Russell B. Hill (00:23.95)
Hey everybody. How’s everybody doing out there? I’m your host of WTF Russell Hill. And that’s what the fixed ops to all of you out there today.

I’m Charity and we’re excited. We have Nick Ruffalo with us today, the director of fixed operations at the Roarman Auto Group. Nick, welcome to WTS.

Awesome guys, thank you. I enjoyed being on and thank you for the invite. Yes.

Absolutely.

Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do, Nick.

Nick Ruffolo (00:56.782)
My name is Nick Rufalo. I’ve been in the automotive business since 1997. So I gauged myself real quick. So it’s been a long term in the auto business. could first say, you know, the sayings out there, if you love what you do for work, you never work a day in your life. And I can tell you, I’m walking those shoes now because I’ve been in it since 97 and started off with washing cars out. Here I am as a corporate director with the Warman Automotive Group, one of the largest auto groups here in the Midwest.

So a little bit about myself, passionate in what I do. You know, the opportunities I have is not so much in the fix-up size when people look at your sales and your hours per hour row and all that, you know, as advisor man’s mindset. But ultimately, I like the customers where maybe we drop the ball somewhere, you know, whether it’s on the variable side or on the manufacturer’s side or what have you. that’s an opportunity, I think, when we have a guest in front of us to earn that customer for life.

You know, if we do it right. Big on motivating the team and watching them grow. That’s one of my big whys. The why I do it. Granted, you go to work, you’re going to earn a living. You know what I’m saying? And the automotive business, as Metro Bus know, is pretty much a glass ceiling. You know, so you can make what you want and what will you put in the drive. It would be very successful. But my big why is watching the

the team grow around me that I put together and watch them have that same opportunity and strive for and then become successful for it. So many success stories, much in our auto group of what I, you know, kind of came off, right? From washing cars to advisor to a manager role and we have these individuals now that are in our group. And I’ve been with the Warman Automotive Group now since 2008. So pretty long tenure and relationship building with the team.

and our customers is a big why. Enjoy doing it.

Russell B. Hill (02:58.826)
It let me, let me, you know, I, I met Ryan at a Soticon last year and the Rorman automotive group is kind of, it has a, a name that resonates with cutting edge technology, leadership, servant leadership, empowering your people. I love the way you started with the why, cause everything’s really about the why everything else kind of falls into place. And, you’ve been with Rorman for.

quite some time now. How did you get into fixed operations? And more importantly, when you did and as you excelled or did whatever you did, because you just listening to you, you’re very passionate about what you do. But how did you get on with Roarman?

Russell, I love that question. I really do. And this is something we can have a whole podcast on, right? So I was going to school and originally I was working at a Dominics, I was stocking shelves, okay? And the local dealership where I brought my first car from, I was there a lot and they called me up asking, you know, how things are going, do you want to follow up on my recently used purchased car? My parents helped me co-sign on at 17 years old, right?

Love it?

And I just told him, I thought, you you guys did a great job. And I was just being honest, you know, I mean, I wasn’t used to stuff like this, you know, as a teenager. And I decided to change what I was doing for work while I was going to college to study and to be a police officer. So was taking criminal law, you know, taking business courses as well. And started off as a use car porter. So my OCD, I think, got me very far in my

Nick Ruffolo (04:39.704)
part of that aspect of my job because our line, I mean, our cars were lined up, plate frame straight, string line across the board, six feet in between car doors. Like I get like that, right? One day the service department was a little bit backed up. They were shorthanded. was customers calling, phones were ringing like crazy and the Frick’s ops director, my mentor that we still talk today and he may even be working for us here shortly, right? He’s like, Nick, I need a hand real quick.

I need you to grab a bucket and come see me when you get the bucket. Go get the bucket from service. I hate to say guys, I grabbed the bucket. I looked at the Porter Bay and I grabbed the bucket. It was empty. I come up with a bucket. I’m like, what do need me to clean? He’s like, I don’t need that kind of bucket. And he shows me like this metal bucket that does not look like a bucket. If you’re in the automotive business, everybody on this call is watching. You know what bucket I’m talking about, right? We have an infinite amount of service. So he shows me, I grabbed the bucket. He’s like, I just need you to read the invoices to the customer when you call them. Let them know their vehicle is ready for pickup.

And take them for their service. was like, that’s all you want me to do? He’s like, yeah. So he sat on this stool, watched me do and listening to what I was doing and got customers calls. I’m having conversations with people like just. I’m a social butterfly. I’m a high I, get it right. And I’m gone. He was like, want to come up to the desk? I was like, no, I’m good. You know, I’m like, I don’t know what you guys do. I’m good with cleaning the cars and so forth. I’m like, I’m good. You know.

This is what you do, it just floats.

Nick Ruffolo (06:08.478)
And, I took a leap and I went to the desk after about 90 days. I was number one, number two advisor and different metrics that they were monitoring us on. CSI was up there. Next thing I know they’re sending me boo oval certifications and so on and so forth. And heck, before I was 19 years old, I had keys to the building. I, I thought I was the big dog in town, you know, get to galvanize this around your friends and know, winging keys around and you know, I’m opening up Saturdays and I just felt like I had some leadership.

