Episode Description
It’s the start of a new year (and a new decade, for that matter) which is the perfect time to set our sights on the goals we want to accomplish over the next year and beyond. What often gets left behind, however, is a plan on how to achieve them and examine their progress.
On this week’s episode of Digital Shop Talk Radio, we have Roy Foster (Roy Foster’s Automotive, Reno, NV) on to discuss how he uses AutoVitals to set ambitious goals for his shop and the steps he takes along the way to ensure his team hits their mark.
Episode Transcript
*This transcript was generated with Artificial Intelligence. Errors may occur. If you identify an error please contact us at [email protected]
[Tom] – Welcome to this week’s edition of the Digital Shop Talk Radio. I’m Tom Dorsey. I’m here with Roy Foster, from Roy Foster’s Automotive in Reno, Nevada. And hey it’s a new year and we’re gonna be talking goal setting. Specifically, how do you set and achieve, ’cause that’s the important thing, anybody can set a goal, how do you achieve the goals that you set using the Digital Shop and Digital Shop tools? Roy, welcome back to Digital Shoptalk Radio buddy, it’s great to have you on.
[Roy] – Um great to be here. How are you doing this morning?
[Tom] – Fantastic.
[Roy] – Awesome.
[Tom] – Yep, almost as good as you.
[Roy] – Well, I’m excited for the topic. You know it’s perfect timing to be talking about this.
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – Yeah. So, great.
[Tom] – And you’re coming out, you know, tomorrow’s, well I guess it’s the reception day, it’s a kick off for our Digital Shop Conference. Roy’s coming down, and you know, we’re gonna be talking a lot about goals over the next few days with, gosh we got about 200, 205 people coming out for Digital Shop Conference and so, you know, this is a good kick-off for that three days of intensive goals discussion, right, because that’s great. And like you said it’s a great time, you know, beginning of the year, lets make 2020 the best ever, and it starts with settin’ down solid goals. So tell the audience a little bit, Roy, what’s your process, what is it looking like? What’s the big picture for Roy’s Automotive, Roy Foster’s Automotive this year, and how’d you go about kinda puttin’ that on paper?
[Roy] – Yeah, so, I think having a vision, you know, business owners we’re, we should have like a vision statement, a mission statement, we should have our core values, we should have those documented, so our employees have an idea where we’re going. And I, I especially think for the employees, and for the goal setting, the vision statement, and just having a vision. I was telling Tom before we went on air, it’s snowing here this morning. On my way to work coming down I-80, there’s this lady next to me, and her windshield is completely covered in mud, and obviously her wipers and washers aren’t workin’ and she’s driving into the sun, and she’s like hunched down trying to see through this little clean spot on the windshield. This is a lady with no vision, right. We don’t wanna be that right? We just don’t wanna be muddling our way through. We gotta have a clear vision and we gotta know where we wanna be, and I think it needs to be aggressive too, right.
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – You know we, we gotta set the bar high for ourselves, you know. So, some of my thoughts, I want to reflect back on what we did last year. Last year was fantastic. We went to the Digital Shop Conference and our ARO is up 24.7% last year.
[Tom] – Well that’s adding, that like adding a whole other bay without the construction cost.
[Roy] – Yeah, awesome right? So we did like another 700 billed hours.
[Tom] – Wow .
[Roy] – It was awesome. So, I’m really, I’m really startin’ to understand the business control panel with the help of Bill Conner, the guy’s awesome, he’s been an awesome mentor for me. But, so that’s helping me drive my vision and I didn’t expect that kind of growth. You know obviously you wanna have growth each year, but that was fantastic. So this year my goal’s gonna be more aggressive ’cause I know there’s a lot more in the tank, there’s a lot more potential that we can tap into, so.
[Tom] – Yeah no, that’s fantastic. And that’s exactly it, right? Set the bar high because, aim big miss big, or aim big miss small, right?
[Roy] – Right.
[Tom] – Whatever that saying is.
[Roy] – That sounds better.
