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

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

A New Year “Out with the old and in with the new” is but just one of the sayings that go around the beginning of every year when people speak of The New Year!  This article is about just that, changing the old and trying the new. Interested?  For the purposes of this article I will be referring to the Independent Automotive Repair business, but this applies to all business, big or small!  This is about changing with the times, growing any business and getting more: time, money, freedom (you pick).  So, let’s take a moment and look at each one of these items and how they may/do affect business….. your business! Changing with the times!  Do you do business as you did 10 years ago, 5 years ago or even last year?  If you have seen any growth in your business the answer is probably a resounding “NO” followed by how could you?  And although there may be MANY reasons, one of the biggest and most trendin ... read more

You’re Fired! A tough opening statement for sure, but one that, as an owner or manager you need to be familiar with.  I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s start from the beginning. I have been working with this particular client for a couple years and as such have become very familiar with his operations and personnel.  During my visit last month I discovered a HUGE discrepancy in Cost of Goods, specifically Parts in the P&L’s versus the Point of Sale (POS) system.  The P&L’s showed a MUCH higher cost for the first 6 months of the year than did the POS system.  After much research I was able to verify that we had indeed spent almost $7600.00 a month more than our POS system indicated we had!  No increase in inventory, and minimal “owner” vehicles being worked on without the proper paperwork occurring.  After accounting for the above mentioned owner work we still had $7300 plus per month whe ... read more

Almost every day I hear a story of a real world event called taking ownership.  Now although there are many different things spoken about when this is the subject line, they all center around one basic concept, that we somehow are or are not responsible for other people’s issues.  For the purposes of this article we are only going to cover why we (shop Owners/Managers) take responsibility or ownership for our customer’s vehicles issue. Where is this coming from you ask?  How many of you have lost sleep and eventually money for sympathizing with your customer instead of empathizing with them?  What’s the difference you ask?  The Free Dictionary by Farlex states: sympathize with - share the suffering of, or feel sorry for someone. To feel sympathy for someone because they are in a difficult or unpleasant situation.  Whereas, empathize with - to have an understanding about the way someone feels; to feel emotional pain with someone elicits v ... read more

This is something I’ve always simply assumed (and yes, I know the definition of assume) everybody thought this way, the statement “if everyone around is wrong, you might want to look within” is a given!  Let’s back up just a little, and let me tell you where this started. I have coached and trained automotive professionals for about 18 years now, and one of the issues I occasionally run into is one person dictating how everyone around them should do things.  These are usually people who use the old size 12 method of working (controlling) with people, you know, “do it or I’ll bury my foot up your”……well you get the point.  What I have also noted when working or simply observing these personality types, is that they are never wrong.  Come on, we’ve all experienced these people at some point in our lives!   Anyway, I wanted to bring a observation to the table here; in general, You can’t possibly ... read more

WarrantyMore specifically, warranty costs! Warranty costs everyone!  It costs the customer time, and it costs us direct and indirect money.  Direct money is the money we spend to cover the parts and labor associated with any warranty.  Indirect refers to the costs of a Tech NOT being able to work on anything else while he is handling a warranty, and indirect costs can be more harmful to a business than anyone would ever expect! Indirect costs are very seldom ever accounted for when a warranty occurs and they sometimes cost companies more money than the basic warranty ever did.  Look at what your Techs produce hourly on average; now double that because most facilities run a 50/50, or so, parts to labor split.  Got that number?  Now look at how many hours that Tech or Techs performing the warranty spent on that warranty, and do the math.  Now add that money to what the actual warranty costs in parts and labor and yo ... read more

Tracking Your MarketingYou Know Those Numbers Right?   This was a question I asked one of my clients the other day, and his answer shocked me, “NO”!!  Let me start a little earlier so that you can understand my shock a little.  The original question was, “which marketing is giving you the best return?”, and the client answered, “I don’t know”.  This is what this article is about, tracking your marketing, should you or shouldn’t you?? The short answer is a resounding, ABSOLUTELY!!  How will you know what worked and what didn’t?  And just for the record just because a lot of vehicles came in off one particular type doesn’t necessarily mean it worked!  You see just getting more people in the door isn’t always the answer.  Sure it may fix what you consider to be a low Car Count (CC) issue, but is that a temporary fix or long term ... read more

The “WOW” Factor Mystery (part 2)   Turning my attention back to the Service Advisor, he finished his factory recommends checklist and asked if I thought the air filter should be changed?  I responded with, “is it dirty?”, at that point he picked it up off the counter and said, “just a little” (I never saw them bring it up, again, it kind of just appeared).  I said no and he handed it to a Technician outside the office to reinstall.  With that said, he asked if I would like any water or coffee and pointed to their little convenience bar with bottled water and fresh coffee, then said it would be about another 6 minutes until they were finished.  This was a 5-8 minute process to this point!  I watched carefully as the Technicians worked on my vehicle and what I saw was; properly trained Technicians doing a great job on my vehicle.  When the service was competed, I watched them park the vehicle out ... read more