The Profitable Path: Transforming Service From Cost Center to Profit Engine

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What if everything you thought about running a service department was backward? That's the provocative question at the heart of this eye-opening conversation with John Dowling, author of "Service by the Boxes" and decorated Marine.

The fundamental misconception crippling most equipment dealerships is seeing service as a cost center rather than a profit engine. "Revenue is vanity," John explains, highlighting how dealerships focus on sales while neglecting the departments that truly drive profitability. The transformative insight? A service job isn't complete when the machine is fixed—it's done when the invoice is paid and the money is collected.

This mindset shift cascades through every aspect of service management. From customer segmentation (80% of revenue comes from 20% of customers) to abandoning the misguided "first-in-first-out" approach, John challenges conventional wisdom at every turn. Perhaps most surprising is his revelation about maintenance services—the highest-margin work that dealerships have mysteriously surrendered, with industry studies showing a staggering 95% market share loss.

The technician shortage plaguing the industry isn't what it seems either. "If we would have been training people and had apprenticeship programs 20 years ago, we wouldn't be here right now," John observes, pointing to decades of mismanagement and underinvestment. The solution involves restructuring shops with team-based approaches that leverage senior technicians as mentors while maximizing efficiency.

For service managers transitioning from technical roles to leadership positions, the challenge is shifting from tactical to strategic thinking. Without proper business and leadership training, even the most skilled technicians struggle when promoted to management. As John puts it, "It's a business unit and some of these business units are 20, 30, 40, 50 million dollar, if not 150 million dollar business units."

Ready to transform your service department from a cost center to a profit powerhouse? Email [e-mail] mentioning this podcast for your complimentary copy of "Service by the Boxes" and start the journey toward strategic service management.

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.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Aloha and welcome to another Candid Conversation.
We're joined today by JohnDowling, author of Service by
the Boxes, amongst other things,a decorated Marine.
He's starting to get to thesame color of beard as I've got,
so he's not a bad guy anymore.
John, good to have you with us.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Good to be back, ron.
John, good to have you with us.
Good to be back, ron.
So too bad I'm.
I'm stuck in in Texas and notnot Hawaii, but but I'll come
see you one day you've got.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
You got enough years to catch up, man.
Yeah, john's put a blog outnext week that he calls stop
cherry picking work orders, andI'd like to use this podcast to
go over what he's trying to getacross with the whole idea.
John has a very systematic,systemic way of looking at how

(00:54):
you run a shop In fact, broaderthan that that he brings to us
from the Marines, also frombeing a consultant in the
industry and also being arecruiter for Jordan Sitter for
a while with Jay Lucas.
So the background is deep, it'sbroad, and with that I'd like

(01:15):
to just start with the statementthat the service department's
here to make money.
It's not a nonprofit.
Yeah, what makes you start withthat?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Um, because majority of dealers that I've worked for
that's how, that's how it's seenit's, it's treated like, like a
, a cost center.
Um, a lot of people would sayit's it's, it's a necessary evil
.
And when I work with dealers, alot of them will say sometimes
they say, man, you know whatRunning a dealership would be

(01:47):
great if I didn't have to dealwith the service department.
And the reason that is isbecause they see it as a cost
center, they see it as supportfor the sales department.
They believe that the salesdepartment embodies the
dealership.
If sales does great, thedealership is doing great, but

(02:08):
revenue is vanity.
You know, revenue doesn'tmatter.
What matters is profitabilityand cash flow.
And what drives bottom lineprofitability and cash flow is
your product support departments, which is your parts and
service departments, is yourproduct support departments,
which is your parts and servicedepartments.
And so what I've learned isthat dealerships will sacrifice

(02:35):
the profitability in the servicedepartment to take care of a
customer.
And so my mindset, to kind ofgive you a background, you know,
like I told you, you know,before I was in the Marine Corps
I was a technician.
You know, before I was in theMarine Corps I was a technician,
got out, went to work for aJohn Deere dealership and to
prove my point, even as atechnician, the one thing I did
not prioritize in my job and Iwas a very good technician and

(02:57):
so three and a half years in theindustry as a technician they
put me in a field service truck.
So just imagine that how manypeople would put a technician
with three and a half yearsexperience in a truck.
And the thing I did notprioritize was writing up my
service report, and that wasprobably the most crucial thing

(03:20):
that I could have done.
And my thinking was my job as atechnician was to repair as
many pieces of equipment for thecustomers as I possibly can,
and that was my job.
Machine broken, machine fixedthat's my mindset, Most
technicians, that's theirmindset, Most service managers,

(03:41):
that's their mindset.
And so when I'd go out on goout in a, on a field call, I
would fix the machine.
I'd look at my schedule and Ihad two more jobs to hit that
day.
The one thing that I had to dothat would hinder me from
completing my task was fillingout a service report.
I was thinking I could sit hereand spend 10, 20 minutes fill

(04:04):
out a service report or I couldbe driving to the next job
getting more, more, more, more,more customers, machines up and
running, because my mindset wasmy job is to fix machines.
So eventually, what happenedafter about two weeks?
You can imagine the the, theservice reports that weren't
being filled out.
Then the service managers like,hey, it's the end of the month,

(04:27):
John, I need to close out allthese jobs.
You have to come into the shopand I'd have to sit there for a
day and just fill out servicereport after one.
Of course, I forgot what I did.
I forgot every you know why tohave so much time on it, or you
know, and but that I say that asan example example.
My mindset as a technician wasmy job is to get machines up and
running, and if that is theultimate goal for a dealership

(04:50):
or, I'm sorry, for the servicedepartment, a dealership is get
machines up and running.
And if that's the culture andit, it it usually is, because
usually when the store managergoes talks to the service
manager, it's about what aboutso-and-so's machine?
Did you get up and running?
What about this machine?
It's very rarely, hey, why dowe have an age to work order

(05:11):
issue.
And so my point is is storemanagers are usually more
concerned about gettingcustomers machines up and
running than they are aboutbilling and collecting the money
.
Until corporate, you know,sends a nasty gram or something
about your AR is way out of hand.
And so I was taught by theculture that my job is to get

