology.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: And you can figure out the quirks and the firmware and this and that.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: But does your whole team.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's not for you.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: You, you got to pause, maybe wait for version two to come out.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: And as we talk about software and technology you guys have heard me talk about this, especially the dms unless it is a massive improvement, massive improvement, we're not changing because we got to drag through everybody through those changes.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Now, if it's something behind the scenes that it's a plug and play that nobody ever is going to see, that's a different conversation.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go ahead and finish, so I don't have to bust it.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: Okay, myth busted New tech.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Technology does not always make business better.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: All right, segment three innovation that sticks.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, innovation that sticks when innovating test small and, if it works, scale it up.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: We've talked about that in doing a test pilot, or maybe in one department or one person in your department.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: What's your guys' thoughts on that?
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say you know, a lot of times when you have there's a couple of a couple different areas here, let me first talk about with our organization what we're able to do, and then I'll talk about if you've got a smaller organization within our organization we're able to take.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Let's take ad campaigns, for example, and we can run one at one store and one at a different store than to be able to see how did they perform.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: You know, uh, we've We've ran and we haven't scaled this up, but we've talked about it.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: We ran pickup and delivery and mobile service just at a single Ford store, not at both the Ford stores.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Then to say, okay, hey, let's go all in here and let's pilot it, and then let's see if it's something we do need to scale up and duplicate at the other stores.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: We've got the ability to do that.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: We've ran pay plans that way, you know, amongst salespeople of let's leave them on a traditional one, let's try to hire new people over here at a more flexible pay plan and schedule, so on and so forth.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Let's say you have a business that you don't have.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: You're like oh Matt, that sounds great, that's easy for you to do with.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: You know five different rooftops and you can change this and change.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: That sounds great, that's easy for you to do with.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: You know five different rooftops and you can change this and change that.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I've got a single one.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: You can run an A-B test, you know, to figure out which one's your bigger click-through rate if you put advertising out there, to see how that works.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: You know you can run one week of scheduling this way and the next week of scheduling another way to see what works better, what flowed better there.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: So you don't have to be huge when you're testing that than to see which way works to scale.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's just definitely getting and actually testing it.
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: A lot of times I see that not necessarily that we, but that you see from other areas that people will say they tested something and they put parts and pieces of it out there with the team and didn't fully get, even if it's that single person or single department fully give them what they need to really run it and they're opinionated it before they even start like oh yeah, this is going to work, and they go ahead and test it at a minor level, like oh yeah, this is great, and then throw it all in and then it blows up.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: So make sure you test it, test it thoroughly in that small space, this is great, and then throw it all in and then it blows up.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: So make sure you test it, test it thoroughly in that small space, uh, department, and then, if it works, obviously step it up to the next level.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: We've learned that in a bunch of different departments of kind of figuring that out, and I think when you something to note there, no matter what size your business is, you can always test whether it's if you just have one person, one employee, try something one day versus another day.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: I would say more than a day, so it's not just one customer versus the next.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: But then you need to hyper-study that change Like you need to have all the data and all the results.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: So it's not emotional, because if you're wanting to change, then your results somehow are going to come back you know you need to change, right uh, or if you're not wanting if you're not wanting to change your results will come back and say I knew it wouldn't do good, right?
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: so you probably need to at least have the idea and give it to someone else who's non-biased and say, hey, either get this demo or hey, let's try this.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: And this is a pilot.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying I'm changing your pay plan permanently and I'm not saying I'm changing the process permanently, but let's try it.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: And here's the data markers that we want to track.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: You know we're doing a used car study and we're saying, hey, for 60 days we're going to track every single thing.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Where did we acquire that used car from?
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: How much did it cost in the shop?
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: How much was farmed out?
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Sure, windshields, paint or external repairs we couldn't handle.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: What was the PVR on that vehicle?
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: Did it have a trade-in?
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: What do we do with that trade-in?
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: And so we'll have 60 days worth of data and then we can really get a hyper-focused non-emotions based off of the data what works and what doesn't work.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Joe Bad could talk about that, but I love going into that specific study because it's so fresh.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: So we've implemented it.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: We started that this past month, 1st of September, but I was pretty clear of how I wanted it to be.
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: I went over with the other department manager head that was helping me with the other, and I said, hey, it needs to be filled out this way.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: We're going to do this right from the get-go.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: I want you to do it every single day so that we can get all the details, because it is really all the details.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: You put them in there.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: The more details, the better.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: It gives you a 70-page compas and gives you what about this?
