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BIZ TIP: Following Your EXAMPLE!

BIZ TIP: Following Your EXAMPLE!

by Kelly Bennett, WORLDPAC Training Institute (WTI) Business Development Instructor

In this series of fictional letters from a new shop owner to his former boss, WTI management trainer Kelly Bennett discusses basic business principles that apply to the automotive repair industry.

The shoe’s on the other foot this week as Kelly, the mentor, learns a few tricks from Erol, the mentee. Following Your EXAMPLE! highlights a selection of inspiring business practices that can be easily implemented at your own shop!

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Dear Kelly.

Just a quick email to say thanks again for looking after my business while I was away. I didn’t realize how much my family really needed a vacation together. It was a great chance to bond again. I promised them we’re going to do it every year from now on. Funny, I was always afraid my business would fail if I wasn’t there for it. It never occurred to me that my family life might fail – or suffer unnecessary damage – if I wasn’t there for my wife and kids. Anyway, thanks for stepping in. And thanks for the book suggestions too. I got lots of reading in!

- Erol

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Dear Erol:

You’re welcome. It was my pleasure. In fact, I should be thanking you. I learned so much from observing how your operation runs. Despite your concerns, I think you’ve set up a great business. You have a real winning team. And after running your shop for two weeks I’ve added seven items to my own action plan.

That’s right. I’m stealing some of your ideas for a change!

There’s tremendous value in visiting other repair shops and learning from each other. We should all make a point of doing it more often. I would say that’s one of the benefits of joining a management group. We get into each other’s shops every second month and we learn best practices. I’ve always said we’re all in this together.

We need to realize that we don’t have to be bitter adversaries. We can work together. Now, here’s what I learned at your shop – and what I’m going to try to implement at my own shop . . .

1. Your booking ahead system.
   
   As you know I’m a big advocate of booking future business ahead of time. But I really like the sign you have on your counter to get customers to buy into the idea.
   
   “Got a lot on your plate? Lots of things to remember? Let us help! We’ll book your next appointment for you and call you when it’s approaching to confirm it.”
   
   Simple and to the point. And it’s not a hard sell. You’re just offering to make their lives easier… just like the dentist does, and the hairdresser, and the furnace cleaners, and the pet groomers. Heck, even funeral homes are pre-booking! Everybody’s pre-booking the next appointment these days because customers like it. And it’s high time the automotive
   business started doing it too.
   
   
2. Your night drop box.
   
   I’m embarrassed to admit I was still telling people to drop their keys through our exhaust pipe hole. Your night drop box is well labeled and well lit. It looks so professional, and is functional too, the way the top folds down to become a tray to write on. The envelopes are a nice touch. I noticed that several customers filled in the checklist and, more importantly, they were all signed. Those signatures are important in our business.
   
   
3. Your shop supply management.
   
   Your techs have to turn in the old can of brake cleaner before they get a new one? Great idea! Same for lubricants, and cleaners. Fantastic. When I went back to my shop I counted dozens of open cans of stuff in the bays. Sometimes I’d see a technician pick up a can, shake it, realize that it was empty… and then just put it back on the bench! We now keep shop supplies up front and have the technicians hand in an empty one to get a new one. Sure they grumble a bit, but in the long run it saves time and money.
   
   
4. Your free pens for customers.
   
   They’re the good ones, not the cheapies that stop writing the next day! I think one guy actually came in for the pen… and had his car serviced as an afterthought. It’s an inexpensive way to get your name around town, that’s for sure. Did you know that one of your customers works at the vehicle license office and whenever someone comments on the quality of the pen, she says, ‘Yeah, and Erol knows how to fix cars too!” I’ve always thought if you give away promotional items, they should be worth keeping. I’ve received cheap pens before and actually thought less of the company as a result. I ordered a thousand of the kind of pens you give out.
   
   
5. Your oil-change tracking system.
   
   Giving out a complimentary oil change after a customer buys five or 10 . . . that’s fairly common. But you get points for not making them walk around with a loyalty card that you punch or stamp. Those cards always get lost or misplaced. It’s so much more convenient the way you track it on your computer for them. And it’s a nice surprise for someone when you look up from your monitor, smile, and say “This one’s on us!”
   
