June 23, 2025 • 33 mins
Are you constantly searching for new growth opportunities while overlooking gold mines within your existing business? In this eye-opening conversation with industry veteran Ron Wilson, we explore how equipment dealerships and service-oriented businesses can substantially increase revenue by looking inward rather than outward.
Ron draws from his 37 years of dealership experience to reveal several overlooked strategies that can boost your bottom line without acquiring new customers. We discuss creating specialist service technicians who command premium rates - easily 10-15% higher than standard labor rates - because customers recognize and value their expertise. This specialized approach not only increases revenue but positions your business as the go-to authority in specific service areas.
The discussion takes a fascinating turn when we compare labor rates across industries. Why are RV repair shops confidently charging $177 per hour while equipment dealers hesitate at $125? We challenge the outdated pricing models still used by many businesses and explore how "block labor" assignments - dedicating technicians to specific customers for a monthly fee - can create both predictable client relationships and improved administrative efficiency.
Perhaps most valuable is our deep dive into using data analytics to identify exactly where you're leaving money on the table. By examining which services current customers aren't buying from you, analyzing sublet work that could be brought in-house, and implementing strategic pricing models, businesses can easily increase revenue by 10-20% within their existing customer base.
Whether you run a dealership, service business, or any customer-facing operation, this conversation will transform how you think about business growth. Stop searching for what's over the wall when untapped opportunities are sitting right in front of you. Listen now to discover how to grow your business from within.
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 an oldfriend by the name of Ron Wilson
and we're kind ofcontemporaries and we've been
through the wars for most of ourlives and both of us are quote
semi-retired and learning how todo that.
And today Ron would like totalk about how we can grow
(00:25):
business from your existingclientele and business.
Did I say that properly, ron?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
So good afternoon, young man, you're looking good.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Thank you you too.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well, I think we're always looking for the next
revenue growth opportunity andwe always try and go outside and
create something or buildsomething, and very often that
additional growth is alreadyinternally.
We're just overlooking it forsome reason and I'm not talking
(01:04):
about efficiency gains, becausethat's its own bucket that we
want to talk about at anothertime.
But these are opportunitiesthat are there.
We're overlooking it for onereason or another, and by taking
a step back we can identifywe've already made the
investment most often.
So by taking a differentapproach to some current
(01:27):
business, we can identify somerevenue growth.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I think one of the traps you and I were both in is
that we're in such a hurrytrying to keep up with what's
going on.
We don't really have time tolook over the wall to see what's
out there.
Is that a fair characterization?
Yes, yep to see what's outthere.
Is that a fair characterization?
Yes, yep, yep, it's almost likesomebody should be assigned
that, maybe on a rotating basis.
This month George does it, nextmonth Frank does it.
(01:52):
So what do they look for?
What should they be trying toexploit?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Well.
So, for one example would be totake a look at the specializing
some of the current generalofferings.
So, for example, in fieldservice you have field service
and every field service guy cango recharge air conditioning or
repair air conditioning ortroubleshoot hydraulics.
What about taking the airconditioning and hydraulic
(02:19):
troubleshooting as a specialty?
So that will be an offering tobe done by a technician.
We did this years and years agodown in tucson we had one guy
that was a uh senior technician,small field service truck, uh,
extremely good on airconditioning, extremely good on
(02:40):
on electronics and hydraulics.
So he became the AC electricaltroubleshooter guy.
He's the guy that we call to onchallenges to support a current
technician but also to go outand focus just on those specific
repairs only.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
So we take a guy who's a specialist and we take
that labor out of the pool andhave him create new business
with his specialties.
But we must backfill that holeright.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, so you'd still have the general technician, but
now the general technician isyour general technician work and
this specialist does airconditioning work and hydraulics
.
And since it is a specialist,there's more value into it and I
think you can charge a higherlabor rate.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So what, in essence, you'redoing is your pool of labor is
general technicians, and thenyou identify and almost promote
specialists that can takeadvantage of their specialized
skills at a higher rate.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
At a higher rate, and typically that higher rate is
how much more do you think?
Oh, you know, Ron, I don't know.
I'd have to look at that, butI'd say it's an easy 10, 15
percent.
You know, we've got a camperthat we just sold because of the
kind of just something wedidn't want to do anymore, but
the local camping place, RVplace.
(04:12):
Now this is for a pop-up camper.
It's a tent camper, right?
The ticket didn't have to havesome repairs done on it.
Their labor is $177 an hour.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
My goodness.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
And it's a terrible facility.
There's no efficiencies in it.
So I think sometimes in theequipment world we think that we
can't charge as much.
For some reason, especially infield service, we think we can't
charge more than the shop rate.
Well, I think you can.
The customer's not having tohaul the machine in the field.
(04:47):
Tech can be dispatched 24-7.
So I think there's some premiumthat we're overlooking on what
you can charge in those kinds ofsituations.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
How much of that do you think is the quote the
status of the service departmentin the business?
Quote the status of the servicedepartment in the business that
you know we're sales, rentals,parts, service administration,
and sales and rentals typicallydon't understand what we do and
(05:20):
when we are checking for laborrates we typically call around
to the competitors to find outwhat they're charging so that
we're in line and we're able todefend ourselves.
But I've never felt that we gotvalue Like the $177 that you
talked about.
You know how many equipmentdealers in Arizona, new Mexico,
(05:42):
Nevada have $177 as a basiclabor rate?
Not many, and hell if it's $177for a pop-up with a basic shop
I'm not going to say dirt floor,but pretty close.
Why aren't we charging $200 anhour?
So we've got that going too,really don't we?
(06:07):
We've got the general laborrate and we're all happy if we
get 65 to 75% and, as you say,we're working on efficiencies to
make that better.
But at what point do we becomeproud of what we do?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, yeah, one of the projects, one of the last
projects I worked on where Iworked for the dealership, was a
market-based pricing.
And the concept from the VPthat talked to me said Ron, if
we improve the way we do in thehourly rate, if we improve our
efficiencies which we shouldalways be trying to do we're
(06:46):
giving 100% of the efficiencygain back to the customer and
we're not benefiting from it atall.