I went full round in it and it turns out, it’s a semester before graduation, I dropped out. Quick little story on that aspect. I’m first generation, so my dad came here from Italy, so he didn’t come here with much. I got the reminder of, know, I want you to go to school and do I work at the way?

That’s a tough one to overcome, yeah. It was.

It was because that bloodline goes far back and I’m first gen and know, it’s just a lot to my dad, know, to put his first kid through college. So I promised my dad, said, listen, if it doesn’t work out, I’ll finish my degree. I go, but I want to try this. And my dad and my parents are probably, I mean, remarkably interested, impressed him, you know, where it went to. you know, they get together and I say, oh, my son was on Fuck News and here’s, you know what I’m saying?

If someone would have told me at 17, 18 years old, this is where I was going to be at, one, would disagree with you because that wasn’t my drive. That’s not where I wanted to do. I wanted to be at a police office, not the right you’re taking for speeding, but find the guy that’s not doing the stuff he’s supposed to be doing. know, blue jeans, shirt, door down, you know what I’m saying? Tackle to the ground. You know what mean? And at the end of the day, I looked at him like, you know what? I’m kind of doing the same thing right now though. There’s times when you got blocking and tackling.

Russell B. Hill (07:49.411)
Yeah.

Nick Ruffolo (07:56.962)
I have staff and team members that come up to me and sometimes I got a different hat on where I feel like they’re sitting on a couch at my house and just sharing some feelings, you know? And to have a team that surrounds you by hundreds, even one or two of them reach out to you, I mean, that’s impactful for me. It’s like, wow, you know what mean? That’s kind of what you want to talk about stuff like this. And I find myself leaning more towards the younger crowd because I have three sons as well. One of my kids is

just underneath master level, expert level, actually, with Kia and our Kia store. So, you know, and when the kids are coming in and I’m hiring them early on as porters and loop tacks, and you our son’s 18 and 17. You know what I’m saying? So it’s like, we can relate now and watch them and understand and build some work ethics with them and pat them on the back when we did it, you know, get recognized, you know.

Let me ask you when, when, when you dropped out and your parents, they wanted you to go to college, get a degree, et cetera. And you said, if it doesn’t work, you want to do this. You’re obviously very passionate about doing this. You wanted to give it a whirl and you thought you could make it work. Did it. And if it didn’t, you’d go back. Did they support you and lift you up at that time as well? Yeah.

Absolutely. I can’t lie. My dad wasn’t very supportive when we had the conversation because that conversation wasn’t 10 minutes long. I tell you that right now, it was sitting at a kitchen table, you know. You know, and it got to the point where, you know, old school way of growing up. He’s like, well, if it’s not working out, you’re paying rent. You go to school, you don’t have to pay. So you better have that job. You don’t have a job, you don’t have a house. I was like,

Yeah

Nick Ruffolo (09:42.99)
you what mean? And then I got to the point, he’s like, you know, Nick, if this isn’t really what you want to do, then give it your all. But if it doesn’t work out, don’t just, you know, kind of be stuck on it to prove a point. You know what mean? Like, because you know how our kids are, you know what I’m That’s all right, you know, but.

But I also know ADHD type A obsessive compulsive that if you want something you go after it.

the I got a healthy amount of ADD as well. You know what I’m saying? I have to keep myself task oriented and so forth, but you’re 100 % right. It’s going to be hard to tell me no, you know, or vice versa. Like Nick, I don’t think that can happen at that store. I don’t know they’re going to get that car count up or that gross. Now it’s a challenge accepted. You know what I’m saying? I can’t take it’s always been done that way, you or that’s just how it’s done. No.

And you just find yourself with your head more on you know, on a swivel than you do just trying to stay stationary. You know what I’m saying? Cause you can’t, so many moving pieces, you know? And if you like that, if you have that energy and you’re fast moving and fast pace and you got the will to grow and watch people, then I think you’re in a good position.

Yeah, absolutely.

Charity Dunning (10:57.186)
Well, let me ask you a question, Nick. Tell us what makes your day easy and what makes your day hard.

Russell B. Hill (11:07.726)
But she put together some questions and some of them are going to be like really like you’re going to have to think about it. I hope.

That’s actually a great question because easy’s and hard’s can also go by, know, what are we working on and what are we doing? Easy could be in a meeting setting and, you know, your team is picking up what you’re dropping and they understand they get it right away and we go on. It’s easy, right? Hard time is maybe having that hard conversation with one of your teammates that you build this relationship with for now you got to sit down with them in a hard aspect and say, hey man,

Is this really what we’re gonna do? Is this what you want? You know what I’m saying? Because maybe your performance isn’t there, the culture isn’t showing that, you know? Hard is, you know, sometimes multitasking, you know what I’m saying? And you know, you got calls coming at you left and right, and there’s times when it’s like, wow, what a day. But then you don’t go home in a bad mood, you know what I mean? You just, you go home like accomplished enough, you know what I’m saying? If you didn’t, you do it the next day and tackle that one and it just gets easy. And staying organized.

