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Lisa Dennis joins M5 Management Services, Inc.
by: Tim Harkins
 We'd like to introduce our newest member to the M5 team: Lisa Dennis!
Lisa has over 24 years experience in accounting and office management. She managed her family business for 8 years and has spent the last 3 years as Accounting Manager in the automotive consulting industry. She is a team player and always willing to go the extra mile to get the task at hand accomplished. She and her family reside in the Birmingham area. In her spare time she loves spending time with her family at their lake home.
Welcome to M5 Lisa, from all the Team!
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Chris Castillo joins M5 Management Services, Inc.
by: Tim Harkins
 We'd like to introduce our newest member to the M5 team: Chris Castillo!
Chris, a Florida-born, Alabama-raised 24 year old has 11 years of web and graphic design experience and five years of web application and software development experience.
Welcome to M5 Chris, from all the Team!
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It's a Game of Inches
by: Charlie Waters
As the NFL kicks off the new season, I can’t help but relate the automotive service business to football. Simply said – “It’s a game of inches”. Each roster is made up of the very best players, executing a set of processes, which are essentially the same for each team. If you’re an offensive lineman, then you wait until the ball is snapped and you “block your butt off”. Sure there are techniques and variances in skill levels, but that is the game of inches. Remember, these all were the very best 1 or 2 percent college players.
Rarely do we visit a dealership that everyone in the store believes that they are really broken. And usually they’re not. They just might be missing the techniques needed to take them to a new level. In the NFL that’s where coaching is important. In our business, coaching is important as well. Many of the techniques have never been seen by the service department staff.
Many times, as we do service advisor training, we ask the participants (advisors) to make a list of five or six companies that they enjoy doing business with on their personal time. Then we ask them to make another list of five or six companies that they DO NOT like doing business with in their personal time.
Next we compile a list of these companies and ask the advisors – “Why do you like doing business?” or “Why don’t you like doing business?”
This list usually includes restaurants, home improvement stores, clothing stores, fast-food and sporting goods stores to name a few. The overwhelming response ALWAYS boils down to – Their ability or inability to execute a process!
Nobody intentionally does a bad job. Either the process is not in place or they have not been trained and/or held accountable for executing the process.
In football, running the exact route every time and pinpointing the pass; or making the tackle rather than attempting it are the “inches” that mean a Super Bowl victory or a losing record. Are you taking your team to the Super Bowl of automotive service?
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Skid Marks
Skid Marks is an ongoing article series that shares the lighter side of working in a service department. All the stories are true. Brand names and real names have been removed.
Several years ago, a very loyal customer had just traded in his 100,000 mile compact pickup for a new one just like it. As he and I had become good friends over the years, he came back to me and told me that he had a secret that he had been dying to tell me about for 97,000 miles but he couldn’t.
The story it turned out was: At 3,000 miles he had changed the oil and filter himself. When he removed the original factory oil filter, the gasket stuck to the filter adaptor. Not noticing this, he spun a new filter on, put oil in the truck and immediately began his 200 mile trip across the state. About 60 miles into his trip (in the middle of no-where), the engine suddenly lost oil pressure and began to rattle. Before he could get off an exit ramp, the engine locked up. He got out and examined the engine only to find the oil filter missing.
In a half hour or so, a timber truck coming off the exit pulled over for assistance. After my customer explained his dilemma, the truck driver offered to drive him to a full service gas station where he could get oil and a filter. When they returned, the truck driver waited with him as he put the new filter on and filled the crankcase with oil. The engine was locked up solid.
Since the little pickup was manual transmission, the log truck driver offered to pull him with a rope. After a couple of attempts of popping the clutch, the engine cranked.
He drove the truck 100,000 miles with no engine problems and didn’t burn a drop of oil. He waited to tell me, in case he had problems during the warranty period!
If you have a funny story that you'd like to share with your peers in the industry please send them to newsletter@m5ms.com and we will include them in a future Skid Marks article. Please remember that we will remove ALL brand names and real names.
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