E96: All Things DMS With Justin Quinn From DX1

What are some other, some other competitors in the space of the Dms that are pretty common? Yeah, I. Think you've named kind of the bigger hitters there. We have dealers that join us from Lizzie is one of them. Black Pearl we hear of ideal. I mean, there's a. Number of systems out of there, you know out there that dealers use and and many of us do certain things very well.

You know as you mentioned I'll just say that right up front doesn't matter which Dms it is, we we all have room to improve. So you know, ultimately, but those, those are some of the other competitors that we see in the marketplace out there, just people who come and go. Everybody, welcome back to the latest episode of the Dealership Fix, a podcast.

I am your host, My name is Jacob Berry and today we've got a special guest with us. His name is Justin Quinn, now he is the Product Manager DX1 in their DMS field. And today we're going to talk about exactly that, the DMS in your dealership. So I'd like to welcome Justin on to the program here. How you doing today, man? I'm doing great, Jacob. Thanks for having me. Good man. Good. So we were talking a little bit before about a little of your

history. Can you just kind of recap a little bit for us your dealership industry experience and the kind of different roles that you've had within the dealership itself? Yeah, sure. Well, it started early at a young age, far as just like a lot of people getting in the. The dealerships, it was part of my family racing, being out the track, you know, big groups of stuff. And as I got a little bit older, I got to know these dealers a little bit better from

sponsoring at the races. Had one close to my school, so got to go in there. And my first experience, yeah, was pushing brooms and pulling parts and, you know, things you'd probably let a young teenager do in the dealership. Who just kind of loves it. And then as time went on, I was, I was chasing a professional racing career. So dealerships are always a great spot, you know, for trying to have a job. They could understand a little

bit of what I was doing. There were some fringe benefits to discounts on parts and and other stuff. But overall it worked. And yeah, so I I spent time in in dealerships in Memphis, TN when I was on the East Coast, I was racing out there that was you know, probably the first real working dedicated to working job and and started at

shipping and receiving. That was really my first, my first imprint in a dealership really working, which I was really glad, glad about because you know, as time got on, you know, either at that moment or as a parts manager or anywhere in the dealership, you realize how important that shipping and receiving position can go. So I think it kind of got my brain geared up towards more of a management side.

And then as I continued trying to get that professional motocross career, I worked back out to the West Coast, which is where I'm from. And had a chance to work in a big multi store dealership on the coast, same thing was in shipping receiving there. I mean I just think I really fit that role. You know, I'm sure we'll talk about it, but most dealers are looking for good, dependable people who. Could not cut corners and do things right. And that's how I was taught in

that dealership. And then later on I was fortunate enough to work for KTMI was worked in their racing program early on. So not quite the dealership, but certainly working with an OEM. And then after that I worked my way. It went with the distributor at the time was motorcycle stuff. They were purchased many years ago, but I actually had an opportunity to work as a Rep as a distributor. You know, in dealerships you meet these guys all the time. And you always wonder what it's

like on that side of the fence. So it's nice to to exactly do that, be on that side of the fence and understand, you know, what it's like again to meet a lot of dealers. I think that was really the time I started meeting dealers, you know, really understanding there's not just one way to do it type of thing and how diverse the industry can be. So yeah, I was able to do that and then eventually settled into Sacramento, CA and work with the dealership group there for five

years. And came in to manage their parts departments for both stores and then eventually ended up working my way into a general manager role with them. And then yeah, eventually decided I wanted to go back to school, kind of increase. I got a degree and at the same time started to do some consulting for dealerships. Again, just trying to help. Dealers understand how to match their DMS with their processes. You know, no matter what DMS you're in, that's always a challenge.

So did that for quite a few years. And then, yeah, eventually, as the most recent before my time here at DX1, I was up with one of my good friends, purchased the dealership up in Montana and had a chance to work with him. So back in again doing that. And then eventually one thing led to another and now I'm with DX1 that that that dealership ended up signing up with DX1. So we got to know each other and they said, hey, we're, you know, looking for a right.

Kind of. Person and asked me if I was interested. And so here I am now, almost three years in as a product manager for a DMS. Wow man, what a career, what a career. So you've got a lot of longevity in there. And I just before we get into the DMS conversation, cuz that's what this podcast is gonna be about, I wanted to ask you a couple questions about your history there.

First of all, when you were on the KTM Racing team, did you know any of the pro riders that that were part of that whole racing organization back in the day like Roger de Coster and some of the other champions? Yeah, I I got to meet, you know guys like Roger. So my boss at KTM is in the the AM A Motorcycle Hall of Fame. He's been on the MIC industry council. His name Silverage and Ariana. I think you know if you've been around the industry you probably know that name. He's everywhere.

He's out there races, he's at business. He's at shows. And he really imprinted a lot of this work, not work ethic per se when it, you know, I thought my dad did a good job. But when it came to stepping it up and again, working at KTM and seeing all the intricacies, yeah. And he introduced me to, to many of those racers, the Roger de Coster's of the world. I mean, we were competing against them. And then of course, I was the team coordinator.

So at the time, we had Grant Linkston, Brock Sellers, David Pinkrey and Kelly Smith. Being a privateer, you get to know some of those guys, but they're your competitors. So it was much different, yeah, to to get to know people. I could always say, yeah, I know of that person, but I don't know them personally type of thing. So yeah, there was a great opportunity to meet a lot of some childhood Eros, some some peers, and eventually form some friendships of people who were

competitors. At the time, it was really great. That's super cool, man, super cool. A lot of people dream of that. So and then you mentioned that you, the last dealership that you were working with, doing some consulting and ultimately signed on with DX1. What? What's the name of your friend there in Montana? Yeah, Blitz Motorsports up in Montana. He's a good friend, goes back a long time. He's like a lot of us. He's why he's in the dealership game. Just a love, you know, It's been

in his life the whole time. And yeah, right before COVID, he got a call, I got a call and he said, hey, I got. Yamaha dealership and you know looking for some help to get it going and we went up there and you know thought maybe there could be you know something we could do in the long run.

And yeah we got him going and and I think business was going good and you know like I said this opportunity came up and and yeah just it looked like a good opportunity to take and I think he was very happy for me and and he's thriving and doing great today. Good deal man. Shout out to Bliss Motorsports up there in Montana enjoying that cool weather in summertime here.

Okay. Cool. Well let's get into the meat and potatoes right So DMS dealer management Software Dealer Management system, right. It's it's an acronym that could it could bring some, you know some rough feelings for a lot of operators right there's there's certainly some some good points to a DMS. There could also be some some rough points some hard edges right that a lot of a lot of dealership operators and staff

rub up against. But let's kind of break down a couple of the points of the DMS, right. So let's let's talk about the available products that are out there that someone listening to this might be using, you know at that time, right. There's the big one, right? There's DX1, right. You guys got a a pretty cool DMS, right? I know a lot of dealers have been using it as of late last couple years.

You guys got a lot of new on boards, you know throwing out some competition names for you here just to kind of draw some comparisons. CDK Global with Lightspeed is is obviously the big, the big one, right? And then you got some factory back ones like Harley, they use Talon. What are some other, some other competitors in the space of the Dms you know that are pretty common? Yeah, I think, you know, you've named kind of the bigger hitters there.

You know, we have dealers that join us from Lizzie is one of them. Black Pearl we hear of ideal. I mean, there's a. Number of systems out of there, you know out there that dealers use and and many of us do certain things very well. You know, as you mentioned, I'll just say that right up front, doesn't matter which DMS it is.

