August 4, 2025 • 56 mins
The artificial intelligence revolution isn't coming—it's already here. For equipment dealerships caught in the crossfire of technological disruption, adaptation isn't just recommended; it's essential for survival.
When Ron Wilson attended a birthday party and learned that two people's children had recently lost their jobs to AI, it spurred him to investigate how these technologies are transforming our industry. What he discovered challenges conventional thinking: rather than competing against AI, success lies in thoughtful integration of these powerful tools.
Throughout our conversation, we explore the real-world implementation of AI across dealership operations. From revolutionizing diagnostics—where machines can now be scanned before a technician arrives—to subscription-based monitoring services that predict failures before they occur, AI is reshaping customer expectations and service delivery. One dealership's monitoring team identified a pattern where an excavator overheated consistently during shift changes when less experienced operators took control, saving the customer significant downtime and troubleshooting costs.
The human element remains irreplaceable, however. Jobs requiring emotional intelligence and customer service skills still require the personal touch that AI cannot replicate. The challenge lies in effectively managing workforce transition—identifying early adopters who can champion new technologies while helping fence-sitters see the value in adaptation. As experienced employees near retirement, preserving institutional knowledge becomes increasingly critical.
Whether you're actively implementing AI solutions or just beginning to explore possibilities, this conversation provides practical insights for navigating the changing landscape. The most important takeaway? Don't wait for OEMs or competitors to lead the way—proactive adaptation is the key to maintaining competitive advantage in an increasingly technology-driven industry. Subscribe to our podcast for more discussions on how equipment dealerships can thrive amidst technological disruption.
Visit us at LearningWithoutScars.org for more training solutions for Equipment Dealerships - Construction, Mining, Agriculture, Cranes, Trucks and Trailers.
We provide comprehensive online learning programs for employees starting with an individualized skills assessment to a personalized employee development program designed for their skill level.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Aloha and welcome to another candid conversation.
We're joined today by RonWilson and we're going to be
covering a subject that Ron hasdealt with in pretty deep depth,
that we're running as afour-part blog series on
artificial intelligence.
Everybody's heard about it,Everybody's read about it.
(00:24):
Probably many of you have triedit and worked with it.
Ron's going to give us someideas and thoughts as to how he
thinks we should proceed, and Ithink you're going to find this
very helpful.
So with that, Ron, lead us tothe promised land man.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Thanks.
Well, what really piqued myinterest is we're Vicki and I
were at a birthday party andsome of the people there we only
see once a year.
We're kind of a dispersed groupand so kind of working through
the room and meeting old friendsand talking about the kids and
most of that group is in their60s and 70s.
Two people in that group hasseen their 60s and 70s.
(01:06):
Uh, two people in that group uhtalked about their.
Their children had recentlylost their jobs due to ai.
So, wow.
So one was in uh oregon.
There was a large layoff, thecompany, and they were more in a
film industry type thing.
The other was in area and theywere doing training material,
(01:28):
filming and the recording fordifferent kinds of training.
So I got to thinking about well,you know, we've all heard about
AI.
Ai's been in the mail and beenin the news a lot lately.
So I thought, well, let me justtry and ask AI how do we
compete against or against AI inthe job market?
(01:49):
There's a lot of discussionabout the number of jobs, the
type of jobs that will bereplaced by AI.
So so just kind of ask AI howto compete with you.
And AI came back and said well,it's not about competing with
AI, it's about working with AIand utilizing the tools of AI in
(02:11):
your individual career.
And then I asked AI well, whatare the top 10 most likely jobs
to be replaced?
And it came back with a listand also with a list of jobs
that would not be replaced mostlikely but would be enhanced by
AI.
So trying to apply this to theequipment dealer's world is what
(02:31):
do we do in the equipmentbusiness and how does AI fit
into the overall window?
And I have talked to somefriends that's still in the
industry and some areaggressively looking at it and
some are well, we're going towait and see what the OEM does,
and that doesn't usually workvery well.
You need to kind of be ahead ofthe curve.
But I thought it was just sowhat AI came back and talked
(02:55):
about understanding how AI willwork in with a career, careers
most likely to be impacted,those most likely to be replaced
and most likely to be replaced,and then how to adapt an AI
mindset.
So what if we're going to moveahead with AI?
How do we do that?
And I think the last piece ofwhat I pulled together was a
(03:15):
self-assessment worksheet toevaluate how we adapt AI into
our training and our learning.
So that's kind of what was thefocus of this.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, it's really remarkable, ron.
Everything we do in LearningWithout Scars is with artificial
intelligence.
We start from Word documentsthat have been class materials
for years, out of textbooks thatI've created and other things,
and then create film clips,create audio tracks, create
(03:45):
subtitles, create quizzes allmanner of materials and we're
using from our website,wordpress, to our learning
management system, moodle.
I think we have 17 individualdifferent pieces of software.
Moodle I think we have 17individual different pieces of
(04:08):
software, and if I'm a parts guyor a service guy or a salesman
and I'm looking at chat TPT,some of them are just using it
to enhance their writing skills,so they write stuff down and
then put it through and get itcorrected.
That's not the approach you'velooked at, is it?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
No, I actually did the reverse.
I put the thought in chat GPTfirst and let it feed me back
what it says and then, okay,then take that view of.
Okay, how does that apply to myindustry of knowledge and me as
an individual, how I developedmyself in my career?
So now you could, I couldprobably.
(04:48):
For example, the document Isent you it wasn't the best
written document I mean, youcould probably put it back into
chat GBT and it would come backwith a more polished, properly
written document, no doubt, butI used it more.
To me, chat GBT or AI is not awhole lot different than back in
our college days or when youwent back and use the, the, the
(05:11):
library, and you did through thecard decks and looking up your
books and you walk to the shelfand try to find the book and
it's been mislocated, misfiledsomewhere else, and you pull out
the information you want out ofit and it's really not much
different than that, except it'sa lot faster, but it's not
always.
I had entered a question onPresident Trump.
I asked him shortly after hebecame president is what have
(05:35):
been the activities within thislast week from President Trump's
focus?
And it came back and said well,he's not the president, well,
that's interesting, so, but sothere's a time gap there between
what, what's really going onand and uh.
So you have to use it with alittle uh, grain of salt,
understanding and interpretingto make sure that it is correct,
(05:57):
double checking, uh.
But it's a good place to me.
It well randled it.
It shaves off a lot of time onsome of the very basics that
have to be gone through onwriting something or developing
something.
So it shaves some time off andprovides some insight.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
There's interesting things to this, ron.
The economic world says,depending on the industry,
between 500 and 5,000 jobs willbe created with every billion
dollars of investment.
So let's just take an easyplace and say it's 10 jobs per
(06:38):
billion.
To get to a trillion from abillion.
There's two ways of doing it,but the normal way is just add
three zeros, so that's 100,000jobs.
Then the next thing is to go toa trillion.
Multiple trillions is theinvestment that people are
(06:59):
putting into America.
Right now that has crossed over15 trillion.
Right now that has crossed over15 trillion.
So we're looking for 10 millionjobs being added, minimum.
And Trump's comment is we don'thave enough people.
And the dilemma we have withthat is that we have enough
people, perhaps, but we don'thave the people that have the
(07:25):
skills.
So then freeze frame on thatfor a second, somebody, one of
our contributors.
I've been saying we've beenputting profit over people for a
long time.
In other words, customerservice has been let go, let it
drift, and that shows itself incustomer retention.
So, being the idiot that I am, Ilook back over the last 40
(07:46):
years and found that for every20 years the number of dealers
reduces by 50%.
So if we started, let's say, 85with 1,000 dealers 2,005,
there's 500 dealers.
2025, there's 250.
And everybody I talk to says,well, things are pretty good,
(08:07):
revenue is going up.
And I say to them well, ofcourse, revenue is going up, you
don't have as many competitors,and they kind of stop because
they never really consideredthat.
But all of that going on meansthat the people that are at work
today don't have enough time todo what they need to do, so
anything that can save them timeis going to be a blessing.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
So here comes AI, and it's like it's put on a platter
for us, but nobody's done anevaluation or analysis that I've
seen yet, ron, like what youjust did.
So let's go back over thosedifferent categories again and
get into the weeds with them asto what you mean and how it
affects us.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Okay.
So first, if you take a look atthe careers most likely to be
impacted and what AI points out,is that what AI is not good at
is the human skills, thecustomer service, for example,
dealing directly with thecustomers.
Now we know that I've seen someexamples of this.
When the grocery stores or theWalmart retail stores are on
(09:15):
their self-checkout, they dumpall this stuff into a
self-checkout with no customerservice people to help and it
was in many cases a disaster.
The theft went up on it.
The difficulty of trying toself-checkout Sometimes for us
technically challenged gettingto the self-checkout, it doesn't
work right.
So then they found out well,wait a minute, we have to add
(09:40):
the customer service skills backin there.
So then they add a someone towatch several registers at once
kind of thing, a self-checkout.
But they have to have peoplewith the people skills of
working with the customers.
That's frustrated, becausethey've tried to scan the
avocado four times and itdoesn't scan right.
Or the friend I talked to lastnight he went in to buy some
(10:01):
sausages at the meat market andwent to check out and what he
was?
Checked out as that he hadcrabs.
So the price was like fivetimes or 25 times what he
originally was looking for andthe registry guy says, well, no,
the label says you have this,until he opened it up and showed
the guy that he had hot dogs.
(10:22):
So needing the customer serviceskills to work through those
challenges.
That's something that ai reallystruggles with and we struggle
with because we we have, evenbefore ai, customer service
skills.
The dealership has to almostprovide training because it's we
don't get skilled level peoplein the dealership now with the
proper customer service skillsthat we need.
(10:43):
So that was one of the thingsthat the emotional intelligence
piece of it is something that AIdoes not handle very well at
this time.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So let me interrupt there for a second, because I
agree 100% Dealerships.
In our experience, yours andmine have used employee
development or training as adiscretionary expense, Not
necessarily something that I'mgoing to do regularly.
Every now and again I might dosomething, but if push comes to
(11:14):
shove and I need money, I killall of that altogether.
Has that been your experienceas well?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
In some.
If you take the most recentdeal, covid when COVID hit and I
was in the training departmentat that time and my worry when
COVID hit and we sent all of thetrainers, instructors, home and
shut down training, my concernwas, as in past, is that
training would be the first togo.
Now I was very fortunate andthat didn't happen with us.
(11:43):
We got the team together andsays where do we add value?
And they said when we teach?
And we said well, you get twoweeks to turn your training into
online and I had a great team.
They were able to do that.
So we can.
But but many dealers they didput their training on the back
(12:03):
burner during COVID, for example, and you were putting maybe
other roles or you may have beenfurloughed.
In some cases they just shuttraining down.
So but yeah, I think many ofthe dealers, training is not
their first.
That's one of the first thingsto go and the last things to add
.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
One of the things that was interesting, ron.
We started doing training,specific outside of consulting,
in the early 90s and at thattime everybody Caterpillar,
deere, volvo, komatsu, bobcat,everybody, all the associations
stopped altogether Managementtraining.
I think you and I talked aboutthat.
I spent the summer saying I'dbeen teaching for a long time
(12:40):
anyways, but I built sixtextbooks over the summer
talking to my computer andstarted into the training
business and what seemed to workfor people was you don't have
to have a trainer, you don'thave to have a class, you don't
have to have somebody doing thehotels and meals and all that
stuff.