makes it easy, you know? Having a team that you build around you that you try to find, you know, the culture fit person rather than a high performance, because I feel strong enough. have no problem teaching skill. The hard part though, to your question is the teaching the will, right? So, you just got to, know, there’s a lot that comes with that. And we can talk about that for…

a while, you know, we’re getting the details on it, you know, overcoming our customer objectives, you know, and getting the greeter to really greet the customer the way we want them to do it, you know, hi, no, that’s not what we do, you know, welcome, you know, my name is, you know, welcome to Schomburg Kia. Is this the first time you’ve been here? I’m in our store right now. We got one of the largest Kia stores. Bring them, them the store. Don’t worry about just taking the pictures of the car. Come on, I want you to them the new store. Let me get you a cup of coffee. In the meantime, this gentleman over here is going to get your information, but come right back here finish what you came in for the oil change. You got a couple minutes. I love to show you the store.

Nick Ruffolo (13:09.326)
Welcome like they’re coming to your house. Part of being in the Roarman Automotive Group though, see what I’m saying? When you lean into technology today and you become innovative and you’re thinking outside the box, what are our customers are normally looking at and how they shopping today? All of us are consumers, right? We know what our experience is, right? We need to deliver that down in the drive. So depending if it’s the process, how it was set from the top down or if it’s the…

You know what? That’s everything.

Nick Ruffolo (13:37.74)
tool that they have, are they using the tools, the technology set up, the way it makes sense for the store, right? You know, in our DMS, when a customer pulls in and the RFID tag is read, you can have it set up with a push notification that goes over to the advisor. People right through their cell phone through the app and go through their computer and can say, hey, you know, Charity just showed up for service. You’re walking out there. Good morning, Charity. Welcome back. You know, you have an appointment with me. My name is Nick. You know, see you got your genesis in here for today.

or appointments indicate that you’re due for wheel change, tire rotation, and wheel balance. However, you know what? These are staggered wheels. I still balance them for you, but I gotta put them back where they came, because I can’t put the wider ones in the front and the more narrow ones or the ones in the front back to the back. It would just change the handling and the performance of the vehicle. You wanna be happy with it, you know? And just, now we got a conversation.

Yeah, hell just just saying her name. Yeah, is is huge people, you know, you know.

We’ve all taught this and we all have been taught this and I know we’ve shared it. All of us that are on this call, including ourselves here, right? You would never have a portion just walk into your home and let them go find their way around to the living room, to the bathroom, to the kitchen, right? Regardless of charity, if you’ve been coming to my house for 30 years, right? And you open up that door, I’m just gonna bring it in and tell you, hey, you know where everything’s at, feel comfortable at home. Never been in my house before, Russell. I gotta walk you my house, right?

I hear you. Nose.

Nick Ruffolo (14:58.862)
Everyone’s gonna be over. We’re gonna all gonna be downstairs. We’re having a card game. gotta use the bathroom. Russell, know, it’s from here. I got a bathroom upstairs. I got one downstairs. You know what? Nobody’s looking at my wife’s hand.

Nick Ruffolo (15:09.058)
You shouldn’t have to ask. You know, if you asked, means I didn’t do a nice introduction and you may not feel as comfortable. It could be a friend of a friend. You know what I’m saying? And if I’m inviting you to my house, I should welcome you then when you get there, you know, so, you know, it’s just, sometimes we just got to have these reminder meetings too. part of that again with the Roman automotive group, we, we, meet quarterly and we have a Roman recharge sessions where the director team and our folks over at Banyan and even our advertising media company, we’ll all get together.

And we discuss on what those sessions are going to look like and what the purpose of it was. To pull people out of a store and have them sit there and talk and meet and everything else. If they walk out or not with a full clear understanding what the purpose of the meeting was. One, they should have never left the meeting and they should be feel secure enough to stay and ask questions. I’m going to take it back to elementary school. Okay. How was this student? That’s me because I was in the hall.

I’m sorry.

because I ate in the kitchen and I had to be the class clown. So after everybody left, I got out of the hall and I had to go back to the classes.

Yeah, I’m familiar with that. in those days, there was actually, they used to paddle it.

Nick Ruffolo (16:19.694)
I went to a Catholic school and I got hit in hand with a ruler a couple of times. name was Sister Ann. And then we went to a public school and I wasn’t worried about Sister Ann no more. You know what I’m saying? But again, just, know, clear understandings and envisioning the drive from where we’re going. And I am a firm believer in that from the date of hire, even if it’s a little techie, they got to know what their career path looks like. If not, it might be leaving to go somewhere else to figure it out. And that’s when it’s hard.

I hear it all the time, it’s hard to retain technicians, it’s hard to find them. Look back for just a second, because the demand is there, the guys are out there, they’re working. You know, coach from one store to the next, it actually make it worse for you if they’re overperforming what you’re doing and the expectations were there and you don’t meet them, they’re going to leave again, you know. Fortunately, that can spread like wildfire when you send them for the training that you’re paying for, right? The final thing when I look at it is like, I’m going to send someone to training, text talk, right?

managers talk, advisors talk, right? We’re in the business. I want my technicians to be able to answer the other technicians from other locations, like how’s business? You gotta come here. Like, they got this, they supply toolbox, they do this and this and this, and they pay for this. Hey, they even flew me out here to make sure I got my education. And I’m one that will always support the level of education because if my techs aren’t up to par or my advisor’s not sure about the product, it’s pretty embarrassing if you have a consumer walk in and they know more about the product.

special ones do. Brand names sitting on your building, you know?

man, so true.

