Increasing Your Shops Productivity, Easily!! Before we get started, let me just state this up front: “this is only one of many ways to increase productivity”!  The reason I picked this one is because it is one of the easiest ways I know that has the most significant gains of anything else you can do.  It doesn’t affect customer costs or sales, so nothing has to be done regarding any more sales or G/P adjustments, If there is anything that might have to be done differently, it is to spend a little time watching parts IN / OUT and Getting Credit for them. Now that we have your attention, let’s write / read about your parts vendors for a minute.  Do you spread your purchasing dollars around, a little to everyone, or do you use a couple of primary suppliers of aftermarket (non-dealer) parts?  As I’m sure you want and like your customers to be loyal, your parts suppliers also look for, LOYALTY!  So try and keep parts ... read more

Marketing for the New Millennium “If it worked yesterday it should work tomorrow, right?” If there is one thing that we do know, it’s that just because it worked yesterday doesn’t mean it will work tomorrow.  So with so many mediums to choose from; Internet, Direct Mail, TV, Radio, Reputational, Phone, Text….well the list goes on and on, how do you choose?  The choice sometimes boils down to simple basics, the area demographics, unfortunately most often it is not that simple.  Too help you in your choice of marketing we sometimes suggest to our clients that they ask their customers what they look for when they get mail, watch TV or are they on-line and such.  What gets their attention?  Remember, you are NOT your customer, so writing or designing something that you would look at may or may not be something that would or could get the attention of your actual customers!  Then write or design your marketing program for the m ... read more

It Happens So, it could never happen to you…….you take care of yourself, you eat right, you exercise, basically you do everything you should to live a long life.  GREAT JOB!  This isn’t about the things that you can do to live long, this is about what happens when something unexpected goes wrong…….like an accident!  Are you and your business prepared to not work for a month, two, maybe more?  And if you are self-employed like so many of us entrepreneurs are, where is the money going to come from if you are out for a while? This article is about that, the unexpected, the accident, the unwelcomed mishap.  Remember, bad things happen to good people every day, and most of them probably had nothing to do with you or what you did other than, “wrong place at the wrong time”.  It can happen to anyone, at any time and if you think about it hard enough has probably happened to someone you know.  T ... read more

Wants & Needs   One of Webster’s Dictionary’s primary definitions of “Want” is: to have a strong desire for One of Webster’s Dictionary’s primary definitions of “Need” is: a condition requiring supply or relief When a coach or trainer asks you for your Wants and Needs, what do you think they are looking for?  Let’s look at a few examples; A “Want”—could be to achieve 1 million dollars in business this year!  But you only have 2 Techs and you as the Advisor. The “Need”--for that goal would be to hire more staff to achieve your “Want” So, what is the most important between “wants and needs”?  They are both not only important, they are vital to the success and growth of every business!  “Wants”, drive you to be better, to visualize something achievable or not, but require you to start “the process ... read more

This is Real!! Have you ever heard the statement, “you’ve run out of customer base”?  It is a real phenomenon!  The end result is almost the same every time, business is great 1 week and then it drops off by as much as 50% or more, seemingly overnight!  To understand what causes this to happen we have to look at one VERY important issue first!  That issue is caused by a failure in measuring your New to Total customer numbers!  See what I said there, “measure” because unless or until you know that number, you could end up with a “Shop Closed” sign in your front window and never know why this happened.  Sure, you’ll justify it somehow, but it happens so quickly that most don’t see it coming in time to stop it from happening. The primary issue in this phenomenon is the lack of measuring, or understanding why you should measure it!  Did you know that we statistically lose 30% of our ... read more

Education & Your Business I just sat through a Webinar that was a duplicate to an In-Person seminar I attended last week.  Why you ask?  Because it’s important enough to me to continue my learning experience to take the time to do it!  Sure, there are a hundred other things I would have liked to be doing, and sure some of them were important, but the bottom line is, if I stop learning, I stop being effective at my job.  And since my job is to help others through coaching and training, it doesn’t make sense to stop learning.   So, I guess the question then becomes, how many of you are continuing your education?  Maybe start by asking yourself, has business changed in the last 10 years, 5 years, the last year?  If you answered “yes” to the business question, then why aren’t you changing with it?  In many cases you are watching your business slow everyday, and yet are you doing anything to correc ... read more

The Power of a Review…. OK, I’ll be honest; we may have almost gone too far pushing for reviews from our customers.  A good review can make us feel like heroes or at the same time a moment later, zeros.  After all, it is how people think or perceive us right?  So, how much power should customer reviews have? First we need to know where those reviews are going to be seen!  Are they going to our website, going to post to Facebook, or are they simply there for our betterment and not seen by anyone else?  These are questions that require answers before using reviews for any discussions regarding letting people go based on a review or reviews! All reviews are important, because they can tell a tale of how our customers perceived our service or services.  And they all deserve to be given some degree of significance when reading them.  However, many reviews can be meant to hurt, some even come from people we have never seen a ... read more

Ever hear the “Do as I say, Not as I Do” statement before?.........Think back!  For some, it may have been from your parents, for others, maybe a mentor that said it, or it may have been just last week at work!  Another related and similar statement to this statement is “saying one thing but doing the opposite”.  In this article, we will try and focus on the ramifications of these simple statements or actions, both professionally and personally. Let’s start by asking yourself if you know someone who has said, or by their actions, used and/or acted on either statement?  Now, whether this was a co-worker, owner, manager or friend, how did it affect you when it happened?  For most of us, this starts to erode away the base foundation that this person has built his/her reputation on!  No matter how good the rest of his/her “building” is, with an eroded foundation it is only a matter of time before everything starts to ... read more

I Figured Out The Problem, But It May Cost Me Thousands of Dollars?The setup:  in a recent Facebook group we follow, there was a thread regarding a female staff member that was regularly forgetting to perform some of her daily tasks.  Based on the post, this staff member was a valued employee but this issue was causing major concerns about her future with management and the employer. The employer believes that he/she may have found the cause.  Remembering that the staff member has/is going through menopause, the employer Googled “menopause memory loss” and found that 60% of women have memory loss during menopause.  So the question posed to the group was, how to should approach this? As usual, the group had great suggestions,…....or were they?  Most had suggestions such as; work with her, make checklists, have Siri remind her.  One particular comment stood out from a woman that was tr ... read more

“Sorry I broke the………?”   “Sorry, I broke the (insert whatever part here) when I was reassembling the engine”, transmission”, whatever they were working on.  This is where some “hidden” costs come from, those parts that are broken, not on purpose, not even always out of negligence, but parts that are, in fact broken during disassembly or reassembly.  Who pays for those parts?  Big or small the business usually pays because in most States it is illegal to take the money from the employees check.  So how does the business make up for these losses?  Generally they don’t, “it is part of doing business” is the usual statement followed by, “I sure hope it doesn’t cost too much”.   Whether it does or doesn’t cost a lot is irrelevant because it must get replaced, again, usually at the businesses expense. So where does the business ... read more