Academy Archives

THA 078: Low Hanging Financial Fruit That Will Increase Your Profits

Low Hanging Financial Fruit That Will Improve Your Profits

The cost of doing business rises each year. Net profits that are necessary to move your business forward are challenged each day.

Our panel talks about the value of inspections on your sales, association membership, and billing for all parts and fluids used on a repair. We get into some cost savings ideas and using the power of a company credit card to help with training costs.

THA 077: Business Coaches LAB – Standards

Business Coaches LAB on Standards

Standards, in a business is the bar, the rules that set the level of quality, service, experience, caring, and engagement. The problem is so many times the owner is so busy doing whatever he’s doing in his business mistakenly believing his job is to make sure cars are fixed.

Owners forget about the standards that set the tone and pulse of the business when it comes to customers, processes, training, conduct, dress code, ethics, financial, execution and performance among others.

You do not want your ‘standards’ to be set by others so you must create them if not chaos is ensured and as panel member Cecil Bullard says, “In business, there is no floating. You either going up or down.”

THA 076: Improving Your Soft Skills. How To Lead and Spread a Positive Vibe.

Improving Your Soft Skills. How to Lead and Spread a Positive Vibe.

Soft skills are the personal attributes that go a long way in building and enabling you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. A soft skills inventory can be active listening, Enthusiasm, Attitude, Communication skills, Teamwork, Work ethic, Flexibility, and Courtesy, among others.

Our panel Amy Mattinat, from Autocraftsmen, Mt. Montpelier, VT, trainer, Former President of Women in Autocare, along with Greg Buckley, Buckley’s Personalized Auto Care, Wilmington, DE, and Jeremy O’Neal from Freedom Automotive and CEO of AdvisorFix.

Our Academy panel dives deep into the value of soft skills for a leader and among the entire team. We talk roles and responsibilities, the value of a success coach, and the value that soft skills bring to the technician, service advisor, customer relationship.

THA 075: Am I ready For My Second Branch?

Is there another branch location in your plans.

Have you ever thought of growing your brand into other communities? There is an art and science to intelligent growth. According to this Academy panel, it is not an easy task. You can choose an acquisition or open a brand new location.

The Panel includes multi shop owners Greg Bunch, from Aspen Auto Clinic, Colorado Springs and Denver, CO, Dwayne Myers, Dynamic Automotive, Frederick, MD, and Brian Sump, Avalon Motorsports, Denver, CO. They all have additional growth plans.

You will get a solid overview of growing your location count from the panel who have already made a ton of mistakes. Learn from them and take their wisdom to account in your growth plans.

THA 074: Can David Beat Goliath?

Can David Beat Goliath?

The Academy panel dives into the dichotomy of David and Goliath. David, quick nimble and did not perceive that he was an underdog. The panel considers that larger industry players can be Goliath-like … complacent, too structured, weighed down with rules and inflexible. It doesn’t mean that it is bad, but they say small and nimble is better than big and sluggish. They are quick to point out that we can learn a lot from Goliath’s as it pertains to systems and processes.

Ironically we did discuss that having a Goliath mentality may be good for a David. We talked about business models, being able to adapt to changes in the marketplace and consumers habits. A great example in the discussion was that Starbucks is a Goliath but they hire Davids. A very potent strategy for success. We also talk customer loyalty and what we can learn from the Goliaths of the aftermarket.

The Panel: Bambi Crozier, from Car Clinic in Lowel, AR, Jeremy O’Neal, Freedom Automotive, Freedom Automotive in Hesperia, CA and President and Lead Sales Trainer at AdvisorFix and Scott Pelava, Lonsdale Auto Works in Lonsdale, MN

THA 073: Your Turning Point: The PIVOT(s) That Improved Your Business

Your Turning Point: The pivot that improved your business.

Have you ever thought about a big event that you could call a life pivot? A circumstance that made a change in your life or your business? Many of us can claim distinction to some monumental occurrence that could be classified as an important pivot point. This Academy is all about those pivots.

Kim Auernheimer partner with husband Rob in CS Automotive, Brentwood, TN, Patrick McHugh, shop owner, Bimmer Rescue, Richmond, VA, Alan Symmes, shop owner, Revolution Automotive Services, Norwood, MA and Cecil Bullard, CEO, The Institute for Automotive Business join in the discussion.

Listen to real examples of important pivot points from these shop owners. Hear how pivot points arrive when you put your family priorities in play. Pivots show up when you start to run your business as a business. You will have tough days so you need to have great mentors and a strong network and a business coach to support your progress.

