Q4 Strategy Sessions: Patrick Abad on Leading Through the Holidays

Paul J Daly: 0:01 Good morning. This is the automotive State of the Union Special Edition. It's q4 strategy week. All week. Today we have Patrick, a bad in the studio to talk about how to lead your team through q4 and the holidays and the emotions and the sales and end of year and the 13th month and all those other things that we all know are coming, Kyle Mountsier: 0:20 mainly the fact that there's 33,000 holidays in like, a very short time period, and how you even consume that as an auto dealer is nuts. Paul J Daly: 0:32 I know. Patrick, thanks for joining us. Patrick Abad: 0:34 Hello friends. Good morning. How's everyone? We're doing good. We're doing Paul J Daly: 0:38 good. We're doing better because we're with you. I know we don't want to take up a ton of your time or a ton of people's time, but heading into q4 there are always questions, and so we're covering what we think are critical areas all week. And you know, we thought about, how do you lead a team? We think there's no better example of you, someone who is in touch on the ground, in the dirt, with your team every day, and you've been around you've been around the block a couple of times. So for anyone out there who maybe doesn't know you could you just give us like the 32nd story of you in the industry and what you're leading now. Patrick Abad: 1:10 So yeah, 28 years, 98% of that's been with Toyota. I'm in Atlanta now. For the last seven I consider myself the luckiest guy in the world. We have an awesome Toyota dealership here that and now Mazda dealership. We got two dealerships on the same property. And, you know, I get to lead some of the most amazing human beings in our industry. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun. Paul J Daly: 1:35 There you go. Yeah. So it's beaver Toyota of coming, and beaver Mazda. And I just thinking you're gonna need to buy, like, all the Christmas stuff for the first time this year at the Mazda store. Right? You just opened. Patrick Abad: 1:45 We ordered it before the store even opened. No, you did not. We make, you guys seen it. We make our showroom so beautiful. It's all custom made stuff. So we ordered it back in July, so it'll be here in November. For instance, Kyle Mountsier: 1:58 got that price break on the summer Christmas stuff and everything knew it was coming. That's perfect. All right, so, you know, Heading, Heading into this, this is, there's, I think there's two dynamics at play that are really important for especially any retail operation you've got, you've got, like, one path that is, people need time with their family. Want to take time off. You want to honor that. But also at the same time, you're in a a heightened retail environment where you have holiday sales, Black Friday sales, you're thinking about how to prepare for that Christmas time off the last week of the year. And everything feels like it could take three months of prep, but you only get these, like little two three week cycles and pair that way, you know, pair those both together. How do you kind of go into this balancing both of those things? Patrick Abad: 2:49 Yeah, no, I think that's the hardest thing in the world that people do is try to balance. The fact of it is holiday time, which is supposed to be family time, but it's some of the most high performing days and weeks and months that we'll see in the industry, I think you actually, the smarter ones, utilize those holidays to inspire their people. And what I mean by that is, you plan these events like it will say Black Friday, right? Black Friday is, it's our biggest day of the year, right? We do 8090, cars that day every single year. Now with Mazda, who knows what we're going to do? That would be awesome, but, um, but, but you got to plan these events with your people. They have to be part of the planning on it, because when you do that, when they when they're helping make decisions on what time you're going to open, what giveaways you're going to have, what the marketing is going to look like when they're actually a part of it. They get bought into it, and then it doesn't become like they're forced to be here for those moments, right? They want to be here for those moments. And I think that's all that's a big piece of that is including them in what you're planning for that last week after Christmas, right? A lot of people in the world, that's a week they take vacation. That's and that's not that's a blackout week for us, that's a week everybody has to be here. But what you do up to those moments really, really matter. And what I say is, you know, your people, if they're going to have them here all week that week, find a way to give them some extra time up to that moment. Find a, you know, find them, give them time to go in the middle of the afternoon, go Christmas shopping for their families, so they not doing it last minute, like help them through that, to make those moments better. So when you need them at those end moments, when you need them in those days, it's never a question, and it always goes back to what I always say on on leadership. It's all about equity, and you can't go ask him for that week. You can't ask him to own that week if you haven't given anything up to them Paul J Daly: 4:46 ahead of time. I mean, how does this, this idea of bringing people into the planning? I think