EP. 41 - Steering Ahead: The Power of Pro-Active vs Re-Active

In this episode of Crossroad Conversations, the Lewis Brothers discuss the critical distinction between proactive and reactive management styles. They share personal anecdotes and lessons learned from their family business, emphasizing the importance of delegation, empowerment, and creating a culture of accountability. The conversation also touches on the significance of being close to the ground to identify early warning signs and the necessity of continuous improvement in processes. The episode concludes with recommendations for resources and a call to action for listeners to apply these insights in their own businesses.

Takeaways

Proactive management is essential for business growth.

Delegation and clear processes are key to scalability.

Turning challenges into opportunities is a valuable skill.

Comfort zones can hinder growth; stepping out is necessary.

Leaders must shift from doing to managing processes.

Identifying early warning signs can prevent larger issues.

Empowering employees leads to better decision-making.

Continuous improvement is vital for sustaining success.

Learning from other industries can provide fresh insights.

Building a culture of accountability enhances team performance.

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):
There's plenty of people around you that want to
help, that are able to help,that.
If, at worst case scenario,they can deliver 70% of what you
would be able to do, yourenthusiasm or direction, that's
good, that's scalable.
But you have to structure forthat, plan for that and then
delegate with very clear writtenprocess.

(00:20):
Hey everyone, welcome toCrossroad Conversations with the
Lewis Brothers, where we aim toshare real stories about
running a successful familybusiness while working through
adversity and pouring back intoour community that keeps our
doors open every single day.
We're your hosts, Shelby, Mattand Taylor, and we'll be
bringing you real, relevantlocal business advice, maybe

(00:43):
some automotive insights thatare sure to change the way you
look at running a business orbuying a car, and maybe even
throw in a plug for you to dobusiness with us here locally.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Crossroads Conversation.
Welcome to episode 41.
Let's go Kicking it off,keeping it rolling hey, fun one
diving in today, steering aheadand the power of managing
proactive versus reactive, thedifferent styles you have and
how you really can manage thewhole situation and then
compound to absolutely shoot itforward and doing it in the

(01:14):
right way.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
But before we dive into that matt last week, hey,
last week we had a special guestin the studio joe rollins yeah,
and it was fun because we wentdown memory lane from what we'd
grown up doing.
It was going to the rodeo ofthe Ozarks.
So Joe talked to us about allthings rodeo, which is coming up
here.
You know it's a great familytime to take everybody out.

(01:35):
You know, whether it's from themutton busting to getting your
new hat.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
To checking out.
You know the bull riding andthe saddle broncs but a great
tradition right there in theheart of Springdale and we've
been connected with thatorganization, supporting them,
just like we do with a lot oforganizations here in Northwest
Arkansas, because it's what welike to do.
You know we like people to dobusiness locally so we can give
back locally, and Joe gave us aninsight on a great way that we

(02:02):
get to do that year in and yearout.
And make sure to check us outat lewissuperstorecom where you
can always find our specials andeverything we've got going on.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Absolutely.
And hey, what did we drivetoday?
This is an automotive podcasttalking about automotive
business, and no better way thantalking about what we do each
day, you bet, drive cars.
So today my feature is the fordmaverick.
Now, we've talked about thisbefore, uh, but sometimes I
don't overload talking aboutsomething that we don't have a
whole lot.
Yeah, that's right, uh, so wefinally got our stockpile back

(02:34):
up on the ford maverick.
One thing that they changed thisyear in the maverick, which I
love, is that they offer now thehybrid.
Okay, 2.5 liter hybrid, 40miles a gallon in all-wheel
drive.
Oh, you know, they initiallythought, hey, we got to be front
wheel drive, it's got to be sofuel efficient.
They thought, no, it's okay togive up a couple miles per

(02:54):
gallon, but also to getall-wheel drive.
What truck stuff?
Generally?
Yeah, yeah, get them to theplaces.
So you're getting up to 4 000pounds towing capability.
It's a four door, fivepassenger got a bed in it that
you can do your hobby, farm orwhatever you want to do.
Load it up and we've got over25 mavericks on the ground.

(03:14):
Starting price of a low, low,low 21 000 dollars and goes all
the way up to the trimmerpackage that goes off-road and
it's got the big beefy tires andupgraded wheels and some
upgraded options there.
But love the Maverick.
It's just a good driver ifyou're a commuter but you need
some mulch on Saturday, yep, orjust whatever.

(03:37):
And the Maverick is generally atransition from someone who's
never been in the truck to getover and be a part of Ford, you
know number one selling vehiclefor a long time.
Or somebody who's been in a big, big, big truck doing truck
stuff for a long time and says,hey, I don't, it's kind of
tricky to park at walmart orsam's.
Yep, let's truck down a littlebit but still have your man card

(04:00):
, uh per se of a truck.
So the Maverick is always a fanfavorite and we've got them on
the ground.
Yeah, that's a big deal.
And are they part of employeepricing?
They are 100% part of employeepricing, so you get to pay what
the employee at the manufactureris.
If you worked on Ford and youbuilt the Maverick, you get to
pay what they pay and theycontinued that on from May into

(04:23):
June employee pricing, so themaverick gets to take part in
that.
So I love the maverick, wantedto bring that up today of a
vehicle that we love to drive.
You followed all right.
So, transitioning into today's,what we're talking about is
steering ahead.
Are we talking reactive orwe're talking proactive?
Are you planning for somethingor are you reacting to a
situation?

(04:44):
Yeah and uh, yes is the answer.
Yes is the answer.
Before I fully let you guysunpack that.
But it takes both right.
So you have to, you have toplan for the future ahead, but
you also have to be able to makethat adjustment that fourth
quarter, fourth down, whoops, wecall it 24 sleep, but they're

(05:07):
stacked way too deep in themiddle.
Or, hey, we thought that thiswas going to be super busy and
this was going to work like this.
And wait, hold on, guys.
And I want to start with storytime and I'll pitch this.
And, matt, you can tell thisstory, but tell the stories of
lemons to lemonade, of long ago,when we were kids of how you

(05:28):
really plan something, put a lotof effort into it and, at the
last minute, something changes.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Man, I can tell you and hopefully this is a story
you're thinking of I can tellyou growing up, when we had the
boat store Yep, okay, we had theboat store and I'm just barely
old enough to have my hardshipyeah, so, 14, 15 years old, and
we had recently bought a storeover in Harrison, and over in
Harrison there was a mall thatwe rented out to have a big boat

(05:56):
sale like an indoor sale.
Now, in order to do that, wehad to take hundreds of boats,
not two, three, four, five, buthundreds of boats from
Springdale all the way over toHarrison.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
So a truck with a driver attached to boat times,
hundreds that was including mewith my hardship, driving to
Harrison, pulling all the boats.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
We worked all week long with drivers taking all the
boats over there, getting themset up, so on and so forth.
And it comes to be on Fridaywhen we get ready to launch this
sale.
Radio stations are there, boatsare set up, so on and so forth.
And it comes to be on Fridaywhen we get ready to launch this
sale.
Radio stations are there, boatsare set up, marketing,
marketing To the point where youtake one of the tires and
wheels off so you can slant theboat.
You can see in it the TV, putthe platforms to the back, the

(06:37):
platforms, all of it.
All of it.
Okay, we're ready to go.
And I can remember mygrandfather, my dad, we were all
over there ready to go.
And then we get shut down.
We get shut down because ofsome type of licensing or this
or that.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
It was above my pay grade at that point town
commissioner says hey, you don'thave your license to sell in
this, which we did in harrison.
There was something of anoff-site sale there and they
said you cannot sell a boat here.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
There was something that just didn't work.
So here we go, all invested in.
We'd moved all of ourinventories from Springdale to
Harrison to do that.
And I can just remember,deflated because I had just
worked ding-a-dong, you know,getting it all ready.
I've been proactive, setting upfor this thing, setting up for
this thing, setting up for it,and it's like let's move all the

(07:26):
boats back.
And so we move, we move themback.
And I can remember a saturdaymorning meeting my grandfather
were on the showroom floor inlakeland marine and he passes
out all these.
He's got this like from thefarmer's market, this brown bag
of lemons, and we passed themall out.
And I'm 14 years old, it's like, okay, what are we gonna do?
Well, whatever my grandfathersays, what we're gonna do?

