Ep. 23 - How Letting Go Leads to Growth

Unlock the secrets to balancing control and growth in your business with the Lewis Brothers on Crossroad Conversations. Ever wondered if holding the reins too tightly could actually stifle your progress? We promise you'll gain insights into the power of letting go and the incredible benefits of community involvement as a cornerstone of success. With candid stories and practical advice, we'll encourage you to reassess what matters most in both your business and personal life.

Dive into the art of delegation as we explore why empowering your team to take ownership can lead to groundbreaking innovations. Discover how to recalibrate your expectations and foster a thriving workplace by embracing change and adapting to market dynamics. We'll also share our thoughts on inventory management, emphasizing the importance of treating it as a cash investment rather than an emotional attachment. Prepare to challenge your perspective on leadership and find that sweet spot between control and growth for sustained success.

Join us as we navigate the complexities of maintaining a positive workplace culture while managing underperforming employees. With practical strategies for aligning individual values with organizational goals, we'll highlight the tough yet necessary decisions that protect team morale. By focusing on strategic flexibility and market trends, we'll underline the value of a strong team culture driven by continuous education and empowerment. Whether it's about refining business strategies or understanding the automotive world, this episode is packed with insights to elevate your leadership approach and business acumen.

Feel the dynamic energy of the Lewis Brothers as they deliver real stories and lessons that keep local businesses on their toes, and share how experiences in the community inspire them to keep on driving.

Check out all our great episodes at CrossroadConversationsPodcast.com!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
People know.
Then, when you do get upset, oryou're mad or you have to dress
like it's real.
Yes, you know some people flyoff the handle too fast, yep,
and you know it's kind of likethe crying wolf.
You know about the big bad wolf, yep, because they do it too
often, mm-hmm, so then nobodyever takes them serious.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yes, Like no, that's what they always do.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
That's how they communicate, yeah, communicate.
So you got to pick when you'regoing to pull that one out of
the closet, you know.
So they know that, hey, youmean business.
Hey, everyone, Welcome toCrossroad Conversations with the
Lewis Brothers, where we aim toshare real stories about
running a successful familybusiness, working through
adversity and pouring back intothe community that keeps our

(00:40):
door open.
We're your hosts, Matt, Shelbyand Taylor, and we bring you
relevant local business adviceand automotive insights that are
sure to change the way you lookat running a business and maybe
even throw in a plug for you todo business with us.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
All right, everybody.
Thanks for tuning back inCrossroad Conversations with the
Lewis Brothers.
We're your hosts, Matt, Shelbyand Taylor, bringing you
hopefully relevant content andfully breaking this business
down, breaking life down and allthe things and this week we're
talking let it go, and I'm nottalking a musical.
You know what I?
mean we're talking about thecost of not letting oh that's

(01:14):
gonna be a good one, yeah sowe've got all the things across
there, breaking the idea of youcan have control or you can have
growth, but you can't have bothyou know what I mean and that's

(01:35):
tough of realizing.
What do you want?
Growth or control, Because youcan't have both.
Not letting go.
How to let go?
It could cost you money.
It could cost you money, itcould cost you people.
All right, and there's a wholelot that we'll just kind of
unpack as it rolls down throughthere and then we'll just see
how it goes.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Absolutely, hey.
And recapping last week underthe hood and why community roots
drive success, it was soimportant.
Dive back into it.
But a couple of quickhighlights off of it just being
involved in the community andwhy we do it because we want to
be there, we want to be known,but we want to be able to help
the community and it's goingfrom schools to teachers to

(02:14):
driving different charity eventsto golf tournaments.
There were so many differentthings that we went over.
That's so important and that isat the core of our business, of
while we work not only to besuccessful but that we can drive
back and help the community.
Hey, always check us out thereat lewissuperstorecom as well.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
You bet and you know this is a fun part of the
podcast where I start on.
Why do we talk about what wedrive?
We're in the car business.
So, we get to give you a behindthe scenes.
Look at how a vehicle performshere in Northwest Arkansas, not
on a closed test track or withthese people or that people, but
just real Northwest ArkansansIs that how you say that.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
You know what I mean.
On I-49, on the way up here.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
And Highway 62.
Today we're talking about theBronco Sport and there's a lot
of stuff I love about the BroncoSport is you get that off-road,
adventurous style where you cango deeper and discover new
places.
You have to get the more small,compact for maneuverability,
better fuel mileage.
You know everybody's reallycome to grow to love.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
You're talking up to 30 miles a gallon.
It's really a fully functionalSwiss Army knife, like a billy
goat.
It will do all the best of bothworlds.
It'll stay on road.
It'll go off road.
It's all a new redesign thisyear of some exterior features.
It's upgraded from its bigbrother of front brush guard,
bash plates.

(03:35):
It's make it where it's reallygood.
But the thing I like best aboutit, they're listening to the
consumer of what they want.
They came with technology.
It has a new 13.2-inch standarddigital touchscreen in the
middle and then fully digitalinstrument cluster.
It is bad to the bone.
You've got to check it out.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Hey, one of the things they carried over and
copied Bronco Sport came out in2020.
It was the first Bronco toenter the market Now 25.
They copied over the mostpopular.
What people love is a Sasquatchpackage.
So they copied over the mostpopular.
What people love is a Sasquatchpackage.
So the Bronco Sport has it.
It has goat modes.
The first Bronco Off-Rodeo wewent to, the first thing they
put us in was in the BroncoSport.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Oh yeah, I remember the.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Badlands and we put it through its paces.
We did Watch out.
I mean, you better watch out ifI'm getting you in here.
Goat mode.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
So home, junior week Jokes and jokes.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
So pretty capable rig at a great point it really is
Price point sub 30 grand at thatentry level Sasquatch package.
It has tie downs in the fendersthat flip up Pretty cool For
kayaks canoes on the front andrear bumpers you can tie down
whatever you want to put on theroof Clark Griswold Christmas
tree and or your canoe.
It's got upfitter switchers foryour auxiliary things.

(04:44):
I love switchers.
They've really copied all thegood things for the Bronco and
not an increased price point.
So it's pretty dang sweet.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Good piece, yeah, make sure to come by and check
that out.
Take one for a test drive andjust see if it fits all your
wants and needs.
We're confident that will, andif that's not the pick, we've
got plenty of other vehicleswith over a thousand in stock.
But let's get into this week'sepisode.
What you joined in to listen toabout this week and you're
probably going to scratch yourhead going let it go.
Huh, I wonder what they'regoing to go into here.

(05:12):
Well, we're going to go into alot, but it's all going to start
at the head or if you're incharge, because you set the pace
for your entire company withthat and how your employees are
going to react, they're going tofollow your lead when we start

(05:33):
looking into areas that we hangon to or we don't let go.
You know some of the areaswe're going to talk about today
is inventory, people, ideas, andthen we're going to talk about
old habits, ways and processes.
But I got a question or maybey'all can even comment on this
before we get started and we gointo each one of those pieces is
.
Recently I was listening to onanother podcast and this made a
ton of sense about some of thehabits of leaders and this

(05:54):
person quoted.
They said most leaders fallvictim to one of these three
habits.
We're going to go into three ofthe six today.
One of these three, so I wantyou all to think about these.
And these are the three habits.
They say that you could fallinto the habit of doing too much
.
All right, so that's one.
The habit of avoiding conflict.
You know so, like if you've gotan issue.

(06:17):
Nobody naturally likes conflict.
The you know so.
The habit of avoiding conflict.
Or the habit of doing whatyou've always done.
So y'all think about the threeof those and I'll just ask you
to pick one of the two to kindof digest and either talk about
your success with that or howyou've struggled with either the
habit of doing too much, thehabit of avoiding conflict or

(06:40):
the habit of doing what you'vealways done.
What do y'all take on that?

