Engineering Efficiency: Redesigning Workflows for Growth with Matt Lewis

Hitting a production ceiling in your business isn't a lack of effort; it is a lack of altitude. Navigating the brutal transition from daily tactical operations to high-level strategic planning is the only way to break through plateaus and scale a company sustainably. Matt Lewis of Lewis Automotive Group, breaks down exactly how he restructured operations and empowered leadership to build a highly efficient, 300-employee enterprise.

We get into the exact mechanics of process engineering, from redesigning physical dealership infrastructure to optimize 4,000 monthly repair orders, to building workflow efficiencies that rival dedicated quick-lube chains. Matt unpacks the critical timing of immersing yourself in the weeds versus getting above the storms to call the right audibles for your team. The real turning point arrives when leaders finally accept the delegation multiplication formula, realizing that a team executing at a fraction of your perfectionism ultimately multiplies your total overall output.

The transition from the initial startup hustle to an established, mature enterprise is heavily demanding and requires checking your ego at the door when early strategies inevitably fracture. We look closely at the heavy friction of handing over the reins, the mental drain of chronic frustration when standards aren't met perfectly, and the harsh realities of de-escalating highly explosive customer disputes. You will walk away with a tactical framework for active listening and a "drain the swamp" conflict resolution method that directly converts your angriest critics into your fiercest brand advocates.

If you care about process optimization, scalable leadership, and building bulletproof operational efficiency, you’ll get a lot from this. Please Subscribe to the channel and Share this conversation with a fellow founder who needs to step back and look at the big picture. What is the most difficult daily task you know you need to finally hand off to your team but haven't yet?

Subscribe and tune in for new episodes of Big Talk About Small Business with Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Each week we focus on practical insights and real-world strategies to grow your business!

Stay Connected: 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigtalk.pod/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61564547079280
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/big-talk-about-small-business
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bigtalkpod
https://www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com/

Transcript

Welcome And The Real Agenda

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Here's what I've been excited about and and why I was listening to one of the podcasts I reached back out to Mark and I said, Hey, let's see if there's a time for me to come on. There's plenty of things we could talk about. But I think we all know each other well enough that we can have like a really good conversation.

SPEAKER_06 0:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 0:17

Where most podcasts go like you're just interviewing and extracting information and keeping it going. You guys disagree with me. Call me out.

SPEAKER_04 0:24

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 0:25

And like so we really give the audience something to grab a hold of.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Yeah. I think this is a great way to start. Okay. First off, there's very little that I anticipate I'll disagree with. Right. Okay, that's the one problem there.

SPEAKER_05 0:49

But there's gonna be something that I'm gonna bring up. Let me forewarn you about this, okay? Let me forewarn you.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 0:54

And I couldn't find the title of the podcast because I tried to go back and listen, because this is where I got the idea from. Is you guys either tipped into a subject, I don't know if it was the first year or the end of last year. My time runs together. Okay. Yours probably doesn't, but mine does. Um where you talked about working in the business versus on the business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's very controversial. And I love that. I think it's a great topic because we are gonna get in the weeds on that.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

All right. Love it. We are.

SPEAKER_05 1:25

All right. This show is started.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

And I have to leave it five till the end of the house. What? I'm sorry, I have to. I got a lunch meeting with the.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Well, last time he knows showed on it.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

That's hair. So this is I'm doing better here.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

He did that to me. He did that to me. I'm ten minutes late. So we're all off on a good start here. Hey, but this is Big Talk about business.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

And we're here today with Matt Lewis. Uh I I don't know exactly what his title is now, but he runs Lewis Automotive Group. And it's a fantastic, it's the best auto dealership and many other things. Ever in the entire state and probably the world for that matter. Um, but in any case, Matt is a brilliant guy. I've watched his pretty much his entire career at Lewis Automotive Group from the time he joined the business. In I've just witnessed an incredible like a father. Like a yeah, like a like a daddy. Oh man. What an intro.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

What an incredible trick.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Thank you. No, the transformation of that business over the last 18 to 20 years under your leadership. I mean, it's it's really been amazing, honestly. Um, so I I commend you for that. But um, so I know Matt wants to talk today. The guy I bring him into my classes every year. He's always one of the top-rated speakers, usually the one my students write about. Yeah. Because I don't get you all the time. They like you too. Okay. Thanks, Daddy. You're kind of crazy. Matt's just brilliant. That's great. But the uh, but no, he's always got a lot to offer, and and I, and I found that I've used a lot of the things that Matt talks about in real in my classes in real life. He's a very practical guy and he's a great manager. But I know, Matt, uh, one of the things you want to talk about today is working on your business versus in it. And you're a fourth-generation business, you got probably 300 employees, give or take. What do you want to tell us about that? Well, number one, thanks for the intro. Yeah.

Designing A Dealership Around Service

SPEAKER_05 3:50

And I've but I told you guys where this started. I was really excited about coming on today. And we we've all spoken before, we've all been on podcasts together. But because we know the ins and outs of each other, we can actually talk about, well, hey, you're talking about that, and I've seen that happen. Mark, you've seen during the different phases of my growth career-wise, when I would just change, you know, the subject stayed the same when I would come to your class, but it might have evolved a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Oh, you've evolved, definitely. You know, as we go through there.

SPEAKER_05 4:21

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

We're all learning, hopefully, every day, right? Oh God.

SPEAKER_05 4:24

I'll first say, you know, you talk about the the my position and what is that. I don't even know that this is relevant. But I'm now in that somebody asked me that the other day, and I was like, I've got to decide, do I call myself the president or do I call myself the CEO?

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:40

Either way, I'm running the business. Right, exactly. Or the janitor at some times. Yes. You know, that's working in the business.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

That's you were willing to do that.

SPEAKER_05 4:51

All right. That's right. But I'm excited to talk on here to share with others what I've learned along the way, what you guys have learned the way to hopefully help them. Yeah. Because I don't know about you guys, but where I'm at in my career is this dictionary of all these people I've learned from. I'm not the smartest person out there, but I find those people. Uh hell yeah. And I continue to find new tables to sit at.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Yeah, you do.

SPEAKER_05 5:18

Depending upon the phase that I'm at in my career or with construction, I knew nothing about commercial construction.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

You know a little bit now, though.

SPEAKER_05 5:25

I've got a very expensive education.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

You did your homework, though. I mean, just that's a great example. I mean, your dealership, how many different businesses did you visit before you we looked at a hundred in person.

SPEAKER_05 5:40

It was a 10-year planning process. Wow. But we really dumbed it down. And when when we go into this stuff, if you think I'm gonna talk at a doctorate level, you got the wrong guy. And I'm really blessed to be able to say, hey, let me find something really smart, and let me really dumb it down so everybody can understand it. Because when you look at all your employees, if they can't grasp a hold of it and they don't understand it, how are they ever gonna put it in place? And how's your business model gonna work? 100%. So when we were looking at commercial construction, I said, okay, I have no clue. I built up, built a couple houses, but this is a whole different monster.