(07:47):
Smile on her face.
I had no clue where this wasgoing.
And then he passed out the otherway all these sugar cubes.
You know, he said everybody geta couple pieces of sugar cubes.
And uh, so we get them alltogether and I'm still not
relating like what are we doing?
And he goes into this wholestory about what had happened
and he said you know, when lifegives you lemons, you got to

(08:09):
figure out a way to turn thatinto lemonade.
And that's what he said.
He said, hey, we were alreadyamped up.
We got the manufacturersbacking, we pivoted, we adjusted
, brought all the inventory back, moved the remotes to now be a
cell in springdale, add thesugar to the lemons and make
lemonade.
So that was a way to bereactive in that.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Instead of hey, everybody go home, we'll try
again next week.
All the boats are in Harrison,but we can only sell in
Springdale, that's right.
So that's a great.
I remember that in life lessons.
I don't remember like, oh yeah,hey, he's there in the hole for
spending all the money.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
Sure, he's trying to sell something Right.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
So that is a total reactive and, as leaders, your
employees will look to you,right.
They'll say what do we do inthis situation?
Hailstorm comes along, yeah,destroys a bunch of cars.
They'll look at you Do we throwa fit?
Do we throw a fit?
Do we pout about it?
That's the reactive.

(09:10):
Then proactive, of steeringahead and how to be a growing
company.
What are things that we do?

Speaker 3 (09:17):
I'm going to first and we'll go into that, but I'm
going to set the stage just soeverybody listening out there
hopefully this will resonate.
Naturally.
Everybody is not proactive.
I know Naturally because thepart of our brain that takes
over.
We're reactive people and Ihave not been the best in this

(09:39):
space throughout my career, butI've developed the ability
through learning and listeningto others about the value and
the importance about beingproactive.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
So that might be like hey, what does your day look
like?
And it'll be like I don't know.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
We'll see what comes about and we'll handle it Right
Versus hey, let me plan the dayand then, if we need to be
reactive in between the plansand that comes with identifying
by having you know we've talkedin other episodes that small
group of people, so you'revulnerable enough as a leader,
even though you're saying, hey,I'm in charge to throw it out

(10:14):
there to some team members tosay, please poke holes in this.
Yeah, I want your honestfeedback, so the right people
have to be in the room.
But by doing that, just likeyou're talking about Shelby,
you're able to be proactive,because you're like, hey, give
me your opinion.
Instead of keeping it in thisbox and not asking other people
for the input, You're saying,hey, what could go wrong here?

(10:35):
If something does go wrong, howdo we pivot?
What are some alternatives?
And you get everybody's buy-into that.
So then you can be proactive.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, and those are separate rooms and separate
conversations.
Sometimes those people willshare roles.
When you are reactive, of like,hey, here's our game plan.
I'm missing anything, let's go.
But then the proactive is acomplete different thing.
So to kind of what comes fromproactive versus reactive, is
the comfort zone or the growthzone Right?
Comes from proactive versusreactive is the comfort zone or
the growth zone Right?

(11:05):
Taylor, can you speak on that,of what your thoughts are, what
you see in the daily of acomfort zone versus a growth
zone and how that kind ofattributes?

Speaker 2 (11:14):
You know, more times than not, you have so many
people that come in and theircomfort side will say, hey, I'm
going to put my guard, I'm goingto put my shield up, because I
know, backed into my corner,where I'm comfortable, I can
handle anything that's throwingat me.
Yeah, where, honestly, if theywould really step out and be

(11:34):
able to move forward with beingproactive, step out of your
comfort zone a little bit, youknow, go back to what we've
talked to.
If it's a list, if it's a chart, anything you need to follow
and I found myself in this a lotthat the more and more
structured I come during the day, because I've been very growing

(11:55):
in this career of hey, I canhandle a lot, throw it on me and
I get to the end of the day andI'm absolutely spent.
And then I go back and okay,well, they haven't really grown
how they need to grow because Itook on all everything the
problems, the process but I'vereally found myself to where,

(12:15):
hey, I'm going to start teachingthese people so that I can help
manage that.
But then this is part of myprocess.
If you don't learn to put thatprocess in, it's never going to
help you grow, like we've talkedabout before, but more people
than not stay in that wholestructure of I'm going to sit
here and defend everything offinstead of being proactive.

(12:36):
Because a lot of times I thinkwe're really shielded in our
profession that we're in,because a lot of people come to
us, no matter what happens, andsay, oh, what are you going to
do with this?
What are you going to do withthat?
Are we builded in ourprofession that we're in?
Because a lot of people come tous, no matter what happens, and
say, oh, what are you going todo with this?
What are you going to do withthat?
Are we going to shut down?
Are we going to do that?
And we say, no, we're not goingto.
We're going to move forward,we're going to keep working.
We don't let things derail usvery fast, but that's been

(12:59):
really that I've seen helpinggrow.
Matt's really helped push downfrom top of hey, we've, we've
got to have rules, proceduresand be structured.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
So we've really seen some growth in that so go from
the comforts on to the growth.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
So yes, definitely, yeah, a big thing there,
absolutely, hey, let me jump onthat, because, guys, we gotta,
we gotta be honest.
Okay, for a second.
We're all men in here andnaturally we love taking on a
load on saying, hey, put it onmy back, we got it.
We get instant likegratification and fulfillment of

(13:33):
going hey, yeah, you got it, Ican handle it, come on, give me
more, give me more, I got this,but on my back and y'all follow
my lead.
So naturally I think,especially as men, you're like
I'm a leader, I can showstrength, I can handle more.
And we get this natural ofsuccess and fulfillment of
taking more on, like, at the endof the day, even if you're

(13:55):
exhausted, you're like, yeah,they can depend upon me, I can
carry the load, I got it.
And it's not till a little bitlater in your career where that
sense of accomplishment turnsinto frustration, though.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, and I to.
To go further into that, youhave to learn to quantify
fulfillment via a non action ofdoing something right.
You know cause generally,sometimes and I've said this
before I'm gonna go move thecars on the lot yeah, because I
think I just need some actualtangible that I can see at the

(14:32):
end of the day.
Dang these look good, right.
Or let me go work in the loopbay and help them be more
efficient right, I can help that.
But then the flip switch isthat's a reactive and we can be
really good reactive people.
We've just grown up putting outfires and saying, you know, I
was like, hey, how was your day?
It was busy and like youcouldn't quantify, and sometimes
you had some numbers to helpquantify that, but it made you

(14:54):
feel good and actually like Iaccomplished this.
And so then, as we go fromworking in the business to
working on the business, youhave to figure out how to
quantify.
Did you help them with aprocess or procedure?
Help solve an issue before itbecame an issue based on
something in the past.
That's tough to do of men andtangible people that were not

(15:17):
natural bookworms and were notnatural sit behind the desk and
come up with process andprocedures.
Some of you are right, andthat's like a really good thing.
You might not have as much ofthe hands on thing Like how'd
you figure out how to do that?
Because that's what we'vealways done.
And so now we're figuring outthe other side of getting
fulfillment.
I'm like, hey, I was able tohelp structure and I was able to

(15:40):
help teach.
Instead of just doing, I saidand that's tough, like sometimes
they're like, hey, shelby, canyou help me with this?
I'm like, yeah, you're going toneed to figure that one out.
Yep, and they're like, well,what do you mean?
You always help me.
It's like, no, like it'sclassic hey, I can give you

(16:01):
water.
You know I can.
That is not natural, and somewe've had to work on constant, I
think.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
I just want to get through to everybody that they
know that the amount of timethat we're still not perfect at
it, the amount of time that itis taking us in the years of
honestly, the frustration partfinally gets through your thick
skull of like I've got to dosomething different.
And, Taylor, you know I talkedabout that a bunch and it's just
, it's so hard when, naturally,you're like, just get in there

(16:26):
and get it done and we work hard, we hammer it out, but then all
of a sudden, the frustrationcomes from I'm not scaling my
business, it's not scalable.
The frustration comes from youtry to go on vacation with your
family and you come back andeverybody gives you a garbage
dump about what happened.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, and I was meeting with mymanagers the other day after I
had come back from.

(16:47):
You know we went on a familyvacation and I didn't want a
download of everything that hadhappened.
What I wanted is was thereanything you couldn't handle
that we need to discuss?