We we all have room to improve. So you know ultimately, but those those are some of the other competitors that we see in the marketplace out there, just people who come and go.

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So if you can just in a nutshell, just give us a brief description, regardless of the product that a dealership is using or maybe someone has listened to this first time, they're they're just a regular sales guy and they're like, what the hell is a DMS, right? What is a Dms's function within the dealership life? Well, at the core of a DMS system, it's an inventory management system. You know that's that's that's at the heart of everything.

Yeah, you can sell stuff and use all these tools that are provided to you, but it all starts there whether it's units, whether it's parts and and even as units come into your service department, so you know you're, you're managing inventory. So you know to me that that's where it all starts And you know, depending on your size, your structure, your philosophy

towards things. That's when you start to see you know kind of pulling those layers back, you know where what does my business do and how can I utilize those tools that are within a particular DMS to kind of get us to where we want. So you know from there, you know and in today's, today's climate things are really changing for a DMS. You know, what we were talking about, you know, even 10 years ago is changing fairly dramatically with, you know.

Technology. So you know those are, those are some of the things that are starting to come into play too that you used to think Okay. Well, yeah, I received parts, I sell parts, I send out some receipts, maybe I managed some books within the system and that's what I do.

I'm just kind of turnkey. But yeah, you know now it's, you know there's there's lots of pressure on dealers to be providing numbers and meeting quotas and and really justifying what they're doing and maybe with a particular manufacturer or not so. You know today it's really hard to just say what it is because the demand on the dealer is so high. You know ecommerce and and brick and mortar for we're almost at odds against each other for for

years. You know the dealers were still trying to figure out what to do and some of those early smart pioneer dealers figured it out quick which is we can do this together and. You know, once COVID came in, I I definitely think it made people kind of rethink their businesses one way or another. You know and during that time we all know people had the luxury being usually very busy.

So again I think it really started, you started to find out as a dealer what it is we need to do to meet the high ends of the business. So again, I think that's what a DMS again is designed to do, let you bring in that inventory and then eventually through many different tools.

Manage that process of distributing that inventory and of course you have you know all kinds of stuff that comes behind that, you know reporting, managing customer satisfaction leads, rapport, business development management. So it's it's, it just really starts to finger out right you know based off of what you need, but at a core that DMS is the best way for you to keep track of what your business is doing and we still know a lot of dealers that are running their

businesses on pen and paper. Which, you know, we're not going to say good or bad, but you know, that's really what we're talking about, especially to these folks out there that you might be saying, well, we don't know what a DMS is or shy away from the topic of a DMS. You know, ultimately keeping track of those things and being able to do something with your information is pretty valuable. Yeah, well, let's, let's, let's

talk about that, right. Let's address the people out there that may be still using pen and paper, Excel spreadsheets or you know something outside of a traditional DMS, you know from all the available vendors that

are out there now, right. You know, so it gathers all your data, keeps it kind of in a core, you know nucleus centralized area that you can access and it's really made for you know mostly the sales department, mostly the P and a department right, for that inventory, you know type of management system that you were talking about. But it can serve a lot of functions also for service, right, can serve a lot of functions like you said for reporting all these counting type systems, right.

Some people have bookkeepers that use that for their open quotes of deals. They use it for their systems to collect taxes in. I mean, there's a whole bunch of functions for it, but let's take DX one's system, DX one's DMS. What is the main department that DX1 really focuses on? If you could choose any of the department's parts sales or

service or even motor clothes? If it's a Harley-Davidson dealership, right, because they like to keep their apparel kind of separate from parts, what does DX1 mostly focus their DMS on if you had to pick any one of those departments as a priority? Sure. Well, I'm going to be a little bit difficult for you and throw in another department which is

our customers. You know, ultimately we are a cloud based agile software and you know, somebody's saying well what's agile mean, We release each month. So when you ask that question, where do we put our focus, We put our focus where our customers are telling us we need focus. You know we we are very open with our group in particular ways to quickly and enter in idea submissions. You know our support team wants to talk with you in less than a minute.

We have, you know, specifically designed account managers that are reaching out and managing this process and internally we are all meeting. So you know although that's not exactly what you asked, that's exactly what we do is focus on the customers and and let our customers tell us what's going on. In particularly I think that was a strategic advantage for us and our customers.

When you think about times like COVID where things seemingly overnight just drastically flipped and changed, you know our ability to respond to that was paramount to our success and our customers to set success during that time. So, but to kind of go back to, I know what you're asking there too. You know, I would say parts is definitely seems to be a lot of the hubs, right? You know, you bring in stuff for service. You're still moving parts from your dealership into the service

department. You know, as you're selling units, you are installing parts and selling accessories and selling gear. And you know, as people establish reports with customers to try to get those longterm relationships, that still continues to usually happen in your parts. And your service department, so you know I'd say over this year we've definitely been focusing

on parts the year before. Again, kind of looking at you know what we can see data wise and what we know the industry was doing while COVID was going, we were prepping up our service. Area our service module, you know we had a feeling and and and the numbers kind of still support that today.

That service would really continue to be busy, busy and grow after COVID and and we kind of made that decision to put that work ahead of time and and for us and our dealers we feel like that's paying off right now. So again, you can see how we're trying to be more responsive to dealers needs. Then just focusing on what we think the dealer needs in a particular area, that's great. I don't think a lot of the other Dms, you know, options out there

could say the same thing, right? It's just kind of like, hey, this is our product. It is what it is. There's really no advancements in that product, buy it or don't buy it. But I think what a lot of those other other guys, I'll say that is what they're counted on is

the stickiness, right. So once, you know, once they sign that contract 10 years ago, they're kind of stuck because a lot of their business revolves around, you know, keeping that customer locked into their business practices within this DMS, right? I know, I know of 1 in particular that likes to do that.

I want to switch a little bit to using the DMS in the sales department, right, because that's that's who I think a lot of these operators who are making the business decisions to either fully utilize the DMS or not, it's really their, that's their background, right. A lot of these operators are going to be former sales managers, desk managers and they're talking about quotes and deals, right?

How would, how would, how would a particular DMS be used in sense of writing quotes and deals looking at some of the profitability in these quote systems? I mean, tell me a little bit about that function in your eyes. Yeah, I mean, I would say, you know, having used systems over 20 years, you know, fundamentally. When it comes to doing things like invoicing, we're all not terribly far away from each

other, right. You're adding parts or in this case if we're talking about major units, you know at the core of it you're, you're putting units in inventory and then you're adding them to invoices and then getting them out. You know, in terms of one of the things that I think we do really well and and when I mentioned you know being in the process of having to choose a DMS provider, before I worked for a DMS provider, one of the big components here was what we do is end to end.

Meaning, you know this DMS thing we've been talking about, about you know departments or it is a DMS and talking about how it's changed over the years. Well now you know it used to be before many years ago, if I get a unit and I receive it in inventory, I want to list it on my website and I want to list it, you know at these other third party destinations where I'm going to be selling products.

It was a really manual process and it still is for many people, you know, on the sell side leads. I mean, leads are just so valuable for dealers. Again, getting in a competitive market, being able to get that information quick and do something with it. And our system, we haven't really talked about, but does a lot of integrations. That's kind of one of the big things that the industry's kind of moving to and has moved to is

integrations. So for our dealerships, thinking about using a dealer management system and the benefits of it, particularly within that sales office. Is that ability to manage the time and still manage the customers that's the that's a challenge for dealers.

