Fixed Ops To The Front with Dan Shine

Michael Cirillo: 0:00

Hey, well, we hope you enjoyed this episode. Michael

Unknown: 0:10

this is Auto Collabs

Paul J Daly: 0:13

do the outro after the intro after the interview, and

Michael Cirillo: 0:18

you know what it comes down to? I think I just need more podcast experience.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:22

That's what it is young enough amateur hour all the time. You know,

Paul J Daly: 0:28

I say that about Michael Cirillo all the time. I mean, literally, it's how I introduce you to my friends and like this guy, he's okay. But the only he's taking his ears, just listening. He just pulled his in ear monitors out, stood up from his

Michael Cirillo: 0:42

investment and put these here, your fingers. You gotta get

Paul J Daly: 0:45

those things back. Good. I'm so excited for today's today's guest Dan shine, the editor for fixed ops for automotive news is one of the most down to earth people that I know in this industry. And I guess appropriately so he covers fixed stops, which is frontline them and

Kyle Mountsier: 1:02

and not just that. But Dan has been such, like so good to us. From them more than cars perspective, just sharing what's going on. With the series that we're doing, I'm excited to get a little bit more knowledge of who he is what he's done in the industry. Because like, that's what this podcast is all about, is really diving into the real conversations and the people behind what makes this industry tick. So we hope you enjoy this conversation that we get to have.

Paul J Daly: 1:33

Dan, thank you so much for joining us today on Auto Collabs. It's good to be here with you.

Dan Shine: 1:37

Thanks, pleasure, glad to you for the invite. So

Paul J Daly: 1:41

you're somebody like because you're on the fixed ops side of coverage, I feel like you have an inordinate connection with the frontlines of the auto industry. How do you view fixed ops versus sales? Let's get you in trouble with the first question.

Dan Shine: 1:55

Well fix ops over there, my people, I mean, you know, they're, you know, they're, they're not worried about their blow drying here and stuff like that, you know, they're, they're working with their hands. And, you know, they're, they, they, they run the dealership, they make they make the money for the dealership, and they're, you know, they're not a show horse or a show, you know, they're a workhorse. And so I've, you know, I joke, but I'm getting to know them, you know, getting to know people and stuff or in service and parts of inclusion. They're just, you know, they're, you know, I've said this many times, but they're just really smart, creative, innovative people who, when, you know, things are thrown their way they figure out a way to overcome it and continue to, you know, make revenue and get people's cars in and out. So there's just, you know, I, I'm glad that I'm not, you know, covering the sales side of things at dealerships. I mean, I'm, I'm with them with the real people, and we'll see there was,

Kyle Mountsier: 2:59

but you're, but you're, you're like not a history, automotive person. You haven't been in automotive for years and years and years. This is fairly new in your journalistic.

Dan Shine: 3:12

Let's talk about that. Yeah, it's true. I mean, but I grew up in Detroit. So it's like, it's, it's automatically the blog, a little escape, right? Yeah. But yeah, it's I. Yeah. You know, the short of the very short version of it is, you know, I worked in newspapers for 16 years in Dallas and in Detroit, then went and worked at University of Michigan for 16 years, working as a think tank. I mean, I know, I'm just gonna stick right here. How do I feel? Oh, no. Someone has to keep an eye on. You got to spy inside guy. Oh, yeah. But, you know, I had a friend and former colleague from the free press who was been Automotive News and was recruiting guy and said, You know, I've got this job. And if you know, anybody who's interested in I kind of looked at it might be interesting. Always been, I've always loved autos, and again, like growing up in Detroit. You just can't escape, you know, the industry and its influence on the city and how it kind of shaped the city, for better and for worse times, and so on. So it was really interesting to me, and then now, you know, kind of immersing myself in service and parts and f&i and used, it's, you know, it's been fascinating. I love it.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:30

What, okay, so I, we always ask to ask a couple questions beforehand, and I think this is pretty unique. But your when you started, it was right before the pandemic, yeah. Is that right? Yeah.