We'll do that for you and we'llpay you an incentive, a
(13:04):
commission or something for thenumber of people.
And we did that.
And we did all the parts andservice training for the
construction equipmentindustries, parts service
selling, marketing for 20 years.
Wow.
And what became interesting frommy point of view was a lot of
(13:25):
dealers.
As you know and you're in thesame place, we know a lot of
people because we've been aroundso long.
One of the guys said to me Ron,I wish I'd known before I spent
money on training for thisindividual that all they're
doing is taking oxygen out ofthe room.
So here comes AI.
Is that masking skills at all?
All they're doing is takingoxygen out of the room.
(13:47):
So here comes AI.
Is that masking skills at all?
Or are the people that?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
don't have the skills , going to be unable to deal
with AI, do you think?
Well, I think you have a greatquestion.
If you go back and look whenlaptops were introduced in the
service department I was runninga field service operation at
that time did not have laptops.
There were a few of the highlytechnical guys had the laptop,
but otherwise we didn't.
(14:15):
When I got into field serviceoperation that year, we added
laptops to every technician.
Now there are some techniciansthat computers, they just
couldn't do it.
Very good skilled technicians,but they just they didn't adapt
well.
So so we did lose some talent.
I had to find something elsefor them, because you don't want
them to go away, you want toutilize their skills.
But but yet others, they tookon the laptop and began to use
(14:37):
the tools of the laptop andbecame a better technician than
they were.
So so I think it really it's anindividualized thing.
We've got to encourage theemployees to make sure they're
not scared of it, not worriedabout it, not afraid of it, but
learn how to help them adapt itinto their jobs.
But that's key, I think, forthis AI adaption.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, I agree.
I remember back in the 60s and70s the commercials that were
out.
There were a machine being abutton being pushed and that was
going to replace your job.
And you know the comment youmade about some of the older
technician guys.
They're not as adaptable.
They're awfully goodtechnicians.
So we have to find places ascoaches, as inspectors, as
(15:21):
technical communicators.
There's specific jobs.
They can perform for a longtime and get out of the way.
For the young guys, some of thefellows coming out of technical
school Osuit is an example,oklahoma State Some of those
guys are in field trucks withina year.
They're really good techniciansbut they know the technology,
(15:42):
the electronic catalogs, thediagnostics, the sensors, the
GPS, all of that.
And AI really pulls that alltogether, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yes, it can.
Now we have to worry about theyounger generation, because it's
kind of like when you likeExcel, when you ask somebody are
you good at Excel?
And they may say, yeah, I am,but then you figure out.
Well, they know about a levelone plus.
Then there are those folks thatthey are really good at Excel.
They can make it home.
It's the same thing with AI ortechnology.
(16:11):
We have some grandkids.
They're really good at playinggames on the computer, but do
they really know systems andworking through systems?
They don't, yeah, they don'tyeah.
Even with the youngergeneration you have the
crossover of the knowledge.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, the other thing that I experienced was with
word processing, withspreadsheets, with presentations
, with all of that stuff.
What I tend to do, because itchanges so damn much, is only
focus on the things that I needto do now.
Right, excel, I make it workwith spreadsheets, but I'm
(16:46):
terrible at pivot tables becauseI don't have to use them very
often.
We tend to take the technologyonly to the place that it
affects our job and then we stop.
Are you sensing and feelingthat too?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Absolutely.
We've got to be able to carveout time to continue learning.
What is it that I don't know.
So one of the examples I gavein going through this is that I
had an opportunity to work inthe marketing as a data
analytics manager.
So this way they took marketingand split it into two groups.
We have the data analytics andthe marketing traditional
(17:20):
marketing manager and thenmarketing traditional marketing
manager, and my job was to bringall the data of the dealership
into how to utilize it in ourmarketing department.
Then I realized there was awhole bunch of data analytic
tools after I didn't know about.
I could use Excel and we coulddo pivot tables, and I had a
team that did a lot of that forme.
But I took a certificateprogram to the local university
(17:43):
on data analytics to again tospring forward on those tools.
Well, that was 10 years ago.
Well, now the data analyticshas been replaced by the AI part
of it.
So if I was in the job marketnow, I would be looking at not
only data analytics, but wheredoes AI fit in and how do I
learn to use some of those toolsand be aware of how to apply
(18:04):
those?
So it's the ongoing, continualgrowth that we have to have to
look forward to.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
The other thing that comes wrong is that I don't
believe we have skills andknowledge standards.
We don't have certifications,it's what I call them.
And there's a thing in Americacalled IRAPS, which is an
industry-related apprenticeprogram standard which is in the
(18:30):
United States, not followed byvery many people, but
certification programs.
You have them for nurses, youhave them for cooks, you have
them for technicians.
We don't have them for partspeople.
We don't have them for salespeople.
We don't have them for salesmen.
There are things out there, butthen we come.
I was talking to a college inTexas, had 300,000 students and
(18:53):
all of a sudden became painfullyevident.
There's privacy issues that wehave that are different across
the country.
So student names, ages, sexes,scores, those types of things.
You got to be really carefuland protected.
Then ISO, the InternationalStandards Organization, comes
out and they've got plans on howto do it.
(19:15):
All of these folks, they'remaking it even more complicated
for a dealership.
Who do you use, how do you useit, it, etc.
So I think when, where youcarved out the different jobs,
let's start with the jobs at adealership that are at risk.
What are they?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
well, so if you just look down, it kind of goes down
this list and we'll have to,when you read this, see the the
job tiles kind of relate back tosome of those within a
dealership because, for example,data entry clerks okay you have
somebody that's entering timecards.
If you get to enter, somebodythat's typing in a service
report where the techniciangives them their handwritten
service report and somebody elseinputs it uh, the data entry
(19:57):
and the accounting system that'sdoing debits and credits and
telemarketing.
I provide a link to a TikTokvideo where the and I kind of
got into the TikTok thing.
Now it's kind of cool, there'syou can anyway, but this link,
you click on the link and thisguy that's doing the video, the
(20:19):
TikTok thing he said well, Iwant to share an example of me
being a difficult customer withan AI generated salesperson.
So he clicks on it and he'stalking to this AI person, or
whatever you want to call itabout.
They're trying to sell him andschedule him with a software
(20:39):
program on training of some kindof for the company.
And this guy said well, Ireally can't do that, I'm not
for the for the company.
And this guy says, well, Ireally can't do that, I'm not
the only stakeholder in thecompany.
Uh, I really need to talk, talkto my talk to my co co-owner
about it.
And the AI says, okay, well, MrCustomer, let's go ahead and
book the meeting.
Give you some time to talk toyour co-owner, and if that doesn
(21:02):
doesn't work, we'll rescheduleit.
So and then I get done.
A watch said wait a minute.
I've been on calls like that,so was that really a person I
was talking to or was it ai?
I was talking to you?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
yeah, you have these chat bots on websites and
basically you, you know it's anice thought, but it's the same
damn thing as voicemail.
When voicemail arrived 30, 40,50 years ago, I know dealerships
that actually let the phonering so that the commercial
(21:36):
message would have to belistened to before they would
get action from the customer.
In other words, you call in tome, it rings three to five times
and then I give you a 30-secondcommercial before I say is
there something you'd like totalk to me about?
I mean, we lost sight of thewhole damn thing, didn't we?
We tried to save money andforgot the customer.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, yeah, and we added things that thought would
be of value, like the commercialyou talked about.
That nobody cares.
That's not what you call, thatis not my priority right now.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, yeah, so you know.
So the other side, that dataentry function that takes me up
further in the helicopter.
We don't have many people inthe company operationally or
anywhere that are looking at SixSigma, continuous improvement,
industrial engineering type ofprocesses.
Do we have that anymore?
Some of the dealers do.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Do we have that anymore?
Some of the dealers do.
Some are having the projectmanager certification.
Some of those require them aspart of the where I was working
they had a team of Six Sigmaearly on, early, early on when
they adopted Six Sigma.
So some of them are using thoseand they've actually got
project.
A Six Sigma person is assignedto a project or list of projects
(22:44):
and then linked in with that isthe marketing side.
So if it's a project going toneed marketing, they can pull
marketing in when they need it,so that we're closing the loop
on the whole thing and notgetting into the project and
realize, oh yeah, we needmarketing, pull that into the
business operations so we canone keep it moving ahead, moving
along, removing roadblocks, butalso meet the needs of the
(23:13):
operational area.
One of the best things I likedwere the dealership I worked
about.
Every six months, maybequarterly, they would have a Six
Sigma project.
Meeting was open to the company.
Anybody could come in and sitin on it.
So the team was to come inreview the status of their Six
Sigma project and there'd be theexecutive team reviewing it.
But you had an open audience towhoever in the company wanted
to sit in and listen to thescope of work and the status of
(23:35):
the project and that was really,to me, very impressive on what
was going on within the company,the direction we're taking, and
kind of an open book on theleadership style of the
organization.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
I think that's critical, ron, having community
meetings One of the things.
Patrick Lencioni, who's anauthor that I have a lot of
respect for.
He writes books like fables, sohe tells stories, and one of
his comments of you know ThreeSigns of a Miserable Job is one
of his books and one of hiscomments of you know three signs
of a miserable job is one ofhis books, and one of them is
anonymity.
The employee doesn't feel thatanybody knows who the hell they
(24:13):
are.
Then the second piece isirrelevance.
Nobody really knows how theirjob fits into the overall piece.
And then the final one isimmeasurability it's a word he
created because it doesn't existwhere when you leave the job,
at the end of the day you haveno idea whether you did a good
job or not.
If you're a technician, you do,there's things you fix, there's
(24:37):
things you did, there's thingsyou completed.
But having a meeting like that,where here comes something
we're working on and George inthe corner had never heard of
that before and has a commentabout it, that's to me
unbelievably helpful.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
It's kind of like too many men and women as managers
are sitting in their office.
You've got to get out and walkaround.
Yes, you've got to touch theemployees.
You've got to get out and walkaround.
Yes, you've got to touch theemployees.
You've got to touch thecustomers.
So, other than data entry andcustomer service type of things,
what other jobs are at risk?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Well, let's go ahead and talk about some of those
that are least likely to bereplaced by AI.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Okay, that's a better , more positive way to look at
it.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Mental health professionals, teachers,
educators, skilled trades,electricians, plumbers and
carpenter.
Now I do want a word of cautionon this.
When we hear that and we'veheard that a lot as well
plumbers and electricians andmechanics are not going to get
replaced.
Well, but they got to learnabout AI.
But they got to learn about AI,you know they're going to wind
(25:42):
up putting on a pair of glassesthat's going to walk them
through a troubleshootingdiagnostics of a parts book or
disassemble, reassemble typedeal.
So their skill set is going tochange, requiring them to adapt
to AI somehow.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Let me, let me interrupt you.
Bmw put up on YouTube Vimeowasn't available then TikTok and
all that stuff a film clip of aman with sound walking to the
front of a car that had the hoodup.
(26:16):
His toolbox is on theright-hand side.
He picks up a pair of glasses,puts on the glasses and pushes a
button on the earpiece and theinterior of that engine lit up
graphically and it said voiceactivated first step, and then
(26:41):
it showed what they wanted himto do any tools, any parts, all
of that stuff, and it was point,point, point, all the way up to
conclusion, and that was 1993.
That's 32 years ago.
If we went around, you and I ina plane today and went to a
hundred car dealers, I don'tthink we'd find 10 that are
(27:01):
doing that.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, I think it's coming fast.