I feel all the time is keeping up with these tasks and you know that we will talk about or can talk about you know what's it take to do at the same time just run your business and you know dealerships don't necessarily have the hugest profit margins. So you know, always finding those balances between staffing and seasonality and market conditions and all those types

of things are difficult enough. Let alone you know trying to have to understand am I paying somebody each day to just pound on a keyboard to put stuff up and down. So I think you know from that side, you know providing tools that interact with the DMS to help manage those processes to make it seamless all the way from when the customer

eventually leaves with the unit. And then again you know some of those other processes when the DMS outside the inventory management where you're you're doing follow up, you're you're you're sending your customers newsletters, scheduling events. Again, really trying to keep that business under your dealership and in your dealership. So you know on the major unit side, I think particularly that's one of those important areas in our system.

When you when you add in a unit it goes to all those destinations automatically. When you sell a unit it comes down automatically. So just right off the bat, you know when you think about a DMS and again on the sell side, that's a lot of time. You know, so thinking about how to use it, Vms to take a lot of that manual labor, a lot of that manual clicks out. It's just as important as anything else you can do in a system. Well, let's expand about that on the sale side, right.

So the major unit retail side, you're almost talking about this as a function of a CRM, right? The followup, the lead management, some of the automation, presale, post sale emails, text messages. Are you saying that you envision almost the DMS being a CRM as well? Well, yeah. And that's, that's what we are. I mean we have a CRM product that integrates with us as part

of us TLP product. And but yeah, I mean that's the reality of it. You know, I have that unique view as a product manager even though we get in lots and lots of requests, you know, to be able to talk to people to see the big picture. You know, somebody may ask for something, but my job is to pry. Why? How? What are your workflows? What do you do? And it's.

It's really always interesting to find out that I start talking about something that's within the DMS, but by the time we talk about the workflow, it has started with a lead or has started with some other process and again, customer retention and all that stuff that comes before and after the cell. I think that's what the, the founders in the current team did a great job with this software is realizing that's really what it's about. You know, not going to five, 6-7

different things. You know, dealers still have to do that today. I need to go here to look up part availability. I need to go here to create a warranty. I need here to do this and that. And the reality is, dealers are really wanting to have it all in one space. So, yeah, you know and and that cell sits right in the middle of all that, right.

You know getting them in and then keeping them there and that process within the cell is is you know I still think the easier part, you know adding units again we all do that fairly similar I think is DMS is go but you know understanding that it's it's always an end to end process for the dealer. I think that's what's been successful about what we've done up to this point and what I hope our dealers feel is a successful tool for. In fact, I know they do.

That's why they're with us. That's interesting, Okay. So let's take two different roles within the dealership, right? You've got the sales manager who is mostly gonna spend his day in the DMS, right, in terms of major unit sales. And then you've got a salesperson, right? And he's gonna be in the CRM, following up with leads, making his phone calls, doing his logs. How would those two systems interact with your kind of all

in one system, right? Would would one person have access to certain things and not others? And the sales measure has access to everything? How does that? How does that typically look on the interface? Yeah, our system is configurable. So almost anything in our system, most things you can go in and decide whether you somebody wants to be have access to this or that, you know, Yeah, in terms of what you're asking, you know the. The lead can be generated through the lead management

system. Even if you don't have our lead management product, we have our lead system also built within straight within the DMS. So if you're participating with a program, say with an OEM or even just your standard website leads, when a customer's interacting there, those leads are coming into the DMS in real time. You're getting real time notifications, you know we have that's one of the big things we're we're really focusing on or real time notifications because that's really what

dealers are asking us for. You know, So in the case of the lead, you can know right away, you know in terms of helping the dealer, you know understand what the next steps are. You know that's something I think that can be assumed. You know we can assume a salesperson is going to handle the CRM. We can assume the general manager is going to be kind of sitting at the desk.

But again, you know, working with over 600 dealers, this is the interesting part is sometimes dealerships have three people doing every, you know, five people that are running around. So again, you know, I think they have the same problem, smaller, large, which is how do we keep up with it all, you know, when we're trying to communicate and that's what our system is focused on.

So yeah, you'll get a notification right away saying hey, this leads come in. It'll show them the important information and then we we have a product that kind of guides them on a road to sell, you know. So again it kind of lets them manage that process right within the DMS to say you know we've made first contact or we've scheduled appointments, we have to do's, you know you can build information into potential trade, you can send brochure

information. So again that first part, you know, really kind of trying to lock the customer come in and then once you get that commitment that can seamlessly just turn into a quote. Right. You know, so you have that information in the beginning, you're not having a lead over here and then later going in and then typing all that customer information again and then manually tying back the cell back to that lead. You know as that stuff comes in, we tie that all to the customer.

So that way as dealers and and this is you know again that important part of that management system when we said you know why is it important to get off of paper and pen or what does a DMS do well it gives you quick access to lots of data. And managing your customers data is really important. You know how many times they've come in, the types of purchases they're making, you know, your internal notes, leads, all these

things we're talking about. So you know in that case you, our dealers could decide who has that, you know, in the traditional sense, sure, the sales guy can get the lead, he can make the contact with the customer, start working it up and then yeah, eventually bring it to the desk. But even within the DMS, you know when we talk about things

that are more lead related. So we we put out a feature a couple years ago that got the Nifty 50 award and this is an example again respond our responsiveness to market conditions. Right when COVID started, man, we were just flooded with I want to advertise units I don't have and I want to sell them inside my DMS like they're in stock. I want to be able to take payments and say that they're coming soon and all this type of stuff. So we were able to respond to that.

And that was able to really increase leads, increase that conversion rate for the dealers to eventually get people in, get deposits and get them committed to units. You know anybody listen to this who's been in the dealership period during COVID knows, yeah, that was a pretty tough period. You know, it's good everybody wanted something, but you know, getting product, getting stuff, keeping customers satisfied was tough. So again, that's what I think

our system really helps with. By the time that lead comes in, we give them the ability to manage the product whether it's in or out of the store and connect with that ecommerce value and again bring it to the brick and mortar. You know, it's just not separate anymore. You know you still can't necessarily just sell a bike

straight through your website. You know you can get really close, but still most people are coming down and obviously signing paperwork, taking delivery of items, using tools, but eventually they end up under the dealership, so. And then after that, you know we have a lot of management tools. I mean you know when you talk about a sales manager sitting at the desk, you know that's when we start talking about reporting and managing inventory and flooring. You know, it's a big topic right now.

You know, flooring has not been a topic for anybody for two or three years because stuff ran out as fast as you got it in. And now a lot of that ordering, a lot of that product that was was brought in is now sitting. So you know having systems that can help you, you know manage that, you know inventory, dating, all those types of things, how are how we're turning over inventory. That's a really important part to think about what's going to happen within a DMS in the sell

side. I want to move back to that CRM DMS component real quick. Just for the lead management, what is, what is your take on some of the automation, right. So a lead comes in to to the CRM or to, to the DX1DMS, where is a particular dealer, you know what? What is there want for some of this automation, right? Meaning auto responders go out, some scheduled sequence, emails go out, day one, day 2, day three. Are you able to write that stuff? Are you able to manage that stuff?