SPEAKER_04 6:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:14

Number one, we got to figure out what we're doing. Let's assemble the right team. So over 10 years, I interviewed all the architects, all the civil people to try to make sure that they were meeting with what our goals were, what were our goals. And then we went and looked at over a hundred businesses in person. So every family vacation, my entire family knew either planned or impromptu at least half a day, we were going to look at businesses. Yeah. And they weren't just all automotive. You know, we got a ton from Blue Cross with Shield up here, a ton from Walmart, a ton from, you know, we couldn't go to Google, but we studied all of their spaces for their employees. We studied workflow, efficiency, a customer that comes. You know, we're in Fayetteville, so there's 30 plus thousand students that come every year that they're not from here. They all drive. So how do we make them feel comfortable when they pull into the dealership?

SPEAKER_04 7:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:04

You know, not like, where do I go? What do I do? I just need help with my car. Sure. And when you pull into our dealership, there's one entrance. Yep. And when you pull in the one entrance, if you don't turn, you will land in the service department. You will. You'll land in the garage. In the garage.

SPEAKER_04 7:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:20

And that's intentional. There is zero service parking out front. And let me tell you why that is. And Eric, you'll like this. We found at our old location, customer would come in for service, they'd park outside, they'd walk inside, find a service advisor. Well, the process on a service advisor is to go back out to the car, meet them, walk around, write down the concerns, see if there's any damage, so on and so forth. Well, that was cumbersome and not a good process for the customer. They find a place to park, they go inside, they go outside, they go inside. What is going on here? Let's eliminate parking, make it where they have to pull right in front of the service advisors so we can take good people and make them great by baking the processes into the infrastructure. And there's glass there. And it's glass, and which way are their offices facing? Straight out on the service lane. So car pulls in, they're staring at them, eye contact, all glass. Go take action.

SPEAKER_03 8:13

Yeah, experience as a customer there.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

100%. Beyond that, now the they have systems in place that'll tell you whether you need new tires or you need an alignment. You draw through speed, and you know that you're already being taken care of. Yeah, it's like this upgrade.

SPEAKER_05 8:28

So what we found throughout the years, and at that point in time when we were getting ready to move, is you know, we had 120, 140 employees, and then we were scaling up to 300 is we said, there's only so many superstars out there. There's only so many people that'll really care that much about your business. And the ones that do, they're probably not going to be with you for a long, long time. That's true. They're going to take their own ideas, you know, which you want to support them. They're going to take their own ideas, find a platform and grow it on it, whatever it may be. So, how do you take good people and make them great? That's installing fantastic processes that make people take action. So we just remove some of those variables. So when we would pull into other dealerships, and if it was around here, I took a core group of people and we pulled in, I said, Don't tell me about the cars, don't tell me about the colors, don't tell me how great something looks, show me how to get to service. We've never been here. We're pulling in Oklahoma City. How do I get to service? Because a customer, you say, Well, Matt, why are you talking about service? You got all those cars out front to sell. Well, a customer services their vehicle three times a year. They buy a car about every three years. That's a nine to one ratio. Exactly. And the stats show that if you'll take good care of them in service, you're 80% chance more likely to sell them the next vehicle. Oh, sure. So why don't we engineer the whole thing around that?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Smart. Well, you I mean, that's just one example of the planning that you put into this whole thing. I mean, it it's it's really something else. I think, you know, I was lucky that you gave me a tour before you opened and you could really see how it all was going to fit together. I mean, it it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 10:02

My brothers give me a hard time because they'll see me going on a tour and we will have given tours, but uh they'll say, all right, is this gonna be the 30-minute tour or the two-hour tour? Yeah, yeah, right. And it depends. I read my audience. Like, hey, are they really asking questions about how's the efficiency here? So on and so forth. And I know we've gotten off track here, but I think it's important that there are times as a leader you do need to get into the details. Yeah, yeah. You do need to yourself when there is an X factor. I agree. And what I mean by that X factor, let me give some numbers here, okay? If I had not paid attention to the service write-up process, that would have affected 4,000 repair orders per month, 48,000 times a year.

SPEAKER_03 10:47

Yeah. Damn. Okay, so digging in that a little bit more. So the the the service order process. Yes. Which means exactly what?

SPEAKER_05 10:56

So that means if you bring your car in for something as simple as an oil change, yeah, your check engine lights on, uh, something's happening with your car, you need wipers, you need tires, anything to do maintenance or repair on your vehicle to keep it on the road. We write what's called a repair order, which we call an RO. So between the stores, we write approximately 4,000 of those a month. Jeez. And if you look at the ratio again, when you look at our two stores, they're actually flip-flopped. And the reason that they're flip-flopped is so the service drive is in the middle. So when you pull in, you either veer left for Chrysler Dodge G paran or you veer right for Ford. Right. Why did we do that? 4,000 repair orders. It's really important to look at the facts when you make a decision, not emotions. 4,000 repair orders versus 5 or 600 cars sold in a month.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

Yeah. So you want your traffic flow to go where the volume is going. Yes. Now, did you look at Chrysler Dodge versus Ford on who which one of those brands is having more sales order than the other? For sure, Ford is. Because when I pull in, I go, Yes. It's more of a keep going a little to the right to get to Ford, but you go more to the left to get to Jeep. To get to Jeep.

SPEAKER_05 12:14

Um now the position of the stores, that that's a whole nother conversation.

unknown 12:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 12:19

But we knew that the plan is for CDJR then to grow where Ford is. We knew that Ford would initially have the biggest gain. Because to rewind the tape a little bit, our previous store, Ford, was 25,000 square feet. Okay, and we had about 14, 15 service bays. CDJR was 17,000 square feet and had 10 service bays. So you had about 50% more capacity at the Ford store. Plus, we had been there longer, our customer database. We got the Ford store in 46, the CDJR store we got in the mid 80s. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:55

Um, both stores now are 44,000 and some change. They are identical stores. Really? That comes out of Walmart's book. And the reason that is if you go to Destin, Florida, Chicago, or Northwest Arkansas, the super centers are the same. They could be flip-flopped where groceries are and home goods. No, you're right. And the reason is twofold here. Number one, as a customer, you have to feel comfortable where you're doing business. You ever walk in somewhere and like you're looking around just to try to get your bearings?