THA 072: Technician Training Strategies & Rewards

Training Technicians is an Investment That Must Be Made and Funded.

Shop owners must create a learning culture in the business. This allows the entire team to understand the value of training. It doesn’t end at 5 PM. The shop owner must generate the profits necessary to invest in a comprehensive training program for the entire company.

All roles in the business including CEO, service advisor and technicians must be included in the strategy. Owners must lead the way by attending business management training. Training is a retention tool.

Listen on how to work with your suppliers to get the type of training on their local/regional training schedules. Listen for ideas on rewards and that associations are a great source for training.

THA 071: Underutilized Shop Management Systems (SMS)

Underutilized Shop Management Systems.

The panel is all about max utilization for your SMS. You are going to learn a lot and maybe walk away with an action plan to better utilize your SMS.

Listen to Tom Ham, Automotive Management Network and shop owner of Auto Centric in Grand Rapids, MI, Scott Brown, from Diagnostic Network and shop owner of Connie & Dicks Service Center, Claremont, CA and David Roman Shop owner of Done With Care Auto Repair in Merriam, KS and Facebook Group Founder, Ask-A-Mechanic.

Among the talking points: There is a training gap on features and actual uses, cloud-based SMS is where we are heading, and it is the shop owner’s responsibility to request and get the training from your SMS supplier.

From a marketing and customer perception, when you are all digital and you come across as ‘high tech’ from counter to bays, it also puts you ahead of the pack and provides a certain level of differentiation.

THA 070: Business Coaches LAB – Leadership

Business Coach LAB on Leadership

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality”. –Warren Bennis

The passion behind the vision is what makes people leaders. This is a first in an episodic series called the Business Coaches LAB. With me for the ‘Leadership LAB’ is Cecil Bullard, Bob Greenwood, Jude Larson, Rick White and Murray Voth. Find the coaches bio, previous podcast episodes and their companies website on the show notes page: remarkableresults.biz/a070. Also, find the cliff note ‘talking points’ there that can act as a great action to do list for you.

We get into some very deep discussion on the value of leadership, but also on how you can start to be a better leader. Yes, leadership can be learned and practiced. The value of this lesson will bring you rewards for years to come.

THA 069: Workshop – Service Advisor Roleplay – Part 1

Listen In On Four Different Roleplays of Service Advisor and Customer.

In this new Academy workshop format, learn as four different themed role plays are, played out for you. In each role play there is a customer, service advisor and an observer/coach who sums up in their own words what was great about the role play. The observer also suggests ways to improve.

The ‘actors’ are Lauren Giver, Service Advisor at Los Gatos Auto Service Campbell, CA, Barry Barrett, Director of Training at RLO and Clint White Shop Manager at Coopers Auto Repair Specialists in Tacoma, WA.

Access your own skills as a service advisor with this roleplay workshop. Owners, consider roleplays as a teaching strategy. Find the key takeaways from each role play at remarkableresults.biz/a069

THA 068: Why Just In Time Learning is Bad For Your Business

The Impact That Core Fundamental Training Will Have On Your Business And Career.

This power panel includes Donny Seyfer, Mark Saxonberg, Chris Chesney, Jeff Peevy and Bill Haas. They have the expertise and experience to give you a blueprint for your training strategy. From the Road To Great Technicians to the real world problem of Just In Time Learning … you can’t expect to make any money when you are learning in the service bay.

Yet there are many instances when you have to learn in the service bay because many of the problems you come across you have never seen before. And that is where core competencies come in. And the panel says, do not use Just In Time learning as an excuse not to have structured education.

We talk triage, structured training, service support resources and the importance of the Service Advisor as a critical component of getting the job done right the first time.

THA 067: Your Ideal Customer Part 2 – Training Your Team To Embrace Your Avatar

Your Ideal Customer Part 2 – Training Your People to Understand and Embrace Your Customer Avatar.

Knowing your ideal customer is an important part of a very successful business and helps define who you want as your customer. Commonly called your customer avatar, or your cardboard cut-out you are defining a customer that trusts you and are advocates for you.

These customers are least likely to stray and are most likely to recommend you because they are also advocates. You must talk to your ideal customer and find out what makes them tick.

In this episode find out the many ways you can engage your team to embrace your ideal customer. Hear from Ron Inchausti Coast Motor Werks in Irvine, CA, a multi-shop owner, Brian Weeks from [atc] Auto Center, a 3rd generation multi-shop owners from Augusta, GA and Patrick McHugh from Bimmer Rescue in Richmond, VA.