There was a commercial chevydealership here in phoenix that
has, uh, this, this company haddesigned this, this tool that
laid on the ground and it wasfor their border patrol or cia
to use when a vehicle drove over.
It was detecting bombs attachedunderneath the car.
Well, what they found in usingthat is that oil leaks and
things like that were going on.
So they took well, wait aminute, there's something else
(27:28):
we can use this for.
So now they've developed wherethis at a dealership they have
this drive-through device.
You take your car through itand it scans underneath it, all
around it, and it does atroubleshooting diagnostics of
the car.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Imagine yeah, so within five minutes.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
There's underneath it , all around it, and it does a
troubleshooting diagnostics ofthe car.
Yeah, so within five minutesthere's a, so like a service
advisor haven't gotten rid ofthem, but their job has just now
changed.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Well, it becomes more communication job, doesn't it?
yes you know the, the, the, theservice work order process.
And again, you and I have beendoing this a long time.
I remember a service managercustomer comes in, talks to the
service manager, tells him whatthe complaint is.
Manager calls the technician,says George, here has a problem.
(28:12):
This is what he says is wrong.
Go on out there and fix thatfor me, will you?
And off the technician goes andhe hasn't got any more
direction than that.
And off the technician goes andhe hasn't got any more
direction than that.
Versus today what you justtalked about.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
You drive through a device and it tells you
diagnostically everything that'spotentially wrong with that
thing, whatever it is.
Yeah, so take that a littlefurther.
On a field service Instead,there'll be no drive-through,
obviously, but there could be ascanner, so a handheld scanner
that the technician scans overwhatever part of the machine or
whatever it is, for kind of aself-diagnostics.
(28:46):
So instead of you know, used inthe old days, before you left
for the next job you'd look atprevious work order and repairs
to make sure on that job have wetouched this machine for center
type themes and pre-ordering ofparts, the best you can based
off information you have.
But now you can sit there atthe desk one, the dispatcher,
whoever is coordinating serviceadvisor, self-diagnostics of the
(29:08):
machine for that particularissue, pre-order the parts for
the technician.
Now, we've heard about thisbefore.
This is not really new, but Ithink it's really about to
become very fast forward onapplying some of this technology
Very fast.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Like you said, we've heard this before.
There's a lot of smart peoplein our industry and I remember
the storefront in 1990, and youdo too where Caterpillar tried
to put something forward thatevery Caterpillar dealer would
look exactly the same toeverybody for customers, for
dealers, for the whole deal.
And it bothered me In thosedays.
We had the truck engine partsand there was a deal with Ford
(29:45):
and others, so we never got morethan 10% of the parts
transactions through thatstorefront and it bothered me.
And then we lost the truckengine business and it dropped
down to 3%, 4%, 5% and I'mtalking to all these dealers and
this might relate to you.
(30:06):
I said why the hell don't wehave customers coming in that
way?
I said, well, I don't know.
Well, what price do you charge?
Exactly the same price.
Well, you go to Walmart, youdon't get the same price as
Sears.
You go to Amazon you don't getthe same price as Sears.
You go to Amazon, you don't getthe same price as a bookstore.
If you come online, why thehell are you giving me the same
price when I'm doing all thework instead of going to your
(30:28):
store?
But nobody dropped the price.
So there's a price component tothis technology that we're
missing.
So let me go a little bitfurther.
You're diagnostic, we have GPS,we have sensors all over the
machine, we have life cyclestatistics.
We have unbelievable data.
That's a subscription service.
(30:50):
I'll sell you this machine.
It's a million bucks and for$25,000 a year I'll scan that
machine every hour for you.
I'll give you a warning whenthere's a problem.
I'll tell you when it'soverheating.
I'll tell you when it's idling.
That's a new market that wehaven't walked through to.
(31:11):
It's going to be huge.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, yeah.
There's an example that, ron, Iwant to share with you.
So this dealership had a roomthat that was a glass room and
in there equipment managers anduh and and there were uh and as,
with and with the new machinesold or a pm service sold, there
was a subscription model,depending what level you wanted
(31:35):
that was available.
We had this one customer thathe had the premium service.
We we had a gather watching thefault codes and upflashed a it
was a scrapyard and upflashed anoverheat flash code on an
excavator.
And it was about 3 o'clock inthe afternoon this is in Phoenix
, it's hot anyway and werealized that every day about
(31:56):
the same time, this sameoverheat issue popped up.
So if we'd have sent atechnician out, he had gone out
there in the morning, no issueMay have gone through at noon,
no issue May have gone out thereat three.
Maybe have found the issue.
Well, come to find out what itwas, is that that was also shift
change time and the operatorthat were coming in was a little
(32:17):
less experienced and was usingthe machine in a way that it was
causing an over-eat onhydraulics.
So by having this subscriptionwe saved that client a whole
bunch of downtime andtroubleshooting time and cost to
the dealership ofunderutilizing or utilizing
technicians in a wrong, in auseless way really, but were
able to diagnose andtroubleshoot with conversation
(32:39):
with the customer and we didn'tknow there was a shift change.
But talk with the customer,what's going on about three
o'clock every day?
Well, that's shift time.
It's a change time for us, butthat's a great example where
this customer benefited fromhaving that subscription service
and so did the dealership.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, and I think that's the future in so many
ways.
The other side of that thatcomes if you're on that
subscription service and you'reletting me monitor your machine
and you're going to follow myinstructions, I'll give you a
longer warranty.
You know, here comes a repair.
Fine, I'll give you a one-yearwarranty on it instead of six
months or three or whatever itis.
(33:19):
You know, there's so manyaspects of it.
So the highly technical skillselectronic catalogs, fault codes
, symptoms, hydraulics,overheating, et cetera all of
those things are enhanced withAI.
Should we have specificfunctions that deal with that
(33:40):
and the customer?
Do we have a different need ofskills?
Is it more, like you saidearlier, communications than
technical?
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah, I think it will .
So we had most dealers do, butwe had a technical communicator
department and all this.
These were very experiencedtechnicians, had done their time
in the field, in the shop orwhatever it was, and now they've
been put in the field, in theshop or whatever it was, and now
they've been put in thosepositions to be the communicator
.
They didn't do a lot ofdiscussion with the customer,
but they did a lot of talkingwith the mechanics in the field.
(34:10):
They helped do the diagnosticsand the failure analysis,
interpretation Okay, why did thepart fail?
And all that kind of thing.
Well, I see that role reallychanging.
Yeah, that role I mean there's.
We can do a lot of things toimprove that and there were some
, some of those TC guys.
They were not very nice totheir coworkers.
(34:30):
You know they were old timefield service guys and you get a
younger field service guy callin and they'll just rip him, you
go.
Did you do this and do that?
No, I told you to do this, butso they would try not to call
the TC group.
They.
No, I told you to do this, sothey would try not to call the
TC group.
They would try and figure itout themselves and add hours to
the job because they didn't wantto be chastised when they
called in.
But I think this role canchange a lot by that TC group
(34:52):
utilizing AI tools along withpeople skills to help that field
service technician or even thecustomer themselves with the AI
application to troubleshootingdiagnostics.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, and what you're talking about is the
personality profile of atechnician isn't exactly the
most empathetic person.
Yes, yes, they like to workalone.
They don't want anybody to tellthem what to do.
Just leave me alone, go away.
And you know my grandson who'sin the Navy.
He was the ROTC commander inhis junior year and I said how
(35:26):
are you liking that?
He said it's terrible.
I said what are you talkingabout?
He said well, I tell people todo something and they don't do
it.
I said, ah, leadership isn'tthat fun.
So he enlisted rather than goto officer's training.
They're trying to get him inofficer's training now.
Now, I'm not sure he's going todo it.
For that reason, now in themilitary, I go back and forth
with those guys.
(35:47):
I say that's an officer, youtell somebody in the military to
do something, you haven't nodoubt that that's going to
happen.
If they don't, there's aconsequence.
However, in private industry,that doesn't exist exist yeah
you know george is kind of justhe's having a bad day today.
It's, you know, it's it's.
So we have this wonderfultechnology.
We have the need to trainpeople is is the training
(36:15):
something that's inside thedealership or can we contract
with different service companiesthat train us on AI, on Excel
and those types of thingsSalesforce, for example?
Have you found anything likethat in your years?
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Well and I think there is, I think dealers they
try and do it all in-housethemselves and what they wind up
doing is spreading their teamtoo thin at spreading their team
too thin.
So, for example, in ourdealership, in our training
department we had individualsthat had their, we had
technician technical trainers,we had people skills instructors
.
We had MSHA training and melooking at that I said, well,
(36:54):
msha, let's contract that out,then I can take those two
instructors because they're alsoexperienced as technicians and
they can become technicalinstructors.
Forklift training on forkliftWell, let's, let's have the
forklift guys come in and do thetraining for forklift.
So got out of the communitycollege and they came in and did
classes on Excel or customerservice skills.
(37:17):
So I think it's really thedealership needs to broaden the
perspective that we don't needto have all the skills.
We need to go over where tofind the skills and the services
to meet our needs.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, I'm going to go even further than that and ask
a question.
I don't want to do anything atthe dealership other than what
my core competency has to be.
So, as an example, personnelhiring people why have I got an
(37:53):
HR department?
Wage and salary administration?
There's experts out there doingall of this stuff.
Wage and salary administrationthere's experts out there doing
all of this stuff.
Outsource whatever you can.
Don't get rid of the people.
Redeploy them in places thatmaximize the utilization of the
skills you're talking about,like what you mentioned there,
where I've got a technicalcommunicator inside to support
(38:17):
the technicians.
I also have to have a technicalcommunicator outside that does
the customer service,communication with the customer,
and that's a very differentpersonality.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, very different.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Yeah, I mean, I think , other than technicians pulling
wrenches and warehouse peoplepicking parts, I don't know that
there's many job functions thatare not going to be touched by
artificial intelligence orrobotics or both.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, and I think even if you look in the
warehouse, for example, awarehouse layout where you move
your parts fast-moving, moderate, slow-moving parts through AI
and the data that comes from itthey'll tell you move that part
here, because it's a fast movingpart, it's more efficient
having it on the inside of themain aisle.
So I think we'll be able to useAI to tell us move this, move
(39:10):
there, do this, do that.
In some warehouses they'redoing away with a sign location.
The computer lays it out andremoves the skid carton and puts
it back in a totally differentplace than last time.
So yeah, I, yeah, I think evenin the warehouse they'll make
them much more efficient.
Fewer steps.
So it will and I think in manyways will help make that
(39:33):
warehouse person more successfulbecause they're not doing all
the time that routine, boringkind of job.
When I was in the warehouse Ihad uh, I took a look at we had
packers and shippers and partspullers and the parts pullers
would bring the parts up anddump them on the packing table
and the packers would go throughand verify.
There was 10 of those and twoof those before those.
(39:55):
The right partner put in a box,seal it up and it will go to
the shipper.
Then it will be shipped out.
And look, they said well, whenthey get busy and the intent was
the packers would verify we hadthe right quantity and part
number well, when they got busy,they didn't check any of that,
they threw it all in the box andmoved on.
Yep, so I took those packers.
So you are now a tour, we willpack your own order.
(40:18):
So, and this one young man saysso, you mean I gotta do it right
the first time.
Yes, it does mean that he laterbecame a pilot, an airline
pilot airline southwest, yes,southwest airlines.
