Archive for September 2020

If you had known then what you know now, would you have opened your own shop?

Every day new shops open in North America. Many of them from technicians who have a dream and desire of opening up their own. For many, it is a life long dream to own their own business. For the majority of new business owners, they are great at the skill but do not understand how a business works.

Some owners will lose a team member to the dream of opening their own. They are talented techs and want to build a business around it. Why don’t you help them prepare, even mentor them? The E-Myth from Michael Gerber sums it all up. Everyone can relate to the cupcake maker.

To help your team understand the rigors of business ownership and to help enlighten someone who wants to open their own, start to expose the challenges of business ownership.

I believe it is healthy to share the backend of your business with your people. Show them your costs from your Profit or Loss Statement. Show them the ways you measure performance and set budgets. Explain how the taxes and bills get paid and the consequence when they don’t. Explain why managing cash is necessary to help grow the business or survive a crisis. (Anyone heard of the pandemic)

Explain the value you receive from your networking group or coaching experience. Why processes and procedures are so critical. Who would have thought that your business would have transformed into what it is today had you not sacrificed and improved along the way. You took new-found knowledge and improvised it to work in your business.

Think back, would you have it any other way. Probably not. But you wish you could go back 10 years with your knowledge today and make changes. So help our new young people with their dream. Why? We are going to lose many business owners. They will retire, sell, or just close up. Opportunities exist for succession and for new owners to start from scratch. Why should anyone do it alone? We can keep making the aftermarket a strong influence as the preferred place for safe and reliable transportation by helping to raise early success for all newcomers.

Customers want a great experience. They have preconceived expectations on how their experience with you is going to happen. Will it be as good as in the past. Will it be better than the dealer or the shop they patronized who is now closed? 

Every time we set out to do business, even a trip to Macy’s to buy a shirt, we have a preconceived notion on the shopping experience. I recall getting a special discount because I hadn’t brought in the coupon from the newspaper. I didn’t even know about it. The clerk just did it and told me. I was elated. I haven’t forgotten the unexpected surprise that made the transaction memorable.

You have a huge responsibility to keep your customers long term and to gain new ones based on everything you do (the pandemic notwithstanding).  The one special surprise that the customer is not expecting will be a memory maker that will stay with them for a long time.

You know exactly what you can do with each transaction that will be the one little ‘extra’ that is worth all the marketing monies you spend to gain new customers.

Start making a list of unexpected services you can do to delight your customer. Make a big deal about it when you close the transaction. With our touchless transactions today, be sure to document on the work order, text what you did, send an email, or call the customer with the surprise. Be a memory maker.