[Tom] – But you know, either way you’re gonna get there right or you’re gonna really close and it’s gonna be a big improvement on your business. And–
[Roy] – Yeah.
[Tom] – I mean for folks in the audience, you know, especially that may be haven’t even thought about this, that really is the first goal, your first goal, write this down, should be, build your mission plan, build your mission statement, put together your core values and just understand where do you want to go? What is it that you want? You have to know that before you can start settin’ some goals. And so, Roy, are you doing that? So, let’s talk a little bit about that. So if I’m a guy and I’m gonna craft my first mission statement ever and here’s the thing there’s no, there’s no, nobody’s gonna judge your mission statement, you’re not gonna submit it for national review, right? Write it on crayon in the back of piece of paper if you’ve got to, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re focusing on where you wanna go and what’s important to you as a business. And it should be, you know, internally, your employees and your culture. It should be external, your customers and your customer value. And then it should be also community-driven as well, right? Where do you wanna be as a business, what’s your reputation and how you wanna pay it forward, right? How do you wanna give back in your community? And once you kind of have that written down well now you start to get an understanding of the direction. And where you said something that I thought was the most impressive, right, was that you have to share that vision with your team.
[Roy] – Yeah, so.
[Tom] – And do you, so tell us a little bit, Roy, about how you kinda incorporate the different departments, or the different components of your business, into that mission statement.
[Roy] – So, one of the things that’s been really powerful for us, and we’ve been a lot better this year, and I’m sure that’s helped with our growth, is just consistently having a team meeting every week. And there’s a lot of power in counseling with your, with your guys, right? So, as you get their input you get a lot more buy-in. They have a voice in where we’re goin’ and we help them to develop it and there’s a lot of power and there’s a lot of buy-in when their voice is being heard and they’re seeing their ideas going down on paper and policy and then actually being acted out. So, I think, I think to start a good. So like I said we have a vision statement and a mission statement. So the vision statement is more of an internal thing and that’s what the employees, that’s what I’m telling my employees, this is where we’re trying to take the company and this is how it benefits you. And we started that by just counseling together what are our core values and we incorporate that. Where, you know, what are you guys’ goals, where do you guys wanna be and how can we do that? And then we just, we just keep distilling it down. And one of the things I think on both the vision statement, mission statement, is keep it simple, right?
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – So ours is like two sentences. So, it’s just like super simple and they know what it is. If you’ve got a page-long thing no one’s gonna know what that is. But I think it’s good, it’s top of mind for them and so they’re thinking about it. And they know that I’m invested in them and part of my vision includes them, lifting them up and helping them succeed and knowing what their goals are and helping them achieve their goals and trying to align mine so that they can achieve their goals, so.
[Tom] – Yeah, yep.
[Roy] – It’s a, it’s fun too right? I wanna see my guys succeed.
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – I’ve had employees with me for almost 30 years, one guy.
[Tom] – Wow.
[Roy] – So, we’ve got a lot of loyalty, my, just all my guys have been here a long time, no turnover, everybody’s happy working here. And I think it’s largely because they know I’m invested in them and I care about them and their families and so.
[Tom] – Yeah, and you hit on something that was really important, right, and it is the, holding your team meetings and just gettin’ together every week, or a couple times a week, whatever works best for your operation, and even if you’re just sayin’ how’s it going it means a lot to people. It’s hard when as an owner and it’s probably been a long time since you punched a card, since you punched the time clock and you gotta put yourself back in those shoes and remember what it was like to be that low guy on the totem pole, or the new guy, or the green guy and comin’ into a place and wantin’ to do your best. If you tell people what the best means they’ll get there, they’re gonna work–
[Roy] – Yeah.
