We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Corey Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Corey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Talk to us about building a team – did you hire quickly, how’d you recruit the first few team members? Any interesting lessons?

When it comes to hiring, I always say you are only as good as your team. Finding motivated talent is one of the most challenging tasks in business. You want to find people that have the same core values as you and your company, that can elevate and fill in the gaps on your team. You want to hire people that are smarter than you and that are going to teach you things that up your game as well.

It starts with having a thorough job description which will hopefully help ensure that the right candidates apply for the position. Be as detailed as possible in the qualities you are looking for. Be up front with the day-to-day tasks, time commitment and any challenges associated with the position so that you can set expectations up front, and candidates see what they are signing up for before applying for the job.

I have hired people that ended up not being the right fit, and when you recognize you have the wrong person in the job, you want to help them move along as quickly as possible and not lose any more time. It can be hard to accept that you made a poor hiring decision, but all you can do is learn from it and move forward.

It cannot just be about a paycheck for someone. You need someone who believes in your mission and is motivated to do what it takes to help get the company to the end goal. To assess their motivations, you want to conduct several interviews across as many forums as possible (phone, zoom, in person) and I recommend always involving other colleagues in the interviewing process.

Use them as a resource when making your final decision. They will offer another perspective or point out something you may have missed. By involving other colleagues, you will eliminate your own biases and gain a more well-rounded view which should lead to quality hires.

Corey, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started my career working in Radio as an on-air personality for a station in Portland, ME called WRED. I was doing a live broadcast from a car dealership and the Service Manager, Gary Pouliot heard me talking about some car deals they had on special and liked my personality and enthusiasm which led him to offering me a job to come work in his Service Department.

Gary did everything he told me he would do. He trained me, supported me through mistakes, and was a great mentor to me. I was loyal to him and stayed with his dealership for seven years before another dealership made me an offer I could not refuse. Gary even supported me in leaving saying that I could not pass up this offer to become Assistant Service Manager and Service Advisor for significantly more money.

I remember it was my first or second day on the new job, they did not have processes in place, and I was overwhelmed amidst the chaos, and I immediately wanted to go back to my old job. I called Gary to see if he would take me back and remember him telling me to give it some time, 90 days minimum, and if I still did not like it, he would offer me my old job back. I never went back. I figured it out, I created my own processes and started killing it.

In 2016 I had the urge to get out of retail and do something different. That is when I became an entrepreneur, going out on my own to start a fluid distributor ship selling automotive fluids to dealerships. I started offering training to the Service Advisors to teach them how to sell fluids to the customer and that is when I found my passion for training.

I then worked at JD Power as a consultant, which eventually led me to APCO Holdings where I now head up National Fixed Ops Training. At the time they did not offer Fixed Ops training for their dealer partners, so I built a PowerPoint and pitched the idea to the CEO, Tony Wanderon. Tony loved the idea and added that I should also be doing a Podcast since I had a radio background. At that point, I had never thought about doing a Podcast, but I went with it, I figured it out and learned along the way and am proud of how successful my Fixed Ops Five podcast has become.

Looking back at my career I think the thing I am most proud of is having been able to give the Service Advisor a voice. When I got into the Auto industry, Service Advisor training consisted of your boss showing you your desk, computer, phone, and Technicians and saying, “good luck.”

I now empower Training Advisors all over the world with the knowledge, advice and strategies needed for success and prosperity. I teach them how to control their day, so it does not control them. Everything I and my team train on is based on real-world experience and scenarios that Service Advisors deal with daily. Getting to teach Service Advisors all over the world how to make more money and deliver a better customer experience is what I am most proud of. I genuinely love my job and can say from experience that everyone should strive for a career where they love going to work every day.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I have used social media to really build my Fixed Ops Five Podcast following. I utilized LinkedIn and Facebook to do this by marketing to our existing follower and client base. When you think about building your presence on social, you need to figure out who your target audience is. Facebook and LinkedIn in both make it amazingly easy to target people by industry and profession.

I took a three-tiered approach wanting to meet the audiences where they are at, versus pigeonholing them into the Podcast forum. I did this by supplementing my Podcast with a Fixed Ops 5 Blog for those that prefer to read as well as a Video Podcast for my visual followers on YouTube.

The process that has worked for me on social is posting on LinkedIn between 3-4 times a day. I start with a quote that means something to me in the hopes that it resonates with others. My next post is talking about a training class that I did, or a topic that I have trained on that I really liked soliciting opinions and thoughts. My third post is typically something personal. I have three kids that provide a lot of enjoyable content and the last one really focuses on my company and/or Podcast and the next guest I will be interviewing or past guests they may have missed.

Regardless of what platform you are most comfortable with, the key to success on social media is knowing your audience, providing them with valuable and relatable content that benefits them and doing it consistently. Use that formula and you should be golden.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

To manage and motivate a team, you must invest in them. Not only financially, but also by giving them your undivided time and attention. When you care as much about your employee’s personal goals as they do, you do not really need to “manage” at that point as much as be a mentor.

Making mental deposits into that employee is vital. When work gets challenging and you must ask a lot of them, they can fall back on the time you have spent with them, listening to their ideas, supporting them, and helping them achieve their goals.

Regular communication and check-ins are also critical. When we are all training in the same area, we will do something fun as a team. I took my team to the Basketball Hall of Fame when we were in East Hartford CT, the top of the mountains in Utah and gone on countless other fun, team bonding excursions throughout the years.

Some companies like to do fun things with their team once a year, but I find that doing bonding activities spontaneously and often is what really works in keeping morale up and employees engaged.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/fixed-ops-5/id1565027324
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NACFixedOps5
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corey-smith-93583832/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nationalautocare703
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/59a1grYGviGYSPgEPyr9pD

Image Credits
Photography Credit: Madison Nicole Imagery