Tell me a little bit about that. On the communication side, for some of these, you know, salespeople, BDC managers, Internet managers, work in these various web leads that are coming through them, you know, through the work, through the virtual sense of things. You know you can manage a lot in

our system. You know and if if you're that's where our TLP product comes in, If you're really one of those dealerships that's really looking to maximize that lead process because you know not not all dealers are is committed to certain processes and others, you know some with what our DMS does is exactly right and others are looking for deeper features.

So, you know, yeah, those integrations, those asks, that's a lot of what it is, is. Taking out the manually manual entry, you know, sitting and just constantly rekeying stuff. And additionally again it's this, this notification. So like in our system we have a lot of configuration around leads. You know ultimately the most important part is, is that the lead is addressed, you know, but you know for example somebody could be sick on a day.

So it's important to know if a lead comes in on a day that somebody's on vacation, sick or out that that lead could still get followed up on. So I mean it's a simple concept that's what we're talking about. You know the ability to to continue to profile that customer to understand what their needs are document and again get them those those items or tools or whatever they need in their hands to get them a little bit more committed to you as a dealer which is you know

what those. Business development managers are there 100% for right? Just, you know, forming that bond in that relationship, So giving them those tools and of course communicating with your customers fast as possible, you know, getting people on the phone is harder and harder these days. Been hard for a long time getting people on the phone. So, you know, even e-mail, traditionally stuff goes to spam, stuff goes to junk, but getting stuff to people's phones?

That's where people want it. So again being able to to utilize that technology within that lead process and and within DX1, we haven't really talked about it yet but that's one of those nice features that we have built in that's not necessarily traditionally ADMS item but as the the the markets change and and and consumers want different things, our system can communicate in real time with your customers if you like across the dealership special orders.

Service all kinds of stuff. So I again, that's what we're hearing is real time and anything you can do to help take out the manual entry. You know, cuz after that it just really depends on the dealer about, you know, what they're equipped for, what their philosophy is and what they can maintain or handle. 100 percent, 100% efficiency is the name of the game when it comes to dealing with all these different opportunities coming to any given dealer at any given day,

right. So let's let's switch gears over to the inventory on the P and A side, right, because that was one of the topics that you brought up. And you certainly have a long experience in that field doing ship and receiving inventory manager, parts manager. Tell me a little bit about the day-to-day when a dealer needs to manage their their P and A right. They got a lot of different skews to go through.

They got well. Just let me hear from you tell me what the day-to-day from a parts manager using a DMS. How would that look like? Yeah, well, I think, you know, just the day-to-day for a parts manager is a fight and a struggle, right? Because there's a parts manager, You know, I think it's very traditional. They get grouped. Well, I'm a parts manager, but I'm also a purchasing agent. You know, I'm a manager of

people. I got HR, I got customer relations and of course I have all my traditional duties. So you know, traditional duties I got to get drawers open in the morning, right. So DMS is important to balancing your drawers, you know, in your end of day that's that's a really important process that most people in the dealership don't think about because they don't have to do it. But you know how transactional things happen during the day, the mistakes, the things that don't get done.

You know, that's usually something the parts managers got the traditionally the most volume, the most transactions, the most credit card swipes. So I think first and foremost, as a parts manager, when you're getting up in the morning and getting your dealership going, that's exactly what you're doing. It's usually chasing your tail from the day before. You also have to maintain your inventory. I mean, again, dealer management

system, we talked about that. And if you don't have inventory in a store, well, what are you selling? And inventory, you know, small dealership, large dealership, you could go from a dealership having you know, less than 1000 parts in the sum that may have you know half a million parts. And if you're old, you may have stuff that's built up over 20

years. So you know, at a core, I think unfortunately for a parts manager, if that's what they're getting chased down on. Is you know, why are we out of this part? Why is something negative on hand, Why isn't this special order gone out? Why don't we have this oil for my service department. You know, you're essentially just running around and trying to facilitate the other departments. So I think, you know that's kind of a a general, a general day.

You do spend a lot of time, especially our parts managers now educating people. I mean, this is something definitely that's definitely changed. Really big time with COVID is dealers seem to be really struggling finding people who can do certain tasks. So I think managers, particularly parts managers are are being tasked with that today to either do more themselves because it's just sometimes easier when customers are standing in front of you or trying to educate people around

you new employees to get going. So you know, that's kind of the constant what you know, somebody being asked, hey, what about this oil filter? Where do I find this? Where do we, how do we do that so? You know Parts Manager really is utilizing the DMS to facilitate all of that. You know of course they also then at some point during the day have all the ordering responsibilities or most dealerships I will say.

So you know looking through that list, understanding you know what we need, but we don't need special orders. My service department again and then you're in the middle of all that ordering. Of course you're receiving stuff from the day before, or, you know, prior days. And so you also have to manage that information that that's a spot. I told you, you know, I'm very passionate about that position because it can all go wrong

there. You know, you really rely upon your shipping and receiving person to do things right. So you know, if you struggle in that area, usually your parts manager is busy doing that a lot or spending most of their time undoing that type of stuff because you got to remember at a dealership level and and I know I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. This all impacts accounting. You know, I think I was off by a penny or two.

What's the difference or you know these types of things, categories or what we do, you know, not all the time does that reflect to somebody at the counter receiving and typically a parts manager is going to be the person dealing with that. So I think, you know, you can see it's just it's kind of this daily struggle to keep up with my tasks, train my people. And report you know a lot of dealers for some time, but I see it more and more especially with COVID, again we're looking at

Commission type structures. So you know once you do something like that of course on both sides numbers need to be right. You know if you're you're on Commission at your parts county, you're surely going to be reading reports and as a parts manager you're going to want to make sure things are going right. So you know I think that's probably one of the more understated parts of that job. It's it's the hardest to get to because you're, I think most parts managers are so busy.

Running just the daytoday operations, but I you know sitting down and and then having the time to analyze all that is probably the big trick and it's tough. You know, not everybody has experience with trends or all that, but either way that's that's probably one of the more important parts that's just tough to get to or overlooked. I want to keep, I want to keep scratching that, that itch, right, of the parts department with inventory, right.

So I came from, you know the sales side, did a lot of inventory management on the major unit side. What types of tools could a dealer use within the DMS or maybe just from your own experience outside of the DMS? You know, we have a little real problem with age, right? You like you said, you know there could be parts stacking up that are you know 10/15/20 years old and they're in the shelf in

the back covered in dust. What is a good dealership operator use, or what kind of processes are available to them to help manage some of the age of this old inventory that's been sitting on a shelf forever? Yeah, that's a great point. Traditionally, the tools that are out there, most systems I've been in, you have a very traditional kind of print pages thing, right? You batch up an inventory or you run a report and they're count sheets.

You hand them out to your people and you go run around and you start to count. Traditionally, traditionally you will probably do this while you're closed depending on your DMS because it's it's hard to do inventory like that while you're open, right, Because things you might have counted in the morning might be getting sold. You know, I'm going to to our own home for a minute. In DX1 you can do inventory while you're open. So traditionally count sheets are are one of the ways of scanners.

I would say that's the 2nd way. I mean, I was using scanners in the 90s just when that kind of technology was starting to come in with DMSS. So I think scanners are probably a very traditional way of doing it. There's a couple of different types of scanners. You know, I'd say most of our customers within their budget are using scanners that you know, connect directly to a PC. You can. You can pony up some money and invest into some stuff that's wireless and has a lots of

functionality. You can walk out, scan your whole dealership and then just unplug it and sync it up to your dealership. But again, a lot of small to medium sized dealers aren't aren't looking to invest in that way. Most of them are using count sheets. So that's your kind of if I'm just simplifying it, you're kind of two traditional ways of course companies will might hire a company to come in and count outside of just using the Dms. Last year I was pretty excited

about this. Our team was able to think about that and we actually have now designed our physical inventory to work on a mobile device. You know, when we started thinking about those challenges and I was listening to dealers about what they're really wanting was what can I do this with my mobile device. I mean, they're they're in everybody's pockets, you know? Yeah, Yeah, right.