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Right, that's it, and really not necessarily of that
situation.
Yep, but where did we missright?
Where do we not have a processor procedure?
Yeah, because and I I've in abook that I'm reading they talk
about that, like if you cannotbe gone for a week or a month,
yes, you know, then you haven'tdone a good job scaling that.
I was talking to one of ouremployees and was like hey, did

(17:19):
you have fun?
It's like yeah, it's like hey,did you get bugged with phone
calls?
Like no, that's a rule of minethat I did long ago and it's
hard to do that.
I'm on airplane mode, right, Iuse my phone because I have the
photos of it, but if I candisconnect, I can have better
time with my family and I canrelieve the work stress.
I said if the building's onfire, call 911.

(17:40):
I can't help you with thatRight, call 911.
I can't help you with thatRight.
Short of everything else, Ishould have set up systems or we
should have built a team thatcan handle it.
If you're relying on me foreverything, I've done a bad job.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
And that's what I told him, exactly what you said
Once I got done with like, isthere anything else you need
help with?
I didn't say how did the lastweek go?
I didn't say, hey, tell me todo that.
And I told him.
At the end I said, hey, Iappreciate you not dumping all
the garbage on me.
I want to help you.
If there was areas that wereabove that, you needed to
balance off and make sure you'remaking the right decision.
But I said can I be honest withyou?

(18:12):
I hired you and I paid you tobe able to run the department
you're over.
I don't need to know about therest of that.
That's what I pay you for.
And if you can't do that, wegot to figure something else out
.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, the reports and the numbers will tell you how.
Last week it really will.
And you just you know, youshould know that the rest of it
shook, so that's a pretty good.
If you don't go in airplanemode or when you come off of
airplane mode, if you have ahundred texts and emails from
internal people, you need tolook at your delegation chart if

(18:47):
you're not giving enough ofthat responsibility out and it
depends your role and whereyou're at and what you're doing.
But that's a telltale sign.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
So I think all of that kind of comes in place and
I'm going to go into a filterhere before we move on.
That I've had to put in placeand I've taught managers about
is figuring out on the proactiveversus reactive, because both
of those come together, becauseyou're training people In order
to get to your brain where youcan start thinking about
proactive versus reactive whensomething comes at you, no

(19:15):
matter what it is, unless thebuilding's on fire, you got to
pull somebody out of a burningcar.
You know what I mean.
Somebody has pulled somethingdangerous in your dealership and
you've got to protect people.
Besides those, those are notemergencies, but your brain will
trick you, thinking that like,hey, you got to take action.

(19:36):
Now.
If you will just pause nodifferent than we talked about
with everything else and allowyour emotions to come down, you
can think logically and you canrun it through a filter of is
this a 911?
Is this a 911?
I had a customer call.
I'm going to tell the storyreal quick.
I had a customer blowingeverybody up and we've all been

(19:57):
there.
We've all been there,absolutely Including my sister
and her coworkers and everybody,and I had already walked this
car completely through serviceCustomer didn't buy from us.
I'd been to eight differentdealerships.
Okay, but we're still here tohelp.
Yeah, but it's an emergency inour lab.
But it's an emergency.
I find out after I'm texting theservice manager.

(20:20):
I give them a heads up before Igo see them.
I go see them and they're likeMatt, what's going on?
They picked up their vehicle onThursday, friday.
We followed up with them.
Everything was good.
So I call this person back andI'm not going to say their name
and I simply ask them because,no joke, my sister was texting
me.
Her co-worker was customer, wastrying to get me.
I said is everything okay?
Are you safe?

(20:41):
Yeah, are you on the side ofthe road where I need to send an
emergency vehicle and tow truck?
And this person's like no, no,no.
And I'm like well, I haveeverybody calling me.
Like the building's on fire,are you safe?
Yeah, and they're like oh, Ijust had a question.
I just needed to know if youcould get the manufacturer to
reimburse me for some stuff.
I was like huh.

(21:03):
So what I'm telling you is youjust pick more sensitive, is.
You have to allow yourself togo through the situation calmly
so you can become more proactive.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
You'll never have time to be proactive if you're
constantly reactive, and thattakes planning.
And sometimes it'll give melike, if you're not in the line
of fire and you need to workproactively on forecasting or
adjustments or hire a firetrainer, what's next?
If you're a natural reactiveperson, you'll say, hey, this

(21:37):
doesn't need attention right nowand you'll put it back burner.
And you'll put it back burner.
So then, when it is time,you're reactive and you don't
have a new plan, that's right.
You go back to the same old andI get you back into the comfort
zone which keeps you in thesame circle.
So it's tough if you're notnaturally proactive.

(21:57):
Some people are major planners.
Kudos to you, kudos to you.
If you're not, I'm not.
Then.
If it's not, I'm like does itneed my attention right now?
And so reprogram my brain tosay yes, it does.
So it's proactive instead ofreactive.
You can vet a couple ideas,bounce it off a couple people,
until it's like hey, man, it's agrand opening, what color do

(22:19):
you want to paint the wall?
Like, hey, where should we putthe front door right?
And the construction hasdefinitely helped with that of
like.
They're like hey, uh, what doyou think about this like for
collision.
Yeah, no, no, no, that's that'ssix buildings deep, that's six.
Well, he knew that when we getthere and like I was telling
matthew, there was like hey, onthis building, can we please

(22:40):
plan for this so it doesn't comedown to the last minute?
That's true, and it's like,yeah, we probably can.
Like we blame it on the cityand the city, you know, has
their process right, it's longand it's drawn out and it's very
teasing eyes.
Uh, I was like hey, so if youcan learn which is not natural
to any of us to handle thisbefore, it's very teasing eyes.
Uh, I was like hey, so ifyou're gonna learn which is not
natural to any of us to handlethis before, it's a really a

(23:02):
situation, because then we'll belike, hey, you, dude, how quick
can you get it done?
They're like, oh, it's gonna befour to six weeks.
Like I ain't gonna cut it.
It's like will you burn four tosix weeks putting it on the back
burner, right, we know thatyeah but then you're like no, no
, no, I saturday, I needeverything done, like you need
curbing asphalt, landscape,irrigation lines painted the

(23:26):
size like gotta be saturday, yep, gotta be done.
We could have helped.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
So we've learned from lack of proactive to being
reactive, to let's become moreboy and let's give them another
example of and this was reallysimple, so it'll be easy to
relate to uh, because we have itcoming up to.
The car show's coming up, yeah,um, and it's wildly successful.
Yeah, it's two to three hundredcars on display, hundreds and

(23:51):
hundreds of people that come,and in the past we've just been
in the middle of it beingreactive, like, oh, we need
audio.
Like, yeah, go get the speakers.
We got audio.
Oh, you need to move the sportscars over here, modern muscle
here.
And we kept moving it around.
But what it did the three of us.
Now we got it done and behindthe scenes nobody could ever
tell that it didn't go smooth.
But what it kept us from doingis being able to interact with

(24:20):
all of our customers.
Employees tell the people howgreat a job they've done
restoring or polishing their carto make them feel welcome, and
that's our value as businessowners there.
So you didn't ever get to be wedidn't get to do that.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
You were somehow.
We didn't delegate anything andso we were parking the cars.
I remember the first one.
You're like, oh, we still cando our sales.
No, you can't, you jack wagon.
And so the sales meeting ishappening.
We're on facebook live.
And then we said the car showstarts at nine.
Car show people start about 630 at the donut shop.

(24:50):
Oh yeah, just coffee.
And then here they come at 7 15and matt's mad at these people
for being early.
What the heck.
We said 9 am.
I'm like Matt shut the salesmeeting down.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
I'm like we're live here on Facebook.
Thanks for joining us.
Car over there he's holleringat the sales people like, get
involved, get involved.
And I'm like you get involved.
What?

Speaker 1 (25:11):
are you doing?
I was like shut it down and sowe're in charge of the meeting,
we're in charge of parking thecars, we're in charge of
organizing the cars no, you'vegot a big one, it goes over here
and we're in charge of the foodtruck.
And then the audio.
Like we need another xlr cable.
This one's bad.
He's like I got it.
There's one up in the attic, sohe's gonna do that.

(25:31):
It's like hey, matt, everyone'sstaying in front of the tent.
I couldn't figure out whythey're waiting on us for us to
announce the winners of thisthing.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Oh, there's a live remote.
Oh, and there's a live remote.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Can you cut that real quick?

