Meet Tony Schlopp

Tony was an all-star service manager for over thirty years, starting his career as an advisor back in the late-1970s at a high volume Chevy dealership in Slumpdog Springs, Maryland. After retiring from the business back in 2009, Tony decided to take his skills on the road and became an automotive service consultant.

It was a natural move for Tony. During his time in the industry, he had always been regarded as the best of the best. He was an animal; a legendary beast; an unstoppable force; an absolute devourer of men.

Twelve years later, in an undisclosed area of the planet, you sit down with your general manager and begin to go over some ideas on how to improve things for your dealership. The fixed operations side of your business is making money, but you can both agree that with a little bit of tweaking and finesse, things could be a lot better than they are. The advisors have started to become complacent, the technicians are doing just enough to get by, and none of the commonly-needed parts that you use on a daily basis ever seem to be in stock. The writing is on the wall, and if you don't seek help soon, there is a very high potential that things will only get worse.

That’s when you decide to call Tony.

Three weeks later, Tony walks into your dealership, greased up and ready to go. He’s dressed like Robert De Niro in Casino and reeks to the High Heavens of Clubman Bay Rum after shave. Casually sipping his coffee from a faded tumbler that says “Pay Your Dues” on it, Tony then proceeds to introduce himself to you and your team. And after everybody has gotten the chance to become acquainted with each other, he rolls up his sleeves and gets to work with your advisors, taking them into the conference room, two at a time. 

What is he doing in there? you begin to wonder. Whatever it is, it seems to be taking an awful long time. You decide to poke your head in for a minute and check in on how things are transpiring.  

When you arrive at the conference room, you find Tony standing by the overhead television set. He’s playing a DVD tutorial on how to interact with the customer and maximize their experience, while also maximizing profits. He thanks your advisors once again for showing him how to connect his portable DVD player to the conference room laptop. He passively jokes about not even knowing what “USB” stands for. That’s fine, you think. Nobody really knows what that means, anyway. After all, that doesn’t actually matter. That’s not why Tony is here. Tony is here to share his content and ideas with you. He is here to assess your business operation and lead your team to an inevitable triumphant victory. He is a wealth of knowledge, with years of experience under his belt, and he can turn any declining situation around in no time at all. And when the situation hits a critical state, Tony swoops in and gets down to business. Tony gets results. And the reason you know all of this is because that's exactly what Tony has told you. In fact, he has confirmed this with you numerous times.

You remain just outside of the conference room for a few minutes longer, lingering awkwardly as Tony repeatedly speaks up and makes verbal corrections whenever the video begins to cover a subject that longer applies to the times. He’s got this, though, you reassure yourself. And you walk back to your office with a resounding feeling of confidence and vigor, fully optimistic about the fact that your team is now in the hands of a seasoned expert who has seen it all and knows how to settle the score. 

After getting the chance to speak with every member of your team, Tony hands you a three-page document that itemizes all of his suggestions on how you should run your department. After carefully reviewing everything noted, you quickly realize that none of it appears to be unique to your situation at all, and you are left with the feeling that many dealers before you have been handed this very same print-out over the years. You can tell just by looking at the quality of the print that it is, at best, a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy. The process by which you would determine when the original version of this document was printed would most likely result in an infinite regress that could literally swallow a man's soul.

He promises to get back to you as soon as possible, but reminds you of the fact that he is an extremely busy man, and in very high demand. 

Weeks later, nobody in your department has heard from Tony. To your knowledge, he hasn’t even called the dealership once to check in on how things are going. Maybe he has been communicating directly with the general manager? you wonder. And if that’s the case, then maybe—just maybe—Tony has uncovered all of your weaknesses; all of those unwanted manifestations of your insecurity and fears, which cause you to gradually lose sight of your goals and perform below your true potential. Will this consultant be the death of me? you think. Is Tony unimpressed with my performance here? Does he feel that I am to blame for all of our failures and shortcomings? Is he going to recommend that they find a new manager for the job?

You decide to take action and call him! 

After three attempts, Tony eventually calls you back. He’s been in Naples, Florida this entire time. He’s been kickin' back and takin’ it easy since the very day after you met. Like, literally relaxing to an uncanny extent! It's almost as if he took the check that you handed him, cashed it as soon as he left your dealership, and then went on vacation with it. That’s understandable, you think, although somewhat reluctantly. Everybody deserves to get away once in a while. But no matter what your feelings are on the matter, a part of you feels more comfortable now, knowing that he had simply been away for a little bit of leisure time, instead of working with your general manager and secretly plotting your demise. So you take advantage of the moment and begin to pick his brain about some of his thoughts and ideas, hoping that you can finally get down to the real nitty-gritty of it all. But all Tony seems to want to talk about is how annoying it was that he just had to stand in line at a Naples area Starbucks for nearly twenty minutes, all while “some young buck” who ordered through the app simply walked in and grabbed his coffee with ease. Hmm... Must have been Brian Kramer, you think to yourself. But you do your best to move on, and you eventually get around to talking about what his personalized recommendations for your fixed ops team would be. Tony agrees with you that your department could definitely use a little bit of polishing, and he advises you that he will be sending over some audio files he has created over the years. These audio files, he tells you—when followed with careful precision and meticulous accuracy—will undoubtedly put you on a surefire path to success. 

Two days later, you receive an email from tschlopp12@aol.com. You open the email and find that the audio files have all been attached as promised. But they are in RealAudio™ format, and your computer has absolutely no idea how to open them. You call Tony and he informs you that he will have a representative from his technical team reach out to you as soon as possible. And after three more days of waiting, his nephew Jimmy finally calls you—and that’s when you realize that he is the technical team.

You can hear a Metallica song playing the background on Jimmy's end of the line. And it's not even a good one. Without question, it's from something more recent than the Black Album. Like...way more recent. But you decide to shrug it off and just roll with it as he begrudgingly walks you through the process of downloading an appropriate software from the App Store that will eventually allow you to play the files.

From this point forward, Jimmy's work is done. You will never, ever speak to him again. You realize this long before you are even done with the call. You might as well just delete his number right then and there. There is legitimately no reason whatsoever to keep it stored on your phone.

Jimmy no longer exists. 

Later that day, you listen to the audio files that Tony has provided for you, ignoring all of the Malwarebytes warnings that pop up along the way. They are filled with golden nuggets of infinite wisdom, informing you that as soon as you drop the price quote on the customer—whoever speaks next, loses. “Don’t even blink,” Tony goes on to explain. “Even blinking at this stage will ensure that you lose. It is imperative that the customer sees that you are in control through the entire duration of the transaction. You must dominate them at all times. Always remember that they are the ones who need you, and not the other way around.”

After a few loosely paraphrased Zig Ziglar quotes and an uncredited Wayne Gretzky line about how you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take, your audio training seminars have now been completed. And as to whatever happens next, there’s really no way of saying—because by now, your mind has already exploded.