[Tom] – To get there. If you don’t tell ’em what the best means well, they’re gonna give it their best shot and they’re probably gonna think that they’re pretty close, but you might have a different opinion, but you just have ’em define what best means. And if you do that and you share that, and I’ll tell ya want, I remember is just being able to say, hey these guys are comin’ out and addressin’ this with us and we’re on the team and they’re keeping us in the loop and they’re remembering us, and it means a lot. Maybe you don’t even get a whole bunch of plans accomplished and, but just that open communication, and a consistent communication makes me feel a part of the team, makes me feel important and I take that into my work, right? I start, you know quality of your work, it shows in that. And so that’s really as simple as that is just start puttin’ it on the schedule, just come together even it’s a 15-minute standup, talk about your successes, talk about the challenges, and talk about a plan for next week to address those challenges and it’ll grow. It’ll become something like Roy said, it’s very powerful, right, when you’re pulling that rope boy that’s heavy, but when you got a whole bunch of people pullin’ that rope with ya you get a lot more moved.
[Roy] – Right. So, I’m really transparent with, we looked through the whole business control panel. My guys know what our weekly sales goal is. They know what our goals are for our ARO and for our motorist research time and they’re learning how a good inspection translates into those things improving and translates into their paychecks improving. So, there’s a lot of buy-in and I like the transparency, I like the counseling with those guys. I was a little nervous especially sharing like sales numbers ’cause–
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – Some guys are like, oh you’re making all this money and you’re, I’m just getting this little, these crumbs, but also educate ’em. Hey, these are our expenses, this is why, this is why this number has to be this high because we’re reinvesting in tools and equipment and benefit packages and all these things for you guys to have it good, so.
[Tom] – Yeah, we just had, speak of that we just had a drive out here, did a lunch and learn over at the office here yesterday and Dave came out and told us a little story about a guy who had 2.5 mil gross makin’, takin’ home less than 50K.
[Roy] – Whoa.
[Tom] – You know. And I mean that’s, that’s exactly that. If you don’t understand all the nuts and bolts, you’re just lookin’ at the big number in the bottom, that don’t, that doesn’t mean that’s going in my pocket buddy, your piece is comin’ outta there too and all the stuff you broke last week is comin’ outta there too, right ? So, open it up and get an understanding because, here’s something that’s really incredible, you nailed it, is that when you first implement these changes and gosh you your guys are pushing back and they’re struggling a little bit to get the best practices down on the inspection, hey if you can run a couple periods of that and then you can show the data and it’s just as clear as day. You did this, even though you hated doin’ it, you started giving me 10 recommendations per inspection, and we started gettin’ 15 pictures per inspection, and we started sendin’ out 90% of ’em, whatever it is and now look at the numbers right, look at the numbers.
[Roy] – Yep. We don’t lie.
[Tom] – Once you can establish that they’re off to the races, take the leash off, go get ’em.
[Roy] – Well, and they they’re seeing their paycheck too, right?
[Tom] – Yeah exactly, I’d say.
[Roy] – Hey, right okay, so that’s the best buy-in.
– Yeah, that’s what you can tell ’em. You say, you know how I got to this big number is I did all this stuff that I’m [Tom] telling you to do and then over time that’s how I get there and that’s how you’ll get there too.
[Roy] – Exactly.
[Tom] – Pay attention and follow all of the protocol.
[Roy] – Yep, yep. So, yeah I think, so as a company I’m gonna set some aggressive goals this year. I wanna, I gotta a big goal for our annual sales and for the net, you know, I wanna hold on to a lot of that money, you know.
[Tom] – Yeah, yeah.
[Roy] – So it’s aggressive, but I think it’s attainable, right? And I think part of getting there is just like little chunks, like just the things we talked about is, all the little things that go into it, breakin’ it down by the month, by the week, by the day, and just all of the little components that go into achieving that. Last, last summer I’ve got some teenage boys and they wanted to go climb Mount Whitney, I don’t know if you guys know, Mount Whitney it’s the tallest–
[Tom] – Oh yeah.
[Roy] – On the continent. So, I’m like, yeah, okay. And preceding that it was 50 miles, right, we’ve got heavy packs and I thought, man I’m fit. Luckily I did all the work ahead of time to achieve the goal. So, I was hiking every weekend, I was, and I made it, I summited it, but it was, it was freakin’ hard man, I’m old . I realized at that point, I’m gettin’ old.