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: So I said that twice, said it here, they were doing it.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: Well, I had told my other manager hey, let's really do this and dive into it.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: And he said yeah, yeah, yeah, we're doing it.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: Well, I went back to inspect, because you inspect whenever you put something in there.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: It wasn't in there Because it's new or different.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's new or different.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: So it wasn't in there and I said, hey, no, these two sections we have to do.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: And he's like, oh yeah, I'll go back.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: No, those are already gone.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: That's why I have to do it from day one.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: So we went back in there and I had to circle back another time because it're putting into it and I'll tell you why Taylor's so thorough on that?
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Because I've been to that meeting before, we've all been to that meeting where we were the one that inputted that data or the one is now studying the data.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: And so then I'll text Taylor and I'm like, hey, where did we get our recon figure from?
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: And he's like, oh, it was from the statement of this and this.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, where did we get a recon figure from?
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: And he's like, oh, it was from the statement of thisness.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: I'm like, well, that's not right, because I'm on page 20 to 27, they're all based on recon.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, I might as well tune out, because this is not relevant at all.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what about our sublet stuff?
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Where did that come from?
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: And he's like, this isn't this.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: So, he, you know that stuff was just wasted it was just wasted and so then it was learned.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, well, let's learn from that now moving forward, and don't wait 60 days and then go try to compile one, because it's a and that's 500 cars to do between the two stores, uh, and you're not going to have proper data, but just understanding that testing that small and getting the proper data allows you to really make a decision.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: And I'll say another thing on there too, is feedback feedback internally, but you need to be careful about who collects the feedback, because if you're in charge, you have very, very few employees that are going to be a hundred percent honest with you.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Fear of their job.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Like let me just call it out fear of their job.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: So if you have somebody else in the company, like if you've got an HR or if you've got a COO or if you've got somebody else that can go do kind of an interview with some of your employees to get that, they can get you some relevant information.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Now let me help some of the rest of y'all out there that have you're on a six-man crew and you're like okay, but how do I do all this?
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: I'm in the middle of doing all of it myself.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: I want you to look at what your top competitors are in your area.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: All right, let's say you're in the HVAC business.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: If you're in the HVAC business and you're like why can't I get more people scheduled?
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Here's what I want you to do.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: I want you to take the top two or top three HVAC businesses out there and I want you to some key employees.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: You pay for it for them and have them go through the scheduling process and to somebody to come out to their house and do an inspection of their HVAC.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: You pay for it all.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: All they have to do is give you a report on how they schedule, what they look like when they showed up, what they present you with and what the whole process looked like, and then they just got to present it back to everybody.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: You can do that in any industry and we do that with oil changes and quick services all the time.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, to figure out not only what are their prices but what's their process.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: How easy is it to schedule so you can get feedback that way, to look at innovation from somebody else that's already been doing it.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: It's like a shortcut and you're like well, I don't want to pay $150 and $200.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: That's cheap.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: If you have three employees and you pay a $200 service and it's $600 and you just cut what took somebody else five years to get the cliff notes of everybody, that's cheap.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: That's very.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: You can invest in it that way and it's definitely much easier.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: No doubt about that.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: So innovation should always solve a real problem.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Right, understanding that that your innovation, your technology should always solve a problem.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: It should not just look good, okay, right.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: So think about that like a new system that you put into place that gives you reports Like if it just gives you fancy, this, this, this but it doesn't allow you to click down, to be granular, to say, okay, how do I solve a problem?
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Or how do I see if a metric is moving, just because it's shiny and it sends you an email, or it's on a board, if you can't do anything with it, it's now become a larger expense for you.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: And the easiest way to identify that is by looking at the data and the facts and not the emotion.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: You know, and we're all this way when we have bought something and we want to show it off, like internally alignment machine, tv screens, whatever it is, we're proud of of it, we're showing people this and that, so like, oh yeah, it's working.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Look at that.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: You really got to look at the data and the facts to go is it fixing the problem now?
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Is it just shiny and new and it looks good?
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: well, so put that into place.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: If you're not dealership new iphone releases okay, right, they've released lots of them, probably 20 by now.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: Um, and you look at what you currently have and what they just released new, and shiny says, yep, go get it.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: Yep, right, yep, go get it, you need it.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: It's just $38 extra per month.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Whatever, it is right.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: But if you stop and say, does it help me?
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: Like, did I gain anything?
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: And of all the things it's saying that I gained over the last year's model, do you use any of those things?
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: Are they really relevant to you?
