THA 109: How to Handle the Overload of Information, Workload and All That You Have to Learn.



Your Learning Curve Never Sounded So Good

The Panel:

Donny Seyfer, AMAM,  is co-owner of Seyfer Automotive, in Wheat Ridge, CO and the Executive Officer of the National Automotive Service Task Force (NASTF). Donny Seyfer, a 3rd generation owner, has over 30 years of automotive experience as a technician, manager and service consultant. His Dad started in 1961 and his grandfather was building race cars before that. Seyfer Automotive provides general repair and maintenance with a special focus on diagnostic. Donny is past chairman of ASA and serves on many industry boards and committees. Listen to Donny’s previous episodes HERE.

Rob Rowsell, shop owner, owner of Family Auto Service a four shop group in the La Mesa, CA area. Author of the book ‘Addicted To Life’, How I Went from Homeless to Extraordinary Success and Happiness in a Short Period of Time. Find a link to Rob’s book on the book page on the website HERE. Listen to Rob’s previous episodes HERE.

Mark Roberts is the owner of Roberts Properties, Inc, Managing Partner of Total True Automotive dba Schertz Auto Service, Craftsman Building and Renovation LLC. He is also partnered with a Local Custom Home builder. Mark is also the former owner of Auto Collision Works. He grew up in Schertz and has been a resident since 1969.

Mark also serves on the Board of Directors of Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative, Guadalupe Valley Home Services Corporation, and the Guadalupe Valley Economic Development Corporation. Listen to Mark’s previous episodes HERE.

Key Talking Points:

Mark Roberts

• Prioritize – Decide on what’s important, then focus.  Limit distractions. I don’t have any email or social media alerts turned on. My phone stays on silent or dnd most times.
• Trust and empower your staff (delegate)   
• Clear your head – Write things down to get them out of your head. I use an app (Remember the Milk) for most daily things. Do it, Delegate it, defer it or drop it.
• Exercise – There are lots of benefits to this.

Donny Seyfer

• How, when and how long are the best to learn new things
• Filters our brain automatically sets to ignore what we either don’t want to hear or don’t understand
• Neural pathways, what they are and how to mow the lawn on them.

Rob Rowsell

• What’s your system for breaking down the mountain of actionable items you get from this type of an event? If you don’t have a system, it’s likely not much will get done. Selecting 3-5 items that are most important, that must get done before moving to the other items on the list is a great strategy.
• WOIT = Working on it Tuesdays! has been a great strategy for making sure that the items that are at the “helicopter level”, the items that only I can do, do not get forgotten, or unintentionally ignored. We have all heard the term “Working ON my business, not IN my business”, this is the day/time dedicated just for that. This is uninterrupted “Maker” time, as compared to “Manager” time.  
• Set realistic, measurable quarterly goals. This will also apply to what education you have the time to absorb. Your coach can help you with this. It amazes me how people overestimate what can be done in 3 months, and underestimate what can be done in a year. Writing down and reviewing what’s most important to get done this quarter, and then breaking that down to what of those items you can knock out each week, and really attacking the portion of the list that is “maker” time on Tuesdays will really help you in “moving the ball down the field”. The results will astonish you!
• Make sure to have someone on your team that can take away the $10.00 per hour items on your list. The value an owner brings to the table can be minimized by the overloading of tasks that can be assigned to an assistant, or outside vendor. Anything that is $50.00 an hour work, or less, should be delegated to someone else. This is helicopter level thinking, The value we bring to the table is $500.00 an hour (and above) work. Although this may be foreign to some, beginning to think like this will start the process. I used to think that I had to take out the trash to set the example for my people, little did I know I was hurting them by not working on the things that really made a difference for the company they work for.

Resources:

• A special thanks to  Donny Seyfer, Rob Rowsell, and Mark Roberts for their contribution to the aftermarket.
• Books Page HERE
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