[Tom] – The air gets thin up there .
[Roy] – But you know my point is, just the preparation and stuff to that, the little hikes, just playing a little and having my focus on that goal I was able to do it. It was a really hard thing, but I was able to achieve it and it was really cool to be up there with my boys and kind of a role reversal. One of, my 17 year old son is like, reached out, come on dad you can make it, he’s like pulling me along and just I, not long ago it was this role, roles were reversed, like come on dad you can make it.
[Tom] – The other way around.
[Roy] – So.
[Tom] – Well, at least he’s not helping you up off the floor he’s helping you up on the top of a mountain.
[Roy] – Yeah, no doubt.
[Tom] – Pretty soon you got that.
[Roy] – Yeah, no doubt. So, I mean, set our goals high and just, just chunk it out a bite at a time.
[Tom] – One step at a time.
[Roy] – And just break it down man and it’s, you’d be surprised what you can do.
[Tom] – Yeah, and, and that’s a great point too is that some stuff you may not be prepared for, it doesn’t mean you don’t add it as a goal, you just have to get prepared, you gotta do–
[Roy] – Right.
[Tom] – The workout. You gotta, I mean the NFL superstars still practice how to tackle every week.
[Roy] – Yep.
[Tom] – You gotta drill the basics and once you have that accomplished and your conditioning, and comes up, well, now you’re ready to go after that goal, but don’t leave it off the list, put it in there all things in due time and now you’ve got some short-term stuff which you can take action on today. You got some mid-term stuff that you’re working towards, and then you got your longer-term stuff where you might have to get developed and you might, maybe it’s to open up another location, or something like that to get to this big number, 10 mil, well, that’s gonna take you some multi locations and it ain’t gonna happen tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have the path already carved out–
[Roy] – For sure.
[Tom] – And a direction and you work every day towards it.
[Roy] – Right.
[Tom] – And share it with your crew, like, Roy was sayin’, because they’ll help ya get there, they wanna be successful too. There’s good stuff comin’ in their future if they help make everything successful.
[Roy] – They’re my vehicle, right.
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – I can’t do it I’ve gotta have them on board otherwise it ain’t gonna happen.
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – So, and write it down, write it down, focus on it. The things we focus on are the things we give power to and so much of it’s–
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – Just mental, getting out of our own way and just making it happen.
[Tom] – It’s a dream until it’s on paper, right? Once you put–
[Roy] – Right.
[Tom] – It on paper now it’s tangible, you can fold it up and put it in your pocket. Even better, stencil it on the wall in your shop.
[Roy] – Right.
[Tom] – Maybe even like your mission statement just stencil that thing right up on the wall.
[Roy] – Yeah.
[Tom] – Because it’s top of mind and we’re livin’ it, we’re livin’ it.
[Roy] – We got it, we got it.
[Tom] – And it ain’t gonna hurt if the customer see out in to the bays and say, wow, these people live by principles and that’s not a bad business to do, bad folks to do business with.
[Roy] – Exactly, yeah, we have a plan, right?
[Tom] – Yeah. Yeah, so okay, so let’s talk a little bit about how do we chunk that up? So, I would imagine you’re, it sounds like you’ve got the big, the shop goals and the team goals, but then you have individual goals as well. Do you leave that up to the individuals to come up and say hey, you know what I want you to average X amount of dollars a week in sales, how ya gonna get there? And then they go in and they say, well, that means I gotta do this much work and this much billed hours completed and that means I gotta get in here at 7:00 a.m. and I’ve gotta stay until 5:00, right, and they’ve gotta start puttin’ that together on their own.
[Roy] – Right, absolutely. So, yeah, they’ve gotta have their goals, right? And then we gotta help them just see how to accomplish it. You know I’ll just go back to, the business control panel is an amazing tool.