Charity Dunning (17:48.494)
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They train your staff, drive traffic, and tighten up processes so your results stick long after the tool is turned on. And everything they do is built around one goal, growth that is real. If you want more service traffic, follow up, and a partner that’s always a step ahead, check them out. Visit gdsdealers.com, follow them on LinkedIn, at GDS Dealers, or just shoot them a message and ask, what would you do with my store? And see what they come back with.

Global dealer solutions, process driven, people first, always on it. Yeah, that reminds me of a question. I wonder if this will be your answer to it. What aspects of this fixed operations do you think we’ll always struggle with? No matter what.

Good question.

Nick Ruffolo (19:17.634)
That’s an awesome question. Are you talking internally amongst departments or externally like?

Could be either, really. I mean, what stands out to you?

Internally, here’s what something that it always have stood out, right? And I know for sure in our group, we do a very good job in eliminating that from before, right? And I’m to talk silos, okay? Internally, silos shouldn’t be up between sales to service, parts of service, F &I to service, whatever it is, we’re one big large store, right? And, you know, it’s almost like the same, I don’t know if it’s a good analogy, but I’m going to try to use it.

It’s like going into the Home Depot. If I’m walking around in the electrical department, right, and I have a question on lumber, either A, they call the guy from lumber and they call him and they walk me over there. If you’re at a great store, we’re good progress, right? But it’s not one department saying, it’s not my job. me, you know I’m saying? Like they still try to help and assist. And another pet peeve of mine, blaming another department within the store. It went wrong when you’re, it’s same customer.

Like this last thing, like if I was a consumer and Russell, you’re my advisor and Charity, you sold me the car. Charity promised me something on the wheel, right? Slipped through the cracks, made it into go digitally or, you didn’t bring it, right? The advisor should never say, well, you know, you Charity does that a lot. I can’t believe she did that. Let me try to get a hold of her. Now I got to go to sales. Like it’s just, what’s the customer’s perception now? You follow what I’m saying?

Russell B. Hill (20:52.46)
Well, I have the same pet peeve around that kind of stuff. Not accepting and assisting. Yeah. Cause we all, we’re all part of the same team, but the silo stuff existed and still does today. But it sounds like you’ve knocked down a lot of those walls in the urban group.

We have collectively changed the culture from years back, right? And another thing is what we do inside the group, which I think is phenomenal, is the amount of training that they provide to a leadership team from us down, when it comes down to knowing yourself, your self-awareness, whether it’s going through the Working Genius platform and really knowing you that doesn’t change, or your disc profile, how that reflects you, knowing that you are an I, you’re a big influencer, and so forth.

Then you learn that now you’re learning your customers and your team. That’s right. I have 20 managers underneath my belt from Wisconsin down to the Westmont in Illinois. So it’s like a 60 something mile range between where all my dealerships are at. So you have 20 different managers with 20 different personalities. I cannot talk and have the same conversations the same way. The message to be delivered to them, understand it, but they all understand it except things a little bit differently and learning that.

I think it makes you a better communicator for your team or customers to understand.

No doubt. Yeah.

Nick Ruffolo (22:15.128)
We were bringing this up because yesterday’s meeting was about internal communication at one of my stores. And we the whole team up here, the reporters up. Yeah. Yeah.

I’m sure it’s something that’s not ever completely solved. You have to keep working on it over time. And speaking of things that you work on, can you tell us about a process change that you’ve experienced, that really delivered on the returns?

On a process change, I love processes, right? Processes that cannot be smoked, okay? And I actually took that term right there from Mr. Ryan Morgan himself, right? We’re big on data, right? And all of us know how we can manipulate a number around the ways, right? We do as best as we can where we’ll catch up as manipulator and output. Data, process. One of my favorite ones is, okay, amongst a lot, is our tech video process, okay?

actually.

Nick Ruffolo (23:09.85)
Back years ago before tech video was really, it was kind of coming about, we were using other software and we were doing a lot of photos and sending them to the customers and we were ability to do video. This was before we transferred from CDK into TechNet. Going through now the tech and DMS, it’s built inside the DMS, he’s reporting on it, the open rate, the share rate, the customers, what they engaged on, like there’s, it’s elaborate, right? When I start thinking, I’m like, you know, tech video, like going to the doc,

Okay. Most of us don’t trust the nurse or the good reader, right? Makes your vitals, you know, they’re just getting you ready for the doctor, right? When the doctor comes in, most of us won’t second guess or challenge what a doctor has to say, right? My doctor are my technicians. Okay. My nurses, my advisors, and I told the advisors and I told the techs, if you guys work together on this, we speak the same lingo. Technicians like to use,

Definitive lingo measurements precise 32 seconds millimeters, you know, I’m saying the weep hole leaking from the water pump. All right, cool. You put that in the video. Very technical, right? We’ll go back down to the measurement. My big thing was if we’re to talk measurements, we’re going to correlate it still with the green, yellow and red. We’re going to use something that the customer can relate to, right? Maybe a set of, you know, two business card thickness of millimeters or whatever. We’re going to get a little more definitive.