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Cut it real quick.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
Matt's like who's winning and I was like we're the
judges.
We haven't looked at it.
I was like, real quick, go lookat the cards.
There's Uncle Tommy or don't,right, you know like you gotta
explain it all.
They're like, hey, they want toknow what, oh, and they want to
know, can they venmo you themoney to donate?
Is like, oh crap, we, I got avenmo here, send it to me.

(26:04):
He's like so that was all andit was amazing.
It was amazing.
People just know that your hairgot even grayer and it was, you
know, just the stress level wasso high because we're really
good at being right, oh we are.
So then we learned to.
We've had now multipledifferent meetings to say
delegate, delegate, becausethere's plenty of people around

(26:25):
you.
Here's the the takeaway yeah,there's plenty of people around
you that want to help, that areable to help, that if, at worst
case scenario, they can deliver70 of what you would be able to
do, your enthusiasm or direction, that's good, that's scalable.
But you have to structure forthat, plan for that, and then

(26:45):
delegate with a very clearwritten process.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
That's so good and that rolls straight into.
I was sitting here thinkingabout laughing, listening about
anybody that's listening to this, talking about I can't just
give them over the keys and justand walk over.
It doesn't start with the bigthing, it starts with a small
thing.
I think about several episodesago whenever I talked about how

(27:07):
I was aggravated every nightwhen I was the last one to leave
and I was there and I was likeI think they checked the doors,
I'm gonna walk through the doorsand every single time the key
closet would be unlocked and Iwas so mad and I finally said,
no, like Taylor, you hadn't toldanybody to lock the key closet.
So of going through there and itstarts with something so small

(27:29):
like that of checking people inor greeting people at the front
door, locking the doors orwhatever it would be that you
have to delegate it Clearexpectations and then the ball
starts to click with okay, alittle bit more time back, I'll
move over to that, then you'llmove to the next thing.
So it's baby steps of beingable to go where Matt's at now

(27:50):
with all of his micro meetings.
He definitely didn't flip aswitch from running the whole
sales meeting, car showeverything else with 47 hats on
and say, nope, I can't do it.
It was one step at a time,moving forward, helping delegate
, being proactive in the wholesituation.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
You know, I think one thing is we're sitting here
talking.
This has kind of resonated withme because I'm sitting here
thinking in my mind where didthat come from?
I mean, we're blessed withbeing able to have that skill
set of figuring things out likewhere did that come from?
I mean we're blessed with beingable to that skill set of
figuring things out like wheredid that come from?
And when you think about youknow how we grew up, we were
taught growing up of, like yousee, something needs to be done,
you do it, you know, and it'ssomething as simple as like when

(28:30):
you're sitting down for afamily dinner and then you see
that the dishes need to be done,I'm popping up and I'm doing
the dishes.
Yeah, you know I could.
Nobody has to say anything.
Well, the three of us grew uptogether that way.
So then it almost got to thislike jedi mind thing where you
can read in each other like whatneeds to be done, you don't
have to communicate, no, becausethat was the culture we're in.
So then we take that culturethat we know and then we can

(28:53):
play off each other and go thisneeds to be done, that needs to
be.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
And then we think all of a sudden that our business
and our employees need to bethat way.
Like that, the employeesunderstand your Jedi mind tricks
.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
That's what was ingrained into us.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
That makes complete sense.
But it's so funny.
It's like why aren't theylocking the door?
Why does no one else want torefill the fridge full of water?
Why does no one else want tocheck the coffee maker?
Like, why should we have to doall this?
It's like newsflash you fool.
Yep, you've never told them yeah, but they should just get it

(29:29):
and you're like well, I just seethem and they're doing nothing.
I I have to point this out andthen we'll go to the next
process.
So it's summertime, our kidsare out of school and my wife
calls me or text me the otherday, is like hey, I got a run
into work.
I have a couple clients.
I was like oh, congratulations,I'm proud of you.
She's like well, two of theboys are okay, going with me,

(29:51):
oliver wants to come hang outwith you.
I was like okay, well, I'mworking, we're not gonna go just
follicle around, go find a pondto fish in.
She's like I know that.
I was like yeah, sure, drop himoff.
She said where are you going tobe?
I said I have no clue, he'llfind me.
So she brings him up with ascooter and he's just scootering
around, just whatever.
He'll find one of the three ofus.
And so I said explaineverything we were doing.

(30:20):
But I just did what I do on thedaily, uh.
And so we looped around acouple times.
He's like dad, what are youdoing?
I said what do you mean?
What am I doing?
I said I'm working.
He said we've gone in the samecircle three times.
I said does it look like I'mlost?
He said no, just, and he's he'svery blunt like he's gonna say
like it is.
And he's like we've gone in thesame circle three times.
I said that's a big part of myjob, son, is I'm not so much a

(30:43):
doer anymore, is I'm?
I said did you see, in service,when we just went through there
and they were hanging out ontheir phones and we were
checking on, hey, how are wecoming on checking in today and
how's the car wash and what'sour old change key to key time?
He's like yeah.
I was like that's part of ourjob.
I said our visibility of beingamong the people show the

(31:05):
customers, show the workers thatwe are inspecting what we
expect.
I said and did you see larryover here?
He was just sitting back eatingthe popcorn instead of popping
the popcorn.
And by us being around andchecking on him saying, hey,
how's it going?
Hey, how many bags have we gonethrough?
And then we were the partsdepartment.
We're checking on this and this.
He's and he's not overly like,oh, okay, yeah, that makes great

(31:27):
sense.
He's still like so why'd we goin the circle three times?
But then I was explaining to theteam.
I was like, hey, my 11 year oldson pointed this out.
I said that's what we get to doas managers.
Now, everyone's a differentlevel.
You need to be overseeing anddoing no, and some people are
just doing and some people arejust overseeing.
But it was funny from the eyesof 11 year old.

(31:49):
It's like we're going in thesame circle three times, like no
, that's what we get to do tomake sure that the systems are
working, the machines are on,the people are in the right
place, in a good state of mind.
So that's a little bit of thereactiveness that is necessary.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Well, you were managing the systems and the
expectations instead of theactual action.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yep, no doubt, absolutely Well, we absolutely
dove in and killed being in themiddle of firefighting to
foresight of looking into it.
But hey, time for a little bitof automotive history today.
No quizzes, I'm going straightinto history.
What happened in the month ofjune in history of automotive?
Henry ford tested the firstquad recycle.

(32:29):
Quad recycle first drive inmovie theater opens.
That's a big deal.
I mean, that's a lot.
I know first chevy corvettedrive off assembly line in the
month of june.
Okay, had to have been in the50s, probably.
Yeah, early 60s.
And then senate passes landmarkauto safety bill had to do

(32:50):
something with we're talkingseatbelts.
Yeah, I had to win seatbelts.
They went back through thatworld's first automobile race.
I wonder what that was.
They weren't just going downthe interstate, I can tell you.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
I don't have a clue, but I'll guess something.
Usually I've got a pretty goodinsight.
But you know that's a lot If itis all of the above, that's a
lot going in the month of June.
That is, you know.
But that's exciting, that is.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
That is a whole lot of going, hey, diving straight
back into the next, of buildingproactive systems, your business
, early warning signals androadmaps.
So we kind of really went overthe whole process there.
What's an early warning sign?
Whenever you're seeing any ofdepartments of a broken process

(33:45):
or a lack of thereof process,what's a sign?

Speaker 3 (33:46):
of that.
I'll dive into that because,because you and I have had that
conversation, because I've gonethrough it too, and your goal
should always be to passeverything down that you know,
so then whoever you're passingit down to can start at that
level and then move on.
You know, the easiest earlysign warning signs for us I
don't know if it's early, butwarning signs for us is
frustration.

(34:06):
To me, when you find yourselffrustrated about something not
getting done, that is a directcorrelation.
On that, you're more reactiveversus proactive and you need to
step back and look at how yourcommunication and how you're
setting clear expectations,definitely.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
And that's so good, but then understanding that it
can't just be one and done.
You know, if like, ok, I'm notgoing to be reactive, I get it,
I could go park those, get it, Icould go park those cars or I
could go help change the oil,like you know.
And then you're like, okay,let's create a system.
It still takes the managementof the system, you know, and the
follow-up of the system and themetrics to see that you're

(34:51):
watching the system.
And then, uh, all of relapse,you know.
So then then you're walkingthrough because the reactiveness
gets you.
And so then you're like, oh,let's be proactive, create a
system, it still won't solve it.
Like we laugh in our salesmeeting going over the okay
today, here's what we're goingto go over and here's what we'll
cover.
And we we're like, okay, we'llbuild on the foundation and then

(35:11):
we'll get really deep and let'sgo advance justification and
these and these and these.
And then it's's like, you know,let's just get back to the
basics, right, and becausepeople are generally just simple
and easy path of leastresistance.