(05:32):
machines up and running.
Who cares if we make moneyright, as long as we're getting
machines up and running, thecustomers are happy.
The customers aren'tcomplaining.
The store manager's not talkingto the service manager because
nobody is complaining to himabout machines not down.
And what I realized, that is thecritical shift.
If you're going to besuccessful or have a successful

(05:53):
service department, we have torealize that the purpose of the
service department is to make asmuch money as possible for the
dealership.
Then, because what it does then, Ron, is that service report,
the job's not done until thepaperwork is done.
So it doesn't matter how manymachines you get up and running,

(06:14):
it counts for not, it countsfor zero.
You get zero points on thescoreboard until you fill out
the service report and the workorder is closed.
And so that shift in mindsetsays you service report and the
work order is closed.
And so the shift, that shift inmindset says you have to close
the work order.
That's when the job's done.
The job's not done when themachine leaves the shop or the

(06:35):
field mechanic leaves the jobsite.
The job's done when the workorder is closed and we've
collected money.
But when you have that but youhave to have the mindset of our
job is to make money.
The end goal for a servicedepartment is to make money.
The way that the servicedepartment makes money is by
repairing customers' equipment.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
I think the foundation is really valid and
it's very stark when you compareit to a non-profit.
The leadership and dealerships,even today, are primarily out
of the equipment side or thefinance side, very rarely out of
product support.
The caterpillar dealer that Istarted with, the man who ended

(07:23):
up being president, who fired mefive times, was a Bush mechanic
.
He was a pilot.
Hmm.
You dirty fingernails?
Yeah, I'm a kind of guy, andthe reason he fired me was off.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
You said, he fired you five times.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Oh yeah, one time I actually got home and the phone
was ringing.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, he said what are you doing at home?
I?

Speaker 1 (07:47):
said you fired me, get your back here.
You know what I'm like, and itwas an interesting combination.
His name was Rod Wallow.
If he was still alive and hecalled, I'd just ask where he
was.
I'd be on my way.
It was wonderful.
Yeah, was wonderful.
Yeah, and there's very fewpeople like that.
But what Rod did?
He turned that whole equationon its head.

(08:09):
The sales department worked forthe service department.
In his mind Mm-hmm, you want amachine through my shop?
Come talk to me.
Yeah, it ain't going to comethe other way around.
Here's a machine, get it out ofhere.
And when rentals came in, itwas even more pointed.

(08:30):
But I drive service departmentsin two things labor, efficiency
and quality.
And the byproduct of those orthe consequence of those is
profitability, it's market share, it's things of that nature.
And I put quality in there.

(08:50):
I used to put incentiveprograms together for every
technician, depending on whatyour labor efficiency was
greater than 90, greater than95%, what your quality was, 99%
or whatever I'd give you moneyand it could equal your monthly
pay.
And everybody's saying, how theheck do you want to do it that

(09:11):
way, or why do you want to do itthat way?
I said, well, what's thealternative?
And he said, well, don't givethem that much money.
And what I always came back tois, if you look at a technician
and just use simple numbers, atechnician is going to build
somewhere between $200, betweentwo and $300,000 a year of labor
and another $200,000.
We're looking at a guy who'sgoing to generate $500,000 a

(09:33):
year of revenue.
And revenue means nothing.
Let me get to the net income ofthat.
And you're looking at a hundredand a quarter to $200,000 net
and you're looking at $100,000and a quarter to $200,000 net
and then flip it back to anequipment salesman.
Okay, a guy sells $5 millionworth of equipment at 5% gross

(09:53):
Congratulations $250,000.
The net is close to zero and Ithink a lot of the problem is,
or the dilemma it's not aproblem fixed.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
People are afraid of the service department.
They don't understand you'respot on.
They don't know it and we wenaturally fear things we don't
know.
It's just a black hole for them.
They have no idea what it isand they don't want to be found
out that they don't know whatthey're managing that's right,
it's, you know, donald runfieldand gulf warriors.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
You know, we don't know what we don't know.
That's what we worry about,yeah, but but the the, the other
side of that, that is kind ofweird.
Everybody says we can't findtechnicians.
I think that's balderdash yeahthey're there, we just don't pay
them and we don't coach themand we don't have apprentices.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
And I'll say this every technician that is already
hired, they do everything intheir power to push out anybody
new, or they expect the newtechnician.
This is what I love this.
Well.
Well, those tech schools, theydon't teach those guys anything.
They don't know anything.
They come and they're not.
No, they're, they're, they're,they're not a mechanic.

(11:10):
And so I'll ask that guy youknow the guy, he's been doing it
for 20 years, 30 years, and Iask him what, how much did you
know when you first started?
Or how many mistakes did youmake?
Oh man, I made all kind ofmistakes, I screwed this up.
I was like, okay, I was likeeven a doctor.
Eight years of schooling, eightyears in medical school what's

(11:32):
the first thing they have?
To do?
right, they have to do.
They have to do a residencybecause they have to everything
they learned for eight years.
They have to put it in practice.
And how many times that thatthey screw up.
And if they have their maindoctors, hey, hey, they don't do
.
That that's not, that's not theright medicine, and so we have
to have the same mindset.
We run technicians off and Itell people, if you've got a

(11:55):
young guy who's willing to spend$10,000 on tools, who's willing
to put up with all the crapfrom your bad culture of all
these technicians with badattitudes and is willing to be
hot and sweaty and dirty everyday, like, give the guy a chance
.
Like why are you going to runthat guy out of here and say he
can't fix anything?
Well, of course he can.

(12:16):
He's only been doing it for sixmonths, you know.
Um, anyway, I digress, I getpretty angry.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
No, that's passion shows, john, and and so let's
move to the next one.
As a technician, you'reoperating and thinking
tactically and you become one ofthe best that there is, and the
way that things work is you getpromoted.
Now you're a service managerand 99% of them still think

(12:45):
tactically.
They're not leaders anymore.
Yep, nobody trained them to bea leader.
How the hell do we get bridgethat?

Speaker 2 (12:51):
yeah well they, they read my book.
Service by the boxes is stepone are you?

Speaker 1 (12:58):
are you?
Are you still givingcomplimentary for people that
respond to the podcast?

Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yes, yes.
Anybody who reaches out to me,email me at john at
servicebytheboxescom.
Let me know you watched orheard this podcast and I'll send
you a complimentary book.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Okay, so let me go up in the helicopter a little bit.
As you know, my approach tothings is quite different than
most, and the dilemma that I'mlooking at these days is it is
very hard to find talentedpeople with skills, to hire them

(13:37):
, and as time passes, it's goingto become more and more and
more difficult.
Going to become more and moreand more difficult.
The technical schools arenecessary, but that's one brand
and that really only works forJohn Deere, ag and Caterpillar.
Everybody else has to havemultiple brands in order to make
it work.

(13:59):
And that's what was the genesisof our assessments for
technicians and job functions?
That, instead of a techniciangoing to technical school for a
week, coming back and I askedthem when they come back, I said
you know what'd you learn?
Oh, it was great, fantastic.
Did you have a test at the end?
No, well, how do you know howyou did?

(14:22):
Well, I don't.
I got a certificate, terrific.
And then I wait a month andthen I go back to him and said
tell me something that youremember from that class.
And invariably there's nothingthere yeah so you got to wonder
how that happens.
But then move it up to theservice manager.
You touch a lot of dealers.

(14:44):
How many service managers haveyou been involved with that have
had management training?

Speaker 2 (14:51):
no, I'm on.
Ironically, you said that I hada dealer reach out to me this.
Yes, not yesterday, but tuesday.
What is today?
I don't know what.
Today is, ron, monday.
I'm the gray hair.
My beard is starting to get tomy head, I think, and I can't, I
can't remember what.
Well, welcome to my world it'sgoing to get worse, my friend
yeah, but anyways, yeah, so thisone service manager, uh, is

(15:14):
doing a great job.
And, um, the owner of thedealership a fairly large
dealership went to like, whatare you doing?
What are you doing that thatyou're just out outperforming
every other service departmentthat we have?
Like, you're doing a great job,customers are happy, you're
making money.
And you know what?
He said Training.
He goes at the otherdealerships that I've worked for

(15:36):
before I come to work for you,they had training, they had
leadership training, they hadcustomer service training, they
had management training.
He goes, these are all thingsI've learned through training.
And so he reached out to mebecause the the owner was like,
hey, we want training.
Do you know anybody?
And, um, so he reached out tome to see if I, if I'd be

(15:56):
willing, and that's of course.
I said yes, um, but you'reright, most managers don't have
training.
They, they don't, um, and thatthey and they just I.
Let me go back to me.
I was a technician.
Like you said, best techniciangets promoted.
I had no idea what I was doing.
Now, I, I know how to run ashop.
You know, in the, in the marine,in the marine corps, I was a, I

(16:18):
was a sergeant, so I knew howto get things in and out, like I
knew how to get things done.
But I had people above me weretelling me get this done, get
done.
Whatever you got to do to getthat done, get it out of here.
So I knew what to do and Istruggled on on like
prioritizing, you know.
So in the first day I waslooking down as I got all these
tractors which one do I work onfirst?
You know which one is is theprior, the priority.

(16:42):
And I'm an honest guy, you know,and I you know, mechanics or
mechanic shops we've always getthis bad rap of we screw over
the customers and we lie to them, we take all their money and we
run.
And I was like I'm not going todo that, I'm going to be above
board, I'm going to go above andbeyond and I'm going to be
ethical and honest.
And and so I came up with thisidea that most service managers

(17:07):
do of first in, first out, whichis not ethical, which is not
right, which is not businesssavvy, which is, you know, it's
counterproductive.
Because you have a guy, for anexample, you're having, say guy
brings in his, his, his tractorand all he does is mow his two

(17:27):
acre yard and that's it.
And then you have another guywho has a skid steer down and he
has a whole crew of people notworking that week.
And so there's people, there'shusbands, who can't afford to
buy groceries for their familiesbecause he's not working,
because this the skid stairsdown and the job shut down.
So so how would it be ethicalto say, well, this guy's machine

(17:48):
came in first.
Who doesn't need it?
It's just a hobby to work onhis machine and prioritize his
repair over somebody else who'strying to feed their family.
So it really kind of got megoing down this thought of like
how do we prioritize jobs?
And it continues to grow tomore, to more strategic level as

(18:09):
well from there.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
What?
What becomes interesting withthat is now, all of a sudden
you're into a category calledmarket segmentation and I'm
going to base that on the valuethat that customer brings to me
as a dealership the value thatcustomer brings to me in a
computational sense as aninfluencer in the marketplace,

(18:33):
and service managers don't haveany training on that.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
No, no, I remember years ago I was reading a
business book.
I can't remember, at some pointyou read, read so many books
you don't even remember what youread, where by who but he
talked about the Paretoprinciple.
The italian um, uh, financialguy, whatever in in italy and he

(18:56):
realized that 80 percent of theland was owned by by 20 percent
of the of the pop thepopulation.
Of course, that principle, weknow it as the the 80 20 rule,
and it has grown and it it still, it still and it's a principle.
So it's not 100, 80, 20, but itis amazing, still today, 80 of

(19:17):
the wealth is held by by 20, by20 of the the pop the population
.
But almost every business and II'm not telling you anything
that you don't know but 80% ofour revenue from customers only
come from 20% of our customers.
And so, really, when we'vetalked about prioritizing our

(19:38):
workflow, is that we need tofocus on the customers who pay
our bills.
We need to focus on ourcustomers who are invested in
our dealership, in our brand,you know that are partners with
us, versus the customers whocome by every two or three years
and want something done fastbut really cheap, you know.

(20:00):
And so I think teaching that toservice service manager for
them just to understand thatthat not every customer is equal
and we need to prioritize ourtop customers, or or you call
them, our key account is is verycritical for for us to do that
I.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
I take market segmentation and I put it into.
I think it's six differentcategories.
It starts with machinepopulation.
It goes then to therelationship that you have with
your marketplace, with parts,with service, with rentals.
Then it goes to the loyalty howlong have they been a client of

(20:41):
yours?
Then it becomes how do they paytheir bill?
Then it becomes how influentialare they in the marketplace?
So I got this six-digit codethat I want to put on the system
so that anytime anybody callsup that customer record, they're
going to see that code, yeah,and they're going to be trained
on what the heck that code means.

