The truth is, there’s no short-cut for the work that has to be done to correct most businesses that aren’t highly successful.

This is not to insult the hard work invested by owners to survive as long as they have…but that doesn’t mean that what they focused on was best, nor does it mean it was or is or will be right.

When it comes to the consulting that we provide, what we do is provide the most efficient and effective systems to owners that we possibly can, systems we’ve developed after 38 years of owning a shop.  (That’s consecutive years, not combined.  We’ve owned Keller Bros. since 1970.)

These systems are being used by shops from coast to coast, and those shops whose owners and staff fully adopt our program experience exponential growth and consistently beat the tar out of owners who are stuck believing that “they know best” what their shop needs!

It comes down to this: if your ego is too big to let somebody else help, and if you’re too stubborn to stop paying for old systems and let go of old opinions and beliefs (all problems that led you to look for consulting help in the first place)…consulting will never work for you.

It can work…in fact, for shops owners that can get their ego out of the way, consulting can mean huge growth.  But you’ve got to understand that there’s no quick fixes or short cuts.  If you’re thinking of working with a consultant or trainer, make sure you’re ready to leave your own systems and processes behind.

Your success and the rate of your shop’s improvement depend upon your ability to do this!

Remember, there are lots of auto repair consultants out there, and lots of automotive marketing companies…no matter who you decide to work with, make the decision to jump in with both feet before you sign on the dotted line!

Your results will be much easier to attain if the consultants know what they are doing, and it will all happen much faster!

One thing that is true of all advertising is that your offers and claims must be sustainable…the customer must experience everything you promised, or you’ll lose trust faster than you can say “coupon.”

Small businesses are especially at risk here because they cannot afford to advertise at the level of the large chains and outlets.  Burning customers through mediocre or even poor service that you brought in through advertising is truly suicidal.

The other thing that I see so many people doing today, is trying to undercut each other with cheaper service and lower prices…this too will absolutely kill your business! The more people you bring in on cheap offers, the more money you lose!

Why? Because consumers who consistently shop for the cheapest prices are the least loyal…they do not typically respond well to the “loss leader” style of marketing. (“Loss leading” is where you offer a service or item at lower than your cost, in order to lure them in and try to up-sell them on other items. This works well in grocery stores, but in auto repair, it’ll kill a small business!)

Training your customers to come in for cheap things can absolutely fill your bays…fill them with NO-VALUE cars, and NO-VALUE customers!

I prefer targeting the more intelligent consumer, and I don’t try to “up-sell” them. Instead, we teach them the truth about what’s in their best interest and how to get more miles out of every dollar. We use visual aids and take them into the shop and SHOW them what’s going on and explain how it could’ve been avoided…then we show them other items on the vehicle and teach them what else they can do preventatively to avoid ending up again in the same situation they’re in now only with a another system on the vehicle.

We use a much longer-term approach to our marketing and advertising that results in longer relationships with our customers. Instead of using gimmicks or trying to trick them with offers that are too cheap to believe (or to be profitable for either of us…i.e. using cheaper parts to give a cheaper price ruins the experience and the chance of them trusting you over the long term, even though you capture the sale today), we focus on an ethical, educational, and sincere approach.

If you want to know more about the advertising we used to take our little $1.2 million operation to a $3.2 million business in under three years, check out www.LongTermFix.com. It’s all available there, and we’re still using it.

So, when I advertise, I never list the name of the shop, and I often use a service like www.evoice.com in order to help me handle the process confidentially…I have a friend who is not associated with my shop record the message, and we have them email their resume (part of the message), and leave a detailed voice message….all before they even know who we are!

That allows us to review their resumes and listen to their voices up front. This is very helpful! You might be quite surprised at how much more sharply you can focus when the person is not sitting right in front of you. Sometimes an attitude comes through in the tone of voice, a large ego is often revealed, as are many other attributes that might not be desirable for this position.

Once you listen to them, and rule out the candidates who are not easily understood (marble-mouths), people who can’t follow the simple instructions left on the message, and others-you can SAVE A TON OF TIME by not meeting those applicants and instead zeroing in on the ones that really sound like what you WANT your staff to sound on the phone…people who convey a sense of hospitality, happiness, energy, and positivity!