We got it so detailed in where I have finger pointers on the video. Good. You’re doing a video and you say, here’s your brake pads. If you’re a customer and don’t know what brake pads look like or what they do, I’m not sure. They’re right there with a little finger pointer. I actually have it somewhere over here. I was messing with it earlier on the video. They’re right here. And next to the finger point is my gauge. The level of transparency that we can show consumers. I want you to challenge what we’re telling us and go send it to one of your buddies that’s your technician.

And send them the video. Hey man, I know you’re busy, but does it make sense should I do this stuff now? If I could give that level of transparency and the customer understands that we, you know, we got the, we’ll go down that road now to certified tax, know, laser and graze equipment, you know, what everybody else preaches. But when that guy’s like, yeah, go ahead and do it. You know what I’m saying? Or you know what? That is legit. You know, I can help you. Hey, you didn’t do it with me or not. At least you know we’re truthful. Right? That’s, that’s the ticket because there’s going to be a time where

Nick Ruffolo (25:37.582)
That buddy that has the ability to do it in the garage or has their own shop. We might have a lot of friends, right? There’ll be a time when they can’t work on that car. At least they’re going to say, you know what, that dealership you’ve been going to, they’ve been on point, man. Let them work on the car. I can’t do this, you know? Or it might be a referral from Russell to charity, right? You guys are working together. Russell tells charity how much of this is amazing experience that you had at one of our stores. You show them the tech video. We have to do all that. Yeah, but you’re, you have a Nissan. I got Toyota. Hey, they got a Toyota store.

Russell, you know what my win is as a service manager? You share my contact information and charities calling me saying, hey, I heard you got a Toyota, so if you work on my Toyota, know, who’s the service manager, who do I gotta go see? I won.

Okay, that that is so freaking huge. Okay, so I get the I spend a minimum of three hours in all kinds of different all things to use cars, all things fixed operation on and on and on and other zoom calls through it in the evening. And it’s like, video if if your techs are doing video, MPIs at that level.

You’re in, you’re probably in the top 1 % of the top 5 % because most people still, they’re trying to get their, of course it’s accountability thing. It’s a leadership thing. I get all that, but I’m a consumer too, right? And if I see that and I don’t really understand it, it’s obvious it’s my vehicle and my rotors are scorched and my pads are shot. You better not let me leave without a break job, period. That’s a safety issue, right?

Yep, absolutely. You know what? Take the information I just gave you. Go dump it in your chat GPT. They’ll tell you what it means at two millimeters and one. Challenge what I just said. You know what saying? Like if you have any questions on it, call us back.

Russell B. Hill (27:22.062)
don’t think they’re going to really challenge that like they used to when you just tell them. It’s like, yeah, because that is a stigma that helps overcome that stigma that we brought on ourselves over all these decades. Don’t you agree?

Yep, 100%. The perception of for sure, we all know what it’s like, know, dealerships are more money. You know what saying? You could get it done for less and know, car sales here, service there. I am big on shopping what my competitors are. And I’m going to tell you guys right now, my competitors, not the Nissan dealership down the street for me because we are in, we’re against the same competitors that I’m shopping to see what their prices are. What? Eight, 13 miles away sometimes. In one of my areas up here in Arlington Heights,

331 repair shops, including body shops, repair shops, independents, surround my three dealerships within a 15 mile radius. No one’s going to tell me the fellow Nissan stores my competition. They’re not. So, nevermind.

fact, they probably aren’t. It’s the independent.

The independents, the independents have grown guys by 20%. We lost almost 20%. So if they’re growing, they’re going somewhere. Ryan and I were just talking about that. At the end of the day, a customer is gonna need their car’s The question is when and where, right? The when, I can answer, right? Most vehicles tell us when the car’s now due for an oil change, okay? Your Honda’s are telling you right now, you got your B services, so on and so, right? The where is the big one. It really is.

Nick Ruffolo (28:58.254)
You have anywhere you want to go and you even said yourself, Nick, I go here. got, you know what I’m saying? Like the where, so price. It’s not so much the talking point. It’s it’s it’s the convenience and the availability to get the customer in and out for a simple service. There’s a quick lane area. There’s a quick lane. Facility not far from one of our stores here in Schaumburg, Schaumburg, Illinois is a massive. It’s a big city. OK, it’s A couple of different zip codes out here.

I was leaving Arkea’s store on a Saturday. It four o’clock in the evening. Four o’clock. Not night and the morning, four o’clock. At the corner of Roselle and Golf Road, it’s a quick five. my ADD’s on guys, it’s going right. I saw the Kia sitting in the parking lot. It was the third one in going into the lane. I then looked a little closer. I counted 14 cars sitting at the two garage doors, till seven deep.

