Are You Operating Your Business for the Problem Customer? by Mike Lee Management Success!

Mike Lee
Co-founder
Management Success!

One of the most commonly asked questions at any type of sales or management seminar is "How do I handle problem customers?"  The problem customer tends to drive most automotive shop owners crazy. What is