that that's just like a very funded, like, fundamental element of like people buy into things that they had a hand or some decisions making. I think. The gap there is, how do you practically do that? Who do you invite into the room? Because, you know, especially when it comes to marketing, we all know everyone's got an opinion on marketing, right? Like everybody's got opinion on design. So how do you decide who to have in the room? Tell us. Tell Patrick Abad: 5:16 us the secret between us three only right? Got it secret is, is, go find the most influential people in your departments. Go find the most influential people in the sales department. Go find the most influential person on the service drive, and let that person be part of it, because they they're the ones that everybody looks to for leadership. They're the ones that everybody looks to for guidance anyway. Paul J Daly: 5:35 Just bring them in like, even if they don't have the title, is what you're saying, they Patrick Abad: 5:39 don't need a title. They just need to be influential. And a lot of times, some of your most influential people are not the ones that have manager behind their title. Paul J Daly: 5:47 Man. It probably goes further if they don't have a title, right, because they're kind of like a man and woman of the people. Patrick Abad: 5:53 And the key is, like, when you're doing things, let's just say a Black Friday sale, when you're doing something like that, if you're going to do something. Don't half ass it. You need to go all in, you need to spend the money, you need to you need the time. You got to do all these things, because all you got to do is make it successful once. And everybody believes. And I think that's a part people, people like, we're going to dabble in the cell the last week of Christmas. We're going to dabble in the marketing and see if we can try to know you either go all in or don't do it. Because if you do something, you ask your people to be there, you plan this whole stuff, and you don't throw the kitchen sink at it, and it fails. The next time you need them, people are like, I'm not Paul J Daly: 6:31 doing Yeah, you're setting yourself up. You're setting a precedent for every time after that, when you have an idea that you go halfway in, you're going to be biting. It's probably Kyle Mountsier: 6:39 not going to work again, right? Exactly when Patrick Abad: 6:42 you think you did enough for it to work. Do more? Kyle Mountsier: 6:46 Yeah, I think this is, this is when, when we look at the fine line between expense and investment, you the tipping point, I think of something being an expense versus an investment, is the intensity in which you put effort behind it, right? Like, like coffee can be an expense, right? Or coffee can be an investment, but the intensity in which you put effort behind finding the best coffee, making sure it's brewed well, making sure that it's placed, well, how the cups are around it, versus, oh yeah, we get, like, you know, some coffee and like, I think someone puts it out every day, totally changes that. But that's the same when marketing, when doing an event, when doing a Christmas party, when investing in your community. The fine line between investment and expense is the impact and Patrick Abad: 7:39 effort. Man, that's very perfectly said Kyle. And I Kyle Mountsier: 7:42 think I've learned that from you, Paul J Daly: 7:45 like Patrick Abad: 7:46 watching you ever heard, I've never heard it put into words exactly like that. And we've talked about this before, but, but the way you just articulated that was pretty impressive. It's true, and it isn't always about the quality of the coffee, right? Yes, yeah, we have the higher quality coffee and all this stuff. But it is the presentation of the coffee. It is the fact that it never runs out. It is the fact that it's always hot. It is a fact that the cups are just a little bit elevated, right? It's the whole package that makes it more of an investment than it is an expense. Absolutely love Paul J Daly: 8:17 that. So there you go. There's there's Kyle's next LinkedIn post, right there. He just wrote it live here, Patrick, let me ask you a question. How do you leave the service drive in a time, you know, going changing seasons, heading into, you know, the winter season. I know you all in Atlanta, don't get a lot of snow, but obviously some dynamics change. Are you coaching or do you coach your people to do anything different during the holiday season, because you have a lot of customers coming in. The stress around the holidays, as we know, is just higher, right? Things are a little bit happier, but also a lot heavier sometimes. Patrick Abad: 8:48 No, I wouldn't say it's a coaching thing, because sometimes coaching can be taken the wrong way. What I think it's more of inspiring our people to be good humans in a really awesome time that people need. So you have two different types of people. And during the holiday seasons, you have the ones who love it and you have the ones who hate it, right? And typically, they hate it for a reason, yeah? So I wouldn't say coach them. I would say inspire them in those moments to just truly be the best version of themselves, knowing that the people on the other side who are either giving you their money or giving you their time, or whatever they're giving you actually truly deserve it, and that you have this chance