You know, so you know that's one of the tools we did last August again kind of thinking about inventory and and and ways to really help the dealer get efficient. So you know, I I'm not really sure. What our competitors do in that area these days, you know what other tools they got. I know they do the traditionals like we did the printed sheets and you can use scanners and

whatnot. But I I was pretty excited about that that we were able to to get that product out and at least give dealers a different option, you know, and it it maybe it's one of those topics for another bog, I I really feel like physical inventory in the process of inventory could be its own podcast. It really is that important in the dealership, but to keep it kind of constrained for this podcast, yeah, that's. That's certainly one of the the

more important roles. And I and I will say you know, traditionally I would say for a dealer as a best practice, if you're really serious about your inventory, you're most likely cycle counting. And if you know dealers are not familiar with what Cycle County may be, you know that's that's constantly doing inventory, maybe you're picking a category or a vendor and you're just constantly doing inventory.

I work for Cycle Gear for about a year at one point in time and they working for that company was it really opened my eyes as I've never I to this day. I see very few dealerships you can run with the principles that that company does in terms of keeping up with daily tasks and inventory was one of those you know you came in. Warning and your system told you what to count in there and that's what we've been working on, you know, trying to get there with our system as well.

So yeah, it it, it's been an exciting time. I still think, you know there's there's lots of room to improve, you know and I think there's some some other technologies that are are getting developed and kind of tested out there in the future that can also you know bring new options to the dealer in the future. So yeah, we're we're excited about that. But today we feel like we offer some dealers some some great ways to deal with that and.

I will tell you it is probably the most intimidating topic when I get to visit a lot of dealerships and work with a lot of dealerships and it's just something dealers are kind of, it got away from them right. And that I think is the case with most tasks in the dealership, but inventory particularly. You know, having to shut down completely which is what I think a majority of our dealers are still doing. They're still trying to figure out the cycle counting in some ways.

You know you're shutting down your business, you're you're paying people when you're not bringing in revenue. So you know again dealers I think look at that and just try to figure out how to balance it all. So you know, that's one area we're trying to improve and I think you know, for the sake of talking to your podcast. Crew out there. You know that's an one of the areas I just think every dealership can improve in no

matter what. I think a proactive you know parts manager who's got a good inventory mind you know that's that's that's something that's going to be key and it's a successful dealership, right. So let let's kind of just talk about that a little bit more, right. So you you were talking about the bin counting, right?

Where either you're doing it with some hardware, you've got this new app that allows you to do it with your cell phone, or you're just got traditional, you know, clipboard with a. Pen and paper, right? Walking around, counting everything, whether you're after business hours or you're shutting down during business hours, whatever the process may be. How often would have been count or one of these, you know, full store inventory counts. How often should that be? Monthly, Quarterly.

Annually. Well, you know, I would say it largely depends on the size of your inventory, right. I think again this is one of those things where a Parts managers experience shows. You know, I've always known where we. We lacked in an area. Somehow these parts always went disappearing. You know, somehow this the oil we always ran out. Or to me anyways, if you know your dealership, there are always some sore spots that just were kind of outliers. You know, I mentioned cycle gear.

It never ended every morning when we came in. There's just, you know, so many, there's just so many products to count. Every bottle oil, every spark plug, every jersey, every shirt goggle and tear off. You know, tire anything you can think of, it's in service, it's in sales, it's on a unit, it's off a unit, it's special ordered, you know all these types of things.

So you know, when it comes to keeping track of that in stock stuff, my my advice is to dealers is do two things, what's your highest volume and what's the stuff you struggle with the most. And that's where you would really look at. You know, I always thought my most one of my most important customers in my dealership was my service department, both my departments.

In a parts department, I know some dealerships are great with this and in many dealerships I've been in, these departments don't really cross pollinate very well. Not everybody always wants to get along. So I always took the principle to treat them as a customer.

So you know, if you're not managing your inventory on a regular basis and your service department services certain types of vehicles or you traditionally do certain types of jobs, then yeah, it might be really important to communicate with your service department and understand how good of a job you're doing for them. You know, jeez, we always go back there and you guys always show that you have these plugs and stuff. But every time we go to the box

at 0, can you guys fix that? You know, why? Why? That's an inventory issue. So you know, I think if a dealer can start there and then also understand what your resources are, you know we're we're talking, I'm talking a little bit of a perfect world. You know, again I mentioned it's it's there's always something going on. So you know we want to start counting in the morning. We got a list of what to count. It all looks good, but just like most dealerships, the day

presents itself. You know and you, you get away from that. So you know again I think that's one of the upsides of our system is traditionally, you know trying to do this while you're open is very difficult in a traditional system because it just doesn't account for the stuff that's being sold. But again our system, you know if you just pick one vendor in the morning and you start and during the middle of the day you get pulled away, you can still

go back and finish. Think that, Counting that night. The next day and by the time you're done and batched it and finished the system, ours is gonna say, hey, you've also calculated all this in the meantime, does this look correct? And you can say, yeah, that looks correct and manage it that way. And I think that's one of the tougher parts of cycle counting is keeping up with it, you know, having somebody who can

dedicatedly. Say, yeah, I'm going to do this every day just like cleaning restrooms in a dealership, somebody's got to do it, but not everybody does it. So again, those types of tasks that people shy away from because it's just not the funnest thing in the world, but ultimately really important to make sure that we have it right.

So you know, I think that's that's probably the best way for dealers to decide how to go at least getting started and then they'll get a feel for it. You know you'll start to find thing and we don't got to count, we got 10 items from this vendor if that's easy to do versus you know a major OEM where you may have you know. 1020 thousand hard parts, little bolts, washers, screw shims, things like that that are just, you know, you got to keep up because the one thing we haven't talked

about is obsolescence. So again, you know, as you mentioned, you've seen it, I've seen it, you know, stuff that's got dust on it, you know, from the 80s, it's sitting back there. The reality was maybe at some point in time that manufacturer might have actually taken that back. Or if you're working with a a good business department or a good accounting department, maybe they could advise you how you could have handled that, you know, by writing it off or writing it down.

So just as important it is to go count your items. It's also just as important to manage those types of items that need to go. So again, I think that's why that, you know, routine counting process helps is because you're able to manage that process better. Not everything shows up on January 1st. Right. You know, we've been receiving stuff all year. So you know when's a year come up on this product, when six months come up on this product that that's usually a bit of a, a tougher go.

So that that's also one element within this inventory factor that dealers really have to manage and look at. And and that's what I wanted to bring up, right.

And that's what that's the point I was trying to make earlier is on the obsolescence part, is that if you've got all this old aged inventory, what type of tools or mechanisms will alert the inventory person to say, hey, this thing is, this thing's a year old, I need to do something with it because they might take it back or I need to mark it down, I need to put it out in the discount corral, out in the showroom or whatever it

is, right? What types of tools are triggered should people be using for that? Yeah, sure. Well, you know, traditionally again in most systems I use, there's a report, right, a part aging report. You can go in there and you kind of break it down and look at it. But again, you know, depending on your date ranges or what you're looking at, you know that can be a lot of data to process at one time.