SPEAKER_06 13:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 13:23

Like, what do I do? Where do I go? And until you feel comfortable, you're not going to spend your money, you're not going to build trust there.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 13:30

Um, so so that was important to us. So the the stores are different colors, different furniture per manufacturer because we're franchise dealership, but it's the same. The offices are in the same locations, you know. Like I said, it's within 10, maybe 20 square feet of each other. Wow. The other piece to that is if you want a great customer experience, you got to focus on your employees first. So our employees, what happens with employees? They get sick. Yep. Okay, they go on vacation, they're tired. They have PTO, they're tired. Some of them no show. Yeah. Like, let's just be honest. If I need to move an employee from one store to the other, they know exactly where everything is. They know exactly what the desk look like, what the process is. It's not a hundred percent plug and play, but it's about as close as you could get. So they can pick up the ball and keep running.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

So on this uh order form again, so like you you talked about the the entry and the volume of the customer coming up, but did you get into the weeds of like customer comes in, I need an old change. Yes. And did you actually get into what does that form look like that the that the technician is filling out

Speed And Convenience Without Cutting Value

SPEAKER_03 14:35

or the service desk?

SPEAKER_05 14:36

So you you bring up there there's two pieces here. One of the pieces you didn't ask, I'm gonna go into, but let me first answer your question. Um, our software is evolving too because we went from about 2,300 repair orders a month to 4,000.

SPEAKER_06 14:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:51

So so you find out really quick the processes you had, while they were wildly successful in the past because they got us to the new location, right? May not get us to where we want to go. Ah yes. And people get stuck in that. They really do.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:09

And it's like, well, why reinvent the wheel? We've been in business for 75 years, we've been here forever. You know, don't mess something up that was a good thing. Well, if it's not scalable, if it doesn't line up with where you want to go, check your ego at the door. Let's be humble, let's figure out how to evolve. Amen. So we don't have all that figured out in software yet. Okay. So let me just tell you that. Um, we're getting better at it. But we did do is remove oil change from the main shop. So when we studied that, we said that's our highest frequency, is people getting their oil changes.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 15:48

Um we said, who's the best at it? Who's the best at it? It's not dealerships.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

It's one hour oil change.

SPEAKER_05 15:54

It's one hour. It's take five, it's Valvine.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Sure. They found a gap in the market. Dealers weren't doing it well.

SPEAKER_05 16:01

It's Walmart. It's yeah, you know what we found when we because we mystery shop everybody. Like all the time. I'm on everybody's email list, I get leads from everybody, we check prices on alignments and tire. That's just what we do. What we found was there wasn't an oil change place out there that was less expensive than us. Really? They were actually more expensive and they use less quality products. Wow. So we offered more value. We did a free alignment check, we wash your car, we do a multi-point inspection. Our technicians have to go through way more training than the quick oil chains.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah, I believe all of that.

SPEAKER_05 16:41

We pay more, okay? Our oil filters and our oil is all at a different spec than what you get at the other store. So why were people going there? Convenience. Convenience and speed. Exactly. Now the perception was that it was less expensive to, but that's that's not once you got there.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Well, they there, I would say convenience speed, and then on the perception side, I bet transparency had something to do with it.

SPEAKER_05 17:08

It does. And that's a big buzzword. That could be a whole nother podcast that we'll come over time into. So don't get me down because I still got something good to talk about. Um but let's get back to what we studied and what we saw there. So we would just sit there and watch. We took our personal cars to those places and went through the process to learn from others. Like, quit spending 20 years trying to figure out something that you can read a book, listen to a podcast, or just go do yourself. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

No kidding. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 17:36

You know, just take their ideas, rip it, make it a little bit better, and implement it.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

My thing with those oil change places, I dread it when my girls take their cars over there, be like, I want to whatever, I won't name any names. I'm like, they're gonna try to sell you an air filter. Yeah. You do not need one. Yeah. Bring your car home. I will blow it out with my compressor in 10 seconds and put it back. And then the next thing we hear is, I got a $178 bill. Why is that? Well, they said I needed a new air filter and showed it to me, you know, and it looked dirty. I'm like, dang it.

SPEAKER_05 18:10

So the other thing. Besides looking at that, we said, okay, how did they get their speed there? It should we put in pits? Should we have drivers? I have pits, a lot of them. What should we have?

SPEAKER_02 18:23

They do.

SPEAKER_05 18:23

We ended up putting in these quick lifts that don't have arms. You actually drive over the top of them.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:29

This shop is is it's not disconnected, but it's it's up against the other one. And it's got four bays in it, and you can pull all the way through, you can go around the other side. We removed anywhere where there could be a bottleneck for getting the car in and out. So it can do four at a time. We went to a two-man team, which is what the aftermarket does. So you have a two-man team doing everything. These quick lifts are 50% faster up and down to get them there. We piped all of our oil through all the systems, so they have pumps and they go straight in there.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 19:01

Fast. So we so we're gaining five minutes here, gaining three minutes here, gaining another five minutes here. You know, where our old chains used to be an hour and a half, we now can get one out. And our goal is not to get to 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_04 19:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:13

We said, hey, if the customer knows they're getting a better product, it's just got to be out of respect for their time. Let's get it 30, 45 minutes. Sure. You know, because we're washing it too. Yeah, did all the rest of it.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yeah, they can't do an alignment check at those places.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

They don't have the equipment. But guess what? As a customer, it might take a little longer, but I know one thing's for sure, I have a better environment to wait in.

SPEAKER_05 19:35

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

Well, yeah, and maybe I'll clean.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

I got maybe I'll get a new F-150 when it's there.

SPEAKER_05 19:40

You don't have to sit in your car or on the bench outside. Yeah. And not only that, you know, we we plug every vehicle in. So if it's got a recall, if it's got software updates, any of that stuff. It's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah, that's a really big difference.

SPEAKER_05 19:54

So that that's another thing. So we removed it from there. We worked on the write-up process better, we did a better multiple inspection. We're getting there.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:02

And just being transparent and honest, we're not where I want to be yet.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Ever. Well, you're never going to be met with anything because you're an optimizer. Yes. Okay. This is a guy, he he he works all the time and he's thinking about how he can improve all the time.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

Always improving.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Which is the key to the success, right? Being satisfied with the status quo means you're unmotivated in my mind.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Have y'all experienced so this is good because I experience continuous daily, always on frustration. Constant. Not meaning like I'm frustrated at people. Well, maybe I am a little sometimes at people. Oh, yeah, sure. But I'm always frustrated that we didn't do it exactly the way it could have been done

Delegation Without Chasing Perfection

SPEAKER_03 20:45

right.

SPEAKER_05 20:45

So I really struggled with that for a long time. And I still do some. And I read a book called The Motive.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

The motive.

SPEAKER_05 20:54

The motive by Patrick Linciani. Okay. Oh yeah, that's his last name right. Yeah. So the motive really helped me to understand and recalibrate my expectations. Now I was really concerned about that because I was like, I'm adjusting my expectations for my business. Why should I do that? Why should I do that? But what I found is, you know, every leader you listen to out there, they're like, empower others, or you can't scale, and there's only so much you can do. The trap is, is that you like give a little bit here, but you're watching over the top of it, and they'll never do it 100% of what you would do. And those are unrealistic, realistic expectations. I lived in that world for 10, 12, 15 years. I did. So I'd give it to them, and I hope you guys are laughing because you've been there. And then you end up going back and you, if you want to do something right, you got to do it yourself. No, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

That's a bad trap.