So he was early, early, earlyin his college career and and uh
, yeah, very interesting youngman, very nice guy, good, good
guy.
We had him years later as apilot.
(40:40):
I was getting on the plane, hewas fine, actually that's
wonderful.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
But I started in the consulting world doing designs
on warehouses using computers.
In those days we had length,width and height and weight of
every part number.
This is Caterpillar.
And so I built a little modeland did the railways in Canada
exactly what you're talkingabout.
Where do you put the part?
(41:06):
Based on the attributes of thatpart, based on the activity of
the part, how many people do youneed and where do you do this?
And what you're saying?
The packer.
That became a different jobfunction.
The person who picked the partswas responsible to make sure
that the quantity they pickedwas correct and they packed as
they went.
And then we said, oh well, darnit, there's two kinds of orders
(41:29):
here, some that are all people,handlers, but others that
require lift trucks.
So we had to merge twodifferent orders.
And then I'm in Chicago oneyear and I'm going in, I'm
looking at warehouses in Europeand all over the place.
The owner that I had was veryprogressive and I go to this
(41:49):
distribution center in Chicagoand it's humming and it's quiet
and there's, you know, no action.
And I'm talking to the guysrunning and they say, well, how
does this work?
They say, well, every morning,we give every employee eight
hours worth of labor.
What do you mean?
Well, we give them a certainnumber of part numbers, certain
(42:09):
quantities, certain weight andbased on that, we know how much
time it should take and how longit should go.
And so we give them eight hoursof labor and we say to them
when you're finished, you can gohome.
And we were running 12 to 15line items an hour at the
(42:30):
Caterpillar dealer and theseguys were running 120 to 180.
Wow, and I'm saying holy crap.
So we came back and we startedbatching orders and we had, okay
, our top priority field servicecounter right now.
Drop everything If it's abranch, yeah every top priority
field service counter right now.
Drop everything If it's a branch.
Yeah, every hour.
And it was remarkable, we wentfrom 1215 to 40.
(42:50):
Yeah, you know, again, usingtechnology, this isn't
artificial intelligence, butit's people intelligence, where
it's cool that we use the termartificial intelligence, but
it's all based on data.
Yeah, if you don't have gooddata, you're dead.
So technicians, internal,external communicators,
(43:12):
purchasing, inventory management, warehousing, all of these
things really are enhanced froma customer service perspective,
for the customer.
If the dealership uses it, sowhy don't we use it?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yes, I think if the dealership uses it and if the
employees will accept it, partof that challenge.
I've got a son working in thecomputer chip manufacturing
piece and he's got to do a lotof programming and they're
talking about how to use AI andtroubleshooting when something
isn't going right.
But some of that is theemployees accepting trying that
(43:49):
and making that part of theirjob.
So we really have to.
That comes the people skillside of it.
How do we get the employeeinterested in applying AI and
interested in changing thingsfor the better so that there's a
you know there manages aspecial skill set as a manager
on transitioning into somethingtotally new and different.
You can't force ittransitioning into something
(44:12):
totally new and different.
You can't force it.
You've got to do anintroduction and an acceptance,
part of it and and and trainingwith it and trying it again.
So, uh, that that can be verydifficult because some employees
they're not going to.
There's to me there's in thatthere are three levels.
There are those that will thatwill, will jump right on and do
it.
Those are going to sit on thefence and let me wait and see.
And those are not going to doit and those are not going to do
(44:35):
it.
There's not much reason tospend much time with that.
But those that are on the fencetrying to decide do I or don't
I, and those that are willing todo it, those are the ones to
take on and give them someleeway and extra training and
effort on this new technologyand how it applies to their job,
because they'll find a way toimprove whatever we thought we
were going to do.
(44:55):
They'll find a better way to dothat.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Yeah, yeah.
You know, one of the things Iusually like to do is somebody's
just been on the job six months.
I sit down and say, okay, whatdo we do that you don't think we
should do at all?
What are your eyes telling you?
But the other side of that isI'm going to submit that the
number of the dealers that areshrinking and being absorbed and
(45:18):
going out of business, they'redoing it because they're not
adapting, they get stuck in arut and they don't want to
change.
the penalty is huge, ron it ishow do we get leaders sensitized
to this?
The penalty is huge, ron.
How do we get leaderssensitized to this?
You know, we can stand in frontof a room and we can put a
(45:46):
presentation on, we can have apanel, we can have a one-on-one
discussion with people.
But how do we get people, thenormal people, the guys that are
out there in the front?
They're going to be looking atthis, like right now, but 90% of
the world doesn't want tochange anything.
They're busy.
How do we get that attention?
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Well, and I think you spend time with individual
employees, those that you canidentify, that want to and those
that don't.
There was an employee a partsemployee worked for me on a
remote location, lived in thecommunity.
He was not going anywhere, hewas there.
That's where his family was,where he grew up.
We had a project manager whowas new and we rotated project
managers out about every threeyears because family reasons and
(46:24):
a rotation.
So there was an issue came upwhere this employee was not
getting along with the projectmanager.
So I went to visit the employeeand I said what are you doing?
I mean, is this really thatmuch of a challenge?
He said, well, I don't want todo it and I'll wait him out,
because I know in two years,three years, you're going to
rotate him out.
I'm not going anywhere.
So here's an example of someonethat they were not going to
(46:47):
change.
They were not going to change.
So we again do need to identifythose that are willing to
change, provide them training,the tools, the time to make that
transition of introducing AI,learning about AI and
introducing it.
So it's just because, after solong, the managers, they'll just
give up.
All right, we'll just kind ofplod along here and keep doing
(47:08):
what we're doing, but we have toreally understand how to
implement change and get andhaving the employees accept the
change I had a guy I was talkingto the other day who was
executive vice president of apretty large dealership.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
He also was an executive with a manufacturer
and the comment he made to mewas I wish the heck I'd known
this person was taking nothingbut oxygen out of the world room
before I spent money ontraining and developing them.
And he said to me isn't theresomething you can do?
So that's what we created ourassessments for.
So we've got these 90 questionsup to 180 questions, multiple
(47:47):
choice assessments that wesuggest everybody does it once a
year.
And the recommendation I makeis I'd like to have you do it
and I'd like to have your bossdo it, and then the two of you
sit down and discuss what arethose things that the company
can do to help make your jobeasier, make you better at what
(48:08):
you do?
And what I was confronted within many of these cases was the
employees are not trained ondoing a performance review.
It's checking off a box and wereally don't have job standards
to the point that the employeesunderstand them.
Am I nuts?
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Yeah, no, that's very true, and those are examples
where I can help with some ofthat.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Long as we get the measurables there, we have to
define, yep, what we'remeasuring yeah, and where the
data is coming from, and whatthe arithmetic is and everything
else, yeah, and the other sideof that, ron, that also drives
me nuts is a lot of this stuffis historical.
It's not what we're doingtomorrow, it's what we did last
month, last year.
So you know what do I do, thatI can make a big change on.
(48:58):
That'll make an impact ontomorrow, and artificial
intelligence, I think, tells usthat.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's where us, as adealer, we get so ingrained in
only being around dealers ourown dealers, or only cat dealers
, or only Komatsu dealers.
We go to a conference that'sgot everybody there and they're
running their brothers there,but we need to spend time around
other areas outside theindustry, inside the industry,
(49:27):
and really take on and grasp thelearning part of it and have an
interest in learning.
And how does that apply to mybusiness?
I think that's to me.
It's one of the, to me, thedisadvantage that dealers have
is that we become so inclusive.
We don't want to be aroundothers, we kind of think we know
it all and we don't want toshare.
And I think really open up andlearn what's going on, share and
(49:54):
and, uh, I think really open upand learn what's going on.
I mean, years ago, when umonstar first came out, I
remember writing a letter to thepresident of the company and
say this is going to be, this isthis is going to change how we
do business now.
Now, look, here we are withautonomous mine haul trucks.
I mean it just uh, and that'snot that.
It it seemed like a long, manyyears, but I guess it probably
really is not overall, but howcan we apply those kinds of
(50:16):
things early on in our industryfrom what is going on in the
automotive industry or aerospaceor whatever it is?
How can we take bits and piecesof it and apply it in our
business?
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Yeah, there's so many areas and aspects of that.
It's kind of scary.
Our skill assessments give areally good understanding of the
employee and what they know andwhat they don't know.
It's not their personality,it's just skills.
(50:48):
And having the boss fill outthe same assessment on that
employee as the employee doeshighlights where they have
differences of opinion.
And in almost every case whereI've experienced this, the boss
didn't know he had the differentopinions.
Neither did the employee, butwhen they talked together they
found a solution that was betterfor both of them.
(51:10):
Yeah, yep, and again, ai iswhat gives us that, that tool.
I was in Moscow one time with aguy who had an MBA, had three
kids, middle-aged man, and youknow I I have a series of
questions that I'd be asking andI'd go through those what, what
, what do you do that you liketo do?
And blah, blah, blah, blah.
(51:33):
And he said no, no, don't do it, you don't understand things
here.
I said what do you mean?
He says don't ask questionslike that, just tell me what you
want me to do.
And there's still a lot of menand women as leaders that do
exactly that, almost likebullies.
And a characteristic of today'ssociety is.
We're seeing people stay on thejob longer, retiring later, and
(51:56):
I'm going to submit thatthere's a generation delayed
transition, maybe by 10 years.
So a guy who's the boss at 65today who should be retiring,
he's staying till 75, but thepeople that are coming up behind
that should go into the job,that are being blocked.
They're leaving the industry,they're going somewhere else.
(52:18):
So now the skills that we'reseeing coming into the business
are very different than whatthey used to be 10, 20, 40 years
ago.
People really don't understandwhat we do anymore yeah
onboarding becomes huge yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
No, your example is, I think, is right on, where we
have people staying in theirroles longer.
So there's a whole generationof people coming up to the ranks
that were hoping for apromotion of that role will
never get there.
They will retire out.
And next is the group thatcomes in, that they don't know
what they don't know andunfortunately they the
(52:56):
individuals that have all theknowledge and experience in
those areas they're leaving.
They're going and that's, to me, is a real worry.
For pick a specific issue of whowas the person that walked
through that major issue thatkept that dealer's doors open.
(53:17):
What did they do?
How did they do it?
We don't.
We don't know that.
We know that there's an issuethere and we went on and but we
don't know how they handled itand made that area would be a
new product introduction,whether it be a new product
introduction or whether it be amining issue that came up on a
product line thing or aprofitability.
How did they get that companythrough the challenge that
(53:39):
history is leaving and we don'tdo a good job of collecting the
historic successes and what madethose case studies?
We almost need to have acollection of case studies.
If you come across this.
What a great tool for a newperson in a role.
I'm faced with this reallymajor problem.
Historically, has anything likethat been done before in our
(54:02):
industry or in our dealership?
Well, yeah, ten years ago.
Here's so-and-so then.
Here is the situation andhere's what they did Now.
It may not be a perfect answernow, but may open some eyes that
may generate some otherthoughts to make it more
successful implementation.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Yeah, I agree 100%.
Well, I think we've covered alot of ground here, ron, and I
thank you for it and I love thesubject.
I'd like to follow this up in acouple of weeks when more of
the blog has been published, andand and keep on going, because
I think this is critical fordealers, it's critical for for
business everywhere andemployees, if, if you're not
(54:40):
having anybody contribute toyour skills improvement, you're
going to be left behind.
Yes, and it's it.
I don't mean that in a bad way.
I think it's a fact.