Speaker 2 (06:44):
I'll dive into.
You know, avoiding conflict,because that's just kind of my
demeanor of it.
Naturally, all of us we don'theadhunt and go through that.
There's a plus and minus ofboth of it.
But you know of avoidingconflict, naturally, as a doer
of being over any department oranything.
You can sense whenever asituation is coming up, whenever

(07:06):
two are starting to conflict,whether it be a customer, an
employer, two employees togetherand you can sense it starting
to come.
And a lot of times, as long asno one's around, you can let it
play out, so that way you canassess it as you continue to
grow.
It's something that I'll saysomething and interject.
I'm like, nope, stop, don't dothat anymore, because you're

(07:27):
stopping it and not letting itgo any farther.
But a lot of times you let ithappen and go because you know,
hey, I'm not going to reallyaddress this employee that needs
to necessarily be called out onthis because it's going to
continue to keep it movingforward.
You bet um, but the biggest dealthere is the flip side of it.
On my aspect of we always laughof.

(07:49):
If taylor's gotten aggravatedwith you, it's because you've
really messed up.
He is very giving and goingthrough so it's almost funny
whenever I flip my switchbecause people are like, oh my
gosh, gosh, but going throughthere.
So that's the biggest deal thatI've seen of being able to dive

(08:09):
into and help address earlyrather than letting it go on too
long.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
I will say, though, before we move to the next part,
what you talked about.
It does take a lot to ruffleyour feathers, but people know
then, when you do get upset, oryou're mad or you have to dress
like it's real.
Yes, you know some people flyoff the handle too fast, Yup,
and you know, it's kind of likethe crying wolf.
You know about the big bad wolf, because they do it too often.

(08:36):
So then they don't.
Nobody ever takes them serious,Like no, that's what they
always do, that's how theycommunicate.
Yup, so you.
So you got to pick when you'regoing to pull that one out of
the closet, you know.
So they know that hey, you andme in business, Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Shelby, what's your take?
Yeah, and I think it'simportant that you do address
conflict.
Like it's not my naturaltendency.
It takes effort from me toaddress something and so you
figure out the best way to dothat.
Is it in a?
I don't love a whole lot ofmeetings, of sit down in my
office One, because it's justuncomfortable for the person on

(09:15):
the other side.
Right, I might not get the bestresult or the true answer.
So it might be a walk and talk.
you know it might be going totheir atmosphere going to their
place of business, but justhaving that conversation when
it's necessary, when you realizeit actually is an issue, as you
said, like crying wolf I'm notgoing to.
I'm going to let things playout, like Taylor said, but know

(09:38):
that that has to be addressedBecause otherwise it won't go
away and it won't fix itself.
And sometimes you can patch itup a little bit, but you just
really have to call it for whatit is and figure out what's the
game plan and how do we correctthat.
So you want to make sure thatyou don't avoid conflict.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
I think what you said at first said that it wasn't
natural.
You're not alone there.
I think the majority of peopleas human beings.
We don't just wake up every dayand say what conflict could we
get into?
Who could we address?
How could we put ourselves intosome situations today and
conversations that it's notgoing to be fun for anybody
Nobody.
That's their goal for the day.
But you do have to address it.

(10:17):
It doesn't go away.
Just like you talked aboutTaylor, I would say you know the
habit of doing too much.
I definitely fall in thatcategory, you know.
And when you look at like howwe grew up, we grew up on a farm
.
We're very solution based.
We taught ourselves how to do awhole lot of different things.
But I heard a leader sayrecently they said, just because
you know how to do that doesn'tmean that you should.

(10:40):
And I was like hang on, and Ikind of replayed that and I
listened to it.
I and I was like hang on, and Ikind of replayed that and I
listened to it.
I was like this one's going totake me a while to swallow and
how to figure out.
But they're like is it movingthe mark?
Could somebody else do it, andas a man, that's very difficult
to go.
Hey, I'm going to let somebodyelse do this, even though I know
how to do it.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
So, to break that down, I love the idea that and I
sure we all struggle with thatRight.
I love the idea that and we allstruggle with that right Of
like if it is to be, it's up tome, and if anybody can do it
best, it's me right.
But that's not always the thing, and so in the intro I talked
about, you can have control oryou can have growth, but you
can't have both.

(11:21):
So if you have a habit of doingtoo much, if you have too much
control, you won't get thegrowth that you want.
You might be okay being whereyou're at, but think about this
it's also on the flip side.
If you're going to relinquishsome control, are you really
giving control to someone elseor are you just delegating a
task?
So there's difference ofdelegating task versus
delegating authority.
So the task still brings themback to you, right, and I'm not

(11:43):
saying you got to let them go.
But if you delegate the task, Ineed you to do X, y and Z.
And here's your list.
Chase is either going to haveto come back for you for an
inspection or for the next list.
And here's the thing your listcan be so long and I promise
we're all going to workextremely hard to make sure we
get all 24 hours out of 24 hours.

(12:04):
But if you're just task doing,you won't be able to give that
task, that process, that person,your all.
If you'll delegate theauthority instead of the task,
it empowers them, allows them togrow, then they give it to give
it way more time and you'regiving them hey, here's the
problem.

(12:24):
And let them figure out thesolution.
When I was listening to thispodcast from this guy, he was
talking about it and he wasgiven the task but not telling
them how to do it so they couldproblem solve it.
Now you can keep some minderson that to make sure it's not
we've seen that before like, hey, let's recap.

(12:50):
And how'd you do Like, whoop,let's bring it here.
And've seen that before like,hey, let's recap.
And how'd you do like, whoop,let's bring it here.
And the guy that's talkingabout this said very rarely from
the top, do I make a decisionon my own right.
It's usually with some peopleand it's never because I said so
, do it.
But if you can delegate thatauthority, hey, these are the
things that I want you to helpme take over.
They chances are you'veprobably hired somebody that's
better than you at that,hopefully.
So Specifically, and we'velearned that in the last couple

(13:10):
of years we're still growingmassively in that, and that goes
from giving away control andthe growth is just there.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
It is I will say a tip One of the things that
really helped me, because someother people listening out there
they're going to probably thispart will strike home with them.
They're like, okay, I finallytook the step to entrust in
somebody to do something and itdidn't happen how I would have
done it, or it didn't happen atmy level.

(13:41):
You've got to recalibrate yourexpectations and don't confuse
that with me saying that like beokay with underachievers.
But another, another guy that Ilistened to he was talking
about.
He said if you can get 70 or80% out of other people that you
would have been able toaccomplish, so if there are the
70 or 80% of the capacity of you, if you would have done it on

(14:04):
your own, that's a success.
So quit setting the bar.
Now some of them are going tosurpass Shelby, just like you
talked about, because you hiredmore talented people.
But in some of the other areasyou're expecting them to do it
at the same amount of time, thesame amount of perfection as you
did.
They're not.
We talk about this even thoughwe've got a lot of employees
that care about our business.

(14:24):
They're not going to care asmuch as we do.
You know, being part of thefamily, so you got to remember
that as well.
So I kind of want thank youguys for jumping in there.
I wanted to dive into that first, before we got into the
inventory the people, the ideasand the habits to really kind of
let you know.
Hey, as leaders, how do youstart taking ownership of this

(14:45):
and figure out which one youfall into victim of and where
you need to improve?
So let's dive into inventoryfirst, and this is called areas
that we hang on to in ourbusiness or as leaders that we
should have already let go orturned over or made a decision
on, and inventory we're going totalk about first.
We did a whole episode oninventory and cash flow, so make

(15:06):
sure to go back and listen tothat.
But inventory is one of thosethings that you need to treat it
as an investment, like aninvestment of cash and then how
many times you can turn thatinvestment over and the
multiplication of compoundinginstead of this one big hit.
Too many people get emotionallyinvolved with their asset that

(15:29):
is actually just a businessmodel and it's cash and they
hold on to it for too longbecause either they like it too
much and, if that's the case,they just need to buy it
themselves.
Yeah, okay, or they're tryingto hit a certain amount of
margin or markup, or whateverelse it may be, instead of
turning that.
So let's talk about inventorythere and when you let go.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
You know, I think a good reference point is funny.
We were just talking about thisa couple of days ago and I guess
it depends what your overallgame plan is right.
Everyone can have a differenttheory in their game plan, but
in the masses we were talkingabout someone buying a house and
they were looking at a personalowned house someone who
currently lives in a house andit's for sale, versus a