(21:02):
And if this code shows, I wantyou to get the champagne out and
treat this guy with he'll makelove to him.
If this guy comes, help him asmuch as you can.
But he's down the pile a bit.
Yeah, and that's alien.

(21:23):
It's strange for a servicemanager, because here comes a
mission I'm going to fix it.
Yeah, yeah, and that's alien.
It's strange for a servicemanager because here comes the
mission to fix it.
Yeah, the only thing thatthey're concerned about.
As soon as the machine isrepaired and it's out of there,
their job's done.
Yeah, it's not done until themoney's received.
Yeah, he pointed out, butthat's also a concept that's
alien to them.
Here comes an interruption I'vegot 20 guys in the shop.

(21:47):
Let's just stay in the shop.
They're all busy and they'veall got jobs.
It's going to take them all day.
And here comes a salesman andhe wants his machine in here
right now, because that guy'sgoing to buy this machine this
afternoon.
And I'm going to tell themsorry, I'm full, I'm the service
manager.
How?

Speaker 2 (22:08):
long do you think I'll have?

Speaker 1 (22:09):
a job.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Not very long.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Not very long.
Somebody's going to come downwith a thunder or a thorn and
say get out of here.
Okay, so I'm going to come back.
The other side.
I said okay, I'm going to putyou in here, I'm going to
disrupt my schedule, but you'regoing to pay overtime rates.
Well, that's not fair.
It's during the day.
I said yeah, but the guy that Ipromised the machine to, that's
in here that I'm going todisplace.
I'm going to have to work onhim tonight and I can't charge

(22:33):
him overtime because you gotbumped in.
So you're going to pay for it.
Oh, it's like I took theiroldest child.
It's a business man it's notplaytime.
So it becomes really interestingand technology can help us
dramatically.

(22:54):
So I segment my customers.
I also segment my technicianson skill levels and I do it the
traditional way with engine,powertrain, hydraulic,
electrical categories and ageneral yeah.
So I know who my best guy isand I schedule my best guys to

(23:15):
my higher segmentation prioritycustomers.
And I have a schedule.
So now I get into a box thatwhat's an acceptable backlog?
Customer calls up, he's got amachine down, I'm sorry, it's a
two-week wait.
And you go to the large KomatsuCaterpillar those Typically a

(23:42):
one to two week in the shop ispretty common.
Three to five days in the shopis pretty common.
Yeah, five days in the field ispretty common.
If somebody calls and it's inthe field, I want to be there in
24 hours.
Boom.
That opens me up to anotheropportunity.
Mr customer, would you like toget a priority rating?
Here comes amazon.
Amazon primes 139 a year andit's free, and they start

(24:06):
tracking what you buy, what youdon't buy, and they start
interfering with how you work.
Why don't we do that?
yeah we're going to give you apriority.
I'll give guarantee a 24-hourresponse in the field.
Yeah, guarantee a 12-monthwarranty on on repairs.
Yeah, on and on and on.
And I'm going to charge you$149 a year, or whatever the
number is, it doesn't matter.

(24:26):
Again, getting the servicemanager to think from a
leadership perspective insteadof tactically as a manager of
people, meaning that you areonly as good as the people that
you're leading, and that's alien.
You're the conductor of theorchestra.
Your back is to the customer,but the other real deal is

(24:49):
having every customer that youhave this year be a customer for
life.
The japanese taught us that inthe 80s.
We lose customers every damnmonth yep, yeah, I like.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
I like the mark, the mark, the marketing term,
lifetime value, and I think, ifso, let me say this so one issue
that we're having is we'repromoting or hiring the wrong
candidate to be a servicemanager.
We need a business mindedperson who understands what
we're discussing, not sayingthat a technician can't grow

(25:20):
into that, because I did right.
I was a technician and I tellpeople I did everything.
I was a service manager forseven years.
The first three and a halfyears I did everything wrong and
I was like I'm tired of losing,I'm tired of getting my butt
whooped, I'm tired of losingmoney, tired of everybody mad at
me.
And I started to look ateverything I did and I, when I'd

(25:41):
get into bad situation, I likehow did I get here?
And I would backtrack until Irealized this is what I did
wrong.
I shouldn't have done that.
But I mean that's a lot of hardwork and so we need to get.
They need training.
You know, if you have atechnician who you promoted into
service management, they needtraining.
Take, take, take yourassessment.
You know understanding whatthey need, what they need help
on.
Take your assessment.
You know understanding whatthey need, what they need help

(26:04):
on but we really moving forward.
We need to realize we need abusiness minded managers to
manage.
It's a business unit and Ithink that's one thing kind of
our opening conversation I tryto drive to dealership owners.
It's a business unit and someof these business units are 20,
30, 40, 50 million dollar, ifnot 150 million dollar business

(26:26):
units and you're going to put aguy in there who doesn't
understand a P&L, who doesn'tunderstand marketing, who
doesn't understand lifetimevalue of a customer, you know,
who doesn't understand thereasoning behind you know to set
the segment, your customer base, and then they're wondering why
is this not working?
Why am I not making money at mydealership?

(26:51):
So anyway, it went on a range.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
I kind of no, no, you're good.
That crazy service manager, thepresident of the company, rod
firing me.
We hired MBAs or engineers asassistant service managers.
They were the administrators,they were the business people,
so that we can have acombination of good technical

(27:14):
skills and good business skills.
And if you think about sports,just to use a simple analogy,
and you think about superstars,the Michael Jordans, that crowd,
how many of them turn out to begood coaches?