Speaker 3 (35:27):
So I think what you have to be careful of here and
we do a good job of this,naturally, but I want to share
this with everybody is we'vetalked about how much on we've
tried to become more proactive.
We've empowered others,identified issues, but what we
have not done is taken out thelead by example.
So what you're talking aboutit's not a set and forget it.

(35:49):
You come out with a new process, you email and you have a
powwow.
They still have to see youremployees have to see that it is
important.
Yeah, so we're still,especially in the early stages
when we come out with a newprocess to empower them.
We're still involved.
We're still help coordinatingthe cars where they go.
Now, that's not a end, all beall that we keep doing, but

(36:09):
we're still leading by example,because that's how you get
buy-in from your team.
They're like well, it must beimportant, because the guy in
charge is out here doing it withus.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
That's so important.
I saw that the other day thatsaid why in the automotive
business and I don't think it'sjust the automotive, he was just
talking about that but he saidwhy in the automotive business
do we find something that works,something that people enjoy,
that's an efficient process andis profitable, and then three
months later do we throw it out,do we stop doing it Right?
And then three months later dowe throw it out.

(36:38):
Do we stop doing it right?
And I think the biggest thingis just not properly managing
that, because in our industryand amongst any other industries
, there's always next weekthere's a newer software,
there's a better program,there's a better ramp, there's a
lower rate.
You know all these things.
Somebody's trying to sell yousomething and then you forget
your basics and your metrics,metrics, and so your whole

(37:00):
employment office is used tosomething new, something new,
something.
And we try we do a pretty goodjob of not just introducing new
something, because then the youknow the boy that cried wolf
they're like yeah, just give ita week, it'll be gone.
You know what I mean like it'sgoing to decrease the bottom
line because they're going tokeep paying for it, but it
doesn't affect my pay.
So just give it a week andthey'll stop paying attention.

(37:21):
So we try to buck the trendthere to say we're riding this
mule all the way through theGrand Canyon to make sure that
you signed up for the GrandCanyon tour and you're going to
get the whole tour.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
That brings up a stage two here, and it's just a
great segue.
Whole tour, that brings up astage two here, and it's just a
great segue.
So the first part we spent timegoing over just being reactive,
which really was a clearindication that we didn't have a
process, we weren't empoweringothers.
This comes to a new one.
It's such a great point, shelby, is that if you already have
something in place a process ofempowering or to be more

(37:56):
proactive and then all of asudden it looks like it's not
working, before you just buy thenew shiny thing or the new
software, go back and look atand inspect are they actually
doing what you have in place?
So before you just recreate itand redo all the thing, first go
inspect is it being done?
Because it may not be broken.

(38:17):
They redo all the thing.
First go inspect is it beingdone?
Because it may not be broken.
It may just be anaccountability issue that you
need to reignite.
We talk about that training allthe time.
We got to come all the way backto step one, you know, even
though we spent weeks on weeksand everybody repeated it.
They stood in front of theclassroom.
We got to come back andrepolish it.

(38:37):
But that's why the word manageis in manager, because you look
at it and you're managing theprocesses of the people and the
activities and that's ongoing.
If it wasn't and we didn't needthat we wouldn't need managers
and we'd save a whole lot inpayroll.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yeah, and a real deal off that.
Taylor was telling me about hismanagement team the other day
and they had an employee thatthey felt wasn't fitting, the
culture, wasn't cutting mustard,and they said, hey, we want to
get rid of employee x and thething that we talk about and
hopefully majority of peopleshould regurgitate is time,
tools, training, and so that wasthe thing that you told them.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Right, absolutely went into, because every
situation is different.
I, you can give somebody a, apat on the back and move on, or
other ones.
It is intentional every singleday and I said, hey, this is
what needs to happen.
You need to sit down in onefirst step.
Was they hired the person right?

Speaker 1 (39:28):
they hired the person .
That's two episodes.
Back when we said gettingempowering employees, yes, to
get buy-in.
So in the hire you said hey,you go talk to this person and
see if you like them, so thenyou use that absolutely I said
y'all hired, mate, you made thisdecision and so, no, you're not
getting out of it.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
but I want to want you to do and I broke this down
and gave them more of a roadmapbecause I see they were done
correct, they had nowhere elseto go and I said 10 minutes a
day.
No, said 10 minutes a day, nolonger than 10 minutes a day,
and it can be twice a day.
But you sit down and it's sosurface level.
It's hey, this is a needsassessment, hey, this is a
credit app.
You're walking through A, b, c,d, every single number letter

(40:12):
exactly with her of goingthrough every the test drive,
everything else, and it's everysingle day.
And I said at the end of that,30 days, whenever you're with
that employee.
If we get to that and you bringback to me and say, okay,
taylor, this is where we're at,absolutely, you've given the
time, you've given the tools,you've given the training and we
can move on, whether it'smoving to a different apartment

(40:34):
or it's parting ways.
You've given them all theopportunity, but you, currently,
where you're at, you have notdone that.
So, no, you may not.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
that's so good because we speak of that maybe
three to seven times a week inour morning meeting with our
managers and then throughoutmanaging, uh, the system, have
we given it time, tools andtraining the program, the new
way that something goes or, mostimportantly, the employees.
And so that was good that thatresonated.

(41:04):
On Taylor's level it had notresonated and they just wanted a
replacement person.
But they weren't fixing theirway that they managed those
people.
Because it wasn't an easy plugand play, because we hired
somebody who was not from theautomotive industry which we
love, right, because they don'thave bad habits, where we used
to do it like this, or what if Ichanged their income a little

(41:26):
bit to get an approval?
We didn't have any of thosehabits.
But because they didn't have anybad habits, they didn't
initially take off with theirbase level training and say I
can sell a couple of cars.
And so then they're like, hey,I like this person, I'll invest
some time.
Well, they hadn't at all.
And they said go get trained,go get certified.
And they're like, okay, they'regood to go, go get them.
And then it was like hang onthere.

(41:47):
And they're not.
Uh, the, the harvest is notcoming in.
It's like hang on.
Have you put fresh soil on it?
Have you watered it every day?
Have you checked its rootsystem?
Is it around something elsethat maybe is taking away
nutrients Like ie, a bademployee would say no, you're
good, you're good.
Meanwhile they're just gettingthem fired.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
Right, and we've gone through that a lot here
recently because we've obviouslybeen in a growing stage and we
have found our managers thatthey said no, no, no.
You said I needed to grow.
Yes, but grow in stages that issustainable.
Yeah, because what they'redoing is I look up and they've

(42:29):
done a half staff turnover.
So say you have 12 salespeople,they bring six on.
You can't actively train thatmany and be intentional with
every single one of them.
So it's, it's been a hugelearning curve for us to be able
to go back and understand thatyou have to be scalable within
reason and in stages, becauseyou can't overly step forward or

(42:51):
it's going to fail and it'll besomething that it's another
process, procedure, that itwasn't a big deal or it didn't
make sense, anything else likethat.
So that's really taught us ofmoving forward in that process.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
I think a key point here and this is going to be
difficult, I know it is for meand I'm sure it probably will be
for people listening to, if youreally think about it is as a
leader.
You're making a shift here and,naturally, where you were a
doer and let's just be honest,especially when you start off
small that got you to where youcurrently are by diving in there

(43:26):
and reacting to everything thatgot you to the level you are,
that hustle getting in themiddle of it got you to be
successful but will not get youto where you need to go.
So you have to retrain a littlebit and I'm just going to tell
you a couple of key things here.
First off, you have to shiftfrom actually doing the activity
reactive to now you're managingthe process.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
So, from a player, I was a really good quarterback, I
was a really good wide receiver, I was a really good linebacker
.
So now you're the coach thatyou have to teach, create,
create and make people do thoseplays.
Yes and so as a coach, you'rejust like no run through this
hole right.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
And you know what's funny, if they didn't have the
rules of you could.
You're only eligible for somany years.
How many coaches do you thinkat halftime would put pads and a
helmet on and try to?