Right, so he says so I want toshare in that.
So I want us to go for theefficiency gains and we've got
things in process to do that.
But I'm looking for what is amarket-based driven price, and
this happened to be on repairoptions, was one we looked at on
(07:10):
rebuilds.
But again, it's thatmarket-based pricing and don't
want to take advantage of thecustomer.
But we got to make sure thatthe customer's getting
additional value and there's noreason that we can't provide the
support and earn a little extraas well.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
I'm still struck by the fact that market share-wise
we don't get very good marketshare on maintenance.
Very good market share onmaintenance.
We do reasonably well onrebuilds, especially when we get
into replacement before failure, lifecycle management type
(07:55):
stuff.
But general repairs it's astruggle.
In the old days we used to talkabout wage multiples.
You take the guy's wages, $20an hour, multiply it by three,
you're going to charge $60 anhour.
You're going to get 66% grossprofit.
Congratulations, and everybodywas happy.
(08:17):
That's almost 50 years ago nowand the world is a hell of a lot
different place today withtechnology and ceramics and
everything else that goes.
But I don't know that we'vechanged our mindset on wage
multiples.
Have you seen that or are westill stuck on that?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, I have not seen that.
I'm going to guess we're stillkind of stuck on it.
I've not again been away nowfour years, but my guess is that
we're still in the kind of thesame mode we've always been,
unless there's some dealers outthere that are doing it a little
bit different.
But but for the most part wehave an hourly rate and we we're
(08:54):
bashful about, uh, promotingourself and and sharing our
value that we bring to themarketplace.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, it's funny With COVID 2020, let's call it and
coming out of COVID now at 2025,there's nothing that I find out
there anywhere that hasn't haddramatic price changes except us
.
Yeah, yeah, how do we breakthat logjam?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
You know, if you look at the on-highway truck dealers
and what their labor rate iscompared to a machinery
technician labor rate, I wasreally amazed at how you could
have.
The same customer has a fleetof concrete trucks, cement
trucks that will pay $150 anhour because in the shop that's
(09:48):
what the market price is foron-highway trucks, but yet he's
going to pay $125 or $100 anhour having a machine fixed.
It's just really out ofalignment.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
MIKE GREEN.
Yeah, if you look acrossindustries forestry, mining,
material handling, crane andhoisting engine, marine all of
them have considerably differentapproaches to labor.
So you know the reason I'mspending time on this is your
specialty, your specialisttroubleshooters.
(10:25):
That might be the avenue thatwe want to follow to break the
logjam.
We have a hydraulics specialisttroubleshooter, electronics we
have engine, we have powertrain,et cetera, et cetera, and each
of them has specialist ratesthat maybe are multiples of five
or six times wage and we shrinkthe general technician pool
(10:48):
accordingly.
Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
It does and some of the customers, if they know that
that one technician's comingout, they'll pay more.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
I mean, they know, and they know, the guys, they
know, or the women, they knowwho it is, and and and, so it's
yeah.
So we so often think we'reunder seller value.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So let me look at France, and you know I started
up in Canada and Quebec andwe've dealt a fair amount with
France.
At one point in the 70s,béjarat Mauveur, the dealer for
the country of France, had onetechnician in the field for
every 20 machines.
That technician was responsiblefor those 20 machines with
(11:34):
those customers period.
So if a customer had a problemthey called.
If the guy was already busy, hehad access to somebody to back
him up, and rarely did they havetwo out of those 20 that were
in problems at the same time.
It was phenomenal.
Just think about your machinepopulation in Arizona, for
instance, and divide that by 20,how many technicians you'd have
(11:56):
.
That'd be a hell of a lot morethan you currently have, right?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
And then in the 80s they got rid of it and their
market share in labor went poof,surprise, surprise.
What do you think of thatapproach?
Taking specialized customersand assigning a technician to
them?
For instance, you've got a minethat has 50 machines of various
(12:23):
models and sizes and you say,ok, here's three men.
I'm going to give you thosethree men.
They're going to be on your jobsite every single morning at
seven o'clock.
They're going to be there untilfive o'clock and you can deploy
them.
Think we could handle that.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Absolutely, we did that.
We called it block labor, so wehad a labor rate to the
customer and so basically thetechnician was 100% utilized at
whatever the labor rate was.
He was assigned to thatcustomer 100% of the time.
We had them assigned topipeline companies.
They go across from Texas toCalifornia.
(13:00):
We found the pipeline withthose same guys.
We had to rotate them in andthere's some things to be
careful there because sometimestechnicians get too close to who
they're working for and thenthe gossip kind of starts
happening, the rumors and kindof things, and it kind of causes
some issues there.
But it's a great concept and itreally takes the pressure off
(13:21):
of that one, usually a verylarge customer.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Did you do the invoicing on a work order basis
or was it on a month basis?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It was on a monthly basis.
Their time was logged and westill kept track of what they're
working on.
So second operations was stillthere, but it was a monthly
invoice that was billed to thecustomer.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
So the whole administrative thing became
easier.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Oh, much easier Less costly.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So the office piece of expenses which, if I remember
right, was somewhereadministratively, is about 20%
for other salaries and wagesrather than wage, that's cut in
half.
You're getting another fivepoints right there.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
That, and then the receivable timing decreases
because they know what therate's going to be.
It's this flat rate for thismonth, and so getting it through
payables receivables is much,much quicker.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Plus shop supplies, specialized tools, facility
costs, all of those things go.
It's a hell of a concept.
I don't know why it didn'tcatch on more broadly.
You know, road, where you were,was a rather progressive dealer
.
There was a bunch that were,but not everybody.
And so how do we end up?
(14:43):
It was surprising to me BillBlackie and you and I were both
there when Blackie was thechairman, with his parts scram
and service scrams.
He was a maniac for process.
We seem to have lost that.
Is it something that we need tohave?
(15:03):
Somebody in the servicedepartment that is constantly
looking at continuousimprovement?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
yes, absolutely yeah, and I don't think that's one of
the challenges and I think itcould be another discussion is
who sets service pricing?
Is it service manager?
And our experience was that'snot the best place to set
pricing.