(27:35):
Not many.
One in my mind, and it was BillRussell, and he won the NCAA
championship at San Francisco.
The last two years he was atuniversity.
He was NBA champion with theCeltics.
Every year he was a player.
When he became pair coach wasthe only time he didn't succeed
and win the championship, butthe next two years where his

(27:56):
player coach he'd figured it out, then he did so only once, like
you experienced, yeah, like hedidn't know.
There Nobody gave him a manual,but I can't think of anybody
else that's like that.
And why is it?
They have such discipline, theyhave such desire that can't be

(28:19):
given to other people.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
You either have it or you don't.
Motivation is something I useto tease people.
I can't motivate anybody, but IMotivation is something I use
to tease people.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
I can't motivate anybody, but I can de-motivate
every single one of you.
It's easy.
So here comes the technicianEvery morning.
They have eight hours of laborif they're in my shop.
And they can go home when theyfinish that eight hours of labor
.
If they finish in five hours,congratulations, you can go home
.
Yeah, another three hours, I'llgive you three more hours, I'll

(28:46):
pay you for 11, but you're onlygoing to work eight.
Holy, and the young guys onThursday afternoon or, you know,
friday for the weekend.
They see all these experiencedtechnicians leaving at noon and
intrinsically they think tothemselves geez, I'd like to be
like that when I grow up.
So they're motivated to getbetter at what they're doing and

(29:08):
they start asking questions.
They go to these guys how doyou do this, why do you do that?
Which is part of the coachingculture, and we've lost that.
We don't have apprenticesanymore.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
No.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
We hire you out of a technical school.
What the hell do they know?
We don't know anything.
I mean it's a helper.
I used to have one helper forevery two technicians.
They brand for the parts.
They clean.
The parts they clean, yeah,clean the bay.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
You know, leverage the skills of people yeah, yeah,
we had a conversation a coupleyears ago, ron, I don't remember
.
We're talking about themilitary, so so in the Marine
Corps we have a fire team, soevery squad is made up of like
three to four fire teams, whichmeans you have three people,
then you have a fire team leader, so you have a team of four.
You know, and really that's howI think it should work in the

(29:59):
shop I think you and I are onthe same page of this is you
probably need one senior techand three younger techs that can
do majority of the diagnosis.
The younger techs do majorityof the heavy lifting, um on the
machines, but as they're workingon those machines together,
they're being taught how todiagnose the equipment, how to

(30:19):
use the electronic manual or, ifthey still have a paper, a
paper manual, um.
And then you probably need ashop foreman over like four,
like a squad leader over four orfive fire teams.
You have another manager whowho manage that.
But my, I think what happened?
What went wrong is you have alot of smaller dealerships, um,

(30:40):
let's just say non-cat, non-deer, you know, the ones that have
to have multiple lines and stuffis they make a lot of their
money on on the sales side ofthe business.
They see service as a costcenter and so what they've done
they're like we don't needmultiple layers of support
because that's just added cost.

(31:01):
Every technician needs to bebilling out X number of hours
and they see it as a purely wayof cutting costs, like cutting
payroll.
They don't see the long-termissue and so they most of these
dealerships and a lot of them Ihave worked for do not see the
long-term benefit in investingin that technician role.

(31:25):
Now, where we are at today, ina technician quote-unquote
shortage, we didn't get hereovernight.
If we would have been trainingpeople and had apprenticeship
programs 20 years ago, wewouldn't be here right now.
We're here becausemismanagement, bad leadership

(31:47):
from the executive level of ourindustry who has devalued the
technician and says you knowwhat?
They don't need a servicewriter.
They're just grease, greasemonkeys.
If they can't fix it, fire them, we'll find somebody else who
can.
First is saying hey, let's bringin these young people, let's
have a senior tech, you know,mentor them, let's do an
apprentice program, let's reachout to a tech school, a tech

(32:10):
college, let's do interns withthem and let's really invest in
our parts and service.
But they didn't really see itas a long-term, you know way, to
long-term to drive theirbusiness.
They're saying, oh, we got tohave it, we need to hire some
people who can fix equipment.
They're saying, oh, we got tohave it, we need to hire some
people who can fix equipment.
But the equipment got more andmore complex and you're just not
going to learn this stuffovernight.
And another thing ismanufacturers the fastest way to

(32:33):
sell a new model, so amanufacturer, if they want to
gain market share, they come outwith a new model.
That's the easiest way to sellit.
So now we're coming out.
We used to have the same modelfor like 10 years easiest way to
sell it.
So now we're coming out.
We used to have the same modelfor like 10 years, you know.
So technicians would knoweverything about that, that,
that backhoe or that or thatbulldozer because they worked on

(32:54):
it for 10 years.
Now they're coming out with anew model, a new series, every
two or three years and it's it'snot technology being
overwhelmed with new systems andthey need a support staff.
Like they can't do it bythemselves, they need that fire
team to support them.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
And we've got God.
We can do this critique orevaluation on every department
in every capital goods industryWashing machines, lawnmowers,
whatever, it doesn't matter,they're all the same Yep and
leaders in the manufacturingside.

(33:35):
Example washers and dryers inyour home, mm-hmm, I don't
remember what brand it was, butlet's say LG, just to pick one.
I could go to the front of thedryer and I could talk to the
machine and the machine wouldreply to me.
It said how's your filter?

(33:56):
You got a lot of lint in thefilter.
Do I need to clean the filter?
And it would come back and tellme Things aren't as clean as
they should be.
Is there something wrong withthe washing cycle?
Yeah, back with an answer.
If there was something wrong, Isaid give me, give me the
instructions and they walk methrough the repair.
Now, if you look at theequipment that we're dealing

(34:18):
with, I started in 69 with acaterpillar.
You know at At the time I thinkthere were 286,000 part numbers
.
Today the Caterpillar dealer isdealing with over 800,000 part
numbers.
Yeah, how the heck do you dothis?

Speaker 2 (34:35):
How the heck do you manage that?
When I talk to service managerstotal side note here and they
bitch and moan excuse my Frenchabout why can't we stock this
parts, about why can't we stockthis parts, why can't we stock
that parts I tell them there'shundreds of thousands of part
numbers.
Like do you expect him to typein each number?
And so I like to bring them in.

(34:56):
Like sit down, mr servicemanager, tell me what part
number you want us to stock.
Well, I don't have a partnumber.
Okay, we can't start unless wehave a part number.
And let's, let's go through thesales history on every single
part number.
Well then, you multiply thattime a million or 800, whatever
the number is.
Like you can't do it, it's,it's impossible.

(35:17):
And we expect these parts guysto have every part in stock for
every unit anyways.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
I totally no, but again, again, take that same
stance.
Let's go to get in a plane andwe'll run around to 100
different dealerships and we'llfind at least 90 of them where
the technician leaves their bay,walks to the parts department
to place an order for parts yepyep, why the heck don't they
stay in the bay?
I had people with headsets inthe parts department in 1970.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
You know the mechanic never left his bay because the
management says, well, I'm notgoing to pay for that new
computer, he doesn't need alaptop, he can just wait.
He can just walk his lazy buttup there and order his parts.
Okay, the most valuable, high,highest margin product a
dealership sells is intechnician hour.