SPEAKER_05 21:55

Because you can't scale.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 21:56

You can't scale.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Well, like you you you've said in my classes. If you had five people doing 80% of what you can do, you're just still doing 400% of what you can do on your own. Five times 80 is 400. No, that's right.

SPEAKER_05 22:09

So that's what they talk about in the motive.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

I think that's a really cool is understanding your own expectations.

SPEAKER_05 22:14

Understanding. So you recalibrate and you go, okay, if I can get 70 to 80% production out of somebody else, and I can manage five plus people there, now I get a 350 to a 400% X.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

So it's a it's a it's about not being dissat, it's about not being, you can't be dissatisfied with the lack of 100% to be happy with the 80, 70%. That's correct. And because it's a multiplying formula.

SPEAKER_05 22:42

It's a multiplying formula. What you can't lose is the non-negotiables. But you gotta like narrow down the non-negotiables and go, okay, we still got to get to the goal. Okay, are we doing this ethically? You know, are we doing this honestly and legally on how we would do business? Sure. Sure. You know, and and I was sitting, I was sitting in church one weekend and and the pastor said this and it made a whole lot of sense to me. He goes, you know, there are different paths to the top of the mountain.

SPEAKER_06 23:10

Right.

SPEAKER_05 23:10

And as long as you get to the top of the mountain, if you got another leader in your business and they're not going your exact same route, as long as they're not sitting there like circling the bottom of the mountain and not starting to climb, right? Who cares?

SPEAKER_04 23:24

Yeah. Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_05 23:25

Now I did for a long time because I'm like, you need to go the exact same path I did.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

What's wrong with you? Yes. I want to, okay, now I want to go back to this working on the business versus in it because you have definitely done both. I know that one of your keys to success was you were willing to do any job. The employees recognized that about you and respected you for that. Okay. We all, you know, you talk about taking the trash out. I mean, at the last company I had where I had an office, I was the guy who dragged the can back in. Uh sure. You know, because other people wouldn't do it. And I was trying to set a good example and go, like, I'm not too good to do that, right? Mm-hmm. So talk about what you want to tell us there. Because you have done every job. And you do get in the weeds sometime, or at least you used to.

SPEAKER_05 24:25

Oh, for sure. For sure. Um, I've been on both sides of it.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 24:29

And I've learned a whole lot. And it's it's it's kind of a buzzword. I don't know if you guys have noticed that, but especially the start of this year. Hey, you're working on your business or you're working in your business.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

All we hear about constantly, everywhere.

SPEAKER_05 24:42

So if you ask me what I should do, let's start there.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:46

Both.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Yep. Yes. Agreed. You got yep.

SPEAKER_05 24:49

If you don't do both, you're caught in one of the extremes. Yes. Okay. I started my career, and and I hope this resonates with a lot of people. This is a tough thing to do. Most people, including myself, got to the position they're in by working in the business. Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Being good at doing something, right?

SPEAKER_05 25:10

Involved in everything. Sure. Walking, fixing problems in the minute, you know, shaking every hand, knowing the employees, not asking them to do anything you wouldn't do. By example, always being present. Yes. Like I mean in the weeds. And you gain tons of traction there.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Right.

SPEAKER_05 25:29

You do. It's how you learn the business. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

It's how you learn the things. And how you get respect from people.

Working On Versus In With Altitude

SPEAKER_01 25:35

It is a factor.

SPEAKER_05 25:36

And you can reach a pretty high level of success with that. But then you will slam your head into the ceiling. And I don't care how much you try to punch through, you'll just knock yourself out.

SPEAKER_04 25:50

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:50

You can't punch time in the day until you rise above your business. Once you rise above your business, that's called getting altitude. Once you get altitude, if we go to the aviation and you get above the storms, you can see what's going on. That then allows you to work on your business.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:12

If you don't rise up and you're not working on your business, you will max out on how you grow your business and opportunities within your business.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

True. But you got your business to a certain scale before you came to that conclusion. This is the thing. What kills me is when I see like five-person companies or ten-person companies, and they're like, I've got to work on my business and not in it. And you do like freaking window washing or something. No, no, no. Okay. I'm just strategizing about window washing. Somebody needs to be out there freaking washing some windows.

SPEAKER_03 26:51

That happens a lot in this in this whole venture startup culture. Oh, it does. I teach you to work on it, build the strategy, then you get the funding, and then they can't they can't lower the plane back into below the because you've got to get that thing landed and start taking off again and learning how to fight those winds and that storm. And you've got to be in it.

SPEAKER_05 27:11

You got to be in it. Got to. And there's a there's another guy I listened to. I don't know if y'all listen to Craig Rochelle or not. Craig Rochelle, fantastic leader, uh, that talks, and he talks about that. And he talks about it on his startups. He was in it, in it, in it. I mean, so was I. And it grew, but I was like, man, why can't I bust through the next part? Because I wasn't working on it. So let's look, let's give some advice to the people that have five employees. Okay. All right. How can they juggle both of those? Well, first, you just need to get started and immerse yourself in the business. In the business. Okay, you got your funding, you had your idea, now put it to work.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

I would say, Matt, that is as a lead as a owner or whatever your leader, such a hard transition subjectively. It's easy to say it, but when you like let's say you did pitch deck, go get your funding. Yes. Now you got your funding. Dude, you don't have much time at all. You better you better flip that over to the end. You better. Like with a hard flip, not a I'm gonna do it in two, three. No, no, no, no, no. The second you get that freaking wild. Now in a hundred, would you say a hundred percent?

SPEAKER_05 28:20

That's right. So I I like to relate things to sports, and I don't know tons about sports, but the reason I relate things to sports is a lot of people talk about sports. Sure. And I want to connect with people with what makes sense and what resonates with them. So then I told my brothers the other day, I said, so I listen to more sports just so I know what's going on. So let's talk about sports in this instance. So you sent all your highlight reels, you went into the draft, you got drafted. Now you better go to work and show up. Yeah. Amen.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

Draft day's over, baby.