to be influential to somebody that might be having a bad day. So you have two things. When you have somebody who's around the holidays who love it, man, that's uplifting for everybody, right? They're smiling, they're happy, they're in your service. Drive. It's just a good it's a good overall. Then the people who don't love it, you have a chance to kind of make their day a little better, make their week a little better, like let them feel something and and we see so many people in a car dealership in the day. Think about that math. When people understand the massive impact they can by being a good human being, that the massive impact they can make it truly inspires people. Kyle Mountsier: 10:00 Cool. I think one of the things that we've talked a lot about, but I don't even think on a podcast or in general communication, is the thing that you've implemented in Madison Park moments. And I think as you've done that over time, I'd love for you to explain what that is, but as you've done that over time, you've actually pre prepared yourself for not having to coach in the moments of a season of seasonality, but culture, right? Can you explain a little bit about what that is and how that's kind of like, it's level set for and meant for moments like this? Patrick Abad: 10:29 So it all stemmed from, you know, watching will go there on the stage of, of ASOTU con, right? And how he takes, you know, his book, unreasonable hospitality and how, just how we saw that is, although that everything he did was in restaurant, we saw what he did in the restaurants, how easy it is to do in the automotive industry. So we created this thing called Madison Park moments, and it's and it's this, we want to acknowledge our people for finding ways to do things that are just so unexpected in a car dealership and so unexpected in just humanity sometimes, but we find ways to truly enhance somebody's day, somebody's life, somebody's experience with us, and then we acknowledge those and and we have them all the time, and I'll give you a perfect example of one, we had a gentleman who came pre ordered his car. I think I told you all the story. Pre ordered his car. He had his dog with him. It was a six week pre ordered car came in that point his his dog had died, and he was going to pick up a new puppy right from our dealership. While he was in the F and I office, our guys ran to the pet store, got a dog collar with the dog's name on it that they hung on the rear view mirror. The guy, big old, burly guy, came out in tears like it was such a special moment, finding ways to create these very special moments, very, very special moments for people, and then we acknowledge them. And it's all stems from literally reading a book about creating these unbelievable experiences through normal through a normal day, just through a normal day. And we find ways to do that every single day here, and I think during the holiday season, that's super important now, all that good stuff, and I'm going to add this on it, because I think this is you're talking leadership through q4 right? You know, a lot of people can't wait to get to January to make their changes in their dealership. All right, for the new year, we're going to make the changes. Yeah, we're going to get expenses in line. We're going to do this, we're going to change this. We're going to change our marketing message in it. And if you want me to give any good advice, December 1 is such a better time to do that, because there's a lot of good things that happen in December. Volume is naturally better than most brands, right? You have the best week of the year. You have Christmas, right? You just came off Thanksgiving. Things are, things are very much good at a car dealership in December, yeah, right. There's a good feeling in a car dealership, a lot of a lot of people in December, that's when they're going around in Christmas time, and they're they're feeding the homeless, and they're giving gifts to kids that in need, and they're doing all these wonderful things. There's just good feeling in it. If you're going to make changes January 1, make them December 1, man, because wow. Because those things, those great things that are happening, pull your spirit through. Because a lot of what times, what happens is you make all these changes in January, after you come off this high in December. Oh, full holiday heading over, right, dude, the fall from the top hurts real bad. If you make changes December 1, the ones that you need to make in January, if you make them December 1, you will pull through those changes so much easier and a lot less damage in your stores. Just wow, that's Paul J Daly: 13:45 a great insight, because you even think individually, what happens after the New Year, you've got exerted all this time energy, and even if it's a bad season, all this stress, like, you get to January and you crash, and then just when things can't get any worse, you get your credit card bill from all the like on a person, right? From a personal level, so like, no one feels like, like, let's shake things up and make change, right? Everyone hates change. Change is fear, man, I wish we had more time, but I got to roll the music. Kick this off so strong in this q4 look ahead strategy week, Patrick, thanks for sharing some time, and thank you for making this an industry that everybody should fight to join. We'll see you.