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – When, a year ago I was overwhelmed by, I mean I couldn’t even find the thing, right? I mean it’s like, I was floundering. So, it’s been a great help and just constantly focusing on that and there’s so much you can do. I’m, I’m sure I’m just scratchin’ the surface but a, but it’s a fantastic tool and as we share it with our teams that they, we’re just focused on one little thing each week usually, sometimes a couple, but I mean we’re movin’ we’re movin’ things along, you know, we’re achieving, we’re achieving our goals and incrementally just kinda raising ’em up. So–
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – That’s why I said, this year I have got some lofty goals, but I’m confident that as we focus on those as a team that we’ll make it.
[Tom] – That’s awesome, that’s all it takes, right?
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Tom] – And pounding the wheel to get there.
[Tom] – Right.
[Tom] – Where’s there’s a will there’s a way.
[Roy] – Yeah.
[Tom] – And so for folks that aren’t familiar with the BCP, the business control panel, it’s, it’s a metrics tool that we provide and it’s a little bit more than just say what a standard dashboard would be, right? Yeah, it’s got some, it’s got metrics, you know, you can go in and see what your ARO is, but the important thing and I think what Roy is alluding to, is that it shows behavior and it shows the, the relevance between behaviors, right, that’s the most important thing. So, if I start to do more inspections well then I should see a corresponding increase in sales, right, because we’re doing more inspections, we’re findin’ more work. If we don’t well then we can easily target, well, the tech did the inspection, we can look and say did he do it right, was he just takin’ pictures of the moon, or was he? And then from there once we’re confident that we audit that inspection that, well, it’s probably a breakdown somewhere in the sales process so we can now focus in on that front counter, we can pull the customer, we can look at the process, we can observe and we can find and identify areas that need improvement, make those improvements, and then we should just, then we just kind of lean back and watch that business control panel and we should see the needle movin’ the right direction. And if it is we crank the throttle and do more of it and if it’s not, well we drill down we haven’t got to the root of the problem. And that’s really the power of the business control panel is it allows you to find the root causes, not the gut feeling, not the my opinion, the real root cause, address it, fix it, and then move the needle, right, and then you just keep taking those one at a time, fixin’ those little, in a fishin’ season, in the business, in training and then phoooo, you’re cookin’ with a full tank of gas there.
[Roy] – Yeah, exactly, right? We fix that little ole thing and these guys are, they figure it out, and then we find the next, we find the next metric that’s gonna help and we focus on that. There’s always a corelation between that and what, what we’re trying to achieve. I mean it, like take motorist research time, if the customers are lookin’ at the thing for maybe 60 seconds that’s probably not really effective, right?
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – So, what are we doin’ wrong, or then we can drill down, right? We have all, we have all the data, we can look at each tech, we can see how many pictures they’re taking, we can see how many recommendations, we can see if their pictures are any good or not, and then we can go back and we can show them and teach them how to do a proper inspection and we can drive that up. And then as we drive that up they see their hours billed go up, our ARO goes up, you know everything, everything is just a direct corelation. But with all the data the tablets produce it’s just, it’s amazing. I, it’s, I did just serve two years on the NAPA AutoCare Council–
[Tom] – Oh yeah, yep.
[Roy] – I think they said like only 450 out of almost 18,000 AutoCare Centers do digital inspections.
– Whew. That’s mind boggling to me.
[Roy] – Yeah, isn’t that something. That’s like the most powerful tool we have, right. It’s–
[Tom] – Yeah, I mean especially now ’cause the market’s changing, right, the work that you do is changing, the individual components are lasting longer, or you gotta have special permission to even access, the data from the OEM, and so you really have to kind of focus in on finding the maintenance and the preventative stuff and having a process there and anybody’s who’s not doing digital inspections I mean you’re about to get run over by, by the boss, I mean right?
[Roy] – Oh yeah, that’s how people wanna communicate now, they wanna communicate digitally. They don’t want me callin’ on the phone and sayin’ ah, you need this and that, but they get the text and they see the pictures and they have the educational material, they wanna, they wanna be educated before they spend their money.
[Tom] – Yep.