Part one is Town Hall Academy Episode 56

THA 066: Periodic Motor Vehicle Inspections

A discussion on the state of mandated periodic motor vehicle inspections.

There are only 14 states in the US that have some sort of mandated vehicle inspection. There had been almost twice that amount. There is momentum to eliminate these safety inspection programs.

The panel discusses the reason we are at such a low level and what needs to be done to help arrest additional states from phasing out any more inspection programs.

With Carm, recorded live with a studio audience is Robert L. Redding Jr., ASA Legislative representative, Joe Battista, the Vice President of Sales and Business Development for Parsons Corporation, and shop owner Sybren van der Pol, an ASE Master L1 Technician and owner of Adolf Hoepfl & Son Garage, in Houston, TX and serves on the local ASA Houston chapter Board of Directors.

Listen to find out what you can do to help bring awareness to safety inspections as all aftermarket professionals see first hand the number of unsafe vehicles traveling our roadways today.

THA 065: Your SMS Data – Who Controls It?

Do You Have Control of Your Business Intelligence Data?

Data is king. It is ok to share your data if you know who you are sharing it with? If and when you share your customer database with vendors; what do you want them to do with it and how should you expect them to treat it thereafter?

These topics and many more are covered in the lively and wide-ranging discussion and debate over data and what happens to your data once you sign an End Users License Agreement (EULA).

Guests include Karim Morsli, Winkler Automotive Service Center, Bill Nalu, Interstate Auto Care in Madison Heights, MI, Chris Cloutier, owner of Golden Rule Auto Care in Dallas, TX and president of Autotext.me and Greg Buckley, Buckley’s Personalized Auto Care in Wilmington, DE.

THA 064: Workplace Organization the 5S Method

Workplace Organization: Waste. Clutter. Standardize. Improved Efficiency.

5S came from the Japanese and the concept of Kaizen, continuous improvement. 5S is a method to improve workplace organization. The 5S’s are Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize and Sustain. The benefits of 5S helps you eliminate waste, and in many cases reduces your steps, minimizes injuries, and removes clutter.
Start by finding the simplest task. Perfect it and move on to the more complicated.

This panel has the expertise and experience to help you on the process of improving your workplace organization. Pat Brown retired from Cooper Tire and learned lean and took the manufacture training to translate 5S into shop management working with Twenty Groups for DSP (Dealer Strategic Planning) Twenty Group, Keith Tucker form Triple ‘T’ Tire in Dyersburg, TN and Brad & Ryan Goff from Rogers Tire in Caldwell and Meridian, ID.

Learn about 5S and how these shop owners translated the method into improve processes where they saw a measurable difference in their operation including the generation of more revenue.

THA 063: Making Business Partnerships Work

The Qualities of a Good Partnership or How to Make Partnerships Work.

Partners and brothers Vinnie and Anthony Lucido from CoAuto, Community Conscious Car Care in Reno, NV and partners Shawn Kline and Jeremy Austrum from Next Generation Auto in Baldwin, WI., share how they make their partnership work.

They share advantages and disadvantages of having a partner, the role of each partner, and the qualities of a partnership. They say that knowing each other’s communication style or DISC respects each other’s way of getting and sharing information

These partners believe that their business coach has improved the partnership. These partners also share the pitfalls or challenges that can creep into a partnership. You’ll also hear about buy-sell agreements, life insurance and work-life balance.

THA 062: Come Backs – Prevention, Reputation and the Cost

The Dreaded Come Back: The Keys To Prevention.

Comeback prevention starts at the front door. It is all about communication. Writing enough information to the technician the better he/she can handle the diagnosis.

To improve the end product and to reduce comebacks, you must build quality into the repair process. Quality control checklists at the end of the repair can only do so much. Quality, not quota, is the strategy you need to adopt to reduce comebacks. You should always be looking to improve. Your processes will drive a well-managed quality program.

The quality of parts today is in question and you need to pay attention to comebacks so your costs and reputation are managed. Tracking every comeback is a necessity if you are going to reduce your comebacks.

THA 061: Know Your Daily Sales Break Even Number

The Rule of Holes: Know When To Stop Digging

Knowing your break-even point — the point at which total cost and total revenue are equal is important to running a business. It is not just good enough to reach your daily break even, you must exceed it if you are to stay in business.

Knowing the break-even point is helpful in deciding gross margin on parts, labor rates, setting sales budgets and preparing a business plan. If you do not reach your daily break-even then there is a great chance that you had a loss of profit for the day.