(16:10):
contractor who builds a majorityof houses, you bet and they
were talking about how much morein the driver's seat for the
buyer.
They were buying it from thecontractor because they
understood the philosophy if youcan put a customer in that of
turning your mind.
So probably meant a smallermargin.
But because there was such alarger conglomerate, they had

(16:34):
the ability to buy, rate down.
They were able to outfit a newhouse with gutters and shades
and appliances and help on somethings.
If you were just to buy thatfrom an individual, they would
be so emotionally attached thatthere would not be a whole lot
of wiggle or understanding.
So the business person that wasbuilding and selling houses not

(16:56):
attached to 502 versus 507 isjust business.
They were able.
They could turn that muchquicker and reinvest their cash
and build another one, and buildanother one, build another one,
and they understood that wastheir business model.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
So it's the same thing in inventory of whatever
you do it really is of justknowing, like, how many times
can I turn that?
The house is a great example,because then they've got a crew
that they need to get started ontheir next one.
And too many times we hear this, especially from private
sellers, whether it's of cars orboats or houses, and they're
like, well, no, this is how muchI got in it and this is a hard

(17:33):
one for people to swallow.
Unless you're in business,that's irrelevant.
What you paid for something isa hundred percent irrelevant.
And let me I'll make this easyfor you.
The stock market is a greatexample on this.
Okay, if you buy a stock and itwas trading at $10, if tomorrow

(17:53):
the stock goes down at sevenand you decide to sell it,
nobody's given 10 for it.
Or let's take it on the flipside If it goes up to 20,
nobody's going to sell it for 10.
They're going to sell it for 20.
How much you give for somethingis a hundred percent irrelevant
to how much you're selling it,for it's still a large pain
point, especially in largeassets.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
I gave X amount or I owe X amount, and there's so
many factors that go into that.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, we hear it all the time.
Well, I just need my payoff forit.
Well, did you finance yourtaxes Well?

Speaker 3 (18:27):
and we generally say did you finance your taxes.
Did you carry over negativeequity?
Yeah, build junior's negativeequity from another car in there
.
But and this some people mightthink this is smart, aleck but
just the safe thing to say waswell, if it was paid off and you
own the title and owed zero onit, would you expect us to give
you zero?

Speaker 1 (18:44):
No, no, that's different.
That's different, it's not atall.
It's not at all.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
And it's best if you can completely separate that and
say, on today's day, myinventory we're talking about
homes, appliances, your time.
But inventory is worth whatit's worth.
And it's funny because a guy along time ago that taught us all
a whole lot we talked about.
When the inventory had ran itscourse 60, 80, 90 days, the

(19:12):
salespeople had already workedthrough it.
This car doesn't work.
When we took it to auction thefirst time it went through, it
generally brought the most itwould ever bring.
Because, in the second time itwent through, someone had
already seen it and said, eh,something's wrong with it.
Something's wrong, so time isstill not on your side.
That's right.
It's worth what it's worth atthat time and you need to

(19:33):
reinvest your money.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
You know what that means a loss.
So is there ever a time ininventory where we sell it for a
loss?

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Oh, absolutely and I think that's something I was
getting ready to dive into thatwe fight, not fight, but help
manage with managers, becausethey'll go one of two directions
Okay, holding on to it forever,where they're like, well, crud,
I've got to get rid of it andturn it, and they'll dump it
After three, four days.
We had one that popped up theother day that this vehicle had

(20:01):
taken a while to be able to getthrough the shop and everything
else and get ready, and we weresitting there talking.
He's like, hey, I've got itpriced at the bottom of the
market.
I'm like, well, hold on, we'rejust getting it to market.
Let's start value-minded,making sure we're right priced
in the market.
It's day one of it out here.
Yes, we've had the money ofbeing available, though.

(20:22):
So you have to be able to manage, because, yes, there's times
that you need to move.
Shelby and I were going over areport a couple of days ago of,
like whoa going back throughtrades, but that's okay because
we needed to reinvest the money.
The money needed to be, losseswere taken and big losses of

(20:43):
going through, but you'rereinvesting the money, putting
in something else that isturning currently.
Yes, because no different thanthe stock market Yep, y'all can
hit on.
There's certain differentpieces that are moving right now
, and if you're not in that game, you're going to miss out.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
And I think the quickest thing sorry, not the
quickest thing the easiest thingto point out is the quicker
that you can transact that youknow.
Quickest thing, the easiestthing to point out is the
quicker that you can transactthat.
Yes, you know, it's a buy, sell,buy, sell relationship it's.
It's not going to be asvolatile, right, because used
cars fluctuate whenmanufacturers drop more rebates.
So this month taylor's talkingabout it so far this month our

(21:19):
wholesale that's where we don'tsell because something's wrong
with it or we've had it too longor it just doesn't fit our
market or it wasn't turning fastenough.
Our wholesale right now is over$40,000 negative, negative.
We've sold for $40,000 in aloss and as a business even our
business we were looking at itthis morning like, hey, we've

(21:39):
got this loss and then this lossand then this loss.
How do we make this compute?
He's like, hey, the managerskeep looking at this and they're
like this keeps trending downhere.
He's like, well, we got to lookat this as a whole.
We got to put the trades on themoney when the customer comes
in and they want to buy the car.
We got to look at the wholepicture and we got to do that
quickly.
Yes, quickly, because if youhold on to it, chances are the
longer you hold on to it.

(22:01):
Think about this when theCybertruck came out because
people talk about that when itfirst was hit the market, let's
say they sticker for $100,000.
They were trending way abovethat they were selling.
One of the first couple onesthat went across Mannheim
auction was sold for $250,000.
From there.
Do you think they got moreexpensive or less expensive?

(22:23):
Less expensive?
They are now trending belowwhat the MSRP was.
So it's the quicker that youcan turn that get to the market,
the better chance you are ofbeing able to be profitable
rather than being on the flipside of that man.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
It is so hard for people to get that.
But the encouraging part outthere is if you'll get that,
look at it from a businessperspective you'll beat
everybody else.
And I'm gonna go back to thestock market one more time just
because it's easy to explain notthat I'm a big stock market
person is if I buy a stock atten dollars and it trends down
and let's say it turns down tonine, fifty, nine, twenty five,

(23:01):
eight, fifty, eight dollars, ifI and I know it's to continue to
trend, based upon whatever'shappening, yeah, okay,
whatever's happening.
If I'll sell it there and takethe $8.00, okay, reinvest it ina
$5.00 stock that has potentialfor upgrowth.
That then goes to $10.00 or$15.00.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yes, I took a loss here, reinvest it and got a gain
here, instead of just writingit out, hoping that at some
point it'd come back up.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yep.
So let's say, in your $40,000worth of loss on the used
vehicles that we've taken, youknow, let's say that was
$300,000 worth of vehicles, orwhatever it was.
If it was $300,000, we couldtake that $300,000, even though
we took a $40,000 loss on it.
Look at the market on what'strending, what we have a low day
supply on inventory, reinvestit there and make our 40,000

(23:49):
plus some more up, but onlybecause you took the time to go
ahead and take the loss within aspeedy manner.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
Some of you will get hung up on that.
So small business if you'resitting there thinking crap.
I've had this thing on my floorfor a year now.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
Move on.
Guess what your employees arethinking that something's wrong
with it and it's brand new Likeyou tested it out and you know,
it's a good product.
You're like man, this mightcost me some money.
It's costing you money sittingthere and your cost, without
going to full inventorybreakdown, let it go.
That's where, if we had thebutton, we'd smash it.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Let it go, I talk to anyone or hear anyone from
outside market, because they gothrough everything and they
don't understand.
It's okay if you're lookingfarther down the row of whether
it be service, a customer, adifferent situation, different
inventory.
If I exchange this piece, I'mnot taking a loss here and it's

(24:44):
just terrible I'm losing, notgetting anything out of it.
No, I'm losing here because Isee an opportunity over here to
gain customer situation, growth,business, whatever it would be.
Because if you stay stagnantover here no different than what
Shelby said it starts spreading, only not even costing you
money.
But your employees are like hedoesn't want to get new
inventory, he's keeping the samething.