(36:05):
Yep, and why the heck are yougoing to pay 165 an hour, 200 an
hour for a technician to walkto go get a part, when you could
pay somebody 14 an hour tobring him the part and buy him a
500 a thousand dollar computerlike your instant?
Are you get that investmentback in a month or two and but

(36:26):
that's.
They don't see that.
They're saying well, why am Igoing to buy him a thousand
dollar computer?
Well, why are you going tospend ten thousand dollars a
year to pay him to walk back andforth and not get reimbursed
for it?

Speaker 1 (36:38):
yeah, we have, you're one of them, but we have a
bunch of contributors that writeblogs and get involved with
podcasts with us, et cetera, andI call them thought leaders,
experienced executives andrevolutionary reformers.
Yeah, and, thought leaders arevery rare.
They typically get shunned,like you said.

(37:01):
Somebody's coming in from theoutside and the group bands
together and say, well, we don'twant you around here.
The revolutionary reformers arereally rare and, with the delay
of transition of leadership bya full generation that's been
going on, a lot of the men andwomen that were 50 to 60, that

(37:22):
would have been the leaderstoday they gave up.
They got impatient.
I'm not going to hang around,so I'm leaving this, and we
can't afford to lose that talent.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Walked right out the door.
It's, you know, there's almostcomputers.
When they started it's a switch, it's a zero one.
And now I had a chat thismorning.
We're talking about artificialintelligence and the guy said
well, it's not artificialintelligence, it's just we're
having the computer think for us.
That's why it's calledartificial.

(37:54):
But that data is there for usto do.
We just never had the time tolook at it all.
And if you, if you look at therepair of a machine, we have
basically rebuilds, repairs andmaintenance.
Which of those three is themost important?

Speaker 2 (38:15):
What would you say as in creating profitability and
value, or uptime forprofitability for everything
maintenance absolutely in themaintenance.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
So why is our market share on maintenance only five
percent?

Speaker 2 (38:32):
because we're, we're thinking like a technician, or
we got this false sense of prideof saying, well, I'm not going
to change oil, that's a, that'sa, that's a.
Whatever job, that's not a, I'mgonna manage.
I'm gonna rebuild an engine.
Um, I guess.
And to your point, um, uh,revenue is vanity.
And so I remember I was aservice manager.

(38:53):
I got like the sixty thousanddollar engine job and I was so
excited I called it.
I called the director ofproduct support man.
I just closed the sixtythousand dollar engine job and
you know what?
I lost my butt on that job.
I don't think he even mademoney.
I called the director ofproduct support man.
I just closed a $60,000 enginejob and you know what?
I lost my butt on that job.
I don't think I even made money.
I had this big revenue numberright, but I didn't make

(39:13):
anything.
I make more money in changingoil and I tell that to dealers
over and over again.
Hire a young guy, teach him howto change oil.
That's your highest profitmargin.
Product in the servicedepartment is changing oil and
everybody does it.
Everybody understands they needto change the oil, but service
managers don't care aboutfocusing on that business.

(39:36):
They're concerned about theengine job that you don't make
any money on, but you get thisbig vanity number though.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
I was in the industry when that became an issue In
the 60s.
Almost every manufactureractually post-World War II,
going into World War II,basically there were seven major
companies making equipment andit was all tractors, bulldozers.
Okay, coming out of World WarII, people started broadening
the base.
They were rubber-tired loaders,excavators, back of blah, blah,
blah.
But as a result of that we hadto have more skills and

(40:11):
something had to give.
And the first thing they gavewas maintenance.
Don't have time for maintenance.
I got to get after this repair.
Don't get better.
The customers that were smartand there's many of them decided
well, I still need maintenancebecause it saves me money, it
keeps owning and operating costsdown and I'm going to hire

(40:35):
somebody to do that for me.
And where do they go?
They come to the dealer andthey take somebody from the
dealership and they hire them.
And all of a sudden we don'tonly lose the maintenance work,
we lose the low technical skillrequired work.
And that cycle has been goingon forever and I'm not joking.
Aed used to do surveys I thinkit was every five years, and it

(40:57):
was invariably 94%, 95%, 96%market share loss for
maintenance.
And there was a follow-upquestion If the dealer charged
you the same amount as you wouldpay would you have them do the
maintenance?
And the answer was invariablyyes.
So that brings us back to theother side.
Instead of having a maintenancerate, we charge for the

(41:21):
dropping fluids and changingfilters the same price as we'd
repair a hydraulic boat, andit's nuts and yeah, because the
the dealership's saying well,why on earth am I going to lose
money?

Speaker 2 (41:33):
well, you're not going to lose money because
you're going to charge for fivehours.
If your technician is good,he's going to do it in like two
and a half hours or three hoursand you're paying them twenty
dollars versus forty dollars anhour.
So you're you're not, you'restill making.
That goes back to that businessunderstanding and I hate to say
you got to have somebody withan MBA to be able to explain
this.

(41:53):
But it's profit.
It's profit that that counts,it's not revenue, and people are
just hung up on revenue andthat's why they go out of
business or get bought or closethe doors but let's go.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Let's go in a different direction.
The service manager is in theoffice.
He goes there all day and hestays there.
He very rarely goes out to thefield.
Parts manager is the same thing.
I used to require the servicemanager and the parts manager to
spend one half a day a week inthe marketplace with the
customers.
Yeah, it was like pullingchicken's teeth to get them to
do it.