We haven't talked about it yet, but one of the the products that we've built over the last couple years which are just a hit are called smart notifications. So you know all this stuff we were talking about earlier that just eat up time lots and lots of time or people forget or not good at these tasks. We have designed a system that's pretty much managing that for you. So in what you're talking about a part, yeah, you can have the part aging report.

But in your receiving process we've added in fields that allow you to go and say tell me on this part, not just a category or not just a general report so I can be notified in real time. So you know that's one of the tools that's been being utilized. We came out with that for parts about two months ago and you know dealers are loving it. You know in that process we're doing a lot of that real time

notification type of stuff. You know, I mentioned that's what our dealers are asking for is you know, how can, how can you help me manage my department? Not click things, not add things. I I really, what I need is a virtual employee. And so that's what we've been working on is a virtual employee doesn't go to sleep. It doesn't take vacation. It doesn't go away. And it does the same task that you need over and over every day in real time.

And that's one of those tools we hope dealers can use because obsolescence. Yeah, we know what it is at a high level. But to your point, I may want to send something back or I may want to discount something in seven days, 14 days. You know, I talked with a lot of dealers who. Do a lot of buying but don't have a lot of purchasing experience.

You know, so you know, understanding that you may buy something in January and sell it for full price the next November, but you don't make your profit really isn't there, that's depreciated. You know, usually they kind of keep within your margins as a general principle, you're going to roll product overs, you know, 14 days at a time if you can, you know 30 days at the most. So you know we've been trying to educate dealers that they could also use that tool to kind of

help manage that as well. You know you take a risk on a product. You know, it all costs money. It's cash flow. And that's why I think one of the big things about a parts department, you know, that'll eat up your cash faster than anything you have. You know you can floor units. You can do things over there. You know the service department, you're not really tied to a lot over there, but that parts department, they're ordering, receiving and doing things every day.

So you know, if you're struggling with with cash flow management or you're trying to teach a manager how to how to understand cash flow management, that's a way to use that tool in real time. You can say, hey, I got this really nice carbon fiber helmet. We don't normally sell it. I want to take a risk on it. But the reality is, if you're really not moving that thing in 14 days, you want to mark it down. Right.

So having a tool that you can make those decisions even at a part by part level and again get those notifications in real time and say now do something with it. You know that smart notification I told you about that whole tool is not just about saying, hey something happened, it's about teaching people there's a closed in loop here. So in that case, you know if we got that notification, we have something to do, you do that task and then the notification removes itself. Right.

So again, we're really trying to help the dealer just trust in our system that for all these workflows that are hard to manage that there's somebody in there managing it, helping you manage it in real time. That's super cool, man. Let's keep going with that just for a little bit more, right. So we talked about the obsolescence that's in inventory, in stock, that's aged, right.

But when you have a good, you know, suite of products or you have a good, you know type of ordering that brings in some popular stuff, right, and you go through it real quickly, what types of reports should an inventory manager, parts manager be looking at to say, hey, you know we actually sell these things at a pretty good margin. We see some seasonality. You know, we're not just using our gut.

We're using the data that the system is telling us through our retail sales that, hey, we need to order more of this or we need to order less of this. What types of reports should be be looking at inside DX1 or any other DMS at that point to say here's here's what my targets look like and here's what I need

to order to hit those. Yeah, you know, if you're a dealer who self admittedly doesn't like to pull data out and you really spend a lot of time going through and making charts and massaging it, we have a top 100 sales report. Right. You want to click your report and just let our system tell you what you've been selling top 100 and that's kind of what your capacity is at.

You can do that. You know past that we encourage we have a number of different reports, but I'd say in almost any system you're going to have a part sale report, right. You know what's actually happening.

So you know, being able to take that data out of that report and and do something with it, you know that that's what I feel like most managers have to do. The one of the things we're looking at adding over the summer, we did this in our service department last summer and we're looking at parts is reports that just focus on key performance indicators, which is really what we're talking about. You know, I always like looking through all the data, but that takes a lot of time and not

everybody likes to do that. There's there's kind of weirdos out there like me in those dealerships who just, you know, obsess over the numbers, but they're important. But for a lot of people, again, they're either not that way or don't have that luxury and that that's not a bad thing, so. You know, looking at those reports is helpful, but I think you know overall there's a lot of tools that you can do along the way. You know, once you look at those

reports, okay, good. But now how do we manage this? So using a Minmax system, you know, most most DMS's have Minmax. So you know, once you get to a point where you've gone through that reporting and you understand those trends, then the next step is, you know, going and starting to manage that process. Oh okay. You know, we're selling this oil filter, this helmet or this plug or this light bulb. Whichever times. Let's not manually do this

anymore. Let's go in and set a Minmax and start making that process go. But again, not all dealers subscribe to things like Minmax. You know, that's that's a tough part about a question like this is, you know I've seen we we have the ability to build custom reports, a dealer can do that within our system and we can also help dealers build custom reports. Not everybody really knows how to get to that end result and we have a team specialist who can

help with that. With our dealers that come in. So I think you know in our system like I said, there's a number of reports you can look at just special orders, you can look at stocking parts, parts you sold to your RO. But again, I think you know depending on your capacity, you're either in a part sale report or a top sales report. One last question in just the parts department, right.

So one of the things that I've always tried to work on is, it is the inclusion of the parts department into some of our

marketing materials. And you know, the most obvious I think that you would do as a, you know, a kickback coupon or some type of Mailer or even a digital coupon to say, hey, here's a discount or here's, you know, say 5-10 dollars, whatever the monetary amount is. But it's a coupon that we want to give you as a customer or maybe we're trying to entice you to be a customer of our dealership coupon codes, right.

It was always kind of a headache with some of these other Dms's to where, you know, if I can remember, right, we had to, you know, create a part number, do it as a negative value or negative percentage, you know, limit it to a quantity. And then we would almost make that into some type of parts, scannable code that we would then put on some type of market material and then deliver to the customer.

Obviously that process that I just explained is riddled with holes and could be you know, you know, primed for some fraud, you know people reusing the coupon over and over and over or your your cashier, you know say hey do you want a discount on that part, you know Boop and they do it right behind the the counter rather than the customer bringing it in.

What is your philosophy on trying to include some coupon code, the codes for particularly the the parts department to do some type of discounting to entice customers to do more business with us? Yeah, I I, I think it's a great idea you know at at a high level concept I think it's smart. You know again as a you know somebody who's in a BDM that's

really what you're doing. Yeah, We see that position majority on the the major unit side, but that is the reality and you know the fact is getting people into your store to buy parts is harder and harder because you know they can compete with the online market. You know, getting ecommerce, getting things shipped directly in your house at a right price is difficult to compete with. So yeah, I definitely think, you know, getting coupons out and and promotions that can can

really help. The parts department is smart. We've seen it, right? You know, buying coffee, have a punch card, people will show up and buy coffee at a certain place because the 12th one is free. So incentivizing your customers is never a bad thing, especially if you're going to save them money. And then past that, I think it's knowing your customer base. You know what, being smart about, not smart about giving out too much in a coupon, but what what is worth it?

What's still going to make somebody come in and get something. So thinking about you know using those and maintenance parts or high moving parts or things like that, you know I I think those are are great ideas to get get

someone into the dealership. So if I'm hearing you correctly, maybe maybe you don't have any type of coupon code right now that kind of has that capability of being able to digitize that coupon, be able to send it. And I'm only using this example because a lot of major retailers have that now.