[Roy] – And this is a platform that, that they can educate themselves right within the inspection, they don’t have to go out and Google or do anything like that. We give them the information and tools they need to understand, hey we’re not just blowin’ smoke, here’s the picture, here’s the data, this is why, and this is the benefit to you. This, these are gonna be dollars well-spent in protecting your investment. It works.
[Tom] – Yeah, and let’s talk a little bit about that because, because this is really important, is that, they wanna be educated and that doesn’t mean that you tell them what they need to know, right, because that’s the way we used to do it. Yeah sure, you’re thinkin’ to yourself, I educate folks at the counter every day, I tell ’em exactly what’s broken on their car and what they need to do to fix it, that’s not the education we’re talking about, just doesn’t fly anymore. They wanna educate themselves. They wanna go–
[Roy] – Yeah.
[Tom] – And almost verify through a third party, some neutral thing, I mean that’s why Yelp is so, so popular, right, is because well Yelp doesn’t own that taco stand that I wanna see if I’m gonna go buy a taco from. I’m gonna go on Yelp and see what these folks say it’s all neutral. Oh, they said it’s bad, it must be bad. They say the Kool-Aid must be good, right, and it’s that same type of thing. They, it’s not that they don’t trust you, it’s trust, but verify. So yeah, you tell them, you need a timing belt, well I’m gonna go on Google myself and I’m gonna look up what does that mean, and how much should it cost, or what the part should cost, what’s all the fair. And so instead guess what happens when they do that? Well, they might be gettin’ that information off your competitors website, or they might be on some do-it-yourself reform where the guy’s going, ah, don’t take it to a shop, here watch this video and I’ll show ya how to put a timing belt on in your backyard, right, you’re in trouble. But if you can then instead, instead of tellin’ ’em what they need just get the information right there in that inspection sheet, right to their phone, and it gives ’em that, check, I looked at the information, I educated myself, I’m confident in the decision, I don’t even need to go on to Google, or potentially onto a competitor’s website, I’m gonna text ya back and approve or decline, right, at that point.
[Roy] – Right.
[Tom] – And so that’s what the education component means, it’s not, we know you know what you’re talking about at the counter, and we know you can tell ’em, it’s give them the information and let them come to the conclusion, is the education in the digital age and that’s an important I think point because we think to ourselves all the time, ah, I’ve been doin’ this forever and I know what to tell ’em.
[Roy] – Yeah, as soon as they start going out on the web.
[Tom] – Yeah, you’re in trouble.
[Roy] – No, you’re gonna lose ’em chances are, right. They’re gonna, they’re gonna find out, they’re gonna be flooded with information. Either they’re gonna be more confused.
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – Or, they’re gonna, like you said, they’re gonna end up at a competitor, it’s not gonna be good for us. So, we keep them within the inspection, give them the educational materials, they send back an authorization, hey that was great I totally understand please do the work for me, that’s the result we’re seein’, so.
[Tom] – Yeah. Yeah, and then it just becomes a system, then it just becomes a habit. You do it the same way each and every time and you get that, you get very consistent results. You’re gonna consistently increase your approval rates, it’s not gonna be this spike and oh we did a great job yesterday and they were in the weeds and, no, it’s just gonna be a… What you really wanna see in that business control panel is a consistent, it doesn’t have to be a big, maybe if you’re really in trouble and you’re gonna make these really impactful changes you might see a big spike initially and then it should taper off and you just wanna see a gradual improvement over time and constantly upswing right?
[Roy] – And in addition to that, Tom, is the customer’s experience is consistent.
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – So as they come back each time we’re setting and meeting their expectation each time. It’s not a different experience, it’s like, oh I wanna talk to so-and-so, it’s just like the experience is great every time.
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – And they, we’ve got the expectation now and we’re meeting it consistently and people will just, they love it.
[Tom] – Yeah, no and I think.
[Roy] – What more can I say? They come to expect it. I got the numbers to prove it .