It should not be done by theservice manager, the service
department.
It should be done by a pricingteam that understands the
(15:30):
philosophy of setting price andhas got the expertise and now
they work to the service managerOne.
They'll cover every dollar theyhave when maybe they shouldn't
or they may not cover enough.
(15:50):
So when you take the settingthe service price out of the
service operation, now they'reinvolved in the rebuild and how
many hours it takes and what'sinvolved and reuse the parts,
all that they're involved inthat decision, that input to
make that decision, but that's,I mean, that's kind of a total
different topic.
But who should set the pricefor service offerings in the
(16:11):
service department?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I think you bring up another great point that parts
and service.
Let's just leave ourselvesthere.
Parts and service let's justleave ourselves there.
The parts department isbasically a warehousing,
inventory, purchasing, sellinggroup.
The service department isrepairs, maintenance, rebuilds
(16:38):
group.
We can throw inspections in,but both of them have a need for
business management.
Both of them need to haveprocess improvement management.
It's almost like we shouldstrip the department down into
here's the customer facing andhere's all the support that's
(17:01):
required for that.
Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, it does, sure Yep.
And you need the experts in howto manage a process improvement
.
I mean you need to have theexpertise in Six Sigma or
whatever methodology you'regoing to use and setting price.
I didn't so when I was asked totake on this new role of
setting service pricing.
Well, that was new to me.
(17:27):
So I bought every book I couldfind about setting pricing.
Well, there's a whole careerout of that.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah, you got that right.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
There's a whole science out of setting pricing.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
So I think there's a lot that dealers can pick up
from what is outside the dealernetwork on how to manage a
business in different areas, andthat we can learn and grow and
improve.
We provide the customer as wellas improve the dealership.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
We're getting into a bit of a trap now, Ron.
In the last 40 years we've seena 50% reduction of the number
of dealers competing in themarketplace about every 20 years
.
So if we started in 1975, or 85, I guess, is the right place at
(18:16):
100 customers, 2005, we're at50, 2025, we're at 25 customers,
and it's not because thedealers didn't operate well, but
they didn't manage the businesswell and they got themselves
into trouble either too manymachines on hand and interest
(18:38):
rates got them, or marketchanges got them, or various
things.
But the leadership's happybecause sales revenue went up.
That's how they measure theirperformance and that's a trap.
And if it continues on another20 years we're going to be down
to 12 dealers, At which pointthe customer is going to be
(18:59):
looking at the Walmart model andthe Amazon model and a
different approach, and dealersmight be at risk.
Yeah, and I don't.
I don't see anybody with theirhand up saying hey, wait a
second, We've got a problem here.
You've got some pretty sharppeople at road today.
You've you've got a what?
(19:20):
Three generationdealers-generation dealership,
successful going forward in thepast, Strong customer support,
strong customer retention, butthere's not many Caterpillar
dealers anymore.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, empire's been very fortunate.
One is that they've had anupper-level management that has
been very outside the box, verycreative and looking ahead,
looking down the future, the bigmeeting room and we're going to
be there for a week and and thedirector of service at that
time he said, back up againstthe table, on back table, on the
(20:05):
wall, there's a binder for eachof you, that's your new role.
So he took and shuffled theentire service operation.
Oh my so.
And he had the whole plan inthere.
Here is what the challenge is,and he'd done his research.
Here's the challenges, here'swhat you're faced with.
Here's what I want to see someimprovement in these areas.
(20:26):
I mean, it was a whole deck wasshuffled right then.
Now, what an interestinglearning curve.
We were all and we're all inthe same boat, I mean.
So we're all taking this, ournew roles on, relying on those
that were there before and thatwere still there, just had a
different role to ask for helpand guidance.
But we could bring in some newideas and new approaches.
(20:50):
But Empire has been very, veryfortunate having people a few
people, thinking outside the boxand looking way ahead.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Was that their primary job function?
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Looking at the future .
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Well, no, this person was a director of service.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
So do you know what he went through to come up with
those books?
Did he do it himself, or did hedo it with outside help, or how
was it put together?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
He had a admin staff on the service side that had one
person took care of the miningcontracts and one took care of
he would pick the phone up hey,I'm looking at expenses in this
area.
What's giving the breakdown?
So he had a service admin staffthat all service managers had
access to them as well, but he,of course, he had his own things
(21:41):
he was looking at to build hisroadmap.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
So the service managers then?
In that context, they weredriving the labor, they were
driving the repairs in the shopand in the field, scheduling it,
closing it, doing it with goodquality, doing it with good
(22:04):
efficiency.
That was their job, right?
So your point about findingadditional work from the work we
have, it's kind of rooted there, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yes, yeah, so it's all the information's there.
For example, the next piece Iwant to talk about, ron, is
identifying those areas thatyou're not doing business with,
with a customer.
So, for example, you've got acustomer that he's rebuilding
transmissions with you but notengines.
He's rebuilding hydraulic pumpsand motors but not cylinders.
(22:34):
He's rebuilding hydraulic pumpsand motors but not cylinders.
So, diving into those, well,why are we not doing his engines
?
Well, he's found someplacecheaper and they all think they
can rebuild an engine.
So are the hydraulic cylinders?
Anybody can do a buff and stuffcylinder and put it back
together.
But those are areas.
Again, it's a business, a groupof people understanding their
(22:59):
market and doing the deep diveinto the data and pulling out
the information and sharing itback with the service operations
managers.
The managers can implement itif they know what they should be
looking at.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, what you're talking about in my jargon is we
are still in a transactionworld.
We should be in a data world.
So you know, what we get isfine.
What we don't get is even moreimportant to me and to you,
based on what you just said,yeah, and then finding out why
(23:32):
we don't get it, and more oftenthan not it's price.
But more often than not I cankill price with than not I can
kill price with.
You know, I'll give you athree-year warranty.
The other guy is going to goout of business if he has a
failure.
He goes blip near, he's doneyes, yep, yeah, there was a.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So I was in a role as in marketing and I was.
I was a data analyst inmarketing.
Now that was that was new.
That was a new role.