Am I understanding thisproperly?
Speaker 2 (54:56):
Yeah, no, I think employees have to take ownership
of their career.
They have to take ownership ofthe skill set that's needed,
because chances are, if they asktheir manager, their manager
may not know.
Yeah, exactly their manager'snot thought about AI.
Yeah, so the employee needs tobe thinking about what's my next
skill set?
I need and be working that ontheir own and hopefully in
(55:19):
conjunction with the trainingdepartment and their supervisor,
but they have to take ownership.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Yeah, I think the whole organization has to change
.
Ron, this has been wonderful.
I thank you for your knowledge,experience, your wisdom, and I
hope everybody who's listeningpays attention to this.
I think this is something wherewe're going and it's already
here.
It's been here for a long time,but we're rather slow to get
off the mark.
(55:44):
So thank you for listening, ron, thank you for being here and I
look forward to seeing you atyour next candidate conversation
.
Mahalo.
Aloha and welcome to another candid conversation.
We're joined today by RonWilson and we're going to be
covering a subject that Ron hasdealt with in pretty deep depth,
that we're running as afour-part blog series on
artificial intelligence.
Everybody's heard about it,Everybody's read about it.
(00:24):
Probably many of you have triedit and worked with it.
Ron's going to give us someideas and thoughts as to how he
thinks we should proceed, and Ithink you're going to find this
very helpful.
So with that, Ron, lead us tothe promised land man.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Thanks.
Well, what really piqued myinterest is we're Vicki and I
were at a birthday party andsome of the people there we only
see once a year.
We're kind of a dispersed groupand so kind of working through
the room and meeting old friendsand talking about the kids and
most of that group is in their60s and 70s.
Two people in that group hasseen their 60s and 70s.
(01:06):
Uh, two people in that group uhtalked about their.
Their children had recentlylost their jobs due to ai.
So, wow.
So one was in uh oregon.
There was a large layoff, thecompany, and they were more in a
film industry type thing.
The other was in area and theywere doing training material,
(01:28):
filming and the recording fordifferent kinds of training.
So I got to thinking about well,you know, we've all heard about
AI.
Ai's been in the mail and beenin the news a lot lately.
So I thought, well, let me justtry and ask AI how do we
compete against or against AI inthe job market?
(01:49):
There's a lot of discussionabout the number of jobs, the
type of jobs that will bereplaced by AI.
So so just kind of ask AI howto compete with you.
And AI came back and said well,it's not about competing with
AI, it's about working with AIand utilizing the tools of AI in
(02:11):
your individual career.
And then I asked AI well, whatare the top 10 most likely jobs
to be replaced?
And it came back with a listand also with a list of jobs
that would not be replaced mostlikely but would be enhanced by
AI.
So trying to apply this to theequipment dealer's world is what
(02:31):
do we do in the equipmentbusiness and how does AI fit
into the overall window?
And I have talked to somefriends that's still in the
industry and some areaggressively looking at it and
some are well, we're going towait and see what the OEM does,
and that doesn't usually workvery well.
You need to kind of be ahead ofthe curve.
But I thought it was just sowhat AI came back and talked
(02:55):
about understanding how AI willwork in with a career, careers
most likely to be impacted,those most likely to be replaced
and most likely to be replaced,and then how to adapt an AI
mindset.
So what if we're going to moveahead with AI?
How do we do that?
And I think the last piece ofwhat I pulled together was a
(03:15):
self-assessment worksheet toevaluate how we adapt AI into
our training and our learning.
So that's kind of what was thefocus of this.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, it's really remarkable, ron.
Everything we do in LearningWithout Scars is with artificial
intelligence.
We start from Word documentsthat have been class materials
for years, out of textbooks thatI've created and other things,
and then create film clips,create audio tracks, create
(03:45):
subtitles, create quizzes allmanner of materials and we're
using from our website,wordpress, to our learning
management system, moodle.
I think we have 17 individualdifferent pieces of software.
Moodle I think we have 17individual different pieces of
(04:08):
software, and if I'm a parts guyor a service guy or a salesman
and I'm looking at chat TPT,some of them are just using it
to enhance their writing skills,so they write stuff down and
then put it through and get itcorrected.
That's not the approach you'velooked at, is it?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
No, I actually did the reverse.
I put the thought in chat GPTfirst and let it feed me back
what it says and then, okay,then take that view of.
Okay, how does that apply to myindustry of knowledge and me as
an individual, how I developedmyself in my career?
So now you could, I couldprobably.
(04:48):
For example, the document Isent you it wasn't the best
written document I mean, youcould probably put it back into
chat GBT and it would come backwith a more polished, properly
written document, no doubt, butI used it more.
To me, chat GBT or AI is not awhole lot different than back in
our college days or when youwent back and use the, the, the
(05:11):
library, and you did through thecard decks and looking up your
books and you walk to the shelfand try to find the book and
it's been mislocated, misfiledsomewhere else, and you pull out
the information you want out ofit and it's really not much
different than that, except it'sa lot faster, but it's not
always.
I had entered a question onPresident Trump.
I asked him shortly after hebecame president is what have
(05:35):
been the activities within thislast week from President Trump's
focus?
And it came back and said well,he's not the president, well,
that's interesting, so, but sothere's a time gap there between
what, what's really going onand and uh.
So you have to use it with alittle uh, grain of salt,
understanding and interpretingto make sure that it is correct,
(05:57):
double checking, uh.
But it's a good place to me.
It well randled it.
It shaves off a lot of time onsome of the very basics that
have to be gone through onwriting something or developing
something.
So it shaves some time off andprovides some insight.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
There's interesting things to this, ron.
The economic world says,depending on the industry,
between 500 and 5,000 jobs willbe created with every billion
dollars of investment.
So let's just take an easyplace and say it's 10 jobs per
(06:38):
billion.
To get to a trillion from abillion.
There's two ways of doing it,but the normal way is just add
three zeros, so that's 100,000jobs.
Then the next thing is to go toa trillion.
Multiple trillions is theinvestment that people are
(06:59):
putting into America.
Right now that has crossed over15 trillion.
Right now that has crossed over15 trillion.
So we're looking for 10 millionjobs being added, minimum.
And Trump's comment is we don'thave enough people.
And the dilemma we have withthat is that we have enough
people, perhaps, but we don'thave the people that have the
(07:25):
skills.
So then freeze frame on thatfor a second, somebody, one of
our contributors.
I've been saying we've beenputting profit over people for a
long time.
In other words, customerservice has been let go, let it
drift, and that shows itself incustomer retention.
So, being the idiot that I am, Ilook back over the last 40
(07:46):
years and found that for every20 years the number of dealers
reduces by 50%.
So if we started, let's say, 85with 1,000 dealers 2,005,
there's 500 dealers.
2025, there's 250.
And everybody I talk to says,well, things are pretty good,
(08:07):
revenue is going up.
And I say to them well, ofcourse, revenue is going up, you
don't have as many competitors,and they kind of stop because
they never really consideredthat.
But all of that going on meansthat the people that are at work
today don't have enough time todo what they need to do, so
anything that can save them timeis going to be a blessing.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
So here comes AI, and it's like it's put on a platter
for us, but nobody's done anevaluation or analysis that I've
seen yet, ron, like what youjust did.
So let's go back over thosedifferent categories again and
get into the weeds with them asto what you mean and how it
affects us.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Okay.
So first, if you take a look atthe careers most likely to be
impacted and what AI points out,is that what AI is not good at
is the human skills, thecustomer service, for example,
dealing directly with thecustomers.
Now we know that I've seen someexamples of this.
When the grocery stores or theWalmart retail stores are on
(09:15):
their self-checkout, they dumpall this stuff into a
self-checkout with no customerservice people to help and it
was in many cases a disaster.
The theft went up on it.
The difficulty of trying toself-checkout Sometimes for us
technically challenged gettingto the self-checkout, it doesn't
work right.
So then they found out well,wait a minute, we have to add
(09:40):
the customer service skills backin there.
So then they add a someone towatch several registers at once
kind of thing, a self-checkout.
But they have to have peoplewith the people skills of
working with the customers.
That's frustrated, becausethey've tried to scan the
avocado four times and itdoesn't scan right.
Or the friend I talked to lastnight he went in to buy some
(10:01):
sausages at the meat market andwent to check out and what he
was?
Checked out as that he hadcrabs.
So the price was like fivetimes or 25 times what he
originally was looking for andthe registry guy says, well, no,
the label says you have this,until he opened it up and showed
the guy that he had hot dogs.
(10:22):
So needing the customer serviceskills to work through those
challenges.
That's something that ai reallystruggles with and we struggle
with because we we have, evenbefore ai, customer service
skills.
The dealership has to almostprovide training because it's we
don't get skilled level peoplein the dealership now with the
proper customer service skillsthat we need.
(10:43):
So that was one of the thingsthat the emotional intelligence
piece of it is something that AIdoes not handle very well at
this time.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So let me interrupt there for a second, because I
agree 100% Dealerships.
In our experience, yours andmine have used employee
development or training as adiscretionary expense, Not
necessarily something that I'mgoing to do regularly.
Every now and again I might dosomething, but if push comes to
(11:14):
shove and I need money, I killall of that altogether.
Has that been your experienceas well?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
In some.
If you take the most recentdeal, covid when COVID hit and I
was in the training departmentat that time and my worry when
COVID hit and we sent all of thetrainers, instructors, home and
shut down training, my concernwas, as in past, is that
training would be the first togo.
Now I was very fortunate andthat didn't happen with us.
(11:43):
We got the team together andsays where do we add value?
And they said when we teach?
And we said well, you get twoweeks to turn your training into
online and I had a great team.
They were able to do that.
So we can.
But but many dealers they didput their training on the back
(12:03):
burner during COVID, for example, and you were putting maybe
other roles or you may have beenfurloughed.
In some cases they just shuttraining down.
So but yeah, I think many ofthe dealers, training is not
their first.
That's one of the first thingsto go and the last things to add
.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
One of the things that was interesting, ron.
We started doing training,specific outside of consulting,
in the early 90s and at thattime everybody Caterpillar,
deere, volvo, komatsu, bobcat,everybody, all the associations
stopped altogether Managementtraining.
I think you and I talked aboutthat.
I spent the summer saying I'dbeen teaching for a long time
(12:40):
anyways, but I built sixtextbooks over the summer
talking to my computer andstarted into the training
business and what seemed to workfor people was you don't have
to have a trainer, you don'thave to have a class, you don't
have to have somebody doing thehotels and meals and all that
stuff.
We'll do that for you and we'llpay you an incentive, a
(13:04):
commission or something for thenumber of people.
And we did that.
And we did all the parts andservice training for the
construction equipmentindustries, parts service
selling, marketing for 20 years.
Wow.
And what became interesting frommy point of view was a lot of
(13:25):
dealers.
As you know and you're in thesame place, we know a lot of
people because we've been aroundso long.
One of the guys said to me Ron,I wish I'd known before I spent
money on training for thisindividual that all they're
doing is taking oxygen out ofthe room.
So here comes AI.
Is that masking skills at all?
All they're doing is takingoxygen out of the room.
(13:47):
So here comes AI.
Is that masking skills at all?
Or are the people that?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
don't have the skills , going to be unable to deal
with AI, do you think?
Well, I think you have a greatquestion.
If you go back and look whenlaptops were introduced in the
service department I was runninga field service operation at
that time did not have laptops.