Dan Shine: 4:45

No one had to be wild. It was yeah, it was. It was kind of funny because I was working at University of Michigan. So I was commuting, you know, two hours round trip every day and it was kind of nice to have a job where it was, you know, so far away and you end up blink of an eye. I'm at my, you know, kitchen, your living room. But yeah, it, you know, it was it was a, you know, a great match and I someone to NADA, you know, someone's my first NADA and everything was cool and you know and, and soon after my boss at the time said, there's a small group of fixed ops directors they meet twice a year. I know the guy runs it, he says you can come kind of be a fly on the wall just kind of hang out and learn. You know. And so as this trip to Phoenix is approaching in March, you know, you keep your eye, you know, the world's, you know, coming to an end and I kept thinking, I really want to go there, you know what I was like, I'm new to this job. And I'm like, I'm not gonna tell I'm not gonna go. My wife said, you know, are you sure this is gonna be fine, you know. And so I went, and I had a, I was gonna go, go watching spring training, baseball, and I had a buddy who was the team doctor for the Phoenix Coyotes is a commando game. And so I'm like how these great plans. And then by the time I got there, like, baseball was shut down, hockey was shut down. And, you know, we were working from home, they said, Don't come into the office. And so I went, you know, so I'm here in Phoenix, and I've got to go to actually went to Tucson to a Subaru dealership and did a story and then took the Red Eye home to Detroit and set up shop on my kitchen table for you know, the next, whatever it was a year. Two years later, my boss at times, like I can't believe I made you go to the gym myself, but man, you're

Kyle Mountsier: 6:37

in auto. Let's go. Yeah,

Dan Shine: 6:39

it was great. It was a great meeting. And I still go to that. They meet twice a year in mostly in Orlando, this was just kind of a special trip to Phoenix. I go twice a year, and you know, solid, the same people. And I always come away with some great story ideas. So it's been great, great relationship.

Michael Cirillo: 6:55

What's the what's the biggest standout for you? I mean, you mentioned working in Detroit. So the auto industry, always it's kind of the lifeblood of of that city. But now that you're officially in the industry covering it, it's your primary focus, what are some things that you realize now about the industry that perhaps weren't on your radar before, when you were just kind of, you know, working at the newspaper and being in Detroit? Yeah.

Dan Shine: 7:22

I think you know, this, how complex it is. And there's a lot of numbers, which is not a one of my strong suits. So I'm trying to avoid those whenever possible, but it's just, you know, there's so much to it, there's, you know, there's so much behind behind the curtain under the surface thereof, of how things get done. And the decisions that go into whether, you know, this is a new model, or, you know, it's just, there's, there's just a lot of intrigue behind the scenes and not so much history of, you know, and which I, you know, like, I'll be in these, I just got done with the morning editors meeting. And they were talking about this and talking about Fisker, and, you know, bankruptcy, potentially, and all this kind of stuff. And there's just so much knowledge in the room of the people who have been at automobiles for a long time. And they're bringing it up, you know, context and background. And, you know, this is the guy who did this, and this is, you know, so I've always kind of fascinated that just to kind of hear the history of it. And there's you know, there's, you know, in some ways, there's nothing new in automotive, it's just kind of a different version of something that has happened before. Yeah. Okay.

Michael Cirillo: 8:30

I'm also dying to know, is that the auto industry, you mentioned numbers in the auto industry, and we're always trying to measure stuff. And we're always trying to look at data and that's a lot, too.

Dan Shine: 8:44

I did last.

Paul J Daly: 8:46

One of those Azure, we get an episode of finished the question.

Dan Shine: 8:53

Like Mad Libs now, all of a sudden,

Paul J Daly: 8:55

we're always trying to measure fill in the blank. Perfect, perfect.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:00

Oh, the absolute best. Well,

Paul J Daly: 9:02

I want to take the conversation since he's not here anymore. There's there's an element of what you just said about automotive news where there's obviously a lot of history. There's a lot of things that have happened along the along the years and the context is so important to understand, like current decisions or what's happening, but you can pivot in here. We asked you a few questions before the show. And you had mentioned actually that you like to participate in 200 mile relay