Speaker 1 (44:16):
until out there Until they got hit.
Most of them, most of them.
But that's the same thing ofbusiness, it's the exact same
thing.
But you know, and you couldjust ride that pony.
There's nothing wrong with that, right?
Everyone has a different spotand that's why we're all
different.
You might be best to just bethe doer yes, right.

(44:40):
Just be the doer, yes, right.
Or you might want more, have abetter skill set of being the
coach, like I was not thefastest, I was not the best
tackler, but I have an eye forseeing opportunity.
Or I have an eye for, hey,let's run this.
You know, yep, you know.
So then, a person that growsfrom just the doer all the way
to the person that creates thesystem is a rarity, but you have
to see that you got to be ableto shift there and you're going

(45:03):
to have.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
Let me just tell you, like okay, I'm ready to do this
, I'm tired of being frustrating.
I'm going to put processes in,I'm going to empower others,
we're going to be proactive.
That's fine and dandy untilsomething happens.
And when something happens,instantly your mind's going to
go back to well, dang it.
I knew it.
If I wanted it done, right, Ishould have done it myself.
Pause for a second.

(45:24):
I'm going to tell you somethingsimple and you guys can relate
to this.
If we leave our house and wehead to work, we could go down
I-49 to get here.
We could go down Double Springs, we could go down Broyles, we
could go down four or five otherplaces.
They all end up at the sameplace, don't they?
They all end up at the sameplace and we might have all

(45:46):
different.
We could get into a wholedebate about why my way's better
than your way and within acouple minutes we all arrived at
the same place.
Within the same time.
Those people you empower aregoing to be the same way.
They might not do it theidentical way you did it, but it
fits within your ethics, yourmorals, the way you do business
and it was done in a timelymanner.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
If it hits those who cares, no, if you get hung up on
, do it my way, you're gonnaneed to change that.
You can't scale or you're gonnahave to go down.
You can't scale.
Yes, yeah, then I sell yourbusiness.
No, right, send us a message,we'll take a look at your
business.
Uh, I'm reading this book.

(46:31):
Uh, called unreasonablehospitality, and it is so good.
This guy's aspiring to be not achef level but to run one of
the top tier restaurants outthere, and his dad came from the
restaurant industry so he gavehim really good guidance.
Um, and there's a really coolthing in there that he talks

(46:51):
about, because he, he goes towork for this type of company
that is a hands-on doer style,and you know there's really no
rules and the chef can pick fromanything he wants for the menu,
and maybe it's crab, or maybeit's what's that steak that you
like, the Wagyu steak.

(47:11):
You know there's really nobudget, no, nothing.
And the customers love itbecause it's always the latest
and greatest.
But then what do they do inthis situation?
In this situation, or what iflobster goes ridiculously hot?
Uh, so then he goes work formore of a corporate style and he
talks about working in acorporate style and a really

(47:31):
high-end four-star in new yorkcity.
Uh, and he's in this store andhe has to start back as a?
Uh, as a waiter that runs theuh food.
Uh, and he's in this store andhe has to start back as a waiter
that runs the food.
And he's like man, okay, Igotta do my.
And he sees, as he grows intoit, becomes a general manager
and he moves a vase from oneside of the bar to the other
side of the bar so the bartendercould see all of his people at

(47:53):
the bar and serve them at thehighest level.
Well then he comes in the nextday and the vase was moved back
to the other side.
It's like what the heck it waslike corporate came and moved it
.
It's like corporate's interiordesigner said you can't move
anything.
And so there's corporate smart,and I forget his exact verbiage
, but there was like think ofhomegrown, hometown, local,
smart, right.

(48:13):
And so then he's working onthis perfect version of two of
them, of still having.
That's why we're not corporate,right, we've got that.
That's why we don't have 30stores across the US, because we
want to be fully involved.
But now, as we scale, we'restarting to have to say policies
and procedures with an asterisk.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
With an asterisk that says in this situation, here's
how we can help.
So it's not like cut and dry,like Walmart says.
This is how it is.
Like Walmart, if a light goesout, you can't climb on the desk
and take the light bulb out andreplace it because they have to
have all those.
Sure, we're like somewhere inbetween there figuring out like,

(48:55):
okay, let me hold you up andput you in the ceiling to
replace it, or let me get theladder for you, or it hits a
level and your manager thencomes in and I have a couple way
less than we used to.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
But hey I, this doesn't fit within the
guidelines.
What do you want me to do withthis?

Speaker 1 (49:11):
And it's a real quick decision, cause they bring you
all the facts and yep, let's goahead and move forward with
taking care of that, or nope,let's stick with what you were
doing proactively, created asituation or standing operating
procedure, the kpis to say, well, this is that around here,
without having to live in everysingle decision, because they're
, like, get out of my way, didyou hire me to do this or not?
You know like, oh, I did.

(49:32):
You know I'm not gonna followyou, work every day to see how
you get there.
Sure, sure, you know I'm goingto let you get there and if you
show up on time and work hard,then you do what you want.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
I hope everybody doesn't miss this section.
We paused on here Because I'mjust telling you some of you are
going to be gung-ho, yourhair's on fire, you're ready to
make a difference, you're tiredof being frustrated and you're
going to go in guns blazing, getyour whole team together and
then you're going to hit andthere's going to be a stumbling
block.
It's life.
It's going to happen every timethat happens and you're going

(50:03):
to instantly snap back, behighly frustrated, say those
Lewis brothers lied to me.
This isn't correct.
No, that's just life and you'vegot to learn how to deal with
it.
Empower others, calm down anddon't jump back in the middle of
it and give the process time.
You're going to have to firethat old person you were to grow
into, the new person you needto be, to take your business to

(50:26):
where you want it to go.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Every time you get a bad Google review, a
manufacturer survey, or get acall from a customer, I
generally go back to thatreactive like why aren't we
doing that?
It's so simple.
But then you also have to giveit some validity of like, hey,
sure, and one thing he says inthat book is assume the best out

(50:49):
of everyone.
Let me go check with matt.
Like hey, matt, I saw thisreview come across, or maybe
even don't mention the review.
Like, hey, mr smith came inyesterday, did everything go
good?
Was there any hiccups oranything I can help with a
system or process that I canhelp with.
And then they would say,actually there was a, there was
an issue.
Or they'll say, no, everythingwas good.
And so then I can unpack thatand see, rather than before,

(51:12):
I've wanted, especially when youget a couple in a row one stars
, one stars and they people arepeople right, and people are
getting vicious.
Uh, because they can, becausethey're keyboard warriors.
But uh, before you just go judo, chop that person and say what
the heck dude, that's three in arow that says you don't
communicate.
I'm just gonna go check on them.
Hey, are you doing all right?
Hey, man's family good?
Hey, mrs smith, and you mightknow those people's name, but

(51:35):
but you don't call it out.
And was there any issues?
Everything go good.
And they're like, yeah,everything was good.
And they're like, well, whatabout Tom?
Like how did that go?
And it's like, oh, it wentreally good.
And they're like, what are youasking?
I was like the reason I ask isand then you show them is like
numa, you can see where I textthem 14 times.

(51:57):
There was a case of that theother day and they were like
worst dealership in the world,bait and switch.
They totally said they weregoing to do this and didn't do
that.
And then they made me get onthe red carpet and take my photo
and hold the sign.
And then I went online and Icouldn't find it anywhere.
Well, come to find out a lot ofthose things had happened and
we've done what we said we weregoing to do and we communicated

(52:18):
and they had actually canceledtheir appointment that we had
scheduled for them and then theyhad their phone off and we
couldn't get a hold of them.
But we had sent.
So you have to be careful notto go attack that person.
It needs to be addressed andsee is there an issue on our
side?
Or is it just a basket kickSure Because?
Or is it just a basket kickSure Because?
Naturally it just makes youwant to reactively say like can

(52:42):
anyone do anything right aroundhere?

Speaker 3 (52:43):
That's true.
That's true, I mean naturallythe fight or flight part of the
front of your brain instantlytakes over and until you have
built yourself to be able tobreathe, pause and walk through
it, you can't think logically.
Once you develop that skill set, you open up doors of
scalability and success.
But that takes work on yourself, starting with you.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Yeah, that's big.
Hey, diving back into all ofour facts, that happened during
the month of June.
Did y'all think it was whichone of those?