(25:06):
So don't stay stagnant.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
I think just to kind of wrap that up and we could
spend a whole episode there, butwe got to keep moving is just
don't be the stubborn mule andjust ride it to the ground.
Okay, you don't need to ridethe ship sinking.
Okay, reinvest that sucker andmove on, all right.
The next area talking about letit go and this is never a fun

(25:29):
area that people want to talkabout, but we need to talk about
it.
It's part of our business aspeople, as people and when do
you let those people go and thefirst part I'm going to talk
about I got two parts to talkabout to throw y'all throw to
you is the time tools andtraining.
Y'all have heard, we've alltalked about that the time tools
and training.
They're the three T's that anymanager has to go through if
they want to let somebody go,that they personally have to say
did I give them the time, thetools and the training necessary

(25:51):
to succeed?
And if the answer is no to that, that manager has to look in
the mirror and put that in placebefore they're allowed to let
them go, you know.
So what are y'all's thoughts on?
On the people part, on when tolet go, when to hang on On?

Speaker 2 (26:06):
people.
I'll tell you the biggest dealof why people do not move it's
because you're comfortable in asituation.
You have clear expectations ofhow they're going to let you
down or anything else, so it'sno surprise.
Whenever it happens, you knowhow it's going to go through, so
you don't act on that becauseyou know whether your load is

(26:29):
too much or anything else.
You continue to let that happenbecause you know you can handle
it and you're not going to haveto bring someone else in spend
the time train.
Clear expectations bring allthat up.
So that's where a lot of peopleget stuck in a rut of hey, I'm
okay with it being in thehamster wheel.
That it is currently because Iknow how to control it, because
I don't want to get out of theircomfort zone.

(26:51):
You know.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
I think that goes back to the number two point of
habit of avoiding conflict.
If you have not avoidedconflict, it should not be a
surprise to anyone becauseyou've sat down, you know, on a
regular basis and said, hey,here's my expectations for you
and here's what your growthpattern looks like.
Yes, here's the properexpectations, here's the KPIs,

(27:15):
and we know, you know, I know,as you're sitting down having
the one on one, that we haven'thit that metric.
That's right If you haveavoided conflict and you assume
that they understand yourdissatisfaction and you've not
given them the time, tools ortraining when you finally sit
down with it, after they've beenlate umpteen times and they

(27:36):
hadn't performed to their KPIthat you assumed, for it's going
to catch them way off guard.
And they're going to be likewhat?
I can't believe they did thatto me.
In your mind, you're going tobe like oh my gosh, I can't
believe it took me so longbecause they were well
underperforming or they werepolluting the water.
And so you have to know thatthat if you don't avoid conflict

(27:56):
, if you have a proper KPIsystem and a one-on-one and
going over peer evaluations,then you can adjust that.
You bet you know you can adjustthat thing.
You know you can adjust and Italked about this morning in our
manager meeting.
It's no different here.
No one would get on an airplaneleaving XNA headed to Florida
and wait till you got to Floridato see if you were flying the

(28:18):
right direction.
You would not go to SanFrancisco and wait to check all
the metrics and all the dialsand the GPS to see am I in the
right place?
No, you would constantly monitorthat, and you would communicate
with everyone necessary to makesure you were going the right
direction at the right pace, tobe on time, to make sure you
were too high, too low, that youhad enough fuel.

(28:41):
So it's no different inbusiness with your people.
You should have thatcommunication of hey, here's how
we're going, here's how we'repacing, here's how it looking,
here's how we need to bring itup a little bit.
Hey, you're doing good.
We can probably delegate sometime or some tasks right here.
So I think if you'll take thetime and not avoid conflict,
then that will mitigate of justhaving to run through people.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
This is a tough one, you know.
Inventory doesn't have peopleinvolved and families involved
and somebody making a paycheck,so the inventory is easy.
It's not emotional for me.
The people part because we do.
We truly care, especially beinga family.
You know run because when we'remaking the decision to let
somebody go, we see them everyday too, and then we interact

(29:27):
with everybody that was aroundthem.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
You probably know their family.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
In a corporate atmosphere.
They're making that decisionand it's on paper.
They don't have to interact andtalk with them.
So it's emotional to us becausethen we're like we know, then
we have to see them, Then we'regoing to have the other
employees ask us about it.
But you know, when it's timefor somebody to go and I'm very
guilty of this I go man, if Ijust keep helping and pouring

(29:52):
into them.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Maybe they're just going through a bad phase.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Not only are you not helping them more than likely
it's spoiling the rest of thedepartment.
So that's the first part of thetime.
Tools and training, all right.
So that's on the individual.
The next piece of that and kindof the filters to go through it
starts with the end of theother one on training, transfer

(30:16):
or terminate.
So then you kind of run itthrough the gauntlet of when
it's time to let somebody go, ifwe train them enough.
Then number two we look at arethey a good fit?
Let's not pass Okay, whichwe've had people do that before,
because they don't want theconflict.
But is it?
Do we just have a conflict inmanagement which we've had that

(30:37):
before or the atmosphere?

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Two personalities aren't getting well.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Two personalities, but you know, in the back of
your mind is the one in charge.
You're like I hired this personand I've seen they show up and
they have a good attitude.
They're just not responding.
Well, there could be anothergood fit.
That's where the transfer comesin.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
And that's where you know I talked about the aptitude
test or how you took a test,and it tells their personality.
Whatever your test might becalled, I would reference back
to that and say, hey, what didit show that they really shined
at?
What was their natural thing?
Because I'm thinking back ofwhen we opened new stores.

(31:14):
We hired this guy who's stillwith us and shows up and has a
positive attitude and shinesbright with customers, and he
was in sales.
He was looking to make apaycheck, provide for his family
, no different than the rest ofeveryone else, and he was very
thankful.
He was very upfront, was like,hey, I need to find something
else to do.
Can I be in Wash Bay or can Ibe in Recon?

(31:35):
And I was like, whoa, hang on.
I was like, thank you forcoming to my office and talking
to me about this.
Tell me what's going on, tellme what you don't like here and
why would you go?
Do that?
Right?
Two kind of separate things.
No, neither one better than theother, right?
Um, and he said just the peopleinteraction.
I'm having to count on otherpeople, aka the customer, to

(31:57):
help pay my bills, and that wasnot his natural drive.
He said I am more of a workerstyle, just knowing I get paid x
amount of dollars and I canrely on myself.
If I show up, do a good job, Iget paid.
I was like, oh, okay, thatmakes sense.
And so we've moved him a coupledifferent spots, as we saw.
We moved him to a spot and thatdidn't allow him to shine but

(32:18):
allowed him to provide.
He said, hey, I can do a littlebit more, so okay.
So now he's transferred aboutthree or four different times
and it's not because he hasn'tfit, it's because he's grown.
But we finally found so getback to that test to show what
really makes them shine.
You might have tried to put asize 9 shoe on 11 foot and it'll
work for a little bit, but youneed to see is there a better

(32:40):
fit?
And so that's where you wouldget into that transfer and then
alternately, if it didn't work,then that's a termination.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
As long as they're.
Now we talked about theemployee that has the good
traits and we know they'd be agood fit.
If they're not a good fit andwe've ran into this you know
we've got multiple locations indifferent departments.
So we'll find out that peopletransfer from so-and-so to
so-and-so and that manager, kindof fibs to them a little bit,
says no, hey, they're good they.
And that manager kind of fibsto them a little bit yeah, says
no, hey, they're good, they'rethis or that.
They just didn't want theconflict.
So we've had to put in somefilters at a higher level,

(33:14):
management-wise, to say yes,employees are available to
transfer.
But here's what they have to doand I just don't mind telling
you is they have to have letthat manager know in the current
department and then that's gotto be presented to the board
that we meet.
You know, if it's from a storeto a store, now, if it's within
the store, within departments,that GM can rock on with it.