Dan Shine: 9:32

races. I don't know if I say I guess I guess I don't think my wife her love to but I'm my friends are doing it sounds like a good idea at the time, and I'll explain explain what that even is. So there's a that's an event called Ragnar and I think it used to be a Reebok brand, but I don't know if they still are. And they run these races that run either road races or trail runs and we've done both And it's all happened like a friend of ours, friend of mine would do it with his work colleagues, he works at a ad agency that does a lot of Ford work. And they would go and do this. It's kind of a team building thing. So we said, well, that sounds kind of cool, you know. So you get 12. Guys, you get two vans you pile them in, it's basically like a relay race, you know, on the van number two goes ahead. And then you know, the first six guys in the first van, run these different lengths of run. And then you know, then fan two takes over, and those six guys do it. And then meanwhile, Van one goes to the bar and drinks, you know, for a while, and then meet up. And so we did one from in Michigan from Muskegon, which is down, kind of the Western Southwestern kind of part of Michigan, up Traverse City, Michigan, which is up north 200 miles away. And so you run basically. So basically, I ran to 10 ks and a 5k, roughly, in about 31 hours, with very little sleep and in some drinking involved.

Paul J Daly: 11:01

Love the variable. Right? That could really nice heads right now, like the killer team are also killer drinkers. Yeah, right now you get three quarters to the race, and like the dark horse in the back might actually pull this one out there. I'm

Dan Shine: 11:14

like, the oldest guy in the group too. So it's like, you know, a little bit of a disadvantage. So I'm like, like, do

Paul J Daly: 11:19

you take do you take like an early leg? Like, let's get this done? Actually, the one I

Dan Shine: 11:23

was in Michigan, I was a lab was a 12. Leg. So I was like, sitting around for like, half the day, the first day. I'm like, I just want to like, you know, go because I'm like, How much should I eat? How much should I drink before I have to run and right? But then we did a we did a trail run this past year up in northern Michigan up and I want to say it's a mountain because it's the arm at the mountains in Michigan, but it's a big, long, big, large hill. And then this one is like you have a campsite. And you have a couple tents. And it's like, oh, so it's like little party central. And then like, you know, when it's your turn, you go up to the hill, and then you run through the woods for I think they did have three, like a three mile loop, a six mile loop and then eight mile loop. And it's like, you know, it was it was brutal. Like I texted the group, like halfway through the first one that I said never fit in again, am I doing this? By the time we got to the bar afterwards? I was like, well, I might if I practiced my train more I might. Maybe

Kyle Mountsier: 12:16

that's the way running always is you got to once you do it, it's kind of addictive. So there's,

Dan Shine: 12:21

there's there's one I'm trying to get everyone involved, and it's called the bourbon run Bourbon Trail run. And so I know people that have run that one they love for Louisville, the Lexington and you go through by all the distilleries and stuff. So that's this fall. Sounds like

Paul J Daly: 12:34

a cramp waiting to happen, right?

Michael Cirillo: 12:37

Half of our listeners are like, this is a really involved drinking game. Yeah.

Paul J Daly: 12:42

Right, we can all see that men's threat of dehydration.

Dan Shine: 12:47

Funny story, we'll get off this topic. And the first started so that my friend did this, he was like, We ought to try and do this. And so we were at a birthday party of one of the guys. And we're all like drinking and then so we start rec recruiting people who are not as you know, don't have their scent senses with them and agreed to do this because they're drunk. And so. So there's like, there's basically one running legitimate running store in my little town. And so this friend of mine goes, and he's like, you know, looking for running shoes. And he's like, tell him guys like, yeah, you know, we're gonna run this thing. And you know, it's 200 miles, and the guys are, oh, you read that birthday party, too. He's like, he's like, I'm, I got a whole like, Dude, I got the 10 other guys just like you have like the same story. We're coming in looking for running shoes. So it's hilarious. It's all

Paul J Daly: 13:34

of a sudden, the reason you're the fixed ops editor is really making so much sense to me right now. More than ever. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 13:42

I that I honestly, that that type of engagement, that type of camaraderie. And that's exactly. It's exactly what fixed ops and so like, there's a relatable sense to, like, how you live life and who you're engaging with every single day. You know, when you're looking at it right now, because you because, you know, the fixed ops side of maybe editorial news has to live a little bit more in the dealership because the OEMs aren't talking about fixed ops that much. Yeah, right. You know, the, you're living in the dealerships? What's the what's the big thing that everybody's trying to tackle right now? And how are they kind of setting themselves up or questioning how they're going to continue to be successful over the next year? Couple