Speaker 1 (53:15):
I mean there was a lot of them right.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Yeah, you got Henry Ford.
First Tesla Quadricycle.
First drive in a movie theater.
First Chevy Corvette drive offthe assembly line.
Senate passes landmark autosafety bill, aka seatbelt, and
world first automobile race.
It's got.
You know, it's all of them.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
Okay, that's what I was going to say.
I was like all of them kind ofmake sense there.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
They all happened in the month of June, throughout
probably over the last decade.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Okay.
So, as we continue to talkabout this and we wrap it up,
it's now how do we land theplane of?
We know we need to be moreproactive versus reactive and,
yeah, there are times we have tobe reactive, but they're very
few and far between you know.
So then, being proactive withyour teams, let's talk about
delegating vision and not justthe task, because we've talked

(54:07):
about in previous episodes, yougot to get the vision.
Everybody bought in on thevision and then you put the task
in place to carry out thatvision, yeah.
So, as we're talking about thatand it comes up, you got your
core group of people, yourcatalysts, your influencers
within your business.
It's not by job title, you'vealready identified them.
You get them to buy in on thevision, yeah, and then we start

(54:31):
delegating the task, you know.
So what are some examples orhow have you guys seen this take
place?
You know we've got manyexamples over, especially the
past couple of years.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
When you delegate the task, you also have to give
them the ability to solveproblems, okay, to handle things
right.
That might be an allowance, youknow, and as we have had and
tried to be very conscious ofcost of things, because that's
what's got us here, right, as weflip the switch to go from, you

(55:07):
know, hey, let's sustain, weare in growth mode, right To
complete different things, andwe've changed that and that's
kind of happened from generationto generation of us gain trust.
Then we had to start doing thatwith our team and we had to
realize that we need to givethem some type of hey, you're in
charge of all of this.

(55:28):
Yeah, and you're in charge ofall this.
By that I mean you have theability to solve the issue and
here's what your allowance is tohandle this.
You can do all these thingswithout having to ask for any
permission.
Right, we had to do that anduse repairs to say, hey, we had
to do that with a shop insteadof micromanaging every single
used car that goes to the shop.

(55:48):
Remember in march, it was likewhat was it like?
385 cars or something used cars.
We said, why are wemicromanaging every?
Just say, hey, give me awrite-up like we were consumer.
We are, but let's say, don't,we trust these people.
They're running places to say,okay, you've got a thousand
dollars to spend, and here isyour KPI.

(56:09):
If the tires measure less thanfive, 30 seconds, replace them.
But we had to really havesystems and say, replace them
with this brand, this brand orthis brand, and you pick
whatever you want.
We couldn't just say, hey,you've got $1,000 to spend,
right, because that would justbe willy-nilly, right.
And so then we had to scalethose things.
But we had to empower peopleand then we had to give them

(56:31):
direction and we had to givethem the ability to spend to
solve an issue, issue with acustomer issue that's not an
issue, but ability to createbusiness.

Speaker 3 (56:41):
You know, as you're going through, that the reason
you can rattle that off isyou've been through it, okay,
and let's just let's unpacksomething real quick.
Here Is the used vehicle.
Reconditioning is easy to talkabout.
There.
It's like you first getfrustrated by it and it's like,
okay, let me just set them up anallowance.
Okay, you can spend up to$1,000 on this vehicle and this

(57:01):
shop without having to bring amajor repair to me.
It didn't start in the depth,you know.
You said 1,000 and then all ofa sudden you get out there and
every Focus has Michelin tireson it, yeah, and every car's got
1, spin on.
You're like dadgummit, you know.
So then you're like, okay,after you get past your emotions
and your frustration, I didn'tgo far enough in depth.

(57:21):
Um, so you have to.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
When you empower and you put that out there, you do
have to set very clearboundaries and I'm so glad you
point that out because, yes, Icould rattle off our variances
of what the battery needs totest and what the brakes seem to
be and what that's.
It's because I've had to.
I've had to create those bygoing back.
You know, you might get to ameeting and you're like looking
at this and you're looking atyour used vehicle reconditioning

(57:45):
cost and you're like, creepingup, it's creeping up.
And so I'm like, hey, pull me15 of the most recent tickets
and I look at these, these andthese and these and I'm like I'm
really putting a lot of ridgegrapplers on stuff, like, are
people asking for these?
Or are they okay with Toyos?
Are they okay with KellySafaris that still have a
60,000-mile rating?

(58:05):
And so then you cannot go backto reactive and judo chop and
say, look, why are you puttingMichelin on everything?
Because you didn't give themthe guidelines.
So you won't get it right thefirst, second or third time.
But as long as you'reproactively trying and give them
the ability to, because if yougive them the responsibility
without giving them the abilityto handle that, you have not

(58:27):
relieved yourself of theresponsibility it will still be
in your lap.
Hey, taylor, I talked to thisguy.
I've been on the phone, he'supset.
I think I got it handled.
But here's what we need tospend and do, and do, and do and
do.
Now you still had to deal withit.
It still took up your time itdid.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
I mean, we have in so many circumstances of growing
and putting anybody intoempowerment, of being able to do
what you're putting them.
What you're putting in, it hasto be you go back, circle, check
and then we pull some backbecause we figure out that we've
had managers that way.
Overspend of different thingsare like okay, not completely,
take it away.

(59:05):
Like, go to your room, you'rein time out.
No, hey, we're going to dial itback down, we're going to
structure just on this amount.
Give them a vision of what youneed them to move forward with
if you want them to continue togrow, yeah, if not, throw them
in the closet and they're goingto continue to be the problem.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
On the flip side of that, within managing that,
you'll see your next level doers, you'll see your next level
teachers that say, you knowyou'd be like, hey, has there
been any issue withreconditioning, has there been
any issue of anything?
Throughout the store, andthey'd be like, no, it's like

(59:41):
okay, is there any hiccups?
And I was like, well, there wasthis and this, but I handled it
.
It was like you need to notmiss that opportunity.
That's a person that can helpyou grow right To say, hey,
would you mind looking at thispart?
Like what, if you looked atthis part of the service
department, do you see an area?
And they're like, oh yeah, like, is that okay if I do that?

(01:00:03):
It's like no, that would begreat help to me.
And then so you see that person.
You reward them by thank yous,you reward them by recognition
you know whether it's justdirectly to them or within the
department and then you rewardthem with more responsibility.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
I think the important part here, as you're making the
transition, the adjustment as aleader to being proactive,
getting your team bought in onthe vision, delegating the task.
Let me give you another pro tiphere.
There is no way that you'llcreate the perfect process that
doesn't need any adjustmentsright out of the gate.

(01:00:40):
So your role has now changedfrom being the reactive
firefighter to being the onethat manages the process and
your ear's close enough to it.
You can't just go play golf.
You know what I mean.
You're still in the business.
You're still working to it.
You can't just go play golf.
You know what I mean.
You're still in the business.
You're still working on it.
You're just working on it at ahigher level, where you get the

(01:01:02):
multiplication factor.
That's the only difference.
So now you're listening, going.
I put this in place, soundedgreat.
The focus group said that thiswould work, but we missed this
piece.
We noticed that they're stillputting the highest dollar tires
on every vehicle.
We still notice they're doingthis.
All right, let's adjust that,yeah, so you're constantly doing
that.

(01:01:22):
You're either adjusting oryou're going behind and you're
checking.
How often are they training andimplementing that?
Do we need to relaunch and comeback.
Too many people and we talkedabout this earlier but I got to
come back to it Too many peopleput a system or software in

(01:01:44):
place and then they look up 12,18 months later and it's, it's
gone back downhill revenue,sales, profit, whatever it may
be and they're like what do youthink?
And everybody's like it doesn'twork, it doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
What did work?
You had growth for 12 months.
And they're like let's buy anew system and then they buy the
next new shiny thing.
And it's like, before you dothat, go inspect, go talk to
some of the people and ask themcan you do the meet and greet?

(01:02:05):
What's the proper orderingprocess for you know back order
part, what's the process forwriting somebody up in service?
And you inspect those processesto give feedback to your team.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Yeah, I loved.
In the sales meeting yesterdayI saw a new guy that was asking
and you required this wheneverwe first came out with this and
this was really big and somemanagers like went down and like
tried to hide.
But a new guy was like I wasgoing to ask whenever we start
our sales meetings on Monday,it's always started with hey,
how are you Kind of pulling themout of the ditch a little bit

(01:02:38):
and let's do the meet and greet?
And people are hiding like thisbehind them, like anybody new
that feels like they're braveenough, they're going.
One new guy said hey, is therea way of how I can train and how
I can learn this?
And I wanted to get irritated.
Like, yes, there's a way.
We go with this every week.