This episode provides a worksheet download for calculating break-even. The numbers will come from your financial statements. Your accountant can also provide them. The key to knowing your break-even set the tone when you are reaching for your profitable sales goal. You’ll know what the minimum excepted number is without digging yourself into a hole.

THA 060: How To Get Value From Recorded Service Calls

How To Get Value From Recorded Service Calls

Listen and learn from Rena Rennebohm, service advisor coach and the Chief Training Officer of ACT Group, Keith Williamson, president of Williamson’s Repair and Tire in Bondurant, IA and service advisor Lauren Giver, from Los Gatos Auto Service in Campbell, CA.

Listening to just one side of a customer call does not do justice in improving and training your service advisor. Service advisers need quality training, no different than technicians and business owners and the recorded phone call is an important element to that training. Save good calls and go over what a good call sounds like. If your shop does not record calls, then get your shop secret shopped. You’ll be convinced.

Find one phone call that works play it over and share it with your team; you will grow your business. Recorded calls and coaching helps to convert and opens the learning to be a better communicator. A great outcome of recorded calls is the opportunity to make changes to your policies. You’ll discover what works and what doesn’t.

THA 059: Critical Daily Actions That Matter

Shop Owners Must Do’s: Daily Actions that Matter: Why Routine Matters.

We had a very deep discussion on critical daily actions that will keep your business compliant and running smoothly. You’ll walk away with a strong sense of discipline in building a daily task list that you stick with. Without proper planning and a strong checklist, that you are accountable for (or that you delegate), too many slips through the cracks and eventually crashes into your well-intentioned routine.

Bambi Crozier wife and co-owner with Neil Crozier, of Car Clinic in Lowell, AR, Mark Goldsmith Mark’s Independent Service in Chatsworth, CA and Rick White Rick is President and Lead Coach for 180BIZ bring their great insights on the importance of planning to be a strong business leader and watchdog.

THA 058: How to Become the Employer of Choice

How to Become the Employer of Choice.

Join Ryan Clo from Dubwerx in Cincinnati, Dwayne Myers from Dynamic Automotive in Frederick, MD and the Director of Training at RLO, Barry Barrett.

You have an opportunity to listen to three of your aftermarket colleagues who will share their perspective on becoming the employer of choice. We opened up some great thinking pathways to help you create and improve your position in the marketplace when it come to attacking and keeping great talent.

We talk the extreme importance of creating and having a great business culture, career ladders, putting your people front and center in your business, pay, reputation and so much more.

THA 057: Your Profit & Loss Statement. Learn it. Love it.

The Power of Strong Financial Statements

No question that knowing the value of your Profit and Loss Statement helps you grow a strong, viable and profitable company. Many shop owners have not gotten intimate enough with the value of their financial statements.

The episode with Maryann Croce from Croce Transmissions in Norwalk, CT, Mark Roberts from Schertz Auto Service in Schertz, TX and Bob Greenwood, AMAM, president of Automotive Aftermarket e-Learning Center show the power of an accurate P & L.

We also talk about the Balance Sheet and the extreme value in accurate finical statements if you are going to sell your business or buy one. Also discussed is where on the P & L is it indicated that you can afford raises and that your emotions will try to override the numbers, because they tell the real story.

THA 056: Your Ideal Customer – Defining Your Avatar

Your Idea Customer – Defining Your Avatar

Knowing your ideal customer is an important part of very successful businesses and helps define who you want as your customer. Commonly called your customer avatar, or your cardboard cut-out you are defining a customer that trusts you and are advocates for you.
These customers are least likely to stray are most likely to recommend you, because they are also advocates. You must talk to your ideal customer and find out what makes them tick.

In this episode find out the many ways you can connect with your avatar, a recommendation on how to get started and who to involve inside your company to help define who is your ideal customer. Hear from Ron Inchausti Coast Motor Werks in Irvine, CA, a multi-shop owner, Brian Weeks from [atc] Auto Center, a 3rd generation multi-shop owners from Augusta, GA and Patrick McHugh from Bimmer Rescue in Richmond, VA.

THA 055: The Importance of Back Office Operations – Part 2

The Power Center of your Business is in the Back Office PART 2

Amy Mattinat, Jacquie Walter Hower, Maryann Croce and Kim Auernheimer discuss Human Resources and Marketing. Two very important responsibilities of the CEO and back office team.

Highlights: The legal document called an employee handbook, hire slow-fire fast, know your candidate’s personality and hire for a culture fit.

Track your marketing efforts, never shoot in the dark you may not be spending your money wisely. Have a good referral program for your advocate customer and your brand’s image needs to be consistent and must match the face you put in the web and social media. This group also shares some great marketing ideas.