(33:38):
But if it's from this locationto that location, a higher up,
non-emotional, disconnected,needs to say hang on, what about
this, this and this?
Let's not just keep moving thatproblem.
So the phrase slow to hire andquick to fire.
Most people have probably heardSlow to hire, quick to fire.
Most people, including us, havehad that flip-flop Quick to

(33:58):
hire, slow to fire and we allhave been caught in this.
Let me read this to you fromHarvard.
Harvard Business did a researchon there.
I've got to read it therebecause I didn't go to Harvard.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Okay, so it makes me sound more intelligent.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
A lot of startups hire fast, fire slow.
A bias for speed, combined withthe pressure for high growth,
drives many leaders too quick tohire we need to fill this role
right now but slow to removeunderperforming employees
because they're busy and wouldprefer to put off awkward hard

(34:31):
conversations.
That's exactly what we weretalking about, wasn't it?
We're Harvard qualified, allright.
So the next up on that part,there is ideas.
So ideas when to let go of theidea and when to not.
And that's a tough one becauseeverybody wants their idea to be

(34:52):
successful.
But there's a lot of shots youtake that aren't going to be
successful, and you got to beokay with that.
So let's talk about the ideas.
What do you go through and whendo you let that idea go?
Scrap it, move on.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
I think it's important that it's not just one
person, one person's idea Okay,and don't get attached to it.
You know, maybe it's best if youforget that it was your idea.
You know that, hey, here's theidea, you make sure it has legs.
You know that you give it ampleopportunity.
If you're going to invest timeor money or marketing or
whatever it is that you investto that and you pour into it

(35:26):
with a team, so it's a sharedeffort, and then you have, you
know, no difference in KPIs ofthat.
You can measure it like hey,was that grow?
Our process, did the end resultgrow because of that idea?
And then we circle back aroundto that, whether that be in a
weekly, quarterly, monthly,yearly meeting, and you say, hey

(35:47):
, let's go over 10 best and 10worst ideas and see, hey, is
that an idea worth changing, isthat idea worth scrapping or is
that an idea worth 10xing?
on exactly you know, and so youjust look at those things and
see, but no different than theinventory and the people.
Don't get your emotions or yourfeelings involved.
No, that's, that's good.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
But but it's okay too if, like you, came up with the
idea, whether it be your focusgroup or yourself, you bounce it
off people like you talkedabout, and then if, after
thinking about it for a week oryou start trying to put the
process in place, it's not goingto work.
Move on.
Yep, move on.
It's no different than theinventory.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Move on, and you definitely need it right, you
need new ideas, and it's funny.
So we go to these meetings wecall them 20 group meetings
where we go with relatively 20other dealers that are
like-minded in the same businesswe're in, that are
non-competing, and it's funny.
They always talk about it.
There's a moderator, it's byNADA, and he said when I was in

(36:43):
the dealership world becausemost consultants were in the
dealership world, so they knowwhat they're talking about he
said when my owner would go to a20 group meeting the following
week when he got back I alwayswent on vacation.
Oh gosh.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
And I said why in the heck was?

Speaker 3 (36:58):
that Elton, he said because I know he would always
come home with all these grandideas and he would put them in
place and I'd have to be the oneto pilot those and write them
to the ground.
He said so if I was gone for aweek, chances are he would still
come home, put them in placeand they would ramp up and then
they would die down.
And so by the time we got backit was pretty much back to
normal.

(37:18):
So that's most businesses,right.
And so I think on the flip sideof that you need to make sure
that you're looking at otherideas.
You know there's a lot of greatideas we get from those.
But I think we have a prettygood vetting process before we
come home and just unplug allthese cords and plug all those
cords.
In this new process we're kindof going to vet it through the

(37:40):
lewis brothers to the lewisautomotive process and maybe
take one idea and really give itthe foundation before we plug
it in and we're going to getbuy-in from everyone.
That's not to say that it stillwon't work, but don't just be
quick to just get all the latesttrendy and all the things and
forget all the things that youcurrently know.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
No, and I think of sounding it off like you said is
so important because a lot oftimes you sit and you'll analyze
and think and look at the dataand then whether it's us talking
amongst, but you say somethingand we're never quick to say,
hey, that was a dumb idea.
But whenever you say it likethat didn't sound right and it

(38:23):
didn't come off smooth, yeah,let's go ahead and move on to
the next thing.
So, sounding it off a board,then you get to not that you're
going to get judged or say thatwas a terrible idea.
You get to vet it before youmove forward and unplug, so you
know what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Before you put your name on it and put it in front
of all the people.
And generally how that would go.
So if you're curious, how doesthat go?
We come back from a meeting orsomething we listen to or see,
and we'll say, hey, what do youthink about this?
And we'll say, hey, if weprocess the inventory like this?
And so instead of me saying,well, that sounds stupid,
because there's holes in it.
I would say or we would say hey, walk me through that process
of how it would work.

(39:02):
And so then, as you'reexplaining, you might think okay
, I didn't really think throughthis it just kind of seemed sexy
, seemed fun, sounded cool andso like, and generally the way
that we'll throw it back is okay.
Why don't you walk through thatprocess and get it on paper and
then we'll fully go through itand make sure that it fits what
we need and it gives us thegrowth that we need.

(39:23):
That it's worth it, yes, and ifit's really something
worthwhile, then you'll put thework in and get it done.
If not, then it'll be yourfault because you let it fail.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
I think that's a bonus for all the listeners out.
There is two things justhappened with what Shelby went
over is not only did you listento the new ideas and you vetted
it, you also taught whoeverbrought you the idea of the
actual process to go throughabout thinking something through
.
And you're exactly right.
You won't hear any of us walkin a room and say that's a
stupid idea, we're not doing it,or don't ever bring that up

(39:53):
again.
Correct we won't say that we'relike, hey, let's think this
through.
You know, when would you startthis?
How would it go into place?
How long would it put intoplace?
Resources do you need?
And then, how's that going tomove them?
With Mark, we went through thiswith marketing yesterday.
You know everybody was fired upabout you know Shelby had
challenged them with puttingsome commercials together and
this and that, and you could seesome excited and some I'm

(40:15):
worried about it.
So on the whiteboard up there Ijust started dissecting it
because I liked the idea.
I just want to make sure it wasachievable and I said how many
days do you think it would takefor this and this and this?
All right, does that work inour timeline?
Will everybody commit to that?
You know?
So just walk some through that,all right.
The next part is you know oldhabits, old ways, old processes,

(40:38):
and I don't think there ishardly anybody else in northwest
Arkansas that has the depth totalk about this that we do when
you talk about a family-ownedbusiness.
Okay, for 78 plus years we'vegot some stuff from the past
that we've had to move on to,where we could easily fall into

(40:59):
the trap of well, that's the waywe've always done it.
We're still here.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
Well, it's funny.
We were talking about that in aservice meeting the other day
and one of the guys who's beenwith us for a long time he said,
no, everyone does this.
And so Matt had to stop him fora second and was like what do
you mean?
Everyone does this?
He said for as long as I knowand it's funny because Missy,

(41:24):
our CFO, is in there and she'sbeen with us for 42 years
Working- for 42 years 42 years.
And so she said what do you mean?
I said, well, no, everyoneassumes that we get this, this
and this.
I said, okay, walk us throughthat.
So clearly it's not still athing, right?

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yeah, because nobody else knew no.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
I said okay, I've been employed and getting paid
for 18 plus years, matt, beyondthat, missy, 42 years.
Like, okay, wait, what do youmean?
And so if it's something goodand it's still going, we'd
probably grow that Sure, youknow.
And we say, hey, how does thatbecome relevant currently?
But that thing was gone andgone and he was still hanging on

(42:09):
to it Still putting it in.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
He was still implementing it.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
And it was a huge cost thing.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Yes, and it was a huge mess.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
And no one is really saying it or doing it, but he's
the one implementing it andwe're like, oh, hang on, so old
habits, ways and process.
You need to just have micromeetings to make sure that
everyone's saying the same thing, doing the same thing and if
there's growth, that needs tohappen.
But that was a old thing that Ithink everyone thought was gone
and gone.
Oh yeah, because he was sayingfinance says this, sales says

(42:39):
the sales managers say this, andhe's in service and we're like
nobody, nobody's saying that.
That's not a thing, Customersdon't get that.
And he's like no, no,everyone's saying it.
It's like okay, well, let's allbring this down.
Nobody's attacking anybody,Sure, Like we're not hurting any
feelings here.
Let's work through this.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Let's look at the facts.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Let's look at the facts.
And that was tough because he'slike no, we've always said that
.
I was like who is we?
Uh-huh, you know?
And so that was just the thingthere of old habits, like, if
it's good, make it work.
Improve it, but don't justassume that it's just going that
way.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah, that's for sure , for sure.
That's a big one Of old habits,ways, processes, taylor.
Anything else to add there?