SPEAKER_05 28:53

Draft day's over. The highlight reels are done. Nobody cares about your college highlights anymore. Absolutely. They're like, what you can't do work is show me.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

You got to play ball now. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 29:09

All of it. So that's the same thing in business. Okay. The idea, all right, you got buy-in. That honeymoon period is coming over. Now you've got to prove to everybody that it'll actually work, that you'll put in the work so it'll grow legs. So we're not talking about working on it for that startup.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Right. Right. Exactly. And and let me just say when it comes to that startup, and we're talking with a lot of people, uh, you know, a lot of our audience, they've got these five-person companies, ten-person companies, twenty-person companies, whatever, they're small, right? It's big talk about small business. So they they've they've got these these these small companies, and they almost all have the same problems. I I see this every time my students do their consulting projects with these companies. They they all they've got the same problems. Their accounting sucks. They don't know what makes money and what doesn't make money. They do absolutely no marketing whatsoever, and they tell you that word of mouth is the best marketing, and they hire people as cheap as they can and do absolutely nothing for them whatsoever, and then go, I don't have good people. Okay. Now, I just I just describe 95% of the small businesses out there. Yeah, they operate like that. How do you get these people to understand that if you want to go from this five or 10-person operation to the 300-person multi-generational company that outlasts

Startup Reality And Calling The Audible

SPEAKER_01 30:45

you to do some of these things, Matt?

SPEAKER_05 30:48

Well, number one is what really happens is exactly what you said, but then the key factor is they're still trying to work on the business instead of in it. So they can't identify, they've lost connection. Yeah. So you have to you have to descend in order to get connection. Yeah. Now, we'll talk about a bigger business here in a little bit. Let's stay on the five person. So they're in the business and they're evolving, and they're humble enough to go. What I thought we were gonna do looks different. And it's okay. Yeah. My ego's at the door. What the goal is, is to make this business successful.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Exactly. And rarely do they follow the plan that they started out on, right? You almost always I gotta go sports again, okay?

SPEAKER_05 31:39

The the best quarterbacks out there, what do they do when they get to the line? They read the defense. Of course. They call an audible. They don't just run the play because that's the play they said they were gonna run when they see a blitz coming and they're gonna get sacked just because they thought their idea was the best and they won't take another idea right here.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Yeah. That is so good. I mean, that's so good because you can get in that that that strategy trap. You go out, you have an idea, you build a strategy, you go pitch, everybody's everybody buys in, you get the funding, now you're in the game, and you don't feel as the leader that you have, you said it, the the the ownership to call the audible. You have to call the audible, and you have to go back to your investors. You better explain to them I'm in it, I see it, we gotta make it audible, or we're freaking screwed, and you have to fight for that buy-in. And by the way, the investors are investing in you to lead the comp their wealth or their investment into greater return.

SPEAKER_05 32:42

To lead the company, and I'm gonna cross over a couple things here, and I'll land this plane. You may start with your idea, and it will get the brain going, it'll get the business going, but it might not be the best way to do it. Somebody else in your company is gonna have a great idea. And they may not be at the same level as you. That's okay. Yeah. And and we talk about this and we talked about this in your class. How do we make a family business work? And one of the things I talk about, I said, well, when my brother Shelby or Taylor, if they have an idea that they're passionate about, and I see that it's gonna, like we've talked, and like it's gonna work and it makes sense, I don't take the idea from them. I support them. And all my employees see that too.

SPEAKER_03 33:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:31

I take a backseat and support them and let them take the lead on it.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

100%.

SPEAKER_05 33:36

If you do that with an employee in your business, you want to talk about somebody that'll run through walls for you. That's right. You know, who cares? I don't care if the spotlight's on me. What I care about is never been like that. Can I help all of these employees accomplish their goals? It's the old, you know, it's the old Zig Ziggler quote. Yeah. It says, help enough others achieve what they want, and you'll achieve what you want. That's right. Yeah. So, like you want buy-in from your five-man team. One of them comes up with a great idea, announce it in your quick meeting in the morning, and say, Hey, Bob's gonna take the lead on this. You support Bob, and then Bob maybe becomes the supervisor on that. He's got ownership and buy-in, which allows you to scale and you find somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

That's right. Well, let's go back to family business, though, for a minute, because I think that's something that your business has done extremely well. Um, to make it to the fourth generation. You and I have talked about this before. What is it like 3% or something like that? Yeah, I got under 3%. Ever businesses ever make it to the fourth generation. And I know, you know, a couple things that I've learned from you is number one, not all family members automatically get a job or a paycheck. That's fundamental. Is that number one? Oh, 100%. Yeah. And and and number

Empowering People In A Family Business

SPEAKER_01 34:55

two, I mean, you just mentioned, you know, Taylor and Shelby. They've got their roles. It's not like uh all three of you are a three-headed monster trying to do. They've got their defined roles that they have to function in.

SPEAKER_05 35:08

They do. And you know, you you talk about two, and and you've seen me for years now, decades, and I'm now in my 40s. I started in the business, you know, like real deal job, management job, and when I was 22. Yeah. It was it's been 20 years of growing to be able to run all the locations and all the dealerships. Yeah. Was I frustrated in my 20s and low 30s that I wasn't in that position yet? Absolutely. But that's what drove me.

SPEAKER_04 35:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:42

So any of us in the business have gone through each of the areas, have grown our skill sets, our maturity in business, gained some wisdom, and been patient to be ready to go.

SPEAKER_03 35:58

You know, and I think the going back, you have to go work in business in those areas to know that's where the wisdom's gained is when you're in it.

SPEAKER_05 36:08

You don't have to be the best. Right. And what I thought growing up, it was like, I need to be the best in every single department. No. And you know, when you when you're 17, 18, 19, 20, you know, you're full of it. You're just full of it.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

I love the ignorance back then. It was great.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

It's just like, no, I know it all. Get out of my should be the CEO.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

But you think that's the famous Mark Twain quote. I'm sure you've all heard. It's like when he was 17, he thought his dad was the dumbest guy in the world. When he was 25, he couldn't believe how much he'd learned over the last eight years. His father.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

Something to that effect, right?

SPEAKER_03 36:45

But when you it's crazy how much of my dad grew.

SPEAKER_05 36:49

But you do have to work in it too. And this is what I was meeting with one of our managers yesterday, walking him through. He's taking a new position. I'm helping him grow. And I said, you have to know enough about it to ask the right questions to gain the respect and get answers that you need to be able to work on the business. Sure. Take our accounting department for a minute. Like if I picked a position in the dealership that I wanted to do, like accounting's not my forte.

SPEAKER_04 37:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 37:15

I understand it. I pass the accounting classes. I can tell you how the numbers work. I can find the numbers. But to sit there and plug numbers into journal entries every single day and run schedules, I'm out. And our controller and our CFO, they're way better at it than I am. But I know enough to ask the right questions because I'm trying to solve an issue over here that they don't think like, man, he's stupid. His last name's just Lewis, and that's why he's in the position. Yeah, okay. Same thing like our diesel technicians. I know enough about working on cars that I know the difference with injectors and lift pumps and this and that. But to turn me loose on one of them and fix it, I only work on my own things because if it messes up, I can only blame me. But I know enough to ask the right questions. Yeah. In marketing and SEO and social. I can't write my own code. Yeah. But I can have an intelligent conversation with somebody that says, hey, I'm not going to pull the wool over this guy's eyes. He he knows what's going on here. He he knows about click-through rates. He knows about time on sites. He knows the X amount of clicks.