[Tom] – Yeah, no, and they’ll actually hold you accountable. I had a guy the other day, a couple weeks back, send in a picture of a customer, right, and she was giving the service writer a what for because, well, he’d skipped some of the, some of the previous recommendations and she’s like, why aren’t you tellin’ me about this. She’s got her phone out and she’s probably 65 years old and has her smart phone out and she’s ripping this guy up because he didn’t give her a complete reminder, so. So, yeah, you gotta commit and you gotta get in with both feet ’cause be careful ’cause now you set an expectation and now you have to deliver that expectation each and every time.
[Roy] – And then I’ll go back to 450 out of almost 18,000, we got it made man.
[Tom] – Yeah
[Roy] – People using the vehicle inspection. Those people, that’s their expectation now, right?
[Tom] – Yeah.
[Roy] – They don’t want some greasy piece of paper, or all these random phone calls through the day, attacks.
– And I’ll tell you there’s nothing you can do better for your business really. If you can, anytime you get a guy who’s gonna go back to work, works in some office, shoot him that inspection on his phone, tell him, hey, go tell your friends, go show that around to your friends get some opinions. All of sudden you’re, you’re gettin’ all these in-bound phone calls because, I’ve never had that before, my mechanic doesn’t give me that, can I get that? Can I get an appointment, right?
[Roy] – Yeah.
[Tom] – Even if they just wanna come in and get the inspection done initially now it’s up to you to hook ’em and keep ’em as loyal customers, right, but the phone rang. And so I mean really think about that and the way you prepare your inspection sheet it actually becomes a lead generator for your business if you do it right and communicate with your customers and your customers get excited about that and wanna share, right?
[Roy] – Yeah.
[Tom] – Ask ’em to post it on their Facebook page, why not, right?
[Roy] – Yeah, right.
[Tom] – Because, I mean that’s marketing, that’s marketing. That’s the new word-of-mouth right there, how simple is that, post up my inspection results on my Facebook page my friends and family see it and go, wow, where’d you get that?
[Roy] – Right, that’s money right there.
[Tom] – Yeah, it’s money.
[Roy] – You can’t buy that kinda advertising.
[Tom] – You cannot, you cannot. And the differentiation is so huge right now because again, I go to the dealer they don’t give me anything like that. Wow, right, still has that wow factor because of the 450 out of 18,000, right? They’re just-
[Roy] – Right.
[Tom] – Not familiar with it yet. Leverage that, take advantage of it, jump on it with both feet because they’re gonna catch on eventually and then it’s gonna get tighter from a competitive perspective, but you already have all the cars in your parking lot anyway, king of the hill.
[Roy] – Amen.
[Tom] – Hey, I wanna bring up one other thing real quick with you Roy, oh shoot, we’re almost out of time. I can talk to you for days and it’s a good thing I get to see you tomorrow.
[Roy] – Right.
[Tom] – Um, , but you said something also I really wanted to make a point about and that is, when you’re looking at the business control panel and you’re looking at the individual behaviors incorporate that into your goal building, right? So in other words, my goal is to get my ARO to 600 bucks, well you’re not going to do that if you see the behavior just doesn’t support that. The guys are only doing 50% of inspections on vehicles, or taking a couple pictures, two recommendations for inspection, you’re never gonna get there. And so really if you’re looking at the biggest, it’s great to make the big hairy goal, but then look at your behavioral data and your business control panel to make sure that you’ve got all the foundational elements in place to actually get there, I can now crank the throttle. If I can’t, well then the goal is to get this guy up to 80% inspection rate, you know, 10 recommendations per inspection first, then the 600 will follow, right?
[Tom] – Right, exactly. Yeah, we gotta have the process first, right?
[Roy] – Yeah, yeah.
[Tom] – Yeah, and in, in the business control panel each of those metrics, you know, we can set individual goals on those and–
[Roy] – Yeah.
[Tom] – As we keep, as we keep adjusting those goals up good things are happenin’, so.
[Roy] – Yeah.
[Tom] – Pretty good Yeah, exactly, because they’ll go for it. As long as they know, as long as you guys know, hey we were supposed to hit 50 last week, we hit it, yeah, celebration, free sandwiches, whatever.