And the last four were sitting on Golf Road around the corner onto Roselle Road waiting to get in at four o’clock in the evening. My meeting with my guys is that, guys, this is what’s happening. It’s the level of convenience the customer knows they can get there at four o’clock, they’ve been shopping all day, whatever they’re doing. You know what I’m saying? Our schedules are wide open, but the perception is we’re more money, right? But the fact is we take longer, right? We don’t have a pit with a guy underneath, you know.

draining the oil while the guy on top is topping off the fluid. We do provide a technician video, right? You have an MPI, we house all the history and data and the condition of your vehicle from the appearance all the way to performance. You need to start explaining this to consumers when we’re writing them up. You know what I’m saying? We have this. We also wash your car. You know what I’m saying? So the level of our inspections need to be brought to light that we don’t charge any extra for and my pricing is in line. You know what I’m saying? They charge 109, I’m charging 89.

I don’t even know if we’ll get to that one today, but that level of transparency when a technician hands that off or whatever your process is in the advisors, then the level of experience the advisor has in overcoming the transparency issue on the pricing because, I can get it done at Firestone for X. No, and some of that may be true, but also some of the services are bait and switch. get it, it costs more actually more sometimes than less. So.

Nick Ruffolo (31:22.486)
that your independence on the brake jobs, I’m not going to name any names, but we know we’re the ones that are out there and they’re giving you the golden touch, right? We’re going to go in there and we make well-tuned pads and resurfacing rotors and the customer’s walking out with calipers, pads, and rotors. Now they got the guarantee, but they also paid a heck of a lot more for this lifetime guarantee or whatever their next pitch is, but it’s not with the parts that were designed and made for the vehicle either. You know what I mean?

which we want to look in and if you know this as an advisor, tell the customer, like, want to put aftermarket parts in the car, we do the same thing. But there’s a big name on the front of the building that says Toyota, you drive a toy, we’re going to sell Toyota parts, you know.

Yeah, you are in such a great position. I happen to believe as little as last year, 2025 for the next seven years, that what is the transformation that is taking place in fixed operations is going to be unparalleled because that’s where the money’s made. I mean, I’m going to just say it right now and hopefully you answer it, but there’s no way. We haven’t even got through a third of the question. would you be open to coming back so we can…

There’s a lot to talk about. you be open to that?

love to have you, but let me ask you, because I do want to get this one out before our show is over. I know you guys are big on data, and Russell was telling me a bit about that before we started. What KPIs do you think dealers track incorrectly, or are they put too much faith in? And which ones are important to you?

Nick Ruffolo (33:00.622)
It’s an awesome question. you still hear hours per hour is an important topic, Hours per hour though, it’s a deaf and smokeable, fictitious number though, because I could bill out seven hours on a job that maybe is supposed to pay three, right? I’m gonna have all these hours and the techs are getting paid. The true point and the true question is what was your effective labor rate though? So you can put all the hours out there, but if your effective labor rate,

we’ll call it as less than 60, somewhere 50 % of your door or 65 % of your door, your gross profits are gonna show it. You know what I’m saying? So what are we really doing? We’re making it on ourself, we sold a bunch of hours, but you really need to underrate the dollars. So the things I like to look at is your effective labor rate, your gross profit percentage after coupons, and where’s your, yeah, because the policy, and now if we’re just putting stuff into policy because we’re overcharging, we’re absorbing repair orders, then we need to look back at our settings.

And you know what, folks, we learned like that in our group. We had some stores that were doing that and you get in there, you start looking at it and maybe there’s technicians that get a little aggravated because they’re to getting paid two and a half hours for an alignment and the book may show 1.5, maybe even more. So then how eager is your technician going to be to really do a detailed inspection? You follow what I’m saying? If they already know they got the hours. I’m not saying all techs will like that, I’m fine. But let’s take that out of.

You know what I’m saying? Like, let’s not worry about that aspect. Our role count, you’re over a year in growth. In my eyes, that’s going to go back into the marketing, your messaging, or you’re cracking the performance of your specialist that we’re putting out there. If you are, what are the restrictions and limitations that you have? You know what I’m saying? And sometimes we can get ourselves into a little trick bag because we may feel that, you know what? Customers want this 1995 oil change, right? Or this, uh,

Yep.

Nick Ruffolo (34:58.382)
buy three, get one or 20 % off, whatever it might be, is the customer opening up the email or receiving a message or what have you, the marketing coming to me, opening up and saying, now’s the time I’m go buy because the dealership just, they got a 50 % off price code. No, no. Your advisors are using it to help close the deal. So what

Yeah.

Coupons you have out there, what are they doing? How are you tracking it, right?

And are you?

And, my, do we? we know which ones work, which ones don’t. Apparition dates are on there. If not, you don’t want that call from me because then you’re going to get drilled. Like, why did you get this? Here’s what you just, you know, I mean, here’s what happened. But you know what? I’m glad you made a mistake. You learned from mistakes. I made a ton of them getting, you know, in this career. Absolutely. You accept that you made a mistake. You don’t know how to learn from the mistake. You’re going to continue doing mistakes.