Once I do call the best of the batch back, I am going to ask them about 20 questions, but here are the top three!

1. Are you working now, and how long have you been at this job?
2. In which areas are you certified, and are all those certifications up to date?
3. What type of work do you prefer, and what are you least comfortable with/capable of doing?

Even if you don’t ask anything else before they come in, these three questions are necessary before I am identifying my shop, and certainly before I am inviting the individual to come and disrupt my schedule and busy shop for an interview!

Remember, every time you hire the wrong person, you damage your relationships and credibility with all the other staff, and you could lose some very valuable customers…quickly!

Never hire a warm body, and seriously…take the time and make SURE the applicant FITS your NEEDS!

Please comment below, and share with us your own critical idea for interviewing and hiring!

No wonder so many businesses are struggling! I mean there are major brands out there disappearing! Wouldn’t you think that by now, people would start to realize that the old ways of doing things are not working for them?

It’s not enough to just come in on Monday and HOPE that things are going to work out this week. It’s CRITICAL that we take on the perception and responsibilities of WINNERS…and yes, I said RESPONSIBILITIES…

Crazy, huh? Well, let me put it to you this way…do you think that Lance Armstrong had to accept a greater responsibility to win all those bike races?

How about John Elway, when he quarterbacked the Denver Broncos to TWO Super Bowl wins? What if John or Lance just “showed up on Monday” and waited to see how things were going to “happen?”  Do you suppose either of them would have experienced the kind of fame, income, and admiration if they had just waited for a “lucky break?”

I think not.

I start out every week, (and every day for that matter), by taking a personal inventory each morning. By that, I mean that I wake up, stretch, and get into a mind frame of taking full responsibility for everything in my life. My health, my attitude, my income, my debt, and so on. Once there, I can easily see what I need to focus on personally, and I can make a short list of TODAY’S ACTION ITEMS.

It’s really important NOT to make a list bigger than I can get accomplished today…and preferably before noon! (It feels so GOOD to reach a feeling of accomplishment midway through my day, that it often fuels me to do another list at lunch time!)

I make my list in two categories. Items I need to accomplish myself, and items to DELEGATE to my team and staff.  Then, depending upon what time it is in the AM (I am known for starting a bit before the team arrives at the office, like say 4 AM…), I usually call the team and begin, one at a time, visiting with each of them. I always focus first on their lives (“How was your evening/weekend?”), and let them tell me about their life and what’s going on…then I gently point them back to the day and I let them know clearly what I need and expect from them today. I always try to take care to explain the “why” rather than just give orders. I find they are much more conducive to my ideas and directions that way.

Once we accomplish that, I then set out to work on checking off each item on my own list, as time allows! It’s a wonderful way to keep things moving forward and making sure that even if something isn’t right during the day, progress RULES!

Your employees may not always outwardly demonstrate their dissatisfaction, and you may think that they ought to know by now that some weeks are just slow, but it’s when we relax and think we know what others are thinking that we really get in trouble!

Even though we have become very adept at marketing and advertising our business, Back-to-School, Christmas, and Tax Week have never made it off the bottom of our “busy times” list!

Our secret to success, though, is that we actually have a plan for these tougher times that increases morale and helps prevent comebacks! By planning ahead while sales are taking a dip, we’re actually preparing our shop to make even more money once the slowdown is over!

We do this in three ways: internal/cross-training, to make sure that our shop is prepared to handle an influx of cars; image management and beautification, to make sure that our shop’s image gives our neighbors a great impression of our facility and staff; and by marketing on a seasonal plan, where we make our biggest push in the month leading up to a seasonal slowdown.

Internal Training/Cross-Training

The secret, we’ve found, is to focus on the areas in which our shop is most limited during the busiest periods.  By removing the bottlenecks and, as a result, increasing our capability (and therefore our capacity), we prepare to make more money every year!

How do we do this in our shop?

Say, for instance, you have a guy who flashes proms, and does your heavy diagnostic work.  Schedule the next most talented technician to spend a couple hours per day with that top diag guy.  By the time the shop is busy again, he too will be able to flash proms and confidently perform deeper diagnostics (You’ll likely be amazed what 8-10 hours of training like this can do.).