Sales As Discovery Not Pitching

SPEAKER_05 38:25

We decrease 20% every time we make a click.

SPEAKER_04 38:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:28

You know, I mean, he understands all this. And you only get that by working in the business.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Amen to that. Let's talk about working in the business, though, for uh on another level.

SPEAKER_05 38:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

One of the things I think that you've really excelled at is you're a great salesperson. You are not the um necessarily the most um extroverted person I know. People probably think you are. Yeah, I would think you are a no, he's not. His real nature is make it till you make it, bro. Smoke and beer. Hell yeah. But so, you know, you started out in this car business, you've sat there and listened to people around the kitchen table or dinner table, right? Your whole life, and then you get in it, and everybody knows, you know, that the car business, I think it's it's decreasing over time. But you know, car salesmen had a bad reputation. It was it was not a thing that that you know people looked forward to. I always loved buying cars, so it never bothered me. But you have changed. You you know, over the last 20 years, I think it's changed a lot as to how you sell. What what do you think some of the keys are to people selling anything?

SPEAKER_05 39:43

I mean, you you know, so it it's no different than software. Let's talk about software. Okay. Yeah. You're trying to solve a problem for somebody. Yep. And in order to do that, you must first do some discovery and understand what the problem is that you're trying to fix.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Yeah. So I don't just tell them everything about the vehicle, right?

SPEAKER_05 40:08

If you try to sell because you have the gift of gab, we've talked about this. I won't hire people because their mom or their grandmother said, Hey, you've got the gift of gap calls. So many times.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

You wouldn't hire Parker Dotson in 30 times. I have heard that so many times. I had somebody say that to me last week. Did you really? But that's why they sell. They've got the gift to gab.

SPEAKER_05 40:27

So let me throw this out and you guys can wrap your head around this. And it's the stats are actually higher than this now, but this is a stat I use. It's a few years old. The average vehicle has 20,000 moving parts on it. Wow. Okay, it's probably really closer to 30,000 now when you get all the technology in it of non-moving in those pieces. So if it has 20,000 parts, the average customer has about three hot buttons or motives on what they care about.

SPEAKER_03 40:53

Yeah. Can I try to guess them?

SPEAKER_05 40:55

How? Sure. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Color?

SPEAKER_05 40:58

Could be.

SPEAKER_03 41:01

Speed, safety. Yeah. Those are those are definitely two.

SPEAKER_05 41:04

Yeah, those are in there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Oh, speed, safety. Reliability. Okay. Utility value for what their function is. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 41:11

Fuel mileage. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:13

Towing capability, appearance, sound system.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

Oh yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 41:19

Capacity, whether that's towing capacity or interior capacity.

SPEAKER_03 41:23

That's right. I mean, people can e-haul.

SPEAKER_05 41:24

And let's kind of lump all this together. The service or the peace of mind. Maybe their car's out of warranty or in warranty.

SPEAKER_04 41:33

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:34

You know, we're all car people in here. Yeah. But there's some people who scares them to death. They're never going to open their hood. Yeah. So, like, why are you opening the hood trying to explain where all the floods go? I'm bringing it back to you. You fix it. That's right. What do I care? So if you do not figure that out, and so I have, I teach, I've got 20 product selection questions that I teach that I go through. And I never go through all 20 with somebody. But what I'm trying to do is to tank, let's call this a blank sheet of paper. I'm trying to fill this out for Eric. So I did a meet and greet, we get to know each other. I need to fill out this blank sheet of paper before I ever think about trying to sell you something.

SPEAKER_03 42:13

That's right. I need to know what your motive is. I need to. Ask questions.

SPEAKER_05 42:16

Because I might care about fuel economy, how many cup holders it has, and is it still under warranty? You're like, how fast does it go to zero to 60? Do I look cool in it? And does it have a subwoofer?

SPEAKER_03 42:26

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 42:26

And those are two different people, but they're both.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

Eric right there.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

That's him. He's all about subwoofers.

SPEAKER_03 42:32

No, bro. I'm all about towing capacity.

SPEAKER_05 42:35

So to you, to you, I don't need to talk about the fuel economy. No. Will it pull 40,000 pounds? I don't care if it gets four miles a gallon, it's me, bro.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

That's right. Dude, it is the best vehicle, by the way, ever.

SPEAKER_05 42:49

So but the mom that's expecting her fourth kid, she doesn't care about towing capacity.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

But but see, all that in my mind changes the image of salespeople. Like you said, you're just a problem solver. You're an advisor. You're not you're not aggressive, you're not trying to get them to do something that's not in their best interest. So here's the key to that.

SPEAKER_05 43:12

We've established what you need to be to be a good salesperson. But not everybody is that. How do you do it? You ask questions and you listen.

SPEAKER_04 43:20

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:22

If you don't, and you know, you guys ever get that question, and it's like the age-old question they ask people when they're on a panel. Hey, if you could go back and tell your 20-year-old self something they should know, what would you tell them? Oh, I got listening. I would, I I would just like at a basic level, I'd say be a better listener.

SPEAKER_03 43:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:40

And we could go, we've talked about this around like I can go down rabbit holes with the colours.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

What about like relations with your wife and stuff like that? Be a better listener. Matt, Matt's quite a light. He just freaking just ball me on that one, man.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Now let me tell you, he's the quick study. Now, he's a he learned faster than you and me. Listen, we're still trying to figure that out.

SPEAKER_05 44:03

Now, can I tell you how I learned that? I found somebody that's smarter than me. So my wife was going through some counseling, and one day I said, Yeah, I said, Hey, do you want me to go to this counseling session with you? And she said, Sure, will you? And we get there, and we're going through all this stuff, and then I'm a problem solver. Yeah. I I I fix problems. I'm a solution-based positive person. You're going to fix it. I'm going to fix it. I think what's coming out of her mouth as the man of the house and the husband, I need a solution. Yes. And that's why she married me. Yeah. So the counselor looks at me and says, Matt, sometimes you just need to listen.

Listening And Conflict Resolution That Works

SPEAKER_05 44:46

And I was like, what? Well, dude. And she's like, sometimes your wife just needs to vent. I said, okay, we need a key thing that she can tell me. So all I have to do is sit there, and you don't think of me less manly or as less of a husband.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

Big deal.

SPEAKER_05 45:02

I'm telling you. And so now she goes, I need you to just listen. So I just sit there. Yeah, that's so painful. Well, you know, man. Most of the time. Sometimes I still mess up. So the the whole moral of that is, is like I was okay and humble enough to go to the counseling session with her to learn from somebody smarter than me.

SPEAKER_04 45:23

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:24

With a customer, I ask a question, not to respond, but to listen so that I can solve an issue and I can get to the goal line quicker. If a customer has a complaint, and hopefully this will resonate with you guys because we we've all talked on the phone before about issues going on with our business and hey, I need help with this. I listen first. I don't just all of a sudden say, well, this, this, this, and this happened. I listen, I repeat what the customer says, I ask them if it's anything else. No matter if we were the wrong or the right, I apologize.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

That's such a brilliant.