Speaker 2 (43:24):
No, he hit the nail on the head.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
I think when you look there and we spent a good
amount of time on that chunk,but we could even dive farther
in, but we've got to move on.
You just remember about thoseare four areas to look at the
inventory, the people, the ideasand then the old habits of.
Do I need to move on?
Do I need to be progressiveright there?
What's the rest of my team looklike?
All right, fun fact of the day,let's go.
Hey, ford has owned or ownedpart of several different brands

(43:50):
or manufacturers in theautomotive industry and if you
can go back farther than that,if you've ever been to the Henry
Ford Museum, he owned a lot ofdifferent things, but we're
talking about just automotivehere, so we'll come back to that
.
You guys think about some ofthe other brands that Ford would
have owned.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Absolutely Diving into.
We absolutely got in the middleof hanging on to anything in
business there or as leaders.
Now diving into how torecognize what we need to let go
of.
That's listening to others,listen to the market being
accountability with others.
So biggest deal there how doyou know what we need to let go

(44:30):
of?
How do you listen to others?

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Well, you first have to get the right trusted people
around you that you know thataren't just the yes sir, the yes
ma'ams that will actually tellyou respectfully, like, hey, you
need to look at this.
And I got a handful ofcustomers that and some of them
are a handful, but that I knowthat, like, when they tell me
something, they're shooting mestraight and they're taking the

(44:55):
time to tell me because theytruly care about the progression
of our business and maybe evenmyself as leadership.
So at first we all naturallywant to get defensive about it,
but I'm like hang on, they'retelling me this because they
want me to improve.
They're not asking for anythingfor free.
And if they didn't care and ifit really wasn't a big issue,
then they wouldn't take theirtime to call me because they're

(45:17):
busy people like I am.
So I think that's veryimportant.
We all get reviews.
You got to look through thereviews because there is some
truth in those.
Yeah, you got some keyboardwarriors out there, but don't
miss the one.
Or if you see the same thingrepeat itself time and time
again, it's like hang on, weneed to look at this, we need to
look at this.
I'm stuck in the middle of it.

(45:38):
I think we're killing it, butmaybe we're not.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
Yeah, and I think that rolls to listening to the
market.
You know you can listen toothers, but also listen to the
market, seeing what's the trendin that thing.
Whether it be customer serviceor how to process something or
how to go to customer versuscustomer, come to you or how do
people transact, and you can seewe're not talking about the
thing on the front of thearticle or whatever Yahoo's

(46:02):
serving up, but what youactually see the market doing.
Yahoo's serving up, but whatyou actually see the market
doing.
So if you can look at those keyindicators like the other day
we were looking at how do weprove our CSI within service and
we're processing a lot ofpeople and we said okay, let's
just go to our metrics that weknow and let's start looking at
keyword searches.
And so one of the thing was andthis was kind of we designed our

(46:24):
service department for our oilchange that there is no
appointment necessary, come atany time and we work on that
weekly of what does thatschedule look like and what's
our efficiency?
Every single week.
And how can we make sure thecustomer that we never say no to
them, no matter what time it is, and that we always have
available bays and we havemultiple different teams to be

(46:44):
able to overflow and handle withthat.
And that's a work in process.
But we look at that and we say,okay, what's the hang up of
making sure our CSI doesn't keepgrowing?
And one of the biggest thingswas the lack of the ability to
schedule service online and wewere like, well, we alleviated
the ability to have to scheduleservice online, just come on in.

(47:08):
Well, what we didn't realize isthat people still want to do
that.
There's a little bit of amentality whether it's your
grocery pickup, your grocerydelivery, sure, whatever it is,
people like to schedule that, toknow that if I do show up, I
don't have it, because they'vebeen at a place that it's been
two or three hours.
They don't want that.
So if I can book that, sothey've been at a place that

(47:31):
it's been two or three hours.
They don't want that.
So if I can book that, so thatwas one of those things of
listening to the market when youthink you're killing it and
when you think you've alleviatedall issues.
Not everyone is alwayshyper-focused as you are, and
they'll still want, maybe, whatit kind of was or what it might
be growing to, so to see whatthe market says.
And so that was one of thosethings like, okay, let's make a
little change here.
So if there is a person wantsthe certainty of a 9am
appointment, let's make itsimple and easy.

(47:52):
And we had really busted it outthat they could say a
drivability issue or adrivetrain, and the ladies that
were helping me work throughthis they're like we don't know
what this is Like.
No, this means that, like, whenyou schedule it, that tech is
available and that the time isavailable, the slot's available,
the spot in the shop isavailable.
That's too much.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
I was like okay, we need to un-gamify this, I'm
going to make it super simple.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
How do you want that to happen?
What do you need done?
I think that's big of listeningto the market.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
I think, listening to the market there instead of to
yourself, because some peoplethey don't necessarily care,
they don't want to be pinneddown to an exact time, so they
love drop in whenever to getyour oil change.
But then there's other peoplethat are extreme planners.
Both of them are customers ofours, yeah, so we have to make
sure managers are not makingdecisions or leaders are not

(48:42):
making decisions in ourorganization based upon what
they would do.
Yeah, because they're just oneof the multiple personalities
and habits out there and that'sa tricky thing, oh man.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
How do you coach and teach that?
No different than you weretalking about inventory, of
being flexible, like, do youwant me to put the money on the
car, on the money from day one?
Or do you want me to wait until90 days, like both.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
And I want you to be right with the money in the
market on day one and then youknow seven days, and then 12
days and then 18 days.
I want you to follow that theyI say they, I mean everyone
without a micro focus andunderstanding that you need to
adjust a little bit along theway.
Like well, do you want me to dono appointments or all
appointments?

(49:27):
Like both, both Right, becausewe have to appeal to everyone,
and some people just can't dothat Like I want you to hold the
salespeople accountable.
Make sure they make 100 phonecalls.
They schedule threeappointments, they send out 10
videos, but if this person'sover there and he's selling 10 a
day and he's not logging anyphone calls, Don't worry about
it.
Don't worry about him, becausehe's doing what he needs to do

(49:48):
in his own fashion.
And they're like, well, how doI manage all these people?
Because all these people aresqueaking about this guy is like
two separate things, right.
And we had, we had a wholepodcast.
We talked about that ofmanaging difficult people, and
if you didn't listen to that, goback and reference that.
But both right, yeah, and Ithink that's a big thing.

(50:09):
And the last thing here isbeing accountable with others.
I think when you set thosestandards and those goals of the
change, share it with someone.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
And whoever you share it with needs to be not just
that person that's just going toagree with you, but that's
going to respectfully hold youaccountable.
No different than we talkedabout the ideas a minute ago.
I say, hey, walk me throughthat.
What would that look like?
What are you actually trying toachieve?
You know, if somebody'sbringing an idea to me, that's
what I'll say.
I mean, you guys know that.

(50:38):
And then that accountabilitycomes.
Is there going okay?
And now I'm going to hold youaccountable for that and it
needs to be relevant.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
I guess I should have said that the person needs to
be relevant.
There you go.
It doesn't need to be theperson that you tell and they're
going to laugh at you when youfail the person that loves to
see you fail and just like lovesgossip, right.
Those people are really good atasking like, hey, tell me what's
going on, tell me what you'reworking on, because they what

(51:12):
you're working on, because theylove to be in the know but
they're not going to help,they're not doers within your
circle.
That when you say, hey, I know,I told you that we were going
to be in a 97 percent fix, rightthe first time, uh-huh, but
we're not getting there they say, hey, okay, we're not going to
throw it out, walking me throughthis.
What's going on?
You know, do you not have theparts, do you not have the time
or do you not have the, theproper diagram?
The person that actually caresthat.
They're not like.
You know it's okay, yeah, let'stry something else.
And you're like no, it's notokay, let's break it down.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
I think the biggest thing out of the whole segment
that both of y'all hit on, ofgoing over.
So, from listening to others tobeing in the market, to holding
accountable, make sure it isrelevant to your business.
So, if it's others or if it'sanything else, make sure it's
relevant to your business.
That one, they're going to holdyou accountable.
But then, on the market side ofdon't get caught up in, hey,

(51:58):
all this stuff is happening outthere.
Yes, it's relevant, but that'snot going to change.
We are so good in our businessof whatever is happening in the
world.
Yes, I acknowledge it, sure,but I realize that it's not
going to affect what I'm doingtoday.
So, make sure what you're doingis relevant to your business,
your market, whatever it wouldbe.