There were a few of the highlytechnical guys had the laptop,
but otherwise we didn't.
(14:15):
When I got into field serviceoperation that year, we added
laptops to every technician.
Now there are some techniciansthat computers, they just
couldn't do it.
Very good skilled technicians,but they just they didn't adapt
well.
So so we did lose some talent.
I had to find something elsefor them, because you don't want
them to go away, you want toutilize their skills.
But but yet others, they tookon the laptop and began to use
(14:37):
the tools of the laptop andbecame a better technician than
they were.
So so I think it really it's anindividualized thing.
We've got to encourage theemployees to make sure they're
not scared of it, not worriedabout it, not afraid of it, but
learn how to help them adapt itinto their jobs.
But that's key, I think, forthis AI adaption.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, I agree.
I remember back in the 60s and70s the commercials that were
out.
There were a machine being abutton being pushed and that was
going to replace your job.
And you know the comment youmade about some of the older
technician guys.
They're not as adaptable.
They're awfully goodtechnicians.
So we have to find places ascoaches, as inspectors, as
(15:21):
technical communicators.
There's specific jobs.
They can perform for a longtime and get out of the way.
For the young guys, some of thefellows coming out of technical
school Osuit is an example,oklahoma State Some of those
guys are in field trucks withina year.
They're really good techniciansbut they know the technology,
(15:42):
the electronic catalogs, thediagnostics, the sensors, the
GPS, all of that.
And AI really pulls that alltogether, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yes, it can.
Now we have to worry about theyounger generation, because it's
kind of like when you likeExcel, when you ask somebody are
you good at Excel?
And they may say, yeah, I am,but then you figure out.
Well, they know about a levelone plus.
Then there are those folks thatthey are really good at Excel.
They can make it home.
It's the same thing with AI ortechnology.
(16:11):
We have some grandkids.
They're really good at playinggames on the computer, but do
they really know systems andworking through systems?
They don't, yeah, they don'tyeah.
Even with the youngergeneration you have the
crossover of the knowledge.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, the other thing that I experienced was with
word processing, withspreadsheets, with presentations
, with all of that stuff.
What I tend to do, because itchanges so damn much, is only
focus on the things that I needto do now.
Right, excel, I make it workwith spreadsheets, but I'm
(16:46):
terrible at pivot tables becauseI don't have to use them very
often.
We tend to take the technologyonly to the place that it
affects our job and then we stop.
Are you sensing and feelingthat too?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Absolutely.
We've got to be able to carveout time to continue learning.
What is it that I don't know.
So one of the examples I gavein going through this is that I
had an opportunity to work inthe marketing as a data
analytics manager.
So this way they took marketingand split it into two groups.
We have the data analytics andthe marketing traditional
(17:20):
marketing manager and thenmarketing traditional marketing
manager, and my job was to bringall the data of the dealership
into how to utilize it in ourmarketing department.
Then I realized there was awhole bunch of data analytic
tools after I didn't know about.
I could use Excel and we coulddo pivot tables, and I had a
team that did a lot of that forme.
But I took a certificateprogram to the local university
(17:43):
on data analytics to again tospring forward on those tools.
Well, that was 10 years ago.
Well, now the data analyticshas been replaced by the AI part
of it.
So if I was in the job marketnow, I would be looking at not
only data analytics, but wheredoes AI fit in and how do I
learn to use some of those toolsand be aware of how to apply
(18:04):
those?
So it's the ongoing, continualgrowth that we have to have to
look forward to.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
The other thing that comes wrong is that I don't
believe we have skills andknowledge standards.
We don't have certifications,it's what I call them.
And there's a thing in Americacalled IRAPS, which is an
industry-related apprenticeprogram standard which is in the
(18:30):
United States, not followed byvery many people, but
certification programs.
You have them for nurses, youhave them for cooks, you have
them for technicians.
We don't have them for partspeople.
We don't have them for salespeople.
We don't have them for salesmen.
There are things out there, butthen we come.
I was talking to a college inTexas, had 300,000 students and
(18:53):
all of a sudden became painfullyevident.
There's privacy issues that wehave that are different across
the country.
So student names, ages, sexes,scores, those types of things.
You got to be really carefuland protected.
Then ISO, the InternationalStandards Organization, comes
out and they've got plans on howto do it.
(19:15):
All of these folks, they'remaking it even more complicated
for a dealership.
Who do you use, how do you useit, it, etc.
So I think when, where youcarved out the different jobs,
let's start with the jobs at adealership that are at risk.
What are they?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
well, so if you just look down, it kind of goes down
this list and we'll have to,when you read this, see the the
job tiles kind of relate back tosome of those within a
dealership because, for example,data entry clerks okay you have
somebody that's entering timecards.
If you get to enter, somebodythat's typing in a service
report where the techniciangives them their handwritten
service report and somebody elseinputs it uh, the data entry
(19:57):
and the accounting system that'sdoing debits and credits and
telemarketing.
I provide a link to a TikTokvideo where the and I kind of
got into the TikTok thing.
Now it's kind of cool, there'syou can anyway, but this link,
you click on the link and thisguy that's doing the video, the
(20:19):
TikTok thing he said well, Iwant to share an example of me
being a difficult customer withan AI generated salesperson.
So he clicks on it and he'stalking to this AI person, or
whatever you want to call itabout.
They're trying to sell him andschedule him with a software
(20:39):
program on training of some kindof for the company.
And this guy said well, Ireally can't do that, I'm not
for the for the company.
And this guy says, well, Ireally can't do that, I'm not
the only stakeholder in thecompany.
Uh, I really need to talk, talkto my talk to my co co-owner
about it.
And the AI says, okay, well, MrCustomer, let's go ahead and
book the meeting.
Give you some time to talk toyour co-owner, and if that doesn
(21:02):
doesn't work, we'll rescheduleit.
So and then I get done.
A watch said wait a minute.
I've been on calls like that,so was that really a person I
was talking to or was it ai?
I was talking to you?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
yeah, you have these chat bots on websites and
basically you, you know it's anice thought, but it's the same
damn thing as voicemail.
When voicemail arrived 30, 40,50 years ago, I know dealerships
that actually let the phonering so that the commercial
(21:36):
message would have to belistened to before they would
get action from the customer.
In other words, you call in tome, it rings three to five times
and then I give you a 30-secondcommercial before I say is
there something you'd like totalk to me about?
I mean, we lost sight of thewhole damn thing, didn't we?
We tried to save money andforgot the customer.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, yeah, and we added things that thought would
be of value, like the commercialyou talked about.
That nobody cares.
That's not what you call, thatis not my priority right now.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, yeah, so you know.
So the other side, that dataentry function that takes me up
further in the helicopter.
We don't have many people inthe company operationally or
anywhere that are looking at SixSigma, continuous improvement,
industrial engineering type ofprocesses.
Do we have that anymore?
Some of the dealers do.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Do we have that anymore?
Some of the dealers do.
Some are having the projectmanager certification.
Some of those require them aspart of the where I was working
they had a team of Six Sigmaearly on, early, early on when
they adopted Six Sigma.
So some of them are using thoseand they've actually got
project.
A Six Sigma person is assignedto a project or list of projects
(22:44):
and then linked in with that isthe marketing side.
So if it's a project going toneed marketing, they can pull
marketing in when they need it,so that we're closing the loop
on the whole thing and notgetting into the project and
realize, oh yeah, we needmarketing, pull that into the
business operations so we canone keep it moving ahead, moving
along, removing roadblocks, butalso meet the needs of the
(23:13):
operational area.
One of the best things I likedwere the dealership I worked
about.
Every six months, maybequarterly, they would have a Six
Sigma project.
Meeting was open to the company.
Anybody could come in and sitin on it.
So the team was to come inreview the status of their Six
Sigma project and there'd be theexecutive team reviewing it.
But you had an open audience towhoever in the company wanted
to sit in and listen to thescope of work and the status of
(23:35):
the project and that was really,to me, very impressive on what
was going on within the company,the direction we're taking, and
kind of an open book on theleadership style of the
organization.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
I think that's critical, ron, having community
meetings One of the things.
Patrick Lencioni, who's anauthor that I have a lot of
respect for.
He writes books like fables, sohe tells stories, and one of
his comments of you know ThreeSigns of a Miserable Job is one
of his books and one of hiscomments of you know three signs
of a miserable job is one ofhis books, and one of them is
anonymity.
The employee doesn't feel thatanybody knows who the hell they
(24:13):
are.
Then the second piece isirrelevance.
Nobody really knows how theirjob fits into the overall piece.
And then the final one isimmeasurability it's a word he
created because it doesn't existwhere when you leave the job,
at the end of the day you haveno idea whether you did a good
job or not.
If you're a technician, you do,there's things you fix, there's
(24:37):
things you did, there's thingsyou completed.
But having a meeting like that,where here comes something
we're working on and George inthe corner had never heard of
that before and has a commentabout it, that's to me
unbelievably helpful.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
It's kind of like too many men and women as managers
are sitting in their office.
You've got to get out and walkaround.
Yes, you've got to touch theemployees.
You've got to get out and walkaround.
Yes, you've got to touch theemployees.
You've got to touch thecustomers.
So, other than data entry andcustomer service type of things,
what other jobs are at risk?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Well, let's go ahead and talk about some of those
that are least likely to bereplaced by AI.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Okay, that's a better , more positive way to look at
it.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Mental health professionals, teachers,
educators, skilled trades,electricians, plumbers and
carpenter.
Now I do want a word of cautionon this.
When we hear that and we'veheard that a lot as well
plumbers and electricians andmechanics are not going to get
replaced.
Well, but they got to learnabout AI.
But they got to learn about AI,you know they're going to wind
(25:42):
up putting on a pair of glassesthat's going to walk them
through a troubleshootingdiagnostics of a parts book or
disassemble, reassemble typedeal.
So their skill set is going tochange, requiring them to adapt
to AI somehow.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Let me, let me interrupt you.
Bmw put up on YouTube Vimeowasn't available then TikTok and
all that stuff a film clip of aman with sound walking to the
front of a car that had the hoodup.
(26:16):
His toolbox is on theright-hand side.
He picks up a pair of glasses,puts on the glasses and pushes a
button on the earpiece and theinterior of that engine lit up
graphically and it said voiceactivated first step, and then
(26:41):
it showed what they wanted himto do any tools, any parts, all
of that stuff, and it was point,point, point, all the way up to
conclusion, and that was 1993.
That's 32 years ago.
If we went around, you and I ina plane today and went to a
hundred car dealers, I don'tthink we'd find 10 that are
(27:01):
doing that.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, I think it's coming fast.
There was a commercial chevydealership here in phoenix that
has, uh, this, this company haddesigned this, this tool that
laid on the ground and it wasfor their border patrol or cia
to use when a vehicle drove over.
It was detecting bombs attachedunderneath the car.
Well, what they found in usingthat is that oil leaks and
things like that were going on.
So they took well, wait aminute, there's something else
(27:28):
we can use this for.
So now they've developed wherethis at a dealership they have
this drive-through device.
You take your car through itand it scans underneath it, all
around it, and it does atroubleshooting diagnostics of
the car.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Imagine yeah, so within five minutes.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
There's underneath it , all around it, and it does a
troubleshooting diagnostics ofthe car.
Yeah, so within five minutesthere's a, so like a service
advisor haven't gotten rid ofthem, but their job has just now
changed.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Well, it becomes more communication job, doesn't it?
yes you know the, the, the, theservice work order process.