So you had one individual whotook care of the traditional
marketing, the events andbrochures and all that kind of
stuff, and my job with the teamwas to take all the data points,
(24:10):
all the information in theorganization and do data
analytics on it.
So one of the things we did wasthe abandoned shopping cart so I
could take a look at anything,and then one of our competitors
and then sometimes they wouldprovide a model serial number so
I actually knew what machinethey were actually building an
(24:31):
engine rebuild quote on, pullthat out of the lost sale and
get that to the salesperson.
If we get it early enough, thenwe could possibly we're back in
into bidding on the job orquoting on the job or back in
the deal again, but we could go.
Every month I provide a reporton the kind of parts we were
(24:53):
selling to our competitors and,and especially kamatsu, they've
got a very good part number sixsystem, that a good parts guy.
Look at that part number, tellyou what it's part of yeah, so
you can easily break it down.
Okay, these are enginecomponents, these are powertrain
or hydraulics, and so you kindof know what your business,
(25:14):
you're not getting, and whatthey are getting yeah, with with
data analytics today, ron withlife cycle management, and we.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
We've got so much available to us today in the
form of data, but now I getworried about the accuracy, you
know.
You know we've got the job code, the standard SMCS code swoosh
now or whatever and John Deerehad the SPG and Komatsu's got a
(25:44):
similar circumstance and JohnDeere, believe it or not,
stopped collecting all of thatdealer repair history.
Agriculture hadn't been doingit and didn't want to do it, and
agriculture got the upper handand all of a sudden the
industrial side didn't.
That was gold, you know.
(26:08):
So I'm going to change.
One of the things I used to doand maybe you did a similar
thing is any machine that was inthe shop that didn't have a
Caterpillar filter on it.
I changed the filter.
I call a customer and say I'mgoing to give you a free filter,
and nine times out of 10, thecustomer didn't have their
maintenance done by us.
(26:28):
They had an independent do itand the independent didn't know
what filter to change.
So whatever the filter was thatwas on there, that's the one
they used.
So it got me all kinds ofadditional business.
It was stupid, but it's justthat kind of thing.
So we need the data analytics.
We need to go to what theydon't buy from us, find out why.
(26:51):
How do we combat it?
We need to create specialistsbased on the business that we
have and try and set ourselvesfurther apart, create a stronger
base from a general technicianperspective, price-wise In other
(27:15):
words, be a little bit moreproud of what we do.
That should very seriouslyimpact income.
Yeah, 10, 15, maybe even asmuch as 20% per year.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, yeah, another area we take a look at sublet.
So if you look at all of thatstuff that we've sent out to do,
sublet wise is go back and pullall those POs and what kind of
work that's being done and whichof those can you pull in-house
and turn that into a revenue onwhat we can make as a service
(27:54):
transaction.
So identifying so if you lookat on the first one of those
categories, I call the first offand last on.
So if you're doing a rebuild ona machine, the first thing you
take off that machine radiatorcould be a cab or it could be a
dozer or a ripper and that's thelast thing that goes back on
(28:14):
the rebuild.
Those are the kinds of thingsthat we need to take a look at.
Are we sending it out to Sublet?
It could be another branchstore that maybe is low on
revenue right now that maybecould do the cab rebuild while
the main shop does the main shopmachine rebuild.
Okay so, but that first on andfirst off, which of that?
(28:36):
Then you get sometransportation time you can take
care of, turn time you can takecare of or send out to sublet.
Bring that back in-house as arevenue source as well.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
I used to assign a part number to a sublet so that
I could identify how frequentlyI used that sublet and once we
got to a certain volume Irefused to let it continue to be
a sublet.
You do it five or 10 times, notfor this nonsense.
Why can't we do that?
Ourselves Did the same thingwith tooling.
(29:08):
I put tools into the partsdepartment.
How often did we have a toolcrib in the shop?
You go to get a tool and thedamn tool wasn't working Because
the guy who put it last inthere I never knew who it was.
But if I had a part number onthere, all of a sudden I had a
tool charge.
Instead of a parts returnpercentage, I had a tool usage
(29:34):
percentage.
It's remarkable how such simplethings can make such a big
difference.
Like you said, first off, laston, Really, you know, in the
1990s I think you and I havetalked about this there was a
thing called BMW augmentedreality, where a technician
(29:55):
walked up to a car that had thehood up, His toolbox was on the
right-hand side and on top ofthat was a pair of glasses, and
this was about 1993.
He picked up the glasses, putthem on and pushed a button on
the arm and all of a sudden, theinside of that engine
compartment lit up, First step.
(30:16):
And it talked to him.
And then it showed a diagram,it showed a graphic of what was
going to be.
You know, take off the radiatorhose, take off the filter, take
off the whatever.
Here's the specs, here's thetorque, et cetera, et cetera.
That's today, that's 30 yearsago.
We can get on a plane, go to100 dealers, I bet you.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
We don't find two that have that, no, but it's
coming very fast.
We're the tipping point now.
If you look at ai, we're thetipping point now.
It's going to ramp up quick andI don't know how people.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, we're going to be in trouble because I don't
know how many people are goingto be able to keep up with that.
Yeah, that's the other thingthat's happening out there.
The number of skilled peoplethat are available in the
marketplace I was watchingsomething with Mike Rowe the
other day there's, I think atthe time there were 7.2 million
(31:13):
job openings in America andthere were 6.7 million men 25
years and younger that were notlooking for work or not working.
What in the heck is going on?
School is not delivering theproduct that it used to.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I don't want to get down that rabbit hole of being
negative, but I think whatyou're bringing up that look at
the data.
What don't you get?
Why don't you get it?
Let's go after it.
Look at areas where you cancreate specialists, have them be
troubleshooters, apply thoseskills, different labor rates
(31:51):
and start paying attentionsublets, other things to the
details.
We've already got it, but itmeans the service management job
has to be supplemented withsomething else a business
manager, a data manager,whatever it is.
Is that a good conclusion tocome to?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
I think this is something everybody should pay
attention to.
I hope those that have beenlistening can see this.
Ron, how long were you involvedat the dealership?
How many years?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
37 years.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah, and I was about .