(42:26):
Yeah, that's where the fun is,john, but you better know what
you're doing.
If you're in front of thecustomer and they start talking
with you, they find out reallyquickly whether you've got value
for them or not.
It's a real test.
And again, it goes back toleadership at the dealership.
Yeah, a customer focus, acustomer retention focus,

(42:51):
customer service focus, not aprofit focus.
Yeah.
And you know people.
I started in consulting in 1980and everybody said, well, you
went into business to make money.
I said no, you don't go intobusiness to make money.
Making money is a byproduct ofbeing in business.
People don't understand that.
It's a very weird world andit's getting more and more

(43:17):
complicated as time passes.
Yeah, the blog is interesting.
The tactical thinking from thetechnician and strategic
thinking for leaders I think isone of the most powerful
statements in that blog.
Identifying the differentmarkets that you're serving used

(43:40):
equipment, rental equipment,new equipment, down machines,
field shop etc.
Is powerful.
The message is clear and thedilemma that we have is a lot of
people read nod their headssagely.
That's a really good idea.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
yeah, then then tomorrow comes and nothing
changes if you can figure outhow to make that happen, man,
you'd make a fortune yeah, I'mtrying to figure it out, but
it's, it's you're, you're right,you can tell them when you tell
them, when you tell them.
And, um, I was talking to Sarah, my wife.
We celebrated 21 years thislast month.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Congratulations Way to go.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah, yeah, we high school sweethearts she was my
best friend and who still is mybest friend, little sister in
high school, and it's funny, Iused to.
I used to call when Larry's mybest friend's name, so I knew
Larry wasn't, wasn't home, andso I would call his house and
ask for Larry and Sarah wouldanswer, said no, larry's not

(44:42):
here, and we would just starttalking.
And it wasn't until like liketwo, two, two years ago that
Sarah realized that I knew thatLarry wasn't there and I was
just calling to talk to her.
But I didn't have enough gutsso I was like, oh, is Larry
there?
And um, so anyways, yeah, wedated for 12 years before we got
married.
So, yeah, the 12 and the 21,we've been together for a long,

(45:05):
long time, um, but anyways,that's what I told her, like the
.
So I, I love consulting, I lovehelping people.
Um, I've had great mentors inmy, in my, my, my career and I
really appreciate therelationship I have with you,
ron.
It's it's been very, veryyou've been very helpful to me.
I don't know if you know thator not, so I really appreciate
that and so I really like togive back that and I think

(45:28):
that's really what's like lifegiving.
You know, like you're saying,did you go in it to make money?
No, I could probably go make alot more money running a
dealership somewhere.
But what's life giving?
I want to help, I want to giveback, and it's it's.
There's so many things thatthey just don't see that they or
they weren't trained on.

(45:49):
And you know, I was working withthe dealer here here recently
and they're like man, we do areally good job at service.
We just can't make money at it.
And and it's like, okay, let's,let's, you're, you're in the
right spot, you're in the rightmindset.
Like we're we, we take care ofour customers.
We just can't figure out how tomake money.
And uh, and he realizes that'show, like he's tired.
He's tired of making enoughmoney to make it to, to keep the

(46:10):
doors open for one more year,to work another 12 months to
make enough money to keep thedoors open.
He's like this isn't worth it.
Like what am I doing?
But I will tell you this the mybiggest frustration and I could
probably get some wise counselfrom you is is you can tell them
to do it Like like you can leada horse to water, but you can't

(46:31):
make them drink and like likethat's the hardest part of and I
a nice guy, and so you knoweverything you read like you got
to push, push on their painpoints and really make them feel
it.
And I'm a nice guy and I waslike I don't want them to hurt
anymore because they're alreadyhurting.
And it's really like, hey,there's we.
They work so hard to lose somuch money and you're like you

(46:54):
don't have to do it, you're,you're working too hard.
You know, delegate, since it'scentralized.
Your, your command and control.
Empower your, your departmentheads, to make decisions.
But once again, you've got tohave a service manager and a
parts managers that'sbusiness-minded, that
understands it.
Just, you know, I tell you thisis simply saying create a

(47:15):
budget and tell your managersthis is your budget, you stay
within these guidelines and justdo what you got to do to take
care of the customer.
Most dealerships don't even dothat.
It's the service managerdoesn't even know if they're
doing making a good decision ornot.
They and so they make baddecisions financially because

(47:35):
they spend a lot, a lot of moneyto get a very little return,
but they already know what istheir range of money to spend.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
At the risk of this becoming political because of
the expression I'm going to use.
It's common sense.
Yeah, and common sense is notparticularly common.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
No, and the part I started consulting in 1980 and I
was five years old at the time.
Thanks a lot.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
I started teaching in 1967.
Um, that makes it even worse.
Yes, that makes it even worse.
Yes, what would happen?
You know, I had a grandfathercontract because I was a chicken
and wanted to make sure I hadenough money to put food on the
table etc.
So I I started it up in canadafor a guy who was the largest

(48:31):
broker of caterpillar equipmentin the world and he wanted to
compete with thecaterpillarpillar dealer in
parts and service.
So he hired me to put togethera parts and service business for
him, which we did.
And two or three years later Iwas taken into the States to run
EBS, which was a by-product,caterpillar's dealer data

(48:51):
processing, and they had 450dealers on their business system
and it was failing and theywanted me to come in and put it
back together so that the ownerof the business could sell it.
Yeah, which we did.
And all of a sudden I didn'thave a grandfather anymore.
So it's january 2000, 1984, andI have no guaranteed income.

(49:20):
I started developing products tosell to dealers.
I used the phone because Icouldn't afford to travel
everywhere and say you know, I'mgoing to come in and look at
your parts department, I'm goingto look at your inventory
department.
I'm going to look at yourservice department.
I'm going to look at yourinventory department.
I'm going to look at yourservice department.
I'm going to look at how yousell product support and I know

(49:41):
how to do that a hell of a lotbetter than you do, and you're
going to pay me to prove thatthat's true.
Well, after a while I got todoing operational reviews and
I'd come up it'd be a month timespan on a calendar.
I'd be present maybe two weeks,maybe eight days, and they'd
get a report at the end.
And here's what I found.
Here's the financial, here'sthe benefits, here's what you

(50:04):
need to do.
And I'd say, have you gotanybody that can implement this
for you?
And they'd all say, oh yeah,we've got that.
And I'd follow up a month laterand three months later and
nothing's happening and being alittle slow coming to the.
You know you can take a horseto water, you can't force him to
drink.
I started saying have you gotsomebody to implement this?