SPEAKER_05 46:03

So the customer feels heard. And then I just got to give this tip, okay? Because this is so dangerous. Now only if only a few people are gonna do this, okay? So let me just tell you. This is a master class. Pay attention, listeners. But if you do this, you will be among the best of conflict resolution. I want to be one of the best. Okay, so if you drain the swamp and Eric is blowing up on me about this issue going on, hey Eric, man, I'm sorry to hear about that. I apologize for the way you're treated. Yeah. I'm sorry this didn't get fixed. Was there anything else? And he's like, Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, whoa, man, that's a lot. I'm like, so besides blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is there anything else? I must stick the thermometer in there first and make sure that the swamp is drained before I put the car and drive. Okay. Okay. And when it's done, here's the last piece. And I don't care if they've F-bombed me on the phone for 30 minutes. I got really thick skin and I know it wasn't about me. Yeah. They're just having a bad day, and instead of taking it out on their wife, they took it out on me.

SPEAKER_04 47:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:07

Okay? I said, Eric, first of all, I just want to thank you for taking the time to call and let me know about this issue. Because I can't fix anything that I don't know about. And second, I want to thank you for being so calm. If I was in your position, I would have been a whole lot more upset. When they've been F-bombing them, I love this.

SPEAKER_02 47:29

This is great.

SPEAKER_03 47:32

Now I've been heard. Yeah. I feel like that they appreciate me. And I actually did a good job communicating with them.

SPEAKER_05 47:38

Even though if you didn't, even though you were horrible. That's right. And if the customer that's F-bombed you and called you everything under the sun, guess what? They've done that to 10 other businesses. And if you can win them over, some of my best advocates out there for business are the ones where we got in the mud.

SPEAKER_03 47:56

That's right. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 47:58

And deep down, because nobody else wanted to deal with them.

SPEAKER_03 48:00

That's right. Yep. And now they finally got heard, and you are the best business that's ever existed.

SPEAKER_05 48:04

I had, can I tell you this? And then I know you got to talk. So I had this Australian guy, really big Australian guy. And I mean, this guy, people ran from him, okay? I mean, just bar fighting Australian. All right. And we got, I won't say his name, but we went through a couple of these, and he's a raving advocate for me now. In fact, his niece came and she needed a cash car, okay? Yeah. Needed like a $3,000, $4,000 car. We all know what a $3,000 or $4,000 car is.

SPEAKER_04 48:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:29

And it was an older focus with like $200,000 miles on it, okay? And he's out there showing it to her, and she's like, oh, the bumper's hanging down and this and that. He gets under it with zip ties and zip ties it up. Hell yeah. It says it's about the powertrain and it drives good. I'll fix this up. You go inside and sign the paperwork.

SPEAKER_03 48:49

I love it. Hell yeah. I personally have to go. Y'all keep going. Yeah. No, I have to I have to go to lunch. But y'all should keep talking.

SPEAKER_01 48:57

Well, there's one other thing I wanted to talk to Matt about related to this. But I gotta I gotta go. Okay, well, go. Out the door. We'll see it. Just see, go away. Dang, man. Go away. No, we're gonna wrap up. We're gonna rest. Yeah, no, we're gonna restart. We're gonna wrap this up, okay?

SPEAKER_03 49:17

Good to see you, brother. It was.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

So, one thing that, you know, back on this asking question stuff that you said one time, and it really struck a chord with me. Okay. It was like if you went out to dinner with somebody, let's say there's another couple, and your wife's like, we need to go out to dinner. And you go out to dinner with them, and the guy just talks and talks and talks about himself the whole time. He never asks you like, well, where'd you grow up? Where did you what did you do? What do you like? You know, they don't ask you a single question. Do you want to get back together with them again? No. No.

SPEAKER_05 49:53

You don't feel like you were connected at all.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

That is that has been such a pivotal thing. I've told so many people that, and I really just got it from you. It's like, if you want to make people like you just ask a lot of questions. You may tell them nothing about yourself, but in the end, they'll be like, boy, that Matt's a great guy.

SPEAKER_05 50:15

You know, that happens. And then the say we were talking about selling, and how do you figure out how to sell them? We got to ask questions to figure out what their hot buttons are.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Right.

SPEAKER_05 50:23

If you and I go to dinner and I don't know you really, yeah, I gotta figure out what to talk about that you're even gonna care, and we can actually have a conversation about. So I better ask some questions to figure out what are your hobbies? What are you into? Exactly. How long you lived in this area? Yeah. You know, what type of work are you in? So then I can go, okay, here's what we're gonna talk about.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

Yeah, exactly. It's such a great tool. It is. It blows my mind, okay? And you've said it before, selling. I mean, look, for any small business, selling is fundamental. It's it's if you can sell effectively, you're probably gonna make it.

SPEAKER_05 51:00

It's the number one paying position in the US. And if you're not any good at selling, most people think about selling. They think about somebody that sells real estate, cars, insurance, or furniture.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

No, that's true.

SPEAKER_05 51:15

That's what they think about. You forget that the art of sales happens with the bank to give you money, investors to do a product within a small group on taking your idea versus somebody else, on an employer to say yes to an employee in you.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 51:30

Like sales is everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

It is, it's everywhere. It's so fundamental. And there's just some tactics that you've learned that I think are really helpful to people if they will listen.

SPEAKER_05 51:42

If they'll listen. If they'll listen. So you you just you ask all those questions, you listen, and then you put your response together. And you know, I've talked about this. I'll go into a customer conflict or even an employee conflict. They walk into my office and I'm like, I really don't know where this is gonna go. I don't have my response yet, but that's okay. Because I'm sitting there taking notes and I ask questions to listen, not to respond. And I'm notes, notes, notes. Because then I want to make sure once I've gotten to the very bottom of it, that I actually address what's relevant. And usually the first or the second response you have, either as a customer or an employee, is not really the issue. It's just a surface level.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 52:24

And if you don't get down to what the root cause is, you're addressing it, you're band-aiding it.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

Right.

SPEAKER_05 52:29

You need to fix it, and it's gonna come back up to the case.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

It's a symptom. You're not getting to the cause, you're treating a symptom.

SPEAKER_05 52:34

That

Scaling Through Learning And Hidden Levers

SPEAKER_05 52:35

could be the same thing in a production liner, the process of your business. If you don't get to the root cause, you're just addressing the symptom, and then you're frustrated next week because the same thing comes up.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

No, you're absolutely right. I got one last question for you, Matt. What gets you most excited about being in business?