Well, I was in dealers for 13,but involved for 50.
So you know we got scars.
That's why I call the ringwithout scars.
I got scars on my backside.
We don't need other people todo it.
I hope everybody who's beenlistening gets something good
from this and, ron, I reallyappreciate you sharing your
wisdom with us today.
Any comments you want to put inas a close.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
No, I can't think of anything.
I think we just have to becreative and look outside the
box and rely on those that havethe experience and the knowledge
to help with the data analyticsand help them tell the story.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
And implement it.
I think that's a great close.
So again, thanks very much, ronMahalo, and thanks to everybody
who's here.
I look forward to being withyou at the next Candid
Conversation, mahalo.
Aloha and welcome to another Candid Conversation.
We're joined today by an oldfriend by the name of Ron Wilson
and we're kind ofcontemporaries and we've been
through the wars for most of ourlives and both of us are quote
semi-retired and learning how todo that.
And today Ron would like totalk about how we can grow
(00:25):
business from your existingclientele and business.
Did I say that properly, ron?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
So good afternoon, young man, you're looking good.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Thank you you too.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well, I think we're always looking for the next
revenue growth opportunity andwe always try and go outside and
create something or buildsomething, and very often that
additional growth is alreadyinternally.
We're just overlooking it forsome reason and I'm not talking
(01:04):
about efficiency gains, becausethat's its own bucket that we
want to talk about at anothertime.
But these are opportunitiesthat are there.
We're overlooking it for onereason or another, and by taking
a step back we can identifywe've already made the
investment most often.
So by taking a differentapproach to some current
(01:27):
business, we can identify somerevenue growth.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I think one of the traps you and I were both in is
that we're in such a hurrytrying to keep up with what's
going on.
We don't really have time tolook over the wall to see what's
out there.
Is that a fair characterization?
Yes, yep to see what's outthere.
Is that a fair characterization?
Yes, yep, yep, it's almost likesomebody should be assigned
that, maybe on a rotating basis.
This month George does it, nextmonth Frank does it.
(01:52):
So what do they look for?
What should they be trying toexploit?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Well.
So, for one example would be totake a look at the specializing
some of the current generalofferings.
So, for example, in fieldservice you have field service
and every field service guy cango recharge air conditioning or
repair air conditioning ortroubleshoot hydraulics.
What about taking the airconditioning and hydraulic
(02:19):
troubleshooting as a specialty?
So that will be an offering tobe done by a technician.
We did this years and years agodown in tucson we had one guy
that was a uh senior technician,small field service truck, uh,
extremely good on airconditioning, extremely good on
(02:40):
on electronics and hydraulics.
So he became the AC electricaltroubleshooter guy.
He's the guy that we call to onchallenges to support a current
technician but also to go outand focus just on those specific
repairs only.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
So we take a guy who's a specialist and we take
that labor out of the pool andhave him create new business
with his specialties.
But we must backfill that holeright.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, so you'd still have the general technician, but
now the general technician isyour general technician work and
this specialist does airconditioning work and hydraulics
.
And since it is a specialist,there's more value into it and I
think you can charge a higherlabor rate.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So what, in essence, you'redoing is your pool of labor is
general technicians, and thenyou identify and almost promote
specialists that can takeadvantage of their specialized
skills at a higher rate.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
At a higher rate, and typically that higher rate is
how much more do you think?
Oh, you know, Ron, I don't know.
I'd have to look at that, butI'd say it's an easy 10, 15
percent.
You know, we've got a camperthat we just sold because of the
kind of just something wedidn't want to do anymore, but
the local camping place, RVplace.
(04:12):
Now this is for a pop-up camper.
It's a tent camper, right?
The ticket didn't have to havesome repairs done on it.
Their labor is $177 an hour.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
My goodness.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
And it's a terrible facility.
There's no efficiencies in it.
So I think sometimes in theequipment world we think that we
can't charge as much.
For some reason, especially infield service, we think we can't
charge more than the shop rate.
Well, I think you can.
The customer's not having tohaul the machine in the field.
(04:47):
Tech can be dispatched 24-7.
So I think there's some premiumthat we're overlooking on what
you can charge in those kinds ofsituations.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
How much of that do you think is the quote the
status of the service departmentin the business?
Quote the status of the servicedepartment in the business that
you know we're sales, rentals,parts, service administration,
and sales and rentals typicallydon't understand what we do and
(05:20):
when we are checking for laborrates we typically call around
to the competitors to find outwhat they're charging so that
we're in line and we're able todefend ourselves.
But I've never felt that we gotvalue Like the $177 that you
talked about.
You know how many equipmentdealers in Arizona, new Mexico,
(05:42):
Nevada have $177 as a basiclabor rate?
Not many, and hell if it's $177for a pop-up with a basic shop
I'm not going to say dirt floor,but pretty close.
Why aren't we charging $200 anhour?
So we've got that going too,really don't we?
(06:07):
We've got the general laborrate and we're all happy if we
get 65 to 75% and, as you say,we're working on efficiencies to
make that better.
But at what point do we becomeproud of what we do?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, yeah, one of the projects, one of the last
projects I worked on where Iworked for the dealership, was a
market-based pricing.
And the concept from the VPthat talked to me said Ron, if
we improve the way we do in thehourly rate, if we improve our
efficiencies which we shouldalways be trying to do we're
(06:46):
giving 100% of the efficiencygain back to the customer and
we're not benefiting from it atall.
Right, so he says so I want toshare in that.
So I want us to go for theefficiency gains and we've got
things in process to do that.
But I'm looking for what is amarket-based driven price, and
this happened to be on repairoptions, was one we looked at on
(07:10):
rebuilds.
But again, it's thatmarket-based pricing and don't
want to take advantage of thecustomer.
But we got to make sure thatthe customer's getting
additional value and there's noreason that we can't provide the
support and earn a little extraas well.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
I'm still struck by the fact that market share-wise
we don't get very good marketshare on maintenance.
Very good market share onmaintenance.
We do reasonably well onrebuilds, especially when we get
into replacement before failure, lifecycle management type
(07:55):
stuff.