[Roy] – Yeah.
[Tom] – Now we’re doing 60 next week, let’s tighten up our boots and let’s go after it that was a good sandwich, right? And so I know what I gotta do, I know there’s a payoff, I know that I’m helping the team and I’m a team player and we’re, we’re all charging towards the same goal and now I know exactly I can start it at 7:00 in the morning on Monday. I don’t need to get told, I’m not cuttin’ it on Wednesday afternoon, I got all week to plan and work to get to my goal now because I know exactly what’s expected of me.
[Roy] – Yep, amen.
[Tom] – We’re changing the world, Roy, tellin’ ya.
[Roy] – We are, well you are, I’m just following.
[Tom] – No, not at all. Well hey, so travel safe comin’ down tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to seein’ ya down in Marina del Rey. We’re gonna have another, you know, we got a big turnout this year. People are, gosh we’re probably 50, 70% more folks comin’ out this year then last year.
[Roy] – Awesome.
[Tom] – So, you know, what that means for us is it means a lot more stories and a lot more learnin’ that we get to experience because everybody’s got a different perspective and a different experience and we get to share that and learn from each other. And we’ve really got some strong breakouts and folks that are comin’ in with very specific best practices really that you can take home Monday and implement and start seein’ the results by Friday, you know, it really is that, designed to be that effective. And so looking’ forward to seein’ ya tomorrow afternoon. We’re gonna have a great time and we’re gonna learn a lot of stuff. And if you didn’t make it down to Digital Shop Conference this year it’s okay because we do it every year. We’ll be puttin’ out, I think we’re gettin’ down to the dottin’ the I’s and crossing the T’s for next year, dates and all that good stuff, so we’ll be announcing that soon. And we’ll brag about it on the radio show and we’ll have Roy back on to tell ya all about his success and then you can wring your hands and wonder why, you kick yourself why you didn’t come this year and just go next year. Go down to Reno and see Roy.
[Roy] – There you go.
[Tom] – Hey Roy thanks a lot man I really appreciate it. Lookin’ forward to talkin’ with you and then following up with ya over the, over the next couple of months and just see how strong you’re on target to hit those goals and just what those big hairy aggressive goals are.
[Roy] – Awesome, hey great talkin’ to ya. The time flew by so–
– Yeah, buddy.
[Roy] – So appreciate it.
– Yeah, if it flies by it must’ve been good.
[Roy] – Right, hopefully.
– All right man, I’ll see ya tomorrow. Have a great day.
[Roy] – All right, Tom, take care.
– Yeah, and so for everybody else we’re doin’, we’re doin’ a live version of the show so tune in again on Friday morning, same time, you know it’ll be 10:00 a.m. Probably be gettin’ kicked of closer to 10:15, but we’re gonna be doing a live radio podcast right from the Digital Shop Conference. I’ll probably have Roy on there again, he just doesn’t know it yet. And I’m gonna be havin’ a lot of great, a lot of our regulars, and some new faces, and gosh I think even gonna interview me. So, that’ll be 10:00 a.m., about 10:15, but get in 10:00 a.m., get in early. Friday morning special edition, live version, it’s actually our 50th show so we’ve got a little bit of a pat on the back and a kickoff there for that as well. Until then, get out there and make some money. Make your plans to get to Digital Shop Conference next year if you ain’t makin’ it here this year and we’ll tell ya everything about it what you missed in the comin’ weeks. Thanks a lot, Roy, we’ll see ya tomorrow buddy.
– Thanks Tom, see ya bud.
– Thanks Nema, had Nema in in also as our producer again today, Dustin’s out gettin’ ready for Digital Shop Conference, he’s traveling down. So great job Nema and really appreciate your help buddy.
[Roy] – Thanks Tom, good job.
– Bye man.
[Roy] – Good job, Tom.
– Thanks Nema. See ya guys tomorrow.
[Roy] – All right buddy thank you.
– Bye.
– Have a great day.