THA 117: Creative Brainstorming: How To Build an Idea Factory


Shari Pheasant, the Queen of Horsepower, believes in building people first and uses her own brand of horsepower to drive people from the inside out.  She is a dynamic speaker, multi-award-winning business innovator and president of the Reno-Sparks NAPA Elite Business Development Group. Shari owns A Master Mechanic, with her husband Jeff, and transitioned to an “out of the shop owner” in 2014.

Shari has over thirty-five years of business management, team building, project management, operational development, marketing/branding and sales experience building scalable, sustainable models. Her strategies strengthen the value of your company brand, improve relations and motivate your team to bring in greater profits naturally, confidently and with ease. She has worked successfully with small businesses and companies to create thriving, sustainable cultures that build profit and wealth through accountable, responsible actions. Find other episodes that feature Shari HERE.

Barry Barrett an authority on sales and selling is a Professional EOS Implementer. His company is Business With Purpose. During Barry’s career as a Service Manager and top salesperson, he honed his talents in communicating with people.

Barry is tireless in his pursuit of excellence in the automotive industry and in all that he does. His passion for providing tools to train owners and their teams to the next level is unlimited. Barry is a Ziglar Legacy Certified Coach. Listen to Barry’s previous episodes HERE.

David Eschbach has tenured more than twenty-five dedicated years in the automotive aftermarket.  After graduating from the University of Kansas, David committed his professional career to become an industry-leading coach and trusted source for guidance. He understood that earning a position of leadership required experience and a catalog of achievements.

Throughout the past two and a half decades, David has served and counseled leaders of the mahogany hallways as well as one-man start-ups on dirt floors in tin-roofed repair bays. He has learned that there is wisdom in every handshake and a story in every success.

David prescribes the importance of process, with the understanding that money is a byproduct of great service experience. He has learned that the automotive aftermarket is an industry of families. That is why he is humbled that thousands of service managers and hundreds of business owners have trusted his guidance while on their journey to success. Listen to David’s other episodes HERE.

All the books mentioned on the podcast can be found on the Books Page.

Key Talking Points:

• Break down the silos of your environment
  • We are experts at automotive repair and look at other industries and people who don’t know your business
• Strong confident leaders are engaged to listen and learn from their team and understand that they don’t have all the answers.
  • They also know that their team wants to provide input to help the company grow
• Culture is incredibly important that encourages the openness
  • Culture comes from core values
    • They must be identified so your company has a northbound direction
  • One of Barry’s core values is ‘Radical Transparency’
    • This is the truth as you see it.
    • Book Ego is the Enemy
  • Creativity comes from culture
• Adam Grant Ted Talk – The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers
• It is about capturing and using great ideas
  • They may need time to grow
• The brain is used for having ideas not storing them
  • If you wake up at night write down what your thoughts are. Your brain will rest
• Brainstorm with the team on how you can find another $100 increase to your average repair order
• In an ideas factory, Walt Disney says there are three types: Three Stages of Thinking: Dreamer – Realist – Critic. You need all three on your team.
• Barry: Ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution of ideas that matter.
  • Applied knowledge is power
• Barry: Create an issue list. Every team member has their own issue’s list. The list get assembles weekly and up to leadership team.
  • Every issue has an idea
  • Your ideas must solve problems
  • When a team member gets one of their ideas implemented they know how much they matter to the business
• Shari: Leaders must:
  • Listen First
  • Allow Brainstorming
  • Support the Change
  • Teach Transformation
• David: Creativity is an emotional process
  • As leaders, we need to keep an open mind and ideas come to you respect the emotion that has built the idea
• Leadership and culture does not change overnight
• Creative conflict can be respectful when ideas are being shared.
  • Trust me to be part of the relationship
• Looking at your ideas ask the five whys.
  • Ask Why 5 times based on the answers you get as you dig into the idea
• David: Create a statement of benefit on everything in the shop
  • Does the item or process really benefit the business? Is it useful?
  • Create a tag and write it on the item.
  • You may find items or processes that may not lend value to the business
• Even bad ideas from the past may work today. Do not prejudge.
• David: Play the explain game   
  • Explain the internet to a person from 1920
  • Explain a lightbulb to a person from the year 1515
  • This is a great activity for service advisors
  • It is an activity that sparks creativity
  • This can be used to explain leadership
• Take an idea and ask to explain how it will work.
  • Are there any holes in there.
  • Questions are the answers.
• Get great ideas from outside the industry
  • We talk a lot about doctors
  • Go observe customer service at other companies that have a ‘walk-up’ counter. Customers reactions are important to observe. Get ideas from this.
  • Find local business groups that all members are from different industries
• Every failed idea is grounds to build upon it
• Barry: We don’t like to change or like to be innovative
  • Seth Godin says that we have to admit if we are not competent to do new things and implement new ideas.
  • We have to come to an area of incompetence. We become afraid of that.
  • Get past your ego and get feedback
  • Have a creative conflict and culture to implement the best ideas

Resources:

• A special thanks to  David Eschbach, Barry Barrett and Shari Pheasant for their contribution to the aftermarket.
• Books Page HERE
• Leave me an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one of them.

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