But general repairs it's astruggle.
In the old days we used to talkabout wage multiples.
You take the guy's wages, $20an hour, multiply it by three,
you're going to charge $60 anhour.
You're going to get 66% grossprofit.
Congratulations, and everybodywas happy.
(08:17):
That's almost 50 years ago nowand the world is a hell of a lot
different place today withtechnology and ceramics and
everything else that goes.
But I don't know that we'vechanged our mindset on wage
multiples.
Have you seen that or are westill stuck on that?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, I have not seen that.
I'm going to guess we're stillkind of stuck on it.
I've not again been away nowfour years, but my guess is that
we're still in the kind of thesame mode we've always been,
unless there's some dealers outthere that are doing it a little
bit different.
But but for the most part wehave an hourly rate and we we're
(08:54):
bashful about, uh, promotingourself and and sharing our
value that we bring to themarketplace.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, it's funny With COVID 2020, let's call it and
coming out of COVID now at 2025,there's nothing that I find out
there anywhere that hasn't haddramatic price changes except us
.
Yeah, yeah, how do we breakthat logjam?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
You know, if you look at the on-highway truck dealers
and what their labor rate iscompared to a machinery
technician labor rate, I wasreally amazed at how you could
have.
The same customer has a fleetof concrete trucks, cement
trucks that will pay $150 anhour because in the shop that's
(09:48):
what the market price is foron-highway trucks, but yet he's
going to pay $125 or $100 anhour having a machine fixed.
It's just really out ofalignment.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
MIKE GREEN.
Yeah, if you look acrossindustries forestry, mining,
material handling, crane andhoisting engine, marine all of
them have considerably differentapproaches to labor.
So you know the reason I'mspending time on this is your
specialty, your specialisttroubleshooters.
(10:25):
That might be the avenue thatwe want to follow to break the
logjam.
We have a hydraulics specialisttroubleshooter, electronics we
have engine, we have powertrain,et cetera, et cetera, and each
of them has specialist ratesthat maybe are multiples of five
or six times wage and we shrinkthe general technician pool
(10:48):
accordingly.
Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
It does and some of the customers, if they know that
that one technician's comingout, they'll pay more.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
I mean, they know, and they know, the guys, they
know, or the women, they knowwho it is, and and and, so it's
yeah.
So we so often think we'reunder seller value.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So let me look at France, and you know I started
up in Canada and Quebec andwe've dealt a fair amount with
France.
At one point in the 70s,béjarat Mauveur, the dealer for
the country of France, had onetechnician in the field for
every 20 machines.
That technician was responsiblefor those 20 machines with
(11:34):
those customers period.
So if a customer had a problemthey called.
If the guy was already busy, hehad access to somebody to back
him up, and rarely did they havetwo out of those 20 that were
in problems at the same time.
It was phenomenal.
Just think about your machinepopulation in Arizona, for
instance, and divide that by 20,how many technicians you'd have
(11:56):
.
That'd be a hell of a lot morethan you currently have, right?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
And then in the 80s they got rid of it and their
market share in labor went poof,surprise, surprise.
What do you think of thatapproach?
Taking specialized customersand assigning a technician to
them?
For instance, you've got a minethat has 50 machines of various
(12:23):
models and sizes and you say,ok, here's three men.
I'm going to give you thosethree men.
They're going to be on your jobsite every single morning at
seven o'clock.
They're going to be there untilfive o'clock and you can deploy
them.
Think we could handle that.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Absolutely, we did that.
We called it block labor, so wehad a labor rate to the
customer and so basically thetechnician was 100% utilized at
whatever the labor rate was.
He was assigned to thatcustomer 100% of the time.
We had them assigned topipeline companies.
They go across from Texas toCalifornia.
(13:00):
We found the pipeline withthose same guys.
We had to rotate them in andthere's some things to be
careful there because sometimestechnicians get too close to who
they're working for and thenthe gossip kind of starts
happening, the rumors and kindof things, and it kind of causes
some issues there.
But it's a great concept and itreally takes the pressure off
(13:21):
of that one, usually a verylarge customer.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Did you do the invoicing on a work order basis
or was it on a month basis?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It was on a monthly basis.
Their time was logged and westill kept track of what they're
working on.
So second operations was stillthere, but it was a monthly
invoice that was billed to thecustomer.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
So the whole administrative thing became
easier.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Oh, much easier Less costly.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So the office piece of expenses which, if I remember
right, was somewhereadministratively, is about 20%
for other salaries and wagesrather than wage, that's cut in
half.
You're getting another fivepoints right there.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
That, and then the receivable timing decreases
because they know what therate's going to be.
It's this flat rate for thismonth, and so getting it through
payables receivables is much,much quicker.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Plus shop supplies, specialized tools, facility
costs, all of those things go.
It's a hell of a concept.
I don't know why it didn'tcatch on more broadly.
You know, road, where you were,was a rather progressive dealer
.
There was a bunch that were,but not everybody.
And so how do we end up?
(14:43):
It was surprising to me BillBlackie and you and I were both
there when Blackie was thechairman, with his parts scram
and service scrams.
He was a maniac for process.
We seem to have lost that.
Is it something that we need tohave?
(15:03):
Somebody in the servicedepartment that is constantly
looking at continuousimprovement?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
yes, absolutely yeah, and I don't think that's one of
the challenges and I think itcould be another discussion is
who sets service pricing?
Is it service manager?
And our experience was that'snot the best place to set
pricing.
It should not be done by theservice manager, the service
department.
It should be done by a pricingteam that understands the
(15:30):
philosophy of setting price andhas got the expertise and now
they work to the service managerOne.
They'll cover every dollar theyhave when maybe they shouldn't
or they may not cover enough.
(15:50):
So when you take the settingthe service price out of the
service operation, now they'reinvolved in the rebuild and how
many hours it takes and what'sinvolved and reuse the parts,
all that they're involved inthat decision, that input to
make that decision, but that's,I mean, that's kind of a total
different topic.
But who should set the pricefor service offerings in the
(16:11):
service department?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I think you bring up another great point that parts
and service.
Let's just leave ourselvesthere.