SPEAKER_05 52:56

At this point, is the challenge of scaling and taking our business, whether it's to the next level within one single dealership or multiplying it out. Um and and by doing that is how can I help others become successful? And I just you've heard me say that before. But if I will focus on helping them hit their goals, then all these ideas and all these big visions I have, they'll start to come together.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

So many business owners seem to me like they're so self-centered and selfish that they cannot understand that they've got to do things to make their people successful in order to propel the thing to the next level. I I I see this over and over again. They think their job is basically to minimize their labor costs. You're never going to optimize that if your goal is to minimize your labor costs. You you never will.

SPEAKER_05 53:57

And to wrap this whole thing in full circle, you know, we spend a lot of time about working in your business. But once you get to where your business and you've got 30 employees, you got 40 employees, you know, you've been in it, you've grown that up. If you don't then start working on your business, you won't see the opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:16

You won't see the opportunities for growth. Um, and that could be as simple as listening to podcasts, reading books, going to a conference.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:24

You know, I started with that on micro doses and I didn't even know it was happening. I would go to conferences, and that was a time for me to remove myself from the business, learn from other experts out there. Yeah. And I'm not in the forest.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 54:38

You know, I I've I've rose up enough in altitude so I can see what's going on and go, they're doing that over there in their same business. Why can't I do that?

SPEAKER_01 54:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 54:46

And then you descend back down and you implement that.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 54:51

But if you never work on your business and get around people that are like-minded, but at the next level, you'll never grow.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:02

You'll cap out.

SPEAKER_01 55:03

Yeah, no doubt about it. And growth is where the value is. I mean, I think that's another thing. People don't even understand why they want to grow. It builds value in the business. Sure. And it lets you get to doing what you do best. That's probably the most important thing, is the growth supports that process.

SPEAKER_05 55:25

And there is inside of every leader that has grown a business, if you don't feed that challenge and it goes dormant, even if your business is successful and you got a great return on investment, and it's been steady, at some point in time, you're going to get bored.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 55:46

You're going to get bored and you're going to lose your fire. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, at the wall process, it's going to go the other way.

SPEAKER_02 55:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:54

So that's where you have to then find a new challenge. We did something as simple as this. I'll I'll share this with you. And we continue to do this. I go to my accounts payable and I said, show me somebody, a vendor, that we write checks to consistently every single month. How much were those checks? How many invoices did they have? So they they collect all that for me. Sure. And then we have a meeting and we say, could we self-perform that work?

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 56:25

It's business we're already doing.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

Vertical integration.

SPEAKER_05 56:27

Vertical integration. Yeah. One of them as simple as we did, and you and I hadn't even talked about this, but about probably 18 months ago, maybe two years ago, we looked at all of our credit card fees. And we're like, can we not be the in-between person here that's getting all those fees? Maybe. I I I don't have any knowledge.

SPEAKER_01 56:47

Yeah, instead of paying all those fees. Instead of paying all the fees. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 56:52

So we found people a whole lot smarter than us. We ended up becoming the merchant in between.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 56:56

I can't tell you the hundreds of thousands that saved us a year.

SPEAKER_01 56:59

Yeah, that's really smart.

SPEAKER_05 57:01

But that again, that was working on the business, but then we come back down and work in the business.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 57:06

Every business has so much more hidden potential besides

Vertical Integration Wins And Closing

SPEAKER_05 57:10

in our business, selling another car or working on another car.

SPEAKER_01 57:13

Yeah, it does. And you know, the thing I love about your business and what you've done with it is it's such a great example of you're in this industry that's very mature. There's lots of competitors out there, right? There's uh you've said it before, all four dealers pay the exact same price for the vehicle. So how do you how do you carve out your territory in that kind of environment? Yeah. Okay. It's by a a lot of little things. A lot.

SPEAKER_05 57:47

If it was just you know this, but if it was just selling the car, nobody would sign up for that. The margin is so razor-thin.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

No, exactly. People don't understand that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:57

But you figure out all these upper opportunities, you know, it's kind of like if you get somebody that's in economic development, they look at like what's your overall impact to the community.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 58:09

Well, you have those within your own business.

SPEAKER_01 58:11

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 58:12

And there's plenty of things like we looked at one point in time, do we self-perform all of our own vending machines? Okay, that's that's pretty crazy getting down in the weeds like that. It was a good shopping block. And we're like, and we made it pretty far down the rabbit hole of going, okay, we can do this, but then we're like, okay, we need to hire somebody to do this and that. And then it wasn't worth it.

SPEAKER_04 58:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 58:34

So that I didn't got scrapped. And that's okay, you know, because you need a hundred of them for one of them. The credit card one worked.

SPEAKER_02 58:42

Sure, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 58:42

We we looked at toll trees, we looked at this and that.

SPEAKER_02 58:45

And it's like, wow.

SPEAKER_05 58:46

And you're going, Matt, are you sure? Like, there's a hundred thousand dollar car out there you're trying to sell. But remember, I worked in my business enough that then I grew somebody else to work on that. So then I elevate up to find other areas, descend back down to touch base with that person to make sure they're hitting the KPIs, how they need me, so on and so forth. And then I go to work on the next idea.

SPEAKER_01 59:10

Yeah. Well, you're a master. Uh, it's always um inspirational to me together with you. So if anybody wants to reach out to you, Matt, I know you've always been helpful to anyone I sent to you. What's the best way to reach you?

SPEAKER_05 59:25

So I I'm on LinkedIn, so you can find me Matt Lewis on LinkedIn. You know, you can find it anywhere on our automotive website at Lewis Superstore.com. And then we have a weekly podcast we put out there too that are just for business owners. We're getting close to that hundred mark of man, we talk about cash flow and inventory and firing customers, hiring the right people.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

It's all important stuff.

SPEAKER_05 59:46

It's all important. And what's the name of that podcast for everybody? Crossroad conversations with the Lewis brothers.

SPEAKER_01 59:52

Okay. And where do they find that?

SPEAKER_05 59:54

So you can find that on Spotify, you can find it on Apple, you can find it on YouTube. Podcast videos has helped us put all that together, you know. So we're big thanks to them. So uh, or stop by in Fayetteville. We'd love to give you a tour at any of the facilities. So me or either of my brother Shelley or Taylor just asked for, so we'll we'll help you out.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

Awesome. Well, it's very exciting to I encourage everybody if they haven't been to the dealership, just go over there. It's fun. You bet. There's always something going on in the parking lot. You got a tower of cool cars. The chair changes. You got food vendors on Friday over there, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:28

We do. We just had a big car show there. We had 400 cars and 1,500 people.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

Man, it's it's it's a party right there. It just it's fun. All right. Well, everybody, we thank you for being here today, Matt. And uh so we're gonna wrap it up today. And this has been another episode of Big Talk About Small Business.com. Thanks, Matt.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:52

You bet.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:58

Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk About Small Business. If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com, and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show. Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business. And be sure to head over to our website to read articles, brouse episodes, and ask questions about upcoming shows.