I mean Kohl's Cash is probably the most common to where they're just sending money out all the time in mailers or digital format on an e-mail or text and say hey you know this weekend only take another 10 bucks off your off your purchase. If you come in this weekend and they scanned everything so that it's, you know, it's no one has to, you know, punch it in as a special code at the time of checkout. It's just a, you know, let me scan this and boom, there's your

disk on off the purchase. Yeah, we, we're halfway there. I mean just being honest, yeah, we, we have that first part done, you know newsletters and events. We have a way with again once you get a customer base in to be able to do that in a mass way, you know via digital communication. So yeah, I could create that coupon. I could, you know. Make a nice little flyer that can go to them digitally, you

know getting it processed. We're still trying to work with our dealers to figure out the best way. You know that's the tough part of my job is we we definitely need to tackle that to find a better way than we do it today. But getting a consensus on the best way to do that is still something we're we're just trying to figure out which lane is going to be the best way to go.

But yes, you are 100% correct. That is something we we're hearing from our customers and has been really growing especially in the parts department. Absolutely. It's the easiest transition, right. Especially if somebody buys a major unit, right. They buy, you know, side by side, they buy a motorcycle, whatever. There are different communications per segment, you know, motorcycle to off road that we can send out to these customers and say, hey, thank you for purchasing with us by

the way. Here's a kickback coupon for, you know, 20 bucks off a new helmet or 50 bucks off a new light bar, whatever it is, right. And it would just be a little easier to gather that and do almost an ROI or reconciliation to say who came back using those codes from people that we sold major units to, right. Exactly. I can say the same thing about service to here's 10 bucks off your first break in service, oil change or your next service. Something like that, right?

And we are, we are seeing dealers looking at really and and this is where we're really considering the most as they're wanting to use more digitized reward points. So yeah, you're getting it, but you know, it's just like going to a gas station or grocery store where you're accruing points for making certain purchases. That's that's more the trend we're hearing versus the coupon per se. It's the coupon philosophy we're talking about, but just really handling it more through a

loyalty program. Again kind of looking at that ROI. You know like let's let's put the incentive with them. You know, versus just a one shot coupon that may get them in once or twice just because they got the coupon versus, hey, you know, we can get continuous discounts by just being a loyal customer 100 percent, 100% whatever we got to do to make that relationship sticky with the customer after that very first transaction, right.

Or or we have 0 transaction at all, we're trying to have our first one. That's right okay. So let me kind of end out the this conversation here. By the way, it's been an honor to talk to you, man. Certainly a knowledgeable guy. You're going in a lot of different directions here. So I'm, I'm trying to, you know, trying to put my arms around you say yeah, let's let's try to focus on this one thing. But you brought up an interesting point earlier and I I, I kind of want to, I kind of

want to press on that one. You talked about the different departments and maybe they don't cross pollinate to use your words or maybe they're not getting along right. I think this is a pretty common theme, you know, especially with the sales guys to the service or service to parts or parts to sales, right. All these departments definitely

rely on one another, right? Sales needs a nice looking showroom floor unit to be dressed up with all the latest PNA service needs that liaison to get the oil filters and spark plugs to do their tuneups right. Sales need service to install all these parts or PDI and prep a unit so that they can sell it to the customer, right. So we all technically rely parts to sales to service and and and all over the place on one another's department but rarely do these departments get along

there. There certainly is a wedge between a lot of them and I just kind of wanted to hear your own perspective on why you think that is and a follow up to that would be what could we do to help fix these relationships interdepartmentally? Sure. Well, as a manager over many years, I think I sometimes still try to find the answer to that question.

And I think many dealers are, you know, where I personally had success or where I see dealers having success is they're bringing everybody together, right? You know, we have a dealership locally and I know their whole team meets every Friday morning. You know, they come in at half hour before the store opens. I've even sat in on a couple of them, just listening and just understanding what their dealerships going through and those types of things.

And somebody is really facilitating that, you know, that the owner, the GM, somebody who knows what the tensions are, what the problems are and kind of flushes that out. You know, So you're really sitting in there in a group of people, you know, having dealership therapy. A lot of times that's what it is. Well, somebody's not doing this right or why are they doing that? You know, you kind of have to

sort through some of that. So I think just making sure that you give your employees a platform to feel comfortable, to communicate, you know, not everybody has those skills, right? You know, I've worked with plenty of people who just don't want to be bothered. You know, the last thing you want to do is go bug a tech when he's got his head in a motor and that asks for good reason,

right? You know, and and there's other things I don't, I don't want to go in and ask you a question when you got a deal at your desk. You know those types of things. So just, you know, making sure that somebody in the dealership can explain why, why this is important one to the dealership, but to this person over here and then ultimately to your job, you know why it gets that way. You know, a lot of times it just I think it starts at the parts

department and not in a bad way. Meaning, you know, if I'm responsible for my inventory and I come back to an owner at the end of the year and I have a $20,000 loss, I have to explain it. So a lot of times, you know, we've had to say nobody come back in our parts department. You know, service cannot come pull their own parts. Service cannot do this. I know many, many, many of our dealerships who operate that way. So you know, when you think from a park side, I I have a good

reason for why I'm doing that. But on the service side, they might feel a little alienated, untrusted things like that. You know, So I think, you know, just sitting down and maybe being able to explain that, you know, have your parts manager sit there with a service manager and as a general manager say, well, I'm putting a lot of heat on him.

You know, I'm not saying the service department is responsible for this $20,000 loss, but, you know, one way or another, this parts manager, I'm holding him accountable and he's got to answer and ultimately improve this in the next year. So I think a lot of times those processes happen. I know on the sales side, a lot of times the sales departments are on heavy commissions, so they do only what they need to do because that's what they're paid to do.

They're paid to sell bikes and they're incentivized that way. So, you know, if they're not making any money off of, you know, also selling you $1000 worth a year, you know they're not worried about it. If they're worried about, you know, my, my, my customers got a $10,000, you know, finance limit. You know, I could sell them a bike for 9 and sell them some parts and maybe a little bit of service. You know, if you're a sales guy, that's unless you're paid on selling that stuff.

Your ultimate focus is ultimately on the profit of that unit. And so I think that's kind of a traditional thing. I feel like I've seen over time that those two kind of elements where the parts department's trying to play lockdown so nobody can really interact in there. A service department just doesn't want to be bugged. They got a lot going on in the sales department that maybe, you know, really feel like, well,

I'm just paid to do one thing. You know this I'm a sales person and I have a BDM and his his responsibility is to be a BDM, those types of things. So I think it's just you know those type of situations, you know most of the dealers I think that that manage this process well have really worked on making sure that their customers are kind of touching all their

departments. Even if you're getting paid in sales, you know it's important to introduce them to the parts department and make sure they're taken care of. And you know selling things like prepaid maintenance, you know not just warranties, right, warranties have been around for forever, but prepaid maintenance is a great way to generate revenue and customer loyalty in your dealership and keep them

coming back. So again, you know, just finding ways to maybe incentivize your managers to have a common goal. You know traditionally that's where your general manager is maybe you know focused on is obviously the success of multiple departments. But you know if you can still get those individual departments to have a little bit of it cross incentive, you'd be really surprised how quickly start

people start working together. You know, if they can make more money or improve that aspect and then there's a lot of incentive to do that. That's a great point and I like what you said about, you know, this, this. This general manager that you had, he would have an all store meeting is what it sounds like where it's, you know, all departments, all employees, managers, sales people, parts managers, parts people, service managers, service technicians,

service advisors, right. It sounds like they would all have like a big group meeting and kind of talk about the dealership as a whole, not just their individual departments In my hearing you read on that. That's exactly right. You know, we all know when we got a customer coming in and a critical unit and we're waiting on this one part. So again, you know if the the dealership I'm Speaking of, they're talking about those types of things that the general manager and owner have an agenda.

