The Advantages to YourSilent Salesman As automotive professionals we all understand that maintaining a vehicle is the most important part of its ownership. Maintaining a vehicle is the single biggest way to protect the investment available. We also know that it is the most forgotten item from the customers stand point, and is usually the last thing they want to buy. Since there is always so much pushback in maintaining their vehicle because they don’t see the value we thought we would discuss how to add value to maintaining their vehicle in this month’s column. Most of us spend a large sum of money for repair information access and are not using the information access tools to their potentials. Most information systems have information you can use to be your “silent salesman”. Silent salesman you say? I don’t have a silent salesman! If you own a computer based Information system, you do, you just may not be using it f ... read more

That Won’t Work Here! You know the old saying, “if I had a dime for every time I heard that”? Well, I’m here to tell you, we’d be RICH!! And the almost funny part is that we could have retired early, and been sitting on a beach right now if we had that dime every time we heard, “that won’t work here”! So, “it” won’t work? Ideas, thoughts and proven methods have worked in countless numbers of other facilities around the country, but won’t work in your shop? What makes your facility so unique that it won’t work? Maybe the bigger question you may even be asking yourself right now is; what is the “it” that I am referring to? The “it” is irrelevant, what is relevant is if you have ever said the words, “that won’t work in my shop” or “that won’t work here”! Those are all good questions for sure, so let’s see if there is an answer ... read more

Perception Can Kill Us “Perception” for the purposes of this article is more about, “what people believe based on what has been said”, instead of the Wikipedia definition. It is about a persons understanding, real or imagined, of what was heard, either completely or partially, by another person. A harsh title indeed, so how can perception really get to be that bad? Everyday people base what they are going to do, what they have done in the past and even what they will do in the future on what they have been told. And it is within that statement that things can, and do go terribly wrong! In the many years I’ve been Coaching and Training individuals & businesses, there is one thing that I have learned to be absolute and true almost regardless of what has been said; any statement can be and is (every day) interpreted in at least 2 distinctly different thought processes. It is these processes that cause us to act on what has been said, an ... read more

Owner Statement:My marketing isn’t working! Short answer……. HOW DO YOU KNOW?! You see, there is more to analyzing marketing than just looking at who and what came in the door! The other element is when the marketing worked and the customer called us, did we do a good job getting them to our facility. We could have the best slogan, an unbelievable visual presence, or maybe even the best offers in the country and if we didn’t do a good job when the potential customer called us, they may never make it in the door, AND most Point of Sale (POS) systems wouldn’t track that. In many cases the only tracking is how many customers came in off of this or that marketing venture. Before we get into this article though, let’s quickly talk about what our marketing should do for us. Does our marketing bring vehicles to us? Short answer; NO! Marketing in its most basic sense only makes the phone ring, and then it ... read more

Who Should Shop MeetingsReally Benefit? This article is about having shop meetings, but not for the reasons you may be thinking. For a lot of shop owners, having regular scheduled shop meetings is something that can push us out of our “Comfort Zones”. Either we; Assume everyone knows everything they need to know….or should! Haven’t ever had meetings and do not know how to use them to their benefit. Are worried that there will be confrontation and that is something we just can’t deal with, or don’t want to deal with. It becomes a complaint session Get over it, this is part of business! “So I’m going to listen to all the people (coaches, consultants, peers, etc) that have told me to be successful I need to have regular scheduled meetings”. “Here I go, I’ve scheduled a meeting and invited everyone involved; Service Advisors, Technicians and Managers, ……now I’m ... read more

KEY EMPLOYEES What is a key employee? Typically and without looking in the dictionary, my version of a key employee is someone who has been with you a long time, or someone you want to be with you for a long time, an employee that holds a key position within your business that would be hard to replace, or more simply, a combination of the above. Key employees typically are our “right hands” and tend to think like business owners which are one of the primary differences between, an employee and a key employee! Owners tend to pay them a little more for their loyalty and dedication, but also have a tendency to not pay close attention to their happiness as other employees, after all, “they’re a key employee, why should I have to?” And every day I see key employees either persuaded away through financial gain or leave because nobody has shown them that they care about them. Side note here—I don’t care who you are, how “bad&r ... read more

EGO….The Business Killer Before everyone starts jumping into their E mails and sending me hate letters, let me explain. You see I understand that it takes an Ego (sometimes a large one) to do what ALL Automotive Professionals do. From Owners to Managers, Service Staff to Techs, every aspect of the automotive business needs some ego to be good at what we do! Because without Ego’s, in most cases, you’ll also find a lack of confidence, and it takes HUGE amounts of confidence to perform any one of the above mentioned positions. That being said, there is also a dangerous business side to these Ego’s as well. Egos can and do create problems within Owners and Managers; too much Ego can lead to arrogance and arrogance within the management of people generally isn’t a good thing. Arrogant types of people generally find themselves replacing employees regularly. This is what we refer to as the “do i ... read more

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 little to correct it? Education at every level is the only true answer to continued business success and then it sti ... read more

You use inspections sheets, right? You know the sheets for; checking starting and charging systems, cooling / brake/suspension system inspections, Preventive Maintenance Inspections…the lists although not endless, should be very long. This blog is NOT about those! This blog is instead about the “Check-In” inspection sheets that very few use and even fewer use properly. What are these valuable inspections sheets? These are the “drivability” check-in sheets that we see very few facilities use. The “No Start”, “Vehicle Runs Bad”, “CEL or SES light is on”, “Noise” issue and so on and so on. Do you have separate check-in information sheets for these? You should! If you aren’t currently using these types of forms or check sheets, your Technicians are wasting “some or a lot” of time. I know, a bold statement, but they are! I say this because as Service Advisors, if there are no f ... read more

“Sorry, I broke the (insert whatever part here) when I was working on the engine, transmission, dash” or whatever they were working on. This is where some “hidden” costs come from, those parts that are broken, not on purpose, not even out of negligence, but parts that are, in fact broken during disassemble 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 to pay for them. 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 make up this money? In a lot of cases they simply don’t. There is a way however to help this situation become m ... read more