Dan Shine: 14:32

things I'm interested in, you know, it's always retention again, right? It's customer retention, and how, how do we get these people to come back and the people are buying these cars as frequently as they used to, and they're not leasing them as frequently as they used to. So there's just not that steady stream as usual. And you know, people are keeping their cars for 10 to 12 years now in some cases. So how do you go about reading these people back in what do you know, how can you? I think we don't we just had a story and about Consumer Reports did a survey of their members and, you know, everybody thinks, Oh, don't go to dealership, they're more expensive. And so there's this kind of, you know, they're, you know, go to an independent shop, they're going to the teacher fair, they'll work with you on the price. And so there's, you know, there's a lot of, you know, hills to overcome, there are a lot of obstacles in the public perception of dealership service department. So, you know, what are you doing differently to try and show your value to customers out there. And then EB EB service is another thing. We've got a store running in the paper this coming week about about that, and it says CDK story. And service directors aren't really crazy about EB service, you know, they're not sure about it. But they also realize that this is a great retention tool, because you're not going to take your rivian to the Pep Boys necessarily to get whenever something goes wrong. And so they're so they see they, they see the retention opportunity there. And you know, and everyone says, probably not going to have an oil change, but they're going to need tires more frequently than a typical car. And a lot of dealerships have gotten out of the tire business, because it's, you know, low margins, and it's a pain to store them all there. And but now look at how do you get back to being a tire dealer again? How do you you know, we've been telling your customer, I'll go down the street to discount tire or something, they'll take care of it. Now you gotta like change your mentality No. Actually worth we're the place that you can get tires for

Paul J Daly: 16:31

it. Right. All right. I didn't think about that. That's a big one, like people other places, and now saying, no, no, no. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 16:38

It's almost like, you have to start now. For

Michael Cirillo: 16:41

dealers, right? Like, you know, because to your point in Kyle's point, like, so much of the marketing that the dealership does is around selling the selling of cars. Yeah. And then fixed ops kind of is the, you know, shoved over here into the corner. But dealers are so heavily invested in these initiatives anyways, and then, you know, the thing you said about rivian? You know, who's gonna mark it that they can do? repairs on rivian? Pet boys? Yeah. Yeah. Why did we lose all that business? And? And that's why you didn't mark it? Yeah. You didn't let people know that you can do it.

Dan Shine: 17:15

Yeah, I think, you know, dealership, service departments kind of didn't want to bother with glass repair. And so they, you know, that became a whole little separate industry, you know, tires became a whole separate industry. And so now, you know, you got to try and change the story a little bit. So no, no, you know, come back, we can do and so you do see a little bit dealerships doing windshield repair now trying to trying to get into that. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 17:38

Yeah, it's finding revenue streams, you know, as you know, well, one as retention tools, right. Like you just said, Hey, this is a place where you can come back to no matter what your vehicle needs. And then the other piece is, when you have revenue streams that are going away, fluid exchange, you know, tired or oil changes, you start to have to open up new revenue streams. And so training those people, but also getting the marketing out there is going to be extremely important, because it is going to take time to retrain the customer. Like you can't just throw up a marketing campaign month one and be like, Oh, we do tires and

Dan Shine: 18:13

stack of tires on the surface, right? Look, we've got tires. Oh,

Kyle Mountsier: 18:17

yeah, that'll sell them.

Paul J Daly: 18:19

But when we asked you in, we asked you what in your mind is like a must talk about topic on this episode. And you basically said customer retention, you know, like, it's something that dealership fixed ops departments struggle with. And why did you put that down? I

Dan Shine: 18:36

had to come up with an answer. I didn't want to leave the blank, but I figured you would want it

Paul J Daly: 18:41

races wasn't really a must talk about?

Dan Shine: 18:46

Oh, no. Because I think it's just something that, you know, they continue to continue to struggle with I mean, you know, another one is employee retention or technician recruiting. I mean, we write about, I'm

Kyle Mountsier: 18:58

seeing some ridiculous flat labor rates for technicians. Are you seeing that across the industry to? Yeah, like, people pay in 40 to $50. Flat Rate labor? No, no, which was, like, unheard of six years ago.