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: Or are you just getting caught up in the innovation or the new technology, like saying, hey, I want the metaglass, it's like one.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: Do you wear glasses?
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: Is it?
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: necessary.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: And two, you have four cameras on your phone right now.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: What do you do with them?
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: So if you get caught up and we see people and I've been there before I love gadgets, sure, yeah, but at there's some point when you're the one paying for them, and then you're the one seeing them piled up and you now have a wife or a husband and they're like what is all this stuff right?
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: And you're like you have to be accountable to someone's like.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: Why do you keep to be accountable to someone who's like, why do you keep signing up for this technology?
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: There's a guy in our 20 group.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: He brings the general manager often and the last meeting he didn't come.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: The owner didn't, but the general manager came and he was like hey, do any of you guys use this X company?
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: What is it?
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: He's like it's it's for vehicle acquisition.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: He said his dealer.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: The last meeting someone was talking about it and he's kind of that if someone's talking about it, he doesn't want to miss out.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: So he had signed up for it and he took it back and he said hey, here, this is make it work, he's like.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: So here I am.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: I really don't know much about it, but I I've got an extra $3,200 a month in expense and I'm trying to make it work to cover my expense.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: So like, don't just buy it because it's shiny.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: I think, and I got to go back to Dad here and I'm sure he just ingrained this in all of us and I like new things, just like anybody does, but I never buy the first version of it.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: I just don't, unless it's a new Ford or Chrysler Dodge.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, graham, those are good to go.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they are, but like just just generally, it's like okay, let's think about this, let's look at it.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: And a great telltale on that is I want you to look to your mentors.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I want you to look to the five closest people around you that are at a level that you're trying to get to.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Did they go, do that?
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Did they invest in that?
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, you know and I'm not trying to talk us out of any sales here, but I'm just saying, look at somebody that is where you want to go to.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: And what did they do?
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: You know what Dave Ramsey says you should buy a Ford.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: Raptor.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that, you know.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: Going back, you say, dave Ramsey, I love this and I talk about this all the time and I love that as you grow older you grow wiser and luckily this is how it works.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Majority of the time I think back and I'm like gosh.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: I'm glad I didn't have any money whenever I was 20 or anything else, because I'd have been a yahoo and a favorite quote and I think no, matt told me this several times we've going through Dave Ramsey of if you can't manage ten dollars, you can't manage a million dollars.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: So don't think innovating your business, don't think adding this extra doing is automatically going to take you to the next level, because the only thing that happens, if you can't control the smaller amount, it gets bigger and it turns into a wildfire I'm just going to add on to there, just so everybody knows is is that I have yet to find anything.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Any, any software, any ad campaign, any, this, any, that that's a light switch.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Yep, all of it still takes input new habits, controlling the processes and making adjustments.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: There is nothing that is a light switch out there.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Now there's a lot of good salespeople and I've gotten wrapped up in it before.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: They're like boom, this is all you got, no.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: And it's not to say don't do it right.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: We started out saying you need to innovate, but just be careful.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just be careful, Like just be mindful and say like, hey, is this really what I need?
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: And if it is, you've got to give it opportunity to grow legs.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Yep, you can't just throw some seed on the ground without watering it, without covering it with soil, without doing all the things to give it an option to then reap all the benefits.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: I think that's a great point because, like we've kind of gone both ways there.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like don't do it or do it, what to do?
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: So let's wrap it up like this what is the biggest innovation that each of you guys have seen that has stuck in the dealership and made a difference?
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: What's something that we have done, inputted whether it's technology or software or a process that is still relevant today.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's evolved, but it's still relevant today and has paid off.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: So I'll talk about, and we talked about this in the main point and we said that it's not the end-all be-all, but the online digital experience.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: And we saw a heavy push in COVID because there was stay away from me you know, juju bad.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: So what it allowed us and we knew this data, this status so old that 90% of customers did their information and spent over 16 hours online researching it.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: It built that way because for the longest time, in order to get information about your car, you had to go dealership to dealership, dealership long time ago.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Then you would look at the newspaper that gave you a little more data, but then the internet came out, and so then people were more infatuated with what, if, what, if, what, if.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: Well, then COVID came out, and so it allowed us to have to adapt and being able to do that.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: So what that has allowed us to do is a hybrid sales process, to be a more omni-channel experience and not start the customer with hello, my name is Tom, would you like to buy a car?
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: And then start from ground zero?
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: Sure, and by omni-channel I mean the way that a lead generation or now it's not so much a lead generation, it's a deal generation to say, hey, I follow your podcast and maybe they communicate via YouTube in a comment to say, hey, what colors Grand Cherokees do you have you talked about?