(50:24):
And they would say, oh yeah,we've got people like that, or,
if you want, I could do it foryou.
And all of a sudden I had afive-year backlog and at
university there's a thingcalled executive function, which
is mostly used at postgraduatestudents.
It's an evaluation of howsuccessful they're going to be

(50:47):
and what kind of an impactthey're going to have 10 years
after school, and there's threecategories in global terms
there's people that are good atstrategy, there's people that
are good at implementing andthere's people that are doers.
And it's important that you knowwhere you fit and don't try and
do something you're not up to.

(51:08):
But what really is missing isimplementers.
And then the other side of thetable and evaluation of
personalities.
Are you open?
Evaluation of personalities areyou open-minded or are you
closed-minded?
In other words, how adaptableare you to change?
yeah and you put the open closedwith those three categories.

(51:28):
Now I got a little grid of sixand I can take and look at
performance levels of adealership, sales revenues,
customer retention, market share, all that stuff based on those
six boxes with a correlation ofhigher than 90%.
So if I've got a goodstrategist and a good

(51:51):
implementer, I can buy doers.
If I don't have a goodimplementer and I got a great
strategist I will fail.
If I've got a terriblestrategist but I've really got a
good implementer, I willsucceed.
So you, you can put all of thatstuff together.
So now we go back to servicedepartments.
I got a service manager who's agreat tactician.

(52:12):
I'm not going to grow Mm-mm.
I got a service manager whothinks strategically.
He's a good leader.
I will grow.
My problem with I will grow iswe have shops.
It's a fixed costinfrastructure.
I don't want fixed costs.

(52:33):
I want tents and I'm going tohave a life cycle on that tent
of maybe 10 years.
So I'm going to put a pad downsomewhere.
I'm going to have a like Denverairport tent.
I'll do all my repairs in thereand after 10 years, as the work
moves out, as you look at theexpansion of cities and
communities.
You don't have machines in theinner city anymore.

(52:55):
Oh wait a second.
Yes, we do, but we've now gotrubber-tired excavators because
they've got to go in on top ofstreets.
Oh my.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
God yeah, vacuum trucks and pump trucks.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Yeah, it's a very interesting thing and you know
you asked me for somethingrelative to absorption and I
mentioned Bill Blackie, thechairman of Caterpillar, and he
created manuals.
He was an accountant by trade.
He created a book that wasparts grants, every procedure,

(53:29):
service grants, every procedure,every document, every process
known to man for thosedepartments.
It was defined by Caterpillarand every dealer in the world
did things pretty much the sameway, with very little variation
on the thing.
Are those still available?
Can you get those?
Yeah, but you're going to haveto look.
It'd almost be an antique.
Yeah, there's a book out there.

(53:53):
I think you can still getcalled Earthworm Tractor.
Okay, a book out there.
I think you can still getcalled Earthworm Tractor.
Okay, I think you can get it inpaperback.
It was published in the 60s,but you know, it's a guy who's a
salesman for Earthworm Tractor.
It's a makeup of Caterpillar,yeah, and the salesman's going

(54:14):
out to make a sale and all ofthe things he goes through the
demonstration and all the restof it, and it still applies
today.
John, it's really weird.
And if you just get people toread, like, one of the things
I'm throwing around in my headis I want to start a book club,
yeah, and get a group of peoplesix, eight, 10 guys, gals,

(54:37):
whoever and we're going to reada book once a month.
We're going to spend four hourson a Zoom call.
We're just going to talk aboutit and start growing knowledge
and wisdom and open progressionchange.
Sarah Hanks, who doescontinuous improvement, got her
background.
She's an engineer, mechanicalengineer.
She worked for General Electricwith Jack Wills directly.

(54:57):
There's a lot of talent outthere.
We just got to focus it andthat's why your book is so
important to the audience.
If they don't have it, he'soffering to give it to you for
free.
Send them an email, get thebook, read the book, follow the
book and if you have questions,call him.
He'll gladly help you.
Now, that might cost.

(55:18):
That's good.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
He's got to make some money somewhere, yeah I've got
a beautiful wife who likesbeautiful things and I got two
beautiful daughters.
So my son, I tell him to go towork.
He knows everybody in ourneighborhood.
We live in a rural neighborhoodso everybody's got a little bit
of land and he goes toeverybody and he mows their
lawns, he trims their trees andso I tell him just go, you go

(55:40):
make some money.
You know you're a man, go makesome money and I might get in
trouble.
I may seem a little sexist orold-fashioned or something, but
I like to take care of mydaughters.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
But the boys can go work I'm the other way around.
I've been around powerful womenmy whole life.
My grandmother had a master'sin 1950.
Nice, and you know.
So.
My mother was a graduate.
My daughter's got a master's.
My granddaughter's got amaster's.
My grandson, who's 20, just atthe end of this month he'll have

(56:10):
a nuclear engineering andastrophysics degree.
I mean, I bet you he's prettysmart, yeah he's.
It seems like everybody's reallysmart in your family.
Oh no, I just carry the luggage.
Man, yeah, but it's you, yougotta find what you like, if
you're lucky enough to find yourpassion.
Everything's good.
If you find your passion, yougot to recognize it's not static

(56:35):
.
Yeah, it constantly needs to berefreshed, and so all of our
internet-based training five,six hour classes 70, 79 dollars
and 50 cents for a five-hourclass that's a good value 79
dollars, 79 hours and 50 cents.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
Man don't 50 cents.
50 cents, yeah, plus tax, orthat includes tax.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
Well, it's, it's learning, it's not, it's it's.
There you go, you don't have toworry about tax that's right
that's a great value there yougot it.
So everybody who's listening, Ihope you enjoyed this.
We rambled around a lot, but Ithink you get the message.
The service department is oneof the most critical pieces of
an equipment dealership, of anydealership in the capital goods

(57:22):
industry.
It has the highest gross margin, it has the most influence on
customer satisfaction and yetit's treated as a stepchild.
Training is not a discretionaryevent.
People are not tools in atoolbox that they get obsolete.

(57:43):
You replace them.
You can't replace them, andthere's guys like John who are
young and energetic and in themarketplace, that are out there
helping, trying to make adifference, and there are not a
lot of them because it's hard toget the skill set that's out
there.
So for everybody listening andJohn, thank you very much.
I think this is beneficial.
I look forward to havinganother one with you in the near

(58:06):
future and to everybody outthere, thank you for listening,
mahalo.