They have a list that they've been working on the week before. Hey, we need to improve on this. Hey, who you were so and so you were supposed to do this last week. You know how about this follow up. So they're managing, right. I mean that's really the key here. So many, so many times somebody get thrust into a management role because somebody left, they haven't had a lot of management experience.

So again, you know if you're a GM or an owner and you find yourself in that situation where your parts guy overnight became a parts manager, remember this may be his first time managing people, managing things, not just parts. You can do a great job with the parts, but you know, you general managers and owners, you need to teach it is. It's just one of those tools I still think gets overlooked. I I think it's also a matter of all these different types of

personalities, right. And I think you kind of touched on that with, you know, you don't want to bother a tech while he's, you know, head deep into fixing a problem, right. So, you know, traditionally I think service techs and I was 1, so I can talk as one as well as sales and parts. But I think service techs kind of have a little bit of a, you know, a little bit of a more of abrasive, hey, leave me alone, I got work to do, kind of a mentality, right?

I'm just going to focus on what I need to do and then clock out at the end of the day. Parts guys, maybe they live between a little bit of, you know, sales and service types of mentalities where they're analytical. There's parts numbers, you know, it's above the numbers, above the shoulders numbers type stuff, right.

But you also have to talk to customers on the counter, try to upsell them, but you still have to look things up and be a little bit more organized that way where you have our, our friends in the sales department, right, where they're just kind of. You know that they're they're they're dressing nice, they're looking good and they're fast talking, right? Trying to convince people to buy these major units, these twenty $30,000 products that we sell.

So it could be a little bit of a clashing between personalities and the types of departments that those personalities attract. But what do you think about their leaderships in those departments and and how they maybe help to, you know, I guess, lubricate the relationship between these different departments? Any opinion on the leadership in those departments?

Helping that cohesiveness between them, Yeah, I mean, I think you just have to make it a focus like anything else you do and come up with a plan and ask for help. You know, don't be afraid to go to your owner or go to your manager and say I want to be better in this area. You know, I've had many managers where it doesn't matter if you're a tech or sales, they're just not the friendliest of folks. You know, people. They're not a people person per se.

So you know, I first think you need to look at that yourself as a manager and and be honest with yourself. What type of manager am I? What type of experience I have and how could I be better. And I think all of us, all of us, no matter what jobs we do, you know we were really hard internally here to make sure we don't have any walls getting built and leave a very open platform.

And and we offer a lot of tools internally for people to get further education and training and all those types of things. And I think the same thing goes for really any business but a dealership especially so and you know it's hard. We all want to go home and see our families or go have our private lives. And I think one thing dealerships have always been greater route is that after work

camaraderie. You know, a lot of times people are riding or maybe going to have, you know, a drink or some dinner afterwards or something like that. You know, a lot of dealerships, I see where that happens organically. Of course they all tend to get along better. So you know maybe if you see that absent from your dealership think about maybe offering something sponsored in the dealership. Hey, we're we're all going to go out and have pizza tonight.

You know, no, no good reason. Let's just go out and and you all have that your employees will probably like it. You know they might be wondering why this is happening. But you know if you're doing it just for the fact that you're saying, I just. I appreciate everything you do. And I want to continue to bring people together because I know this person and this person work 40 feet apart and over the last year have said like 10 words to each other.

They they get along. But it's just not communication is not important. Both are very blindered into what they're doing. And again, as a manager, if I'm looking at that, it's my job to help facilitate better communication. So I think just not being afraid to get outside of the box and maybe it's not your whole group. Maybe it, like I said, maybe it's just a couple people figure out a way to get them together out of a, you know, work

situation. You know, even if you got to give them time during the day where they're being paid because not everybody wants to go do more work when they get off of work, right? But if this is important to you, then tell them, hey, why don't you guys go take a couple hours, you know, go hit some golf balls, go take a walk, do whatever you guys like to do Fun, get to know each other just a little bit better and then let that organically grow.

And again, just try to continue to facilitate it. And you know, in any business I work in, it's really great when you see those relationships start to head off because it's going to impact everybody else in the dealership. That's the reality. It's not like you as a manager or the only one that sees it, right, You know, so everybody in your dealership will probably be happy to see two people communicating better in particularly if their communication is paramount in the dealership.

You know, right. That's the hard part when people aren't communicating and and they might be the biggest communication line, but nobody really knows quite how to handle that. So yeah, you know, just being able to be a little bit more aggressive with it, probably because I think people get passive and a little afraid of it. It's a great point. That's a great point. Be a little bit more proactive throughout the year rather than just waiting for the Christmas

party. You know, the annual Christmas party to get everybody together. Yeah, so well man, we were coming up on our time here. His name is Justin Quinn, He's a product manager at DX1. We are talking all things Dms and then it quickly turned into several different topics, but at the end they're talking about more or less the teams.

Within the dealership and just some of the camaraderie and some of the relationship building that could take place if your dealership is struggling in some of these areas. But I really appreciate your time today, Justin and look forward to having another conversation with you here in the near future. And any parting words, any heartburn, any any, any types of final advice that you would want to give to the people listening to this broadcast.

It seems like a simple thing but staying positive is really important. You know we talked about all these factors and and again you know, I know it's it's being in a dealership is not the easiest place to always be. So you know just remembering that you know trying to take everything you got and and keep it in the positive will go a long way. And yeah, thank thanks for

having us out today. Like you said you know that you can see my passion hopefully are here in the passion in here for what we do. So, so sorry if I jumped around on you a little bit, but yeah, we, we'd love to come back and continue to have more conversations because just like the dealerships, this is always an evolving process and you know staying with it and staying with what's current and and hearing dealers and offering vices which what your podcast doing is just

a really great attribute to dealers. So we'd love to be back anytime. We'd love to have you, man, and I really appreciate everything that you talked about today. And let's not forget why we came into this business in the 1st place is because most of us started out working in all these various dealership positions as enthusiasts, right? And that's what makes our business. So unique in power sports is that we come in as writers wanting to just do it because it's fun, right?

We whether we're doing service or parts or sales, we're, we're into it. Mostly I can speak for most people is because we like to ride and so working in an environment. That has other likeminded individuals that also like to ride. I mean, that's just a perfect recipe for a fun career that you can do for pretty much your whole life. And we've known lots of people that do it. You're certainly one of them. I'm certainly one of them.

And we know a ton of people out there that are just like us. And so I again, I really appreciate you coming on. And that's it for the dealership Fix It podcast. Like subscribe. Check us out online. We're on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, We got video, we got audio. We've got all sorts of ways that you can listen to this podcast, plus many, many more. We're all about the dealership life. And remember, you are the fix It within your dealership. So anything that you pick up from this podcast?

Definitely use it. Give us some feedback on it and we'll have you back soon. Justin, I really appreciate you coming on. Thanks, Jacob. Thanks guys.