Russell B. Hill (35:58.382)
Well, I’ll tell you what, you wouldn’t be where you’re at unless you made more mistakes to get here.

100 % and admitting that I made the mistakes.

Well, that’s another thing about maturity and responsibility is taking ownership for your own crap, your own side of the street, staying in your lane. So data, data, data, data, data. I know it’s extremely important as a matter of fact, the general consensus is this year, everything is, what is the biggest things going to be happening? People are talking about NADA data and AI. Of course they go hand in hand because AI doesn’t work without enormous amounts of data, it is. That’s right. That’s right.

Data.

I love that!

Nick Ruffolo (36:42.581)
the issue are on what dirty data does. Not only are you throwing money out the window, you’re not knowing, you really don’t know what your true performance is on it because it’s smoked out and watered out by a bunch of dirty data, right? know, Ryan and the crew that started developing our snowflake and our CDP.

You know, was looking at one of the reports at our Kia store actually just the other day and I was looking at the timeline from customers and the message that we were sending them and how long they haven’t been in for service. We were just sending simple little, you know messages like, know, did you know, whatever it might be, right? Brought a customer into service that hasn’t been in our service department over 400 days and the ticket was $790 ticket. Now that’s a great, it’s a great win. I’m going to be.

Yeah, you reactivate somebody that’s been out there that long? Absolutely.

However, what was their experience though when they came back from that stand in almost 400 days? Thank you. or we lost them forever. We only got a couple shakes at it. And sometimes I use the analogy of like, know, and so I guess my game and a girl ever break up with you. Hard to get her back. You didn’t do the same thing you did the first time, right?

Yeah, because then it’ll be gone another 400 days.

Russell B. Hill (37:55.758)
Yeah, I mean

Russell B. Hill (38:00.536)
So what is it Nick? 14 years is the average vehicle on road now?

Actually, it’s just a hair over 12 approaching 13. It’s probably at 13 right now. And in our service drives, my average mileage car that comes in amongst all the 10 stores that I oversee here in the Chicago and Wisconsin area is just north of 70,000 miles. Your opportunity right now, guys, our opportunity in this business is massive right now.

It is. It is. Yeah.

Speaking of opportunity, are there any trends that you guys are paying attention to right now in the dealer world?

Yeah, I mean, you know, hand in hand, you know, when you’re when you’re tracking it, you could see what takes place when new car inventory is down. You can see what takes place when new car sales are down. Right. Because that ultimately is going to bring that that work in those dollars to another profit center, which is our fixed apartment. Right. So I’m not going to have as many cars to recondition. So if I don’t have that many cars to recondition to offer for you sale, that means I’m not going to take another trade back in. And as that starts to diminish down,

Nick Ruffolo (39:05.128)
So is your RO volume coming in for your first oil changes. So it’s, in my opinion, it’s absolutely critical that the first couple of service visits and our sales and service intro and handoff has to be on point. can’t have the, if the customers neglect to come to us at the dealership for a simple oil change, and let’s just say in a perfect world, we do it under 60 minutes and the car wash all night. I mean, we crush it, right? But if we can’t get them to do that, we’re not going to see

The repairs that we all like to have.

Man, if you show me that kind of love that you’re talking about, I’m going to continue coming back. I’m just telling you.

know what? I’m going to send the mobile service vehicle out by you. I’m going to take

You’re going to have to come back. We got too much.

Nick Ruffolo (39:50.126)
I’m sorry and this is why I was calling earlier like I just if you say Nick let’s talk these three topics I’ll stay in my lane you No no no no. If you say let’s talk we’re sliding down the rabbit hole together we’re gonna slide right past bugs we’re gonna slide right past homer fun.

You drop so many things that will be applicable to shorts. It’s just right on point. And not only your level of passion and your OCD too, but your level of passion and the fact that you’re, and you’ve been with the Roarman Automotive Group for so long and the position you’re in. It’s like EF Hutton, that old EF Hutton commercial, like when EF Hutton talks. Yeah. And that’s what they’re going to be doing,

What’s one belief about fixed operations that you’ve changed your mind on over the years?

Oof.

Wow, down that, yeah. Charity, that was a good one. I want to answer that one right. I would love to get some thoughts because it was a lot. And if I could relay that message down on our next call, I want to kill it. Because that’s a good.

Russell B. Hill (40:53.592)
Okay, fair enough.

That’s a really good question because during this call to the folks are to be watching and they’re going to be sharing and preaching what they listen and watch to. I want to make sure that our question and the answer I give is the right message going back. Yeah. I mean, because that is, I mean, that’s.

It’s hard because fixed operations changes too. It doesn’t stay the same over the years and neither do you, right? Not there just the business. Everything is sort of evolving slowly.

I really think I want to say at a high level, but at a level where you have to understand that, yes, fixed operation changes. It does. It’s fixed when it comes down to your costs and stuff like that. You know, it’s not variables, but fixed does because customers expectations are changing. Right. The power of technology is in the palm of our hands. We use it all the time. I’m not I have an AI that I’ll tell my AI to send you an email and I didn’t even log into my email yet. Right. Or you want to embrace change.