   
6. Your digital camera.
   
   Boy, your service advisor uses it a lot too, taking digital photos of problems that hadn’t been noticed before or problems that were revealed once a part had been removed or dissembled. She would simply e-mail the photos to the customer, and then call to discuss it. I noticed that sometimes, when customers were picking up their cars, she would print pictures right there on the spot and use them to explain the work that had been done. Wow, did that ever come across as professional!
   
   What really blew me away was the way she could document declined work, with a picture in the customer’s file. That’ll come in handy down the road! I asked Kerry if I could use her digital camera at the shop and she said, “Get your own, Mister!” So I did. I made sure that it has more pixels than hers and when she asked if she could try it out, I said, “Get your own, Lady!”
   
   
7. Your ‘Blue Book’ bookmark.
   
   You saved the Blue Book web site in your favorites? I wish I’d thought of that! Whenever a customer is thinking about whether their vehicle is worth keeping, you can simply turn the monitor around and quickly let them see the assessed value of their car. What a great sales tool for those higher cost repairs. So, as you can see, I probably benefited more from running your business than you did from having me come in to supervise things. You didn’t have to give me a thank-you gift – but it was a great choice.

You knew Marcus Buckingham is my favorite author, and you did your homework and found out that I had not read First Break All the Rules. I’m on Chapter 3 already and I’m getting so much out of it. It sure is a great look at unconventional management methods. ‘Thinking outside of the box’ may be a cliché – but sometimes it really works.

Thanks again for all that you taught me. Maybe I should start asking you for advice instead of the other way around! It’s good to know that you’re only an email away.

- Kelly

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To learn more about Kelly Bennett's Business Development Classes visit the WORLDPAC Training Institute (WTI).

WTI Performance Groups
www.worldpac.com

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The Sweet & Sauer Report: The Next Time You Select A Doctor

The Sweet & Sauer Report: The Next Time You Select A Doctor

by Bill Sauer, Founder of Identifix, and Jeff Sweet, President of Identifix

Hopefully you won’t need to see a specialist to diagnose a medical condition any time soon. But, in case you do, we recently read an article that gave advice on the most important question to ask a doctor after you’ve been provided with a diagnosis. You want to ask, “What did you base this diagnosis on?” If the doctor says the diagnosis is based on “my years of experience” the article said it is then time to get a second opinion. Why?

Because today, the most important medical breakthrough is a new approach to diagnosis called ‘Evidence Based Medicine.’ How important is this approach? In a competition sponsored by the British Medical Journal, ‘Evidence Based Medicine’ was nominated as the most important innovation in medicine in the last 166 years! So what is ‘Evidence Based Medicine?’ It means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research. In this interconnected world do you want your doctor to have his head in the sand or do you want him gathering information from other reputable sources to help diagnose and determine the best treatment?

Both of us have benefited from this approach. One of Jeff’s sons had a very rare disease. A specialist recommended a treatment with potentially severe side effects. Jeff asked, given these side effects, what the specialist would do if it was his son. The specialist replied, “I would get a second opinion.” The second opinion diagnosed a different underlying cause for the problem and avoided the treatment with the chance of severe side effects. Jeff has always been grateful to that physician for putting his ego aside in order to provide the best possible care. Bill and his wife Duffy both have benefited from being treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. It is a wonderful place to be sick! If you ever think you or your family might need the services of the Mayo Clinic, please feel free to call Bill. He will be happy to share his experiences with you.

What was the major innovation introduced by the Mayo brothers who founded the clinic? In a 1910 address, Dr. William J. Mayo described it:

As we grow in learning, we more justly appreciate our dependence upon each other. The sum-total of medical knowledge is now so great and wide-spreading that it would be futile for one man to attempt to acquire, or for any one man to assume that he has, even a good working knowledge of any large part of the whole. The very necessities of the case are driving practitioners into cooperation. The best interest of the patient is the only interest to be considered, and in order that the sick may have the benefit of advancing knowledge, union of forces is necessary.

If the total medical knowledge available in 1910 was so great it was ‘futile for one man to attempt to acquire’ then imagine what it is like 100 years later!