(And of course, great diag work helps your shop stay busy, even when car counts drop off!)

For instance, if you have an alignment machine in your shop, it’s likely you have one guy who is the primary alignment tech. Have each of the other techs spend an hour or two with him during slow times, so that every tech in your shop is adept at alignments.  The next time your alignment technician is sick or on vacation, your shop won’t lose that revenue!

In our shop, we train all of our staff to help us with estimating and parts sourcing and to do so in the proper way! Imagine how many more dollars you could push through your shop when you are buried in cars if, instead of sitting around watching his tool box rust, your tech would grab a work order and help with sourcing parts and building the estimate!

Just because your service writers are buried in recommendations and your techs don’t have approval doesn’t mean that your shop has to act like a clogged drain!

Image Management and Beautification

When our shop is slow, I pay my techs and other employees to paint, drywall, pour new concrete pads for lifts, hang Christmas decorations, pass out flyers at the local movie theater, et cetera, just to keep them productive and to get a handle on our image – all while filling the pipeline with work for next week or month.

There are two things that are important to remember and consider, however:

First, control the number of hours you can afford to pay for each job by creating a budget and sticking to it; and second, assign the guys to the work based upon: a) your budget and what you can part with (remember to spread it around!); b) their hours flagged that period (help out the hungry!); and c) their willingness to participate in this most important work! (Whiners and complainers move to the back of the line!)

If you plan for these things and undertake a minimum of preparation (such as having a few gallons of matching paint on hand, budgeting a few extra bucks each month when you’re busy, writing lists year round of things that need mending or maintenance, etc), you can turn slow times into times of personal and team growth . . . and you can improve your team’s trust in you to take care of them, even when things are hard.

At the same time, too, you are readying the business for the next rush period.  You’ll definitely see the team perform more quickly, more efficiently, and with greater teamwork – and, we’ve found, they’ll take better care of the facility and equipment when they have each personally worked so hard to make it nice themselves!

Remember: when it comes to running a successful shop, image is everything.  How your facility and staff look creates an expectation for the customers before they ever even reach your front counter or pick up a phone to call.

Marketing Before A Slow Period

Perhaps the best way to increase sales during period when you know your shop will be slower than usual is to ramp up your marketing before your car count starts to drop.

In our shop, we’ve set up a seasonal marketing plan where we stop any slowdown in its tracks by stepping up our marketing & advertising 1-2 months before sales normally start to dip.

For instance, we know that our shop’s car count typically begins to slow down in late November for the holidays.  To counteract this, we increase our marketing efforts in October (and earlier), so that when that typical slowdown comes around (while other shops are experiencing a drop in sales), the marketing and advertising from the previous month are continuing to bring us great customers.

Since we know that the big companies and chains will be investing a huge amount of money when it slows down so that they can be sure to grab as much of the available business as possible, we know we must beat them to the punch,  to be sure we get our share of those customers first!

Besides the timing of your marketing efforts, however, what those pieces say is just as important.  In our shop, we constantly focus on doing “replacement marketing,” where we aim to market only to customers that we want in our shop.  After all, if your shop is anything like ours, we don’t have time for the cheap, discount-seeking customers that typical advertisements bring in.

Instead, we focus on bringing in people who want to take care of their car, and who are focused on quality over price.  By concentrating on these customers, we guarantee higher sales year-round, and by stepping up advertising efforts in the month or so before a slowdown, we make sure that we have a steady stream of quality customers all year long.

Of course, finding great customers is a topic all of its own.  If you’re interested in using the right kind of marketing in your shop, I’ve written a free e-book which you can download on my website at www.autoprofitmasters.com. Drop by and learn how you can keep your shop busy and profitable all year!

David Rogers is the President of Auto Profit Masters, an active member of the National Speakers Assn., and is operator of Keller Bros, Inc., a CarQuest National Excellence Award-winning shop. David is the host of a weekly television program in Denver called “The Monday Morning Mechanic” and is also a published author.  David can be reached at coach@autoprofitmasters.com, toll-free at 1-866-826-7911, or online at www.AutoProfitMasters.com.