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: That's the omni-channel and the deal generator.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Or the Instagram of the ad that you're running to buy three, get one free tires.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: And they're like, hey, I need some new tires.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: So that forced us and I'm going to say that's one of the big things that has stuck around is innovation of not just online presence but online call to action and then an omni-channel to understand where a customer is at and that building that customer relationship.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: That event that we just went to, there was only a few people that we had ever met before, Right, but there was tons of people that we walked around like, oh, that's that guy, yeah, that's that lady.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: Right and even after we left it's like man.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: I thought I knew that and that was from online or digital footprint in a relationship building that you have.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: And so our online presence we continue to push and continue to grow because it builds that emotional level and connection so that we can figure out how to properly transact that business at their space.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: So that was really how we've evolved in digital retailing they call it and how that stuck around.
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, taylor, what was yours?
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: This one has been around for 12 years, y'all.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: This is more of an internal tool that we use, but I love it for the platform Slack, yep.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: Of going through and we probably started using it.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: It was about, I think it was, 2016.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: I was at a 20 group and I was bored out of my mind.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: But I and I'll tell you, I was bored because someone was having a conversation about the cost of turning your used vehicles versus and I was like we've told this lady 18 times, she ain't listening, melissa ain't listening, she's gonna hold on to it and it's gonna bring all the money.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: And I was.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: And so I was thinking in my mind hey, what is a way that we could tell our entire team, sure that we just traded for a car, and give them all the details and then a photo that they need?
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: And so I just started googling hey, what's this, what's this, what's this?
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: And then insert slack that they need.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: And so I just started.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: Googling hey, what's this, what's this, what's this?
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: And then insert Slack Yep.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: So 12 years old, we adapted in 16.
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: So almost 10 years we've been running it and it is evolved into a monster that we love.
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: It helps our inner departments be able to talk.
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: It helps our sales team probably most efficiently be able to access promotional guidelines, be able to access fresh trades, be able to access anything that we want to think of them as a chat, a group chat or text or anything else.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: So I've loved that how that's definitely evolved and it's been innovative for our whole sales force and the rest of the team building there.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: And I think you know to go to back there if you haven't heard of it before.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: That's Slack.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: That's not an automotive.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: More non-automotive people use it than automotive.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: It's free 99, unless you want to do the whiz bang deal.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: I got two for you and they always haven't stayed the same company, but the technology has stayed the same Back in 2009,.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: So we're going back quite a bit here, 2009,.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: We put a CRM in place, which is a customer relationship management that went on top of our DMS and it was a way to better stay connected, know our customer's history, be able to find them solutions, be able to stay in contact with them and then present figures too.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: That's one of those technologies that we put in place and it's stayed there.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: We've changed companies, but it's really streamlined and it's made a better experience.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: We're able to track things better.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: And then the second is an appraisal tool.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: You know an appraisal tool and we've had a couple of different companies on that.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: What that allows us to do is, as soon as we scan the VIN of a vehicle, that we're putting a value on whether they're trading it in or we're purchasing it.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: It allows us to get the most up-to-date, accurate information on values for what they're bringing at the auction, what they're on sale for other dealers, lots at how long they've been there.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: We get to look at history reports.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: We get to look at everything rapidly to make a well-informed decision, to make sure we're giving the customer the most amount of money for their vehicle and we're also not trading for something that could be a problem child.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that Larry didn't scan at the other store or on my day off, Cause when we started, every week I would get a new black book and that I mean that's coming to yellow and blue.
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: It was a book and you know you'd hey, you could put it on here, you could put it on here.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: And so then I had a drawer full of them because Wayne was like, hey, you need to make sure to see where the market was moving.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: There was a big to call up front and say, especially before the CRM, and so there was no record of, hey, what did we offer them on the trade.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: And customers were like you offered me 10 grand.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: I was like can you prove?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: that to me, Because it looks like it's worth eight grand right.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: So that is a very powerful tool it really is.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: You know that, no matter where you are.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: So those are just a couple examples of some of the systems we've used within our organization that have stuck around.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: They've evolved, but have stuck around and have been a benefit to our customers and to our employees.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Hey, as always, make sure to go online at lewissuperstorecom.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: That's where you'll find the lowest prices and freshest inventory, and then acrossroadconversationpodcastcom is where you'll find this episode and 54 more like it.
• 1:00:52
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• 1:01:00
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• 1:01:04
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• 1:01:05
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• 1:01:10
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• 1:01:15
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