So, what does medicine have to do with fixing cars? Many of us have heard the jokes that compare diagnosing and repairing vehicles with diagnosing and treating people. “Doctors have it easy – they only have two models to deal with (male and female) while technicians have hundreds!” What the auto service industry has in common with medicine is that we as technicians are often presented with symptoms and called upon to diagnose the underlying cause. What kind of a diagnostician are you? Are you a ‘Lone Wrencher’ relying totally on experience or do you access the best available external information to add to your experience?

Studies show that 66% of patient visits generate a question to which the physician does not know the answer. These problems are usually highly specific to the patient’s problems.

Technicians today have access to a variety of sources to learn and benefit from others’ experiences. They can use the WORLDPAC Forums, call the WORLDPAC Assist Hotline, subscribe to WORLDPAC Assist/powered by Identifix, post a problem on iATN TecMail or search iATN’s Fix Database. Any and all of these sources can provide you with a ‘second opinion.’

When Bill had the vision of starting a technical hotline, he knew he could have done it a LOT cheaper using generalists rather than specialists. Now, 20 years later, Bill is certainly glad that he stuck to his guns during those early years. And this is the same reason Duffy and Bill chose the Mayo Clinic for their healthcare — Mayo also uses specialists rather than generalists. Hey, it works! By the way, Mayo has its own type of ‘Direct-Hit database,’ researched by symptom–even by DNA.

Does accessing outside resources make a doctor or a technician a lesser professional? No ... because the information is only as good as the person applying it. And whether it’s your health care or repairs on your car, you want the best person to perform the work. Once, before Jeff’s son was being wheeled in for an operation, Jeff heard these reassuring words about the surgeon, “He has a quick mind and fast hands.” When it comes to fixing cars, these same attributes certainly come in handy.

If the medical community recognizes the need and value of connecting with others to help diagnose and solve problems, then the auto service industry certainly should as well. If you compare the changes to the human body over the past 100 years with all the changes in automotive repair, we know that those who are fixing cars also have a mighty tough job!

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To learn more about the research resources mentioned in this article, click on the below links:

WORLDPAC Assist powered by Identifix
WORLDPAC Forums hosted by speedDIAL
iATN

www.worldpac.com

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BIZ TIP: STRESSED to Kill!

BIZ TIP: STRESSED to Kill!

by Kelly Bennett, WORLDPAC Training Institute (WTI) Business Development Instructor

In this series of fictional letters from a new shop owner to his former boss, WTI management trainer Kelly Bennett discusses basic business principles that apply to the automotive repair industry.

STRESSED to Kill! speaks to the inevitable build up of work pressures and the need to develop a strategy to relieve them . . . or else you’re gonna blow!

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Dear Kelly.

Thanks so much for inviting us to the open house of your second shop. Wow, what a place! It’s so functional, attractive, and well laid out. It was a fun night out, actually. And I’m glad you got a chance to meet Brian, the raising star at my shop. He really has become my right hand man. He started as a technician, got bumped up to shop foreman, and now I’m grooming him for a management position. He was very impressed with your facilities, but even more so by how calm and collected you were. He’s seen me running around like a chicken with its head cut off more than once. Are you really so stress-free? Or are you a really good actor.

- Erol

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Dear Erol:

It was great to have you attend our open house. Yeah… we’re quite proud of the new place. Did I look ‘calm and collected?’ If I did, it just proves you can’t see under the surface.

The predominant emotion I was feeling that night was relief. After all the work it took to get the new place up and running, I was just thrilled to see it finally finished! In recent months I’ve had my headless chicken moments too, Erol. Like most building projects, this one required more time and money than I’d expected. There were financing hiccups, and some computer glitches. At one point I thought we’d lost our entire client database!

Stress-free? Hardly!

It was really crazy for a while there, bouncing back and forth between the two shops. My stress level skyrocketed. It took a huge toll on my mental and emotional health. I didn’t have much downtime. I rarely saw my family. Finding time to read was virtually impossible. I wasn’t eating right… I started to wonder what I was doing all this for! I felt like I was headed for a nervous breakdown.

But I talked things over with the guys in my management group. They are all so supportive. And I managed to get some perspective on what I was going through. It allowed me to slow down a little.