Parts and service let's justleave ourselves there.
The parts department isbasically a warehousing,
inventory, purchasing, sellinggroup.
The service department isrepairs, maintenance, rebuilds
(16:38):
group.
We can throw inspections in,but both of them have a need for
business management.
Both of them need to haveprocess improvement management.
It's almost like we shouldstrip the department down into
here's the customer facing andhere's all the support that's
(17:01):
required for that.
Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, it does, sure Yep.
And you need the experts in howto manage a process improvement
.
I mean you need to have theexpertise in Six Sigma or
whatever methodology you'regoing to use and setting price.
I didn't so when I was asked totake on this new role of
setting service pricing.
Well, that was new to me.
(17:27):
So I bought every book I couldfind about setting pricing.
Well, there's a whole careerout of that.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah, you got that right.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
There's a whole science out of setting pricing.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
So I think there's a lot that dealers can pick up
from what is outside the dealernetwork on how to manage a
business in different areas, andthat we can learn and grow and
improve.
We provide the customer as wellas improve the dealership.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
We're getting into a bit of a trap now, Ron.
In the last 40 years we've seena 50% reduction of the number
of dealers competing in themarketplace about every 20 years
.
So if we started in 1975, or 85, I guess, is the right place at
(18:16):
100 customers, 2005, we're at50, 2025, we're at 25 customers,
and it's not because thedealers didn't operate well, but
they didn't manage the businesswell and they got themselves
into trouble either too manymachines on hand and interest
(18:38):
rates got them, or marketchanges got them, or various
things.
But the leadership's happybecause sales revenue went up.
That's how they measure theirperformance and that's a trap.
And if it continues on another20 years we're going to be down
to 12 dealers, At which pointthe customer is going to be
(18:59):
looking at the Walmart model andthe Amazon model and a
different approach, and dealersmight be at risk.
Yeah, and I don't.
I don't see anybody with theirhand up saying hey, wait a
second, We've got a problem here.
You've got some pretty sharppeople at road today.
You've you've got a what?
(19:20):
Three generationdealers-generation dealership,
successful going forward in thepast, Strong customer support,
strong customer retention, butthere's not many Caterpillar
dealers anymore.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, empire's been very fortunate.
One is that they've had anupper-level management that has
been very outside the box, verycreative and looking ahead,
looking down the future, the bigmeeting room and we're going to
be there for a week and and thedirector of service at that
time he said, back up againstthe table, on back table, on the
(20:05):
wall, there's a binder for eachof you, that's your new role.
So he took and shuffled theentire service operation.
Oh my so.
And he had the whole plan inthere.
Here is what the challenge is,and he'd done his research.
Here's the challenges, here'swhat you're faced with.
Here's what I want to see someimprovement in these areas.
(20:26):
I mean, it was a whole deck wasshuffled right then.
Now, what an interestinglearning curve.
We were all and we're all inthe same boat, I mean.
So we're all taking this, ournew roles on, relying on those
that were there before and thatwere still there, just had a
different role to ask for helpand guidance.
But we could bring in some newideas and new approaches.
(20:50):
But Empire has been very, veryfortunate having people a few
people, thinking outside the boxand looking way ahead.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Was that their primary job function?
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Looking at the future .
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Well, no, this person was a director of service.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
So do you know what he went through to come up with
those books?
Did he do it himself, or did hedo it with outside help, or how
was it put together?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
He had a admin staff on the service side that had one
person took care of the miningcontracts and one took care of
he would pick the phone up hey,I'm looking at expenses in this
area.
What's giving the breakdown?
So he had a service admin staffthat all service managers had
access to them as well, but he,of course, he had his own things
(21:41):
he was looking at to build hisroadmap.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
So the service managers then?
In that context, they weredriving the labor, they were
driving the repairs in the shopand in the field, scheduling it,
closing it, doing it with goodquality, doing it with good
(22:04):
efficiency.
That was their job, right?
So your point about findingadditional work from the work we
have, it's kind of rooted there, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yes, yeah, so it's all the information's there.
For example, the next piece Iwant to talk about, ron, is
identifying those areas thatyou're not doing business with,
with a customer.
So, for example, you've got acustomer that he's rebuilding
transmissions with you but notengines.
He's rebuilding hydraulic pumpsand motors but not cylinders.
(22:34):
He's rebuilding hydraulic pumpsand motors but not cylinders.
So, diving into those, well,why are we not doing his engines
?
Well, he's found someplacecheaper and they all think they
can rebuild an engine.
So are the hydraulic cylinders?
Anybody can do a buff and stuffcylinder and put it back
together.
But those are areas.
Again, it's a business, a groupof people understanding their
(22:59):
market and doing the deep diveinto the data and pulling out
the information and sharing itback with the service operations
managers.
The managers can implement itif they know what they should be
looking at.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, what you're talking about in my jargon is we
are still in a transactionworld.
We should be in a data world.
So you know, what we get isfine.
What we don't get is even moreimportant to me and to you,
based on what you just said,yeah, and then finding out why
(23:32):
we don't get it, and more oftenthan not it's price.
But more often than not I cankill price with than not I can
kill price with.
You know, I'll give you athree-year warranty.
The other guy is going to goout of business if he has a
failure.
He goes blip near, he's doneyes, yep, yeah, there was a.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So I was in a role as in marketing and I was.
I was a data analyst inmarketing.
Now that was that was new.
That was a new role.
So you had one individual whotook care of the traditional
marketing, the events andbrochures and all that kind of
stuff, and my job with the teamwas to take all the data points,
(24:10):
all the information in theorganization and do data
analytics on it.
So one of the things we did wasthe abandoned shopping cart so I
could take a look at anything,and then one of our competitors
and then sometimes they wouldprovide a model serial number so
I actually knew what machinethey were actually building an
(24:31):
engine rebuild quote on, pullthat out of the lost sale and
get that to the salesperson.
If we get it early enough, thenwe could possibly we're back in
into bidding on the job orquoting on the job or back in
the deal again, but we could go.
Every month I provide a reporton the kind of parts we were
(24:53):
selling to our competitors and,and especially kamatsu, they've
got a very good part number sixsystem, that a good parts guy.