(01:02:58):
I said, yes, so do you haveyour owner's manual?
And he's like your employeetraining manual.
And he said yes.
I said let me tell you a quickstory.
Everybody, whenever we hadfirst been in this training Matt
, was in there.
He required everyone, and Imean everyone, even every
manager, and you're on a listand you got checked off and it

(01:03:20):
was roulette.
You didn't know when you're.
So it may be 30 weeks down theroad because we do a couple each
week, but he would pull themout, just sock out of the hat
whenever you're pulling anythingelse.
So it was crazy of going intotheir level of expectation of
training whenever you're goinginto and letting your team know,
and then they're like, oh okay,so we really need to get this

(01:03:43):
figured out.
Well, yes, we go over it everysingle week, but if you don't
tell them or let them know whatyou're really wanting them to do
and if you don't hold themaccountable, you can tell them
and go through.
That's where I was getting onmy point.
You can tell them all theprocess.
You can tell them and gothrough.
That's where I was getting onmy point.
You can tell them all theprocess.
You think it's great, but ifyou don't go back and actually
test them, check them anything,they're not going to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
And what I've learned and, matt, you said this and it
goes with your story, taylor isbeing close enough to have your
ear to it.
Because what you will find,because in our sales meeting
I'll call out I decided tochange it up from what I learned
from him, to incorporate thatevery single time that I would

(01:04:23):
have someone do the main great.
And so I would just pick arandom person.
And so then I found out and Iwas like, why is this guy?
There was a guy four years ago,five years ago, that was so
good, could handle all theobjections, but his sales
numbers were not that good.
And so then I relate to adifferent person, but a manager
who is never behind in any ofhis things, who checks all the

(01:04:45):
boxes.
But I'm like, why is the PVRnot here?
Why do we have a problem withemployee turnover?
If you're close enough to knowthat, yeah, the boxes are checks
, the kpis seem to good, butyou're not close enough to have
your ear to it, you'll miss thelittle things that this person
in the meeting every timehandles the objections, or this

(01:05:07):
manager.
That manager, hey, make sureeverything's ready to go.
They learn the things that youinspect and they check those
boxes.
And so when you're looking at itnot just like a hey, it's two
o'clock on a thursday orsometimes, if you come in on a
wednesday your normal day offand you can check on them,

(01:05:28):
they'll be like whoa, what areyou doing here, right?
And you can kind of check themout of the normal algorithm and
then you'll really get to seewhat it actually is and it's not
, so you can call them out andfire them.
It is so that you can bring itto attention and help them grow
right, because the more theygrow, the happier they are and
the hungrier they are theability that they have to have a

(01:05:50):
better lifestyle and a betterwork-home balance.
See, they might be like man.
Why the heck you calling me out?
I check all the boxes, I do allthe good things like because
your potential is way up hereand you're just barely hitting
the metrics not to get fired,you know, and so being close
enough to have your ear to theground, so that you're seeing
that reactiveness and thenproactively planning on how to

(01:06:11):
grow them now.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
that's good.
That's good.
Those are a lot of great justinsights and ways we've learned
from.
You know, from what we firsttalked about on just being
reactive, that got us to acertain level.
Then now being proactive,because we have a new vision and
a new level for our businessand how you know if we can go
through change and then adapt,so can you.

(01:06:32):
Hopefully you've learned fromsome of this and you can take
some of these tips and thesetools and put them in place.
Be patient, Learn to work onyourself first, I want to say,
Because if you don't, nobodyelse will and your department
won't improve there.
But a couple of questions I gotfor you guys to maybe help the
listeners out there.
Taylor, let's start with you.
Do you have a certain podcastor a book that you've listened

(01:06:54):
to or read that you feel likehas been helpful?
Do you have a certain podcastor a book that you've listened
to or read that you feel likehas been helpful?

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
You know my book that I read, that I love and always
revisit and go back to, and Ilove teaching as it was taught
to me.
But Dave Ramsey and take himany indifferent anything anybody
loves or what I really loveabout him, is he simplifies and
makes it a total money makeoverof giving your money a purpose,

(01:07:19):
of vision of where it needs togo, because if not, it'll
disappear.
And I love talking to anyonethat is growing up in this
business of like I gotta makemore, I gotta make more, I gotta
make more.
I want you to make more.
But what I need you to realizeis and you've told me this
before but if you can't manageone dollar, you can't manage $1,
you can't manage $100, $1,000,$10,000.

(01:07:40):
The only thing that happenswhenever you make more it goes
faster, it goes faster andeveryone goes through.
It's not a set it and forget it, because you learn this and
then it'll go up and then itcomes back down.
So I always love revisitingthat.
It's such a great structure andit ties in with our business

(01:08:02):
that if we don't have processes,if we don't tell people what to
do, it just doesn't happen.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
That's such a great one.
I'm glad you bring up thatpoint.
And the bigger downfall thatpeople get into is they start
spending more and they createthis lifestyle and then all of a
sudden we're in a variableincome business.
All of a sudden the faucetshuts off, but their lifestyle
stays the same, and then theyget themselves in trouble.
That comes straight over intobusiness.

(01:08:30):
You let your expenses get outof control.
Sales goes down, ro counts godown.
Then all of of a sudden you'reworking your tail off and in the
red.
So that's a great one, shelbywhat about you?

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
So definitely, generically, I love
self-improvement podcasts and orbooks.
You've got to feather it inwith a little bit of everything.
A cool and fun one that alwayschanges that I love is Guy Raz
how I Built.
This Just takes otherbusinesses and breaks them down,
like where they came from andwhat makes them successful.
So I love that one because it'stotal randomness.

(01:09:03):
All the things right.
A book that I recently have readthat I love and I've referenced
multiple times is how to BuyBack your Time by Dan Martell.
That's one of the things thatyou can't get more of is time,
uh, and so it has really been.
We talk proactive versusreactive.
It is on the proactive scale ofthings and in it it is a very

(01:09:26):
in-detail book, uh, that reallytalks through all those things.
So you got to kind of mix in alittle bit of just average eddy
of good listening or goodstorytelling, uh, but that's a
good book of teaches how to buyback your time and it really
just points to seeing your valueand the value of people around
you and scaling that so you cancontinue to grow.

Speaker 3 (01:09:48):
I think one of the points and it just happened to
be this way that both of y'alltalk, whether it's Ramsey or
it's Guy Raz going through allthe stuff or it's Dan Martell,
none of those people areautomotives.
So if you're sitting therelistening going, that sounds
great, but I can't find anybodyin the plumbing industry, the
roofing industry or the teachingindustry.
Open up, broaden your horizon,because none of those people

(01:10:11):
y'all are talking aboutlistening to are directly
automotive.
But everything correlates.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
It's a customer relation business, the handling
process, that's it, and that'swhat I love.
If you can take something froma different industry and put it
over here, it's like youreinvented the wheel and you're
like, no, they've been doing itout of the restaurant for a long
time.
But you get to seem like thegenius, especially within your
hamster wheel of your business.
Yep Like, oh my gosh, I neverthought about that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:39):
It's like, oh yeah, but if you can, if you can read
or listen to somebody elsethat's an expert in an industry
that took them 30 or 40 years todevelop the craft and you can
put it place.
Sure, why not?
Why not learn from others?
You get some mentors in yourlife, whether they know they're
mentoring you or not.
Most of them don't.
They don't.

(01:10:59):
But today, just like thispodcast, please subscribe.
Ok, so maybe hopefully we canhelp you catapult your business,
then find other podcasts andother books to help grow.
That's what this whole thing isabout.
When people ask us about thispodcast, it's so we can pour out
to other small businesses outthere to try to help them grow

(01:11:21):
and learn through situationsthat we've been through.
Hey, this has been a good one.
Thanks for joining in with ustoday.
Hey, don't forget to check outall of our vehicles at
louissuperstorecom, or podcasts,just like this one at crossroad
conversationspodcastcom.
We'll see you next week.
Hey, thanks for joining ustoday and we hope you enjoyed
this episode.
Make sure to give it a like,share it with your friends and

(01:11:43):
family, visit our website andsend us some 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
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business in general.