Dan Shine: 19:16

It's, I don't know, number off the top my head, but it's, you know, I've seen it cited, maybe by NADA, and it's, you know, for every technician, you lose, this is how much your fixed ops department loses in revenue, because you don't have someone turning wrenches for you. First of all months, and it's it's an ungodly amount of money. And so I was just with somebody who's a Ford dealer does a service and they're big into mobile mobile vans, and he's, you know, by June so I'm putting 55 zero on the road. Oh,

Kyle Mountsier: 19:52

my goodness to like 50

Paul J Daly: 19:54

Mobile vans on the road. This

Dan Shine: 19:55

is one dealer group. Yeah, he has, he has already has, you know, a hand For out there already, they said they have so much work. And it's and, you know, they're having a little bit of a long day.

Paul J Daly: 20:08

We're doing a panel on mobile mobile fix stops mobile service with

Dan Shine: 20:12

this gentleman might be I think might be pretending that you know, but it's but it's you know, it's amazing. But it's like he said to me, like, you know, to get into the shop, you know, Mr. Schine? Am I, you know, I might be able to get you in and you know, two weeks whatever? Or would you rather have my mobile service van and come tomorrow, check it out. And if we can, you know, fix it, get the parts of my we can do it the next day and suddenly say, of course, he's not saying yes to that era. Right. So that was pretty, pretty amazed. But, you know, that's, again, that's just I think, you know, shows the creativity and, you know, an innovation that is in these departments, it's like, I've got a little bit of an issue that I'm getting a log jam, people trying to come in to my service department. How can I help? How can I alleviate that one window, I'm going to come to you. And I'm going to either, you know, I'm going to diagnose it that day and maybe fix it that day, or I'm going to diagnose it and fix it in a day or two when the power comes in. You know, and and that's how you gain customers. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 21:13

it's a retention, it's you own the service thing at that point, like mobile service, I think is is the way to go. And you see so many people in the service vertical. Taking that as the route, you know, is whole companies spun up under the mobile service business opportunity. So if as an industry on the legacy or the OEM side, the franchise side, we don't take advantage of that or tap into it, ourselves a disservice. Well, Dan, always a pleasure. We went history to run in and back to what fix Ops is focused on we are all over it. And you have graced us with so much good insight and knowledge over the over the, the time that we've known you. And thank you also, again, for supporting us with the work that we're doing with more than cars. We know you're a big proponent of that. Can't wait to see you at ASOTU CON this year. But mainly just thanks for joining us here on this conversation. I'm Auto Collabs

Dan Shine: 22:12

thanks. Pleasure being here with you guys. Thanks for inviting me look forward to seeing you and me.

Paul J Daly: 22:19

All right, let's do the top three things you didn't expect to hear from Dan shine that you heard during that interview? Kyle first.

Michael Cirillo: 22:29

100 mile drinking game. Oh, it's 200 100 Miles mild drinking game.

Paul J Daly: 22:34

I was like doing the math. I'm like divide that he's had 210 ks and a 5k. Well, I

Kyle Mountsier: 22:38

was wondering how anyone makes it to the 5k with that much drinking happening, especially if you have to

Paul J Daly: 22:43

wait 30 hours. Right? If you're like one of the last people to go I think that's the worst that you dad the you know, the gate. And

Kyle Mountsier: 22:50

that you know, you know they're in like a 93 Chrysler Pacifica is I mean, I was I

Paul J Daly: 22:56

was I was actually picturing a Chevy Astro. Right. So orange GMC Safari.

Kyle Mountsier: 23:02

Nobody gets Kipruto or Andrew defender for Sprinter van like that. It doesn't

Paul J Daly: 23:07

ever have GMC Safari zero 10 on any of the windows. Guys,

Michael Cirillo: 23:12

I learned to drive on a GMC Safari. But my dad used to call it a truck because the steering wheel said GMC truck. We're like, dude, hey, no way. This is the

Paul J Daly: 23:22

story you're telling yourself?

Kyle Mountsier: 23:26

No, I you know, like the meat of that was obviously there's so much conversation around retention. When it comes to customer loyalty and understanding how fixed Ops is a driver of that we talk about it. From the variable ops side so much is like how do we retain customers, but the retention is all on the fixed upside. So appreciate that. He's bringing light to the stories that are happening like that across the industry. Without a doubt.

Paul J Daly: 23:51

Well on behalf of Kyle Mountsier, Michael Cirillo, and myself thank you for joining us on this episode of Auto Collabs

Unknown: 23:59

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