Look at that part number, tellyou what it's part of yeah, so
you can easily break it down.
Okay, these are enginecomponents, these are powertrain
or hydraulics, and so you kindof know what your business,
(25:14):
you're not getting, and whatthey are getting yeah, with with
data analytics today, ron withlife cycle management, and we.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
We've got so much available to us today in the
form of data, but now I getworried about the accuracy, you
know.
You know we've got the job code, the standard SMCS code swoosh
now or whatever and John Deerehad the SPG and Komatsu's got a
(25:44):
similar circumstance and JohnDeere, believe it or not,
stopped collecting all of thatdealer repair history.
Agriculture hadn't been doingit and didn't want to do it, and
agriculture got the upper handand all of a sudden the
industrial side didn't.
That was gold, you know.
(26:08):
So I'm going to change.
One of the things I used to doand maybe you did a similar
thing is any machine that was inthe shop that didn't have a
Caterpillar filter on it.
I changed the filter.
I call a customer and say I'mgoing to give you a free filter,
and nine times out of 10, thecustomer didn't have their
maintenance done by us.
(26:28):
They had an independent do itand the independent didn't know
what filter to change.
So whatever the filter was thatwas on there, that's the one
they used.
So it got me all kinds ofadditional business.
It was stupid, but it's justthat kind of thing.
So we need the data analytics.
We need to go to what theydon't buy from us, find out why.
(26:51):
How do we combat it?
We need to create specialistsbased on the business that we
have and try and set ourselvesfurther apart, create a stronger
base from a general technicianperspective, price-wise In other
(27:15):
words, be a little bit moreproud of what we do.
That should very seriouslyimpact income.
Yeah, 10, 15, maybe even asmuch as 20% per year.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, yeah, another area we take a look at sublet.
So if you look at all of thatstuff that we've sent out to do,
sublet wise is go back and pullall those POs and what kind of
work that's being done and whichof those can you pull in-house
and turn that into a revenue onwhat we can make as a service
(27:54):
transaction.
So identifying so if you lookat on the first one of those
categories, I call the first offand last on.
So if you're doing a rebuild ona machine, the first thing you
take off that machine radiatorcould be a cab or it could be a
dozer or a ripper and that's thelast thing that goes back on
(28:14):
the rebuild.
Those are the kinds of thingsthat we need to take a look at.
Are we sending it out to Sublet?
It could be another branchstore that maybe is low on
revenue right now that maybecould do the cab rebuild while
the main shop does the main shopmachine rebuild.
Okay so, but that first on andfirst off, which of that?
(28:36):
Then you get sometransportation time you can take
care of, turn time you can takecare of or send out to sublet.
Bring that back in-house as arevenue source as well.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
I used to assign a part number to a sublet so that
I could identify how frequentlyI used that sublet and once we
got to a certain volume Irefused to let it continue to be
a sublet.
You do it five or 10 times, notfor this nonsense.
Why can't we do that?
Ourselves Did the same thingwith tooling.
(29:08):
I put tools into the partsdepartment.
How often did we have a toolcrib in the shop?
You go to get a tool and thedamn tool wasn't working Because
the guy who put it last inthere I never knew who it was.
But if I had a part number onthere, all of a sudden I had a
tool charge.
Instead of a parts returnpercentage, I had a tool usage
(29:34):
percentage.
It's remarkable how such simplethings can make such a big
difference.
Like you said, first off, laston, Really, you know, in the
1990s I think you and I havetalked about this there was a
thing called BMW augmentedreality, where a technician
(29:55):
walked up to a car that had thehood up, His toolbox was on the
right-hand side and on top ofthat was a pair of glasses, and
this was about 1993.
He picked up the glasses, putthem on and pushed a button on
the arm and all of a sudden, theinside of that engine
compartment lit up, First step.
(30:16):
And it talked to him.
And then it showed a diagram,it showed a graphic of what was
going to be.
You know, take off the radiatorhose, take off the filter, take
off the whatever.
Here's the specs, here's thetorque, et cetera, et cetera.
That's today, that's 30 yearsago.
We can get on a plane, go to100 dealers, I bet you.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
We don't find two that have that, no, but it's
coming very fast.
We're the tipping point now.
If you look at ai, we're thetipping point now.
It's going to ramp up quick andI don't know how people.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, we're going to be in trouble because I don't
know how many people are goingto be able to keep up with that.
Yeah, that's the other thingthat's happening out there.
The number of skilled peoplethat are available in the
marketplace I was watchingsomething with Mike Rowe the
other day there's, I think atthe time there were 7.2 million
(31:13):
job openings in America andthere were 6.7 million men 25
years and younger that were notlooking for work or not working.
What in the heck is going on?
School is not delivering theproduct that it used to.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I don't want to get down that rabbit hole of being
negative, but I think whatyou're bringing up that look at
the data.
What don't you get?
Why don't you get it?
Let's go after it.
Look at areas where you cancreate specialists, have them be
troubleshooters, apply thoseskills, different labor rates
(31:51):
and start paying attentionsublets, other things to the
details.
We've already got it, but itmeans the service management job
has to be supplemented withsomething else a business
manager, a data manager,whatever it is.
Is that a good conclusion tocome to?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
I think this is something everybody should pay
attention to.
I hope those that have beenlistening can see this.
Ron, how long were you involvedat the dealership?
How many years?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
37 years.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah, and I was about .
Well, I was in dealers for 13,but involved for 50.
So you know we got scars.
That's why I call the ringwithout scars.
I got scars on my backside.
We don't need other people todo it.
I hope everybody who's beenlistening gets something good
from this and, ron, I reallyappreciate you sharing your
wisdom with us today.
Any comments you want to put inas a close.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
No, I can't think of anything.
I think we just have to becreative and look outside the
box and rely on those that havethe experience and the knowledge
to help with the data analyticsand help them tell the story.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
And implement it.
I think that's a great close.
So again, thanks very much, ronMahalo, and thanks to everybody
who's here.
I look forward to being withyou at the next Candid
Conversation, mahalo.
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