Thank you.

Nick Ruffolo (41:55.768)
Right? If you’re not, I hate to use the term, you’re gonna get ran over, you know? And I think embracing change before change comes and you know it’s coming and start to adapt to it, like AI, I’m big with AI, I love AI, I do. I do. I do three. You gotta be careful, you know what I’m saying? And you do. But I do love AI and…

You know, having, going back to having your head on a kind of a swivel, you know what I’m saying? If you’re constantly focusing on working on your business rather than in it and seeing the innovation that’s taking place, you’re going to lean, you have to lean in on it. Like tech video, when I was running Nissan before my role changed as a corporate director, we were crushing it. Like even amongst our other store, well, the guys want to do it, they’re going to get paid. You’re missing out, right? Now they see it. And then when you show them the benefit,

even to a technician, the dollars that they’re earning or additional hours that they’re earning because the advisor is really not saying much at times. I’m just sending you a tech video charity and you’re sitting there looking at me like, oh my God, this makes sense. Hey Russell, what do you think? Yanny breaks after, look at those things. Like, those are terrible. You know, last time I was there, here’s what mine looked like. All of you just say yes, yes, and yes. The lines are added to the repair order. Everyone’s notified. You never even talked to my advisor. But now my advisor is going to call you up, let you know what’s going on. And you guys are going to pick up that conversation from there.

You

Nick Ruffolo (43:22.51)
you and then when the job’s completed, I wanna send you a video on what it looks like when it’s completed, you know? You’re not gonna go home and take your wheels off to see if I did something, you know what I’m, no. But if you hire a landscaper to come to your house and you pay for 27 bushes and 14 flowers, you’re gonna go out there and count 27 bushes and 14 flowers, right? And you’re gonna take care of the rat where they’re supposed to, because you can get to them. I wasn’t gonna open up the hood and see if I replaced the valve cover gasket or change the coolant, you know what I’m saying? Like.

So just show it to them, man, here’s what you needed, here’s what we did, here’s what you paid for, and here’s for your records. And we house all that data in a cloud forever for you, you know? So. True. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, we didn’t get to cover everything, but we do always like to ask at the end, is there anything that you wanted to say or anything that you wish we had asked you that we didn’t?

I wouldn’t say there was a question I wish that you asked, but I could say this. To the leaders that are out there and the folks that are gonna be watching it, they’re looking maybe to get into a leadership or a management position, Keep your head on a swivel. Don’t take for what’s going on, is that the way it’s supposed to be? Monitor what’s happening and always inspect what you expect. Give clear description on what the process is supposed to be. Make sure your team is fully aware of it and when you’re done with it,

put it on paper, go over it one more time, double check them. If you’re doing tech videos and want tech videos done a certain way like I’m doing with the finger pointer to the word track, my word tracks are the same, like, inspect them. And when the guy does well, the gal does well on it, bring him in the office, pat him on the back, say nice job. In your tech huddles, bring that video up and show the rest of the team they did it, you know?

Nick Ruffolo (45:11.374)
I create a contest for magnetic badges for the cool boxes. If they hit X amount of percentage in tech video and the quality was there, right? On the expectation, I don’t have to go that deep into it. Either you got a master or a pro. So get like kind of a golf idea. I’m a big, a sports fanatic. So a lot of stuff I look at it, we can relate what we do day by day in a sport analogy. We really could, because there’s a lot of team collaboration. You could discuss the difference between

golf team, a bowling team, or a football team and a hockey team. You know what saying? Not taking the sport away from anything. But on a bowling team, you’re not picking up my bowling ball and throwing my second frame. That’s I’m saying? You’re doing you, I’m doing me, and then we do individually. You know what mean? We all calculate our numbers and the pin count and everything else. That’s our team, right? Individually.

Football, you’re on the line. You’re my blocker. I’m the running back. I’m grabbing you by that face mask. Russell, I can’t get through the A-gap, man. What are you doing? You know, we’re gonna go to the locker room at halftime. We’re all gonna get lit. Not me, not you, all of us, because we’re a team. You know how coach is, you know? Now block for me, you know? And then start to… Yeah.

Works really well. Yeah. People want to know they count, they matter, they make a difference and they’re part of something bigger. you have in several, analogies and conversation, you’re all about that with your people, which is why you have the respect that you do now. I wish we, but we don’t, we’re going to get Nick back on just so everybody knows, but Nick Ruffalo. Yeah, absolutely. Nick Ruffalo director of fixed operations for the Rorman automotive group. Now, hold on.

When this comes out, like him, love him, share him, engage with him, ask him some questions, share philosophies, whatever you want to do, because he’s going to be everywhere. Any podcast, any listening, whatever it is, Nick’s going to be there. You’re going to know the Friday before. And I just wanted to thank all the listeners out there, all the people that love and support us and our guests as well.

Russell B. Hill (47:21.652)
And this is a wrap for another extremely successful WTF. And that is what the fixed ops to all of you out there. Let’s go.

Yeah, thank you, Nick.

Thank you guys, appreciate everybody out there. Stay safe and get after that grind, right? Let’s do it.