(52:18):
The personnel around you.
Hey, diving back into that funfact quiz, it's not multiple
choice, it's not anything else.
So I'm just going to tell youwhat all they have owned or been
a part of, or anything else.
Some of them might surprise you.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Volvo's in there.
Okay, so Ford has owned or beena part of Volvo Mazda, which
you can kind of see that.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
I remember Mazda, especially the Ranger.
Yes, and then the Escape Okay,oh yeah a little B2000 there,
mercury.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Alan Jackson talking about Mercury.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
Land Rover, which you wouldn't have thought about
anything else.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
Maybe that's European or something Jaguar, I remember
that some and Aston Martin wasa luxury brand that they had
owned.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
They probably bought that to steal some of their
high-end technology.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
I don't remember a whole lot about Aston Martin.
Some of the other ones Iremember growing up.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Yeah, so I want to say that I'm having that in
there, All right that's solidAutomotive fun fact of the quiz.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
All right, last segment here cost of not letting
go and awards of letting go.
Okay, so the cost of notletting go.
So a little segment and thenyou guys can hit me with this.
Often someone will say with alittle bit of fear of loss they
say, what if I train a person toteach them what I know or to

(53:35):
properly do something, and I getthem all coached and trained up
, whether it be technician,salesperson, manager, and then
they leave, Okay.
And then the other side, theflip side, is that what if you
don't teach them, train them,give them everything they need
and they stay?

Speaker 1 (53:53):
All right, let's take that first part.
That's two different big partsto grab at you.
So let's first go, because Ican remember the first couple
that I trained all the way upand then they went, and the
first time or two that thathappens it really punches you in
the gut, like personally,emotionally.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
You get them certified, all of it.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
Top tier, top tier.
And then they leave or theyhelp you develop something new.
You send them to training tofigure it all out.
Then they go out and open up.
Especially when they open up acompetitive business or go to
somebody else, that's acompetitor of yours.
I mean it really strikes you,yeah, competitor of yours.
Yes, I mean, it really strikesyou.
Yeah, but at the end of the day,like after the emotions go down
and you start talking to somementors and some people that

(54:31):
have been through that your jobis to grow people and educate
them and to continue to pushthem.
And at the end of the day, ifyou and I've talked to dad about
this too, because he can lookback, especially some of the
salespeople that he grew up thatnow own their own businesses
and they own this or that theywouldn't have been able to do

(54:52):
that if we had not grown them soin the big perspective of life,
you've helped those people finda niche on what they're good at
.
So you're doing your part.
And if you do that witheverybody, everybody's not going
to leave Then you end upelevating your entire workforce

(55:12):
and your dealership.
But I'm going to tell you thefirst couple of times that
happens, it stings hard.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
It really does.
I mean you're mad.
Yeah, you really are.
You're mad Because now thatthey know the tips to the trade,
they know your segment, theyknow what you're hyper-focused
on the flip side of that of whenthey do leave and here's the
positive outcome is that youhave challenged yourself to grow

(55:38):
someone else, to find a newsegment or to grow in a segment.
So now you've sharpened yourtools, you've sharpened yourself
, and so when you do it the nexttime, you'll learn a little bit
differently.
You've got to be carefulbecause you just opened yourself
up, you bet and you just gotwhacked, and so you'll do it a
little bit differently.
But it sharpened you and yourteam grew around you.

(55:59):
So what about on the flip side?

Speaker 2 (56:00):
You hit on something there that I want to go back on
that.
A lot of people you won't seemanagers lead or do anything
else because, one, they'rescared.
But then you see two of theaccountability If you're not
sharpening yourself to be ableto pour back into your team,
you're not doing your teamjustice and you can't do it at a

(56:21):
high level if you don't expectyourself to know and do the same
things that your team is doing.
A lot of managers don't do thatand they miss that of going
through a of I need to know X, yor Z.
And then they come back to youand they're like, hey, I can't
get X, y or Z done Because youdon't do it yourself.

(56:42):
So that's something you have toknow Do what you expect others
to do.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
That is really important, of leading by example
.
So don't say, hey, I'veelevated, now I don't need to
make phone calls, I've elevated,I don't need to watch my train,
I've elevated, I don't need todo one-on-ones and you've tasked
those people to do it.
But you still need to know howto do it and lead by example to
do it.
And in doing that, you'llnaturally, unnaturally, don't

(57:07):
realize you're doing it.
You'll get better, you will.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
Two more things on that, and then we'll go to the
next part is you always shouldbe training people so they're
equipped to be able to take yourposition, because if not, you
don't have a growth mindset.
Because you should be trainingpeople that can take over your
position.
And number two I'll tell youanother thing that really helped
me to be okay with no differentthan us talking about our trade

(57:30):
secrets and what we've done onthis podcast is very few people
out there in the world aredisciplined and consistent
enough to put in tips and toolsthat you teach them to be
successful.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
I love that so much.
You know like why would youteach everybody?

Speaker 1 (57:46):
I was like they're not going to do it.
They don't have your discipline.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
They're not going to take it.
They don't have your discipline.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
So you might as well elevate yourself and try to
elevate the people around, andif you can just get a few more
from a couple different people,you'll grow Right.
So what if you don't train themand they stay?
What happens then?

Speaker 2 (58:05):
It's just like stuck in the mud.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
It's not good.
It's like an old crock pot.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
Yes, you can't get it , you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
I think that the silent assassin here I'm going
to say too, though, is everybodyelse it affects, because
sometimes you think about andespecially during COVID, when
nobody was applying for jobsokay, because the government was
paying them to stay home isthat we put up with
underperformers.
We're like, well, it's justso-and-so over there.

(58:36):
They're underperforming butthey're not hurting anything.
We need a warm body.
Leave them over there.
That's not the case.
They end up spoiling, like, ifyou take somebody in our service
department, where there's 20 or30 people, what do they do to
the culture of everybody else?
And at some point in time, youcould be a high performer and
you know your worth.
You're like I could go to otherplaces.

(58:57):
I don't want to put up withthis every day.
I'm here too many hours andthis person.

Speaker 3 (59:02):
I'm done and we've had to go through that of
different people that showed upto work, did their job decently
well, to average, to maybe aboveaverage, sure, but they were
spoiling the pot of everyoneelse around them and that's a
little the sub conversation ofexactly.
But we had to say, hey, quickly, we, you don't align your

(59:24):
values, don't align with us,that we're not going to go out
on gossip, we're not going to beusing curse words, we're not
going to be belittling peopleand we're not going to sit
around and just overly coffeepot talk about all this stuff.
So here's your write-up.
We don't need to be doing that.
If you need help of how tocommunicate or the correct
process, we're here for you.

(59:45):
But in the end, if we can'tcorrect that or get them to
correct it, you have to cut bait, and you need to cut bait
quickly, because they'rechanging the whole temperature.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
They really are.
And so what Shelby hit on thereis, if you're just looking at
it on paper and you pull yourtime clock ins for the week,
they were here every time, ifyou look for performance.
They're good.
So then you think you're goodbut you don't realize what
influence they have here and Iknow that we've spent some time,
but I'm going to relate thisback just for a second.
We had an employee that onpaper they were doing great,

(01:00:17):
they weren't late, they wereperforming, but we knew the
culture that they weren't addingto the culture, they were
actually sucking away from it.
We transferred them to anotherdealership of ours because the
manager didn't want to addressthat situation and that same
type of negativity rolled overinto the same spot.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Yeah, because the second store had no clue, right
People?
are pretty good about having theJoker face of like oh, I'm in
an interview, oh yeah, let metell you.
And they could regurgitate whatwe were supposed to say or
supposed to do.
And they're like this person'sa superstar.
I can't believe.
This store wants to get rid ofthem, Exactly.
And then they get in there,warm and cozy back in their way
and find their spot, and thenthey're like oh, now I get back

(01:01:02):
to the other side that happens,so you got to be quick about it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
So it's always.
I tell managers that, like man,because nobody wants to fire
somebody.
It's the toughest part of ourjob.

Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
And let me tell you, I remember in my early years,
when I was a used car manager, Iremember going over talking to
dad getting some reports and Isaid, well, I had to let
so-and-so go.
He said, OK, was it the rightdecision?
I said no, absolutely, Based onthis and this and this.
It's just not fun to do.
He said let me tell you this,Shelby, If you ever get to the
point where you don't have thatgut feeling of where it sucks or

(01:01:33):
it's not fun, it's not fun.
He said, you've lost yourability to be a human and care.
That's right.
Like it always sucks, you know,because you're affecting people
.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
You are, but it still needs to be done when it needs
to be done, and I'm not going tosay that it makes it easier.
But I've always looked throughthe lens of if I don't let them
go, how many other people are weaffecting?
And our job as leaders nomatter if you're over a whole
dealership or over a departmentis you're in charge of all of

(01:02:04):
them.
And if one person is affecting10 others, you're doing those
other 10 others an injustice bynot removing them.
So you have to address that,Like you to address it.
Like you said quick, Slow tohire, quick to fire, as long as
you've gone through the T'sthere.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
So that's kind of on the front side.
On the back side, the awards ofletting go when you decide to
let go, you can create more leaninventory.
Yes, we're talking about whenwe first started the top
inventory people, ideas, oldhabits.
So what are some of the awardsof lean inventory, of
multiplying your time bydelegating uh, by giving uh

(01:02:45):
better talent, some more team.
What are your guys thoughts andfeelings there of the awards of
being, of letting go?

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
god, the biggest deal there.
If people I'll go off of thepeople not only and I'll throw
inventory over to you, but ifpeople just the biggest deal
there.
Once you finally do it, italways it doesn't feel good that
you've done it, but it'sinstant relief of whole
department morale.
Everything starts to click andgo and it makes you think, hey,
why didn't I go through thesesteps before that?

(01:03:12):
I needed to to be able toprocess that situation.
But the instant relief, themorale that's boosted, and the
other thing that it does is, ohman, they're holding them
accountable.
So not only does it instantlyboost morale, it gets that next
level of accountability of hey,they're watching.
This is what I'm expected to doIf not, I'm going to be in that

(01:03:35):
same situation.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
No, you nailed it there, especially with the
accountability, theaccountability part on the
inventory.
It's also all about the x-factor, yes, and if you need in depth
that, you got to go back andlisten to the other episode.
But that's the benefit of that.
You turn it more, you're gonnaget a bigger earn, you know, and
overall in our business, morepeople are gonna be successful,
they're gonna sell more carsbecause we sold X amount more,

(01:03:57):
we'll make more money.
We'll grow our customerdatabase.
There's a plus, plus, plus andall the X factors there that you
look at on the award of thatand then the multiplying of your
time.
Once you figure that out, youthen get to hyper focus on
helping people or departments togrow and to be successful,
versus allocating that time tosomething that somebody else

(01:04:20):
could have done.
You also get the gratificationof growing them and it being
their child and their baby andtheir success.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
And that relates back to where I was talking about
delegate task versus delegateauthority.
You're giving away control, butyou're giving the ability to
gain growth, and so if you cangive them that authority, then
it doesn't always have to comeback to you, so you inevitably
get to grow there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
You bet.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
So it's such a good thing.
Alright, so next up is ourfrequently asked questions.
Now, laughingly so, I broughtthis.
This part is sponsored andbrought to you by AlphaBrain
Black.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Label, oh, not the Black Label, the Black Label.
So we've talked about thisbefore.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
I didn't do the Black Label thing.
It promotes mental process.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
Speed and sustained focus to help support your
productivity and helps you stayin the zone when you're in that
workflow.
It's solid when you've got toget things done.
Have you guys experienced this?

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
Oh yes, and then you get a couple of triple macchiato
espressos and it just sends youinto orbit.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
That's triple stack and the double stack.
But, Matt, have you been inthis?
I have.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
I'll tell you a quick tip on me on that right there
is that it does work for sure,and we're not endorsed by them
or anything.

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
Not at all, but that would be funny.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
But you've got to.
You know, in my flow, becauseeverybody's different I take
half the dose and I take part ofit in the morning and part of
it in the afternoon Because if Ido the other, I saw that it was
too ratcheted and it wasscaring employees.
You know what I mean and I wastrying to be self-aware there,
you know what I mean I thought Iwas rocking and rolling and I

(01:05:55):
was.

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
But it was too much.

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
It was like whoa Ging ging, I'm proud of you for
being aware of that, becausegenerally I won't slow down
enough to notice and they'rejust like.

Speaker 2 (01:06:03):
well, why Shelby's coming?

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
But that's what we have each other for too.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
It's like, hang on, re-look at that and see so
you're more consistentthroughout so that's one of the
funny things, but that is thealpha brain.
If you've got a whole lot to doand you need to stay focused,
it's not something that makesyou jittery, it's something cool
.
Check it out.
So frequently asked questions,matt, what is the best and the
worst part of leading?

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
I would say the best part there is the gratification
of being able to grow others andhelp them to achieve their
goals.
That's a fun part, besideshitting R levels and this, and
that it was just growing othersand helping them achieve their
goals.
But then, on the other part, Iwould say the most difficult I
don't want to say the worst part, the most difficult of leading

(01:06:47):
is you're at the top.
Yeah, so any kind of decisionthat's made, even if somebody
gets fired within a department,you had nothing to do with it.
You're the person in charge.
So then the backlash comes toyou and you know the spotlights.
Well, why did that happen?
Well, matt said so, or this,that, or blah, blah, blah.
So one doesn't come without theother.

(01:07:08):
Yeah, and it's still difficultto deal with, though, on the
other side, it's reallydifficult when you don't even
know that it happened, becauseyou gave somebody the authority
to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
Wham.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
And you're just like, okay, let's walk through this,
but it's part of it.
Right, it is.
You can't have the pluseswithout the minuses.
You can't.
That's super solid, taylor.
What's the hardest part aboutlearning to lead?

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
There's two pieces of this, so it is probably in
relation of you.
Teaching someone is likeletting a kid learn to fall and
make mistakes.
It's going through and you'relike, oh, let me catch you wait,
but you know you don't need toas long as something bad's not
happening, because that's theonly way they'll learn.

(01:07:53):
You know it's going to hurt alittle bit, you know they're
going to be able to move forward, but you've got to let that
happen.
And the other part of it is youMatt's hit this but of growing,
you have to be okay to let alittle bit of go.
We all have our favorite partsof the car business, of going
through it, and we always lovegoing back and being in the
middle of it.
You can't stay in the middle ofit and I find myself in the

(01:08:16):
middle of.
I just love doing this.
But I know that I need to beable to let the others grow and
learn so that I can move andgrow in that aspect as well.

Speaker 3 (01:08:27):
Yeah, that's tough of learning how to let go and
delegate to someone else knowingthat, at best, they're going to
give you 70-80% of production.
You bet Solid.
Well, that's another solidepisode crossroad conversations
with the lewis brothers,hopefully bringing you relevant
content of how it makes sense.
Remember to stop by and see usat 65, right off i-49, favo, our

(01:08:47):
new location, uh, and also seeus online, lewis superstorecom.
And always tune in crossroadconversations, podcastcom, like,
share, subscribe and we'll seeyou soon hey, thanks for joining
us today and we hope youenjoyed this episode.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
Make sure to give it a like.
Share with your friends andfamily.
Visit our website and send ussome questions.
We want to know what you'd liketo hear, who you'd like to hear
from and what you want to see,or maybe even some questions for
us to answer about either theautomotive industry or just
business in general.