You know, learning to manage stress is absolutely vital to success in business. No matter what you do for a living, it comes with its own unique pressures that can devastate you emotionally, rob you of energy, dull your senses, cloud your judgment, and – worst of all – drain you of passion. Once you’re out of passion, you’re done. It’s like running out of gas. You become a zombie at work. I had a real break-through when I learned to be more realistic about what I could and what I couldn’t accomplish in a given day. This might sound obvious, but not every project can be completed in one sitting. I had to learn how to be satisfied with daily progress – even if it was relatively small.

You see, some things on our to-do list fall into a category I call “Fix it Monday.” These are one-off tasks that are important but not urgent. They’re the little things that we know we ought to fix some day. Well, now I fix them on Mondays. I dedicate part of my day – the first day of the work week, when I still have lots of energy – to tackle these jobs. They bring enormous satisfaction because you can see the improvements in your business almost immediately. The stock room is neater. Or your desk is clean. Or the paperwork is done. Or the folders have been filed.

Congratulations. You’re getting there! But other tasks are long-term projects which aren’t going to be as quickly or as easily solved. And that’s when I have to commit to making progress – not completing them, just making progress. I don’t know about you, but I have become programmed to finish tasks. Just get it done, no matter the cost. And that’s great, if the tasks are doable. But let’s face it, some things are long-term projects. They require time and patience. Trying to rush them through just puts a lot of stress on you.

We all love to cross things off our list. See them get done. Move on to something else. It can be tough coming back to the same task day after day. You start to wonder if it will ever get done. But it helps to look at the big picture. You’ve got to break the big jobs into smaller parts and tackle them one at a time. It’s like writing one chapter at a time, rather than trying to write a whole novel in one sitting. I have come to see that I can complete one portion or section of a project and know that I’m getting closer to my ultimate objective. Work on something – even if it’s just a tiny portion of the whole – and then move on to something else. You’ll get some more done tomorrow… and the day after… and the day after. Eventually it will be done.

Stress management comes with discipline and practice. Here’s my plan of attack: Prioritize. Attack the most important tasks first. The tasks you face will fall into one of three categories.

1. Important and urgent
   
2. Important but not urgent
   
3. Neither urgent nor important

This will help you decide where to put your energy. Limit interruptions. Maintain ownership of your own productivity. Remember you are your most expensive resource. If you have a door you can close, close it. If you can turn your phone off, do it. I know one person who wears a red ball cap during his crunch time. When he’s wearing the red cap, no one is allowed to talk to him unless the shop is on fire.

Eat lunch away from the office. Every one needs down-time. Even a small change of scenery will make you more effective when you get back to work. Take breaks when you need them. Walk, breath . . . relax! I have a route that I walk in the neighborhood. It takes me just 10 minutes, but I feel like a new person when I get back to my desk.

Reduce the noise. Take control of your environment. My guys have gotten used to seeing me with ear-plugs in my ears. It may look crazy at first, but I can’t believe how much better I can focus on my work when the outside world is shut out. I have even treated myself to a set of those fancy noise reduction headphones. I plug that into my iPod and I’m in a whole other world, as I plow through my work.

Open the lines of communication. Sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? Taking control of your environment (shutting other people out) and opening the lines of communication (dealing with people) are both necessary for productivity. Eat, sleep, and exercise. Don’t fall into the temptation of running yourself ragged. Those late-nights at the office are not your most productive. You’d be far better off to go home, reconnect with your family, and recharge your batteries for tomorrow.

Quiet time on the way home. Turn off the radio and allow yourself to put the shop to bed. Above all, remember to leave your work at work. There’s a time and a place for everything. Cheat your work, not your family.

What you saw at my open house was me enjoying the fact that a big project is finally finished. But there will be other projects and other challenges in the future. I’ll need to listen to my own stress-management advice as I try to operate two shops instead of one.

If you find your stress levels rising, slow things down, try to get some perspective, and stop expecting so much from yourself. You’re only human.


- Kelly

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To learn more about Kelly Bennett's Business Development Classes visit the WORLDPAC Training Institute (WTI).

www.worldpac.com

Send Email to the WIN team

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