And again, you and I have beendoing this a long time.
I remember a service managercustomer comes in, talks to the
service manager, tells him whatthe complaint is.
Manager calls the technician,says George, here has a problem.
(28:12):
This is what he says is wrong.
Go on out there and fix thatfor me, will you?
And off the technician goes andhe hasn't got any more
direction than that.
And off the technician goes andhe hasn't got any more
direction than that.
Versus today what you justtalked about.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
You drive through a device and it tells you
diagnostically everything that'spotentially wrong with that
thing, whatever it is.
Yeah, so take that a littlefurther.
On a field service Instead,there'll be no drive-through,
obviously, but there could be ascanner, so a handheld scanner
that the technician scans overwhatever part of the machine or
whatever it is, for kind of aself-diagnostics.
(28:46):
So instead of you know, used inthe old days, before you left
for the next job you'd look atprevious work order and repairs
to make sure on that job have wetouched this machine for center
type themes and pre-ordering ofparts, the best you can based
off information you have.
But now you can sit there atthe desk one, the dispatcher,
whoever is coordinating serviceadvisor, self-diagnostics of the
(29:08):
machine for that particularissue, pre-order the parts for
the technician.
Now, we've heard about thisbefore.
This is not really new, but Ithink it's really about to
become very fast forward onapplying some of this technology
Very fast.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Like you said, we've heard this before.
There's a lot of smart peoplein our industry and I remember
the storefront in 1990, and youdo too where Caterpillar tried
to put something forward thatevery Caterpillar dealer would
look exactly the same toeverybody for customers, for
dealers, for the whole deal.
And it bothered me In thosedays.
We had the truck engine partsand there was a deal with Ford
(29:45):
and others, so we never got morethan 10% of the parts
transactions through thatstorefront and it bothered me.
And then we lost the truckengine business and it dropped
down to 3%, 4%, 5% and I'mtalking to all these dealers and
this might relate to you.
(30:06):
I said why the hell don't wehave customers coming in that
way?
I said, well, I don't know.
Well, what price do you charge?
Exactly the same price.
Well, you go to Walmart, youdon't get the same price as
Sears.
You go to Amazon you don't getthe same price as Sears.
You go to Amazon, you don't getthe same price as a bookstore.
If you come online, why thehell are you giving me the same
price when I'm doing all thework instead of going to your
(30:28):
store?
But nobody dropped the price.
So there's a price component tothis technology that we're
missing.
So let me go a little bitfurther.
You're diagnostic, we have GPS,we have sensors all over the
machine, we have life cyclestatistics.
We have unbelievable data.
That's a subscription service.
(30:50):
I'll sell you this machine.
It's a million bucks and for$25,000 a year I'll scan that
machine every hour for you.
I'll give you a warning whenthere's a problem.
I'll tell you when it'soverheating.
I'll tell you when it's idling.
That's a new market that wehaven't walked through to.
(31:11):
It's going to be huge.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, yeah.
There's an example that, ron, Iwant to share with you.
So this dealership had a roomthat that was a glass room and
in there equipment managers anduh and and there were uh and as,
with and with the new machinesold or a pm service sold, there
was a subscription model,depending what level you wanted
(31:35):
that was available.
We had this one customer thathe had the premium service.
We we had a gather watching thefault codes and upflashed a it
was a scrapyard and upflashed anoverheat flash code on an
excavator.
And it was about 3 o'clock inthe afternoon this is in Phoenix
, it's hot anyway and werealized that every day about
(31:56):
the same time, this sameoverheat issue popped up.
So if we'd have sent atechnician out, he had gone out
there in the morning, no issueMay have gone through at noon,
no issue May have gone out thereat three.
Maybe have found the issue.
Well, come to find out what itwas, is that that was also shift
change time and the operatorthat were coming in was a little
(32:17):
less experienced and was usingthe machine in a way that it was
causing an over-eat onhydraulics.
So by having this subscriptionwe saved that client a whole
bunch of downtime andtroubleshooting time and cost to
the dealership ofunderutilizing or utilizing
technicians in a wrong, in auseless way really, but were
able to diagnose andtroubleshoot with conversation
(32:39):
with the customer and we didn'tknow there was a shift change.
But talk with the customer,what's going on about three
o'clock every day?
Well, that's shift time.
It's a change time for us, butthat's a great example where
this customer benefited fromhaving that subscription service
and so did the dealership.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, and I think that's the future in so many
ways.
The other side of that thatcomes if you're on that
subscription service and you'reletting me monitor your machine
and you're going to follow myinstructions, I'll give you a
longer warranty.
You know, here comes a repair.
Fine, I'll give you a one-yearwarranty on it instead of six
months or three or whatever itis.
(33:19):
You know, there's so manyaspects of it.
So the highly technical skillselectronic catalogs, fault codes
, symptoms, hydraulics,overheating, et cetera all of
those things are enhanced withAI.
Should we have specificfunctions that deal with that
(33:40):
and the customer?
Do we have a different need ofskills?
Is it more, like you saidearlier, communications than
technical?
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah, I think it will .
So we had most dealers do, butwe had a technical communicator
department and all this.
These were very experiencedtechnicians, had done their time
in the field, in the shop orwhatever it was, and now they've
been put in the field, in theshop or whatever it was, and now
they've been put in thosepositions to be the communicator
.
They didn't do a lot ofdiscussion with the customer,
but they did a lot of talkingwith the mechanics in the field.
(34:10):
They helped do the diagnosticsand the failure analysis,
interpretation Okay, why did thepart fail?
And all that kind of thing.
Well, I see that role reallychanging.
Yeah, that role I mean there's.
We can do a lot of things toimprove that and there were some
, some of those TC guys.
They were not very nice totheir coworkers.
(34:30):
You know they were old timefield service guys and you get a
younger field service guy callin and they'll just rip him, you
go.
Did you do this and do that?
No, I told you to do this, butso they would try not to call
the TC group.
They.
No, I told you to do this, sothey would try not to call the
TC group.
They would try and figure itout themselves and add hours to
the job because they didn't wantto be chastised when they
called in.
But I think this role canchange a lot by that TC group
(34:52):
utilizing AI tools along withpeople skills to help that field
service technician or even thecustomer themselves with the AI
application to troubleshootingdiagnostics.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, and what you're talking about is the
personality profile of atechnician isn't exactly the
most empathetic person.
Yes, yes, they like to workalone.
They don't want anybody to tellthem what to do.
Just leave me alone, go away.
And you know my grandson who'sin the Navy.
He was the ROTC commander inhis junior year and I said how
(35:26):
are you liking that?
He said it's terrible.
I said what are you talkingabout?
He said well, I tell people todo something and they don't do
it.
I said, ah, leadership isn'tthat fun.
So he enlisted rather than goto officer's training.
They're trying to get him inofficer's training now.
Now, I'm not sure he's going todo it.
For that reason, now in themilitary, I go back and forth
with those guys.
(35:47):
I say that's an officer, youtell somebody in the military to
do something, you haven't nodoubt that that's going to
happen.
If they don't, there's aconsequence.
However, in private industry,that doesn't exist exist yeah
you know george is kind of justhe's having a bad day today.
It's, you know, it's it's.
So we have this wonderfultechnology.
We have the need to trainpeople is is the training
(36:15):
something that's inside thedealership or can we contract
with different service companiesthat train us on AI, on Excel
and those types of thingsSalesforce, for example?
Have you found anything likethat in your years?
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Well and I think there is, I think dealers they
try and do it all in-housethemselves and what they wind up
doing is spreading their teamtoo thin at spreading their team
too thin.
So, for example, in ourdealership, in our training
department we had individualsthat had their, we had
technician technical trainers,we had people skills instructors
.
We had MSHA training and melooking at that I said, well,
(36:54):
msha, let's contract that out,then I can take those two
instructors because they're alsoexperienced as technicians and
they can become technicalinstructors.
Forklift training on forkliftWell, let's, let's have the
forklift guys come in and do thetraining for forklift.
So got out of the communitycollege and they came in and did
classes on Excel or customerservice skills.
(37:17):
So I think it's really thedealership needs to broaden the
perspective that we don't needto have all the skills.
We need to go over where tofind the skills and the services
to meet our needs.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, I'm going to go even further than that and ask
a question.
I don't want to do anything atthe dealership other than what
my core competency has to be.
So, as an example, personnelhiring people why have I got an
(37:53):
HR department?
Wage and salary administration?
There's experts out there doingall of this stuff.
Wage and salary administrationthere's experts out there doing
all of this stuff.
Outsource whatever you can.
Don't get rid of the people.
Redeploy them in places thatmaximize the utilization of the
skills you're talking about,like what you mentioned there,
where I've got a technicalcommunicator inside to support
(38:17):
the technicians.
I also have to have a technicalcommunicator outside that does
the customer service,communication with the customer,
and that's a very differentpersonality.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, very different.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Yeah, I mean, I think , other than technicians pulling
wrenches and warehouse peoplepicking parts, I don't know that
there's many job functions thatare not going to be touched by
artificial intelligence orrobotics or both.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, and I think even if you look in the
warehouse, for example, awarehouse layout where you move
your parts fast-moving, moderate, slow-moving parts through AI
and the data that comes from itthey'll tell you move that part
here, because it's a fast movingpart, it's more efficient
having it on the inside of themain aisle.
So I think we'll be able to useAI to tell us move this, move
(39:10):
there, do this, do that.
In some warehouses they'redoing away with a sign location.
The computer lays it out andremoves the skid carton and puts
it back in a totally differentplace than last time.
So yeah, I, yeah, I think evenin the warehouse they'll make
them much more efficient.
Fewer steps.
So it will and I think in manyways will help make that
(39:33):
warehouse person more successfulbecause they're not doing all
the time that routine, boringkind of job.
When I was in the warehouse Ihad uh, I took a look at we had
packers and shippers and partspullers and the parts pullers
would bring the parts up anddump them on the packing table
and the packers would go throughand verify.
There was 10 of those and twoof those before those.
(39:55):
The right partner put in a box,seal it up and it will go to
the shipper.
Then it will be shipped out.
And look, they said well, whenthey get busy and the intent was
the packers would verify we hadthe right quantity and part
number well, when they got busy,they didn't check any of that,
they threw it all in the box andmoved on.
Yep, so I took those packers.
So you are now a tour, we willpack your own order.
(40:18):
So, and this one young man saysso, you mean I gotta do it right
the first time.
Yes, it does mean that he laterbecame a pilot, an airline
pilot airline southwest, yes,southwest airlines.
So he was early, early, earlyin his college career and and uh
, yeah, very interesting youngman, very nice guy, good, good
guy.
We had him years later as apilot.
(40:40):
I was getting on the plane, hewas fine, actually that's
wonderful.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
But I started in the consulting world doing designs
on warehouses using computers.
In those days we had length,width and height and weight of
every part number.
This is Caterpillar.
And so I built a little modeland did the railways in Canada
exactly what you're talkingabout.
Where do you put the part?
(41:06):
Based on the attributes of thatpart, based on the activity of
the part, how many people do youneed and where do you do this?
And what you're saying?
The packer.
That became a different jobfunction.
The person who picked the partswas responsible to make sure
that the quantity they pickedwas correct and they packed as
they went.
And then we said, oh well, darnit, there's two kinds of orders
(41:29):
here, some that are all people,handlers, but others that
require lift trucks.
So we had to merge twodifferent orders.
And then I'm in Chicago oneyear and I'm going in, I'm
looking at warehouses in Europeand all over the place.
The owner that I had was veryprogressive and I go to this
(41:49):
distribution center in Chicagoand it's humming and it's quiet
and there's, you know, no action.
And I'm talking to the guysrunning and they say, well, how
does this work?
They say, well, every morning,we give every employee eight
hours worth of labor.
What do you mean?
Well, we give them a certainnumber of part numbers, certain
(42:09):
quantities, certain weight andbased on that, we know how much
time it should take and how longit should go.
And so we give them eight hoursof labor and we say to them
when you're finished, you can gohome.
And we were running 12 to 15line items an hour at the
(42:30):
Caterpillar dealer and theseguys were running 120 to 180.
Wow, and I'm saying holy crap.
So we came back and we startedbatching orders and we had, okay
, our top priority field servicecounter right now.
Drop everything If it's abranch, yeah every top priority
field service counter right now.
Drop everything If it's a branch.
Yeah, every hour.
And it was remarkable, we wentfrom 1215 to 40.
(42:50):
Yeah, you know, again, usingtechnology, this isn't
artificial intelligence, butit's people intelligence, where
it's cool that we use the termartificial intelligence, but
it's all based on data.
Yeah, if you don't have gooddata, you're dead.
So technicians, internal,external communicators,
(43:12):
purchasing, inventory management, warehousing, all of these
things really are enhanced froma customer service perspective,
for the customer.
If the dealership uses it, sowhy don't we use it?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yes, I think if the dealership uses it and if the
employees will accept it, partof that challenge.
I've got a son working in thecomputer chip manufacturing
piece and he's got to do a lotof programming and they're
talking about how to use AI andtroubleshooting when something
isn't going right.
But some of that is theemployees accepting trying that
(43:49):
and making that part of theirjob.
So we really have to.
That comes the people skillside of it.
How do we get the employeeinterested in applying AI and
interested in changing thingsfor the better so that there's a
you know there manages aspecial skill set as a manager
on transitioning into somethingtotally new and different.
You can't force ittransitioning into something
(44:12):
totally new and different.
You can't force it.
You've got to do anintroduction and an acceptance,
part of it and and and trainingwith it and trying it again.
So, uh, that that can be verydifficult because some employees
they're not going to.
There's to me there's in thatthere are three levels.
There are those that will thatwill, will jump right on and do
it.
Those are going to sit on thefence and let me wait and see.
And those are not going to doit and those are not going to do
(44:35):
it.
There's not much reason tospend much time with that.
But those that are on the fencetrying to decide do I or don't
I, and those that are willing todo it, those are the ones to
take on and give them someleeway and extra training and
effort on this new technologyand how it applies to their job,
because they'll find a way toimprove whatever we thought we
were going to do.
(44:55):
They'll find a better way to dothat.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Yeah, yeah.
You know, one of the things Iusually like to do is somebody's
just been on the job six months.
I sit down and say, okay, whatdo we do that you don't think we
should do at all?
What are your eyes telling you?
But the other side of that isI'm going to submit that the
number of the dealers that areshrinking and being absorbed and
(45:18):
going out of business, they'redoing it because they're not
adapting, they get stuck in arut and they don't want to
change.
the penalty is huge, ron it ishow do we get leaders sensitized
to this?
The penalty is huge, ron.
How do we get leaderssensitized to this?
You know, we can stand in frontof a room and we can put a
(45:46):
presentation on, we can have apanel, we can have a one-on-one
discussion with people.
But how do we get people, thenormal people, the guys that are
out there in the front?
They're going to be looking atthis, like right now, but 90% of
the world doesn't want tochange anything.
They're busy.
How do we get that attention?
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Well, and I think you spend time with individual
employees, those that you canidentify, that want to and those
that don't.
There was an employee a partsemployee worked for me on a
remote location, lived in thecommunity.
He was not going anywhere, hewas there.
That's where his family was,where he grew up.
We had a project manager whowas new and we rotated project
managers out about every threeyears because family reasons and
(46:24):
a rotation.
So there was an issue came upwhere this employee was not
getting along with the projectmanager.
So I went to visit the employeeand I said what are you doing?
I mean, is this really thatmuch of a challenge?
He said, well, I don't want todo it and I'll wait him out,
because I know in two years,three years, you're going to
rotate him out.
I'm not going anywhere.
So here's an example of someonethat they were not going to
(46:47):
change.
They were not going to change.
So we again do need to identifythose that are willing to
change, provide them training,the tools, the time to make that
transition of introducing AI,learning about AI and
introducing it.
So it's just because, after solong, the managers, they'll just
give up.
All right, we'll just kind ofplod along here and keep doing
(47:08):
what we're doing, but we have toreally understand how to
implement change and get andhaving the employees accept the
change I had a guy I was talkingto the other day who was
executive vice president of apretty large dealership.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
He also was an executive with a manufacturer
and the comment he made to mewas I wish the heck I'd known
this person was taking nothingbut oxygen out of the world room
before I spent money ontraining and developing them.
And he said to me isn't theresomething you can do?
So that's what we created ourassessments for.
So we've got these 90 questionsup to 180 questions, multiple
(47:47):
choice assessments that wesuggest everybody does it once a
year.
And the recommendation I makeis I'd like to have you do it
and I'd like to have your bossdo it, and then the two of you
sit down and discuss what arethose things that the company
can do to help make your jobeasier, make you better at what
(48:08):
you do?
And what I was confronted within many of these cases was the
employees are not trained ondoing a performance review.
It's checking off a box and wereally don't have job standards
to the point that the employeesunderstand them.
Am I nuts?
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Yeah, no, that's very true, and those are examples
where I can help with some ofthat.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Long as we get the measurables there, we have to
define, yep, what we'remeasuring yeah, and where the
data is coming from, and whatthe arithmetic is and everything
else, yeah, and the other sideof that, ron, that also drives
me nuts is a lot of this stuffis historical.
It's not what we're doingtomorrow, it's what we did last
month, last year.
So you know what do I do, thatI can make a big change on.
(48:58):
That'll make an impact ontomorrow, and artificial
intelligence, I think, tells usthat.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's where us, as adealer, we get so ingrained in
only being around dealers ourown dealers, or only cat dealers
, or only Komatsu dealers.
We go to a conference that'sgot everybody there and they're
running their brothers there,but we need to spend time around
other areas outside theindustry, inside the industry,
(49:27):
and really take on and grasp thelearning part of it and have an
interest in learning.
And how does that apply to mybusiness?
I think that's to me.
It's one of the, to me, thedisadvantage that dealers have
is that we become so inclusive.
We don't want to be aroundothers, we kind of think we know
it all and we don't want toshare.
And I think really open up andlearn what's going on, share and
(49:54):
and, uh, I think really open upand learn what's going on.
I mean, years ago, when umonstar first came out, I
remember writing a letter to thepresident of the company and
say this is going to be, this isthis is going to change how we
do business now.
Now, look, here we are withautonomous mine haul trucks.
I mean it just uh, and that'snot that.
It it seemed like a long, manyyears, but I guess it probably
really is not overall, but howcan we apply those kinds of
(50:16):
things early on in our industryfrom what is going on in the
automotive industry or aerospaceor whatever it is?
How can we take bits and piecesof it and apply it in our
business?
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Yeah, there's so many areas and aspects of that.
It's kind of scary.
Our skill assessments give areally good understanding of the
employee and what they know andwhat they don't know.
It's not their personality,it's just skills.
(50:48):
And having the boss fill outthe same assessment on that
employee as the employee doeshighlights where they have
differences of opinion.
And in almost every case whereI've experienced this, the boss
didn't know he had the differentopinions.
Neither did the employee, butwhen they talked together they
found a solution that was betterfor both of them.
(51:10):
Yeah, yep, and again, ai iswhat gives us that, that tool.
I was in Moscow one time with aguy who had an MBA, had three
kids, middle-aged man, and youknow I I have a series of
questions that I'd be asking andI'd go through those what, what
, what do you do that you liketo do?
And blah, blah, blah, blah.
(51:33):
And he said no, no, don't do it, you don't understand things
here.
I said what do you mean?
He says don't ask questionslike that, just tell me what you
want me to do.
And there's still a lot of menand women as leaders that do
exactly that, almost likebullies.
And a characteristic of today'ssociety is.
We're seeing people stay on thejob longer, retiring later, and
(51:56):
I'm going to submit thatthere's a generation delayed
transition, maybe by 10 years.
So a guy who's the boss at 65today who should be retiring,
he's staying till 75, but thepeople that are coming up behind
that should go into the job,that are being blocked.
They're leaving the industry,they're going somewhere else.
(52:18):
So now the skills that we'reseeing coming into the business
are very different than whatthey used to be 10, 20, 40 years
ago.
People really don't understandwhat we do anymore yeah
onboarding becomes huge yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
No, your example is, I think, is right on, where we
have people staying in theirroles longer.
So there's a whole generationof people coming up to the ranks
that were hoping for apromotion of that role will
never get there.
They will retire out.
And next is the group thatcomes in, that they don't know
what they don't know andunfortunately they the
(52:56):
individuals that have all theknowledge and experience in
those areas they're leaving.
They're going and that's, to me, is a real worry.
For pick a specific issue of whowas the person that walked
through that major issue thatkept that dealer's doors open.
(53:17):
What did they do?
How did they do it?
We don't.
We don't know that.
We know that there's an issuethere and we went on and but we
don't know how they handled itand made that area would be a
new product introduction,whether it be a new product
introduction or whether it be amining issue that came up on a
product line thing or aprofitability.
How did they get that companythrough the challenge that
(53:39):
history is leaving and we don'tdo a good job of collecting the
historic successes and what madethose case studies?
We almost need to have acollection of case studies.
If you come across this.
What a great tool for a newperson in a role.
I'm faced with this reallymajor problem.
Historically, has anything likethat been done before in our
(54:02):
industry or in our dealership?
Well, yeah, ten years ago.
Here's so-and-so then.
Here is the situation andhere's what they did Now.
It may not be a perfect answernow, but may open some eyes that
may generate some otherthoughts to make it more
successful implementation.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Yeah, I agree 100%.
Well, I think we've covered alot of ground here, ron, and I
thank you for it and I love thesubject.
I'd like to follow this up in acouple of weeks when more of
the blog has been published, andand and keep on going, because
I think this is critical fordealers, it's critical for for
business everywhere andemployees, if, if you're not
(54:40):
having anybody contribute toyour skills improvement, you're
going to be left behind.
Yes, and it's it.
I don't mean that in a bad way.
I think it's a fact.
Am I understanding thisproperly?
Speaker 2 (54:56):
Yeah, no, I think employees have to take ownership
of their career.
They have to take ownership ofthe skill set that's needed,
because chances are, if they asktheir manager, their manager
may not know.
Yeah, exactly their manager'snot thought about AI.
Yeah, so the employee needs tobe thinking about what's my next
skill set?
I need and be working that ontheir own and hopefully in
(55:19):
conjunction with the trainingdepartment and their supervisor,
but they have to take ownership.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Yeah, I think the whole organization has to change
.
Ron, this has been wonderful.
I thank you for your knowledge,experience, your wisdom, and I
hope everybody who's listeningpays attention to this.
I think this is something wherewe're going and it's already
here.
It's been here for a long time,but we're rather slow to get
off the mark.
(55:44):
So thank you for listening, ron, thank you for being here and I
look forward to seeing you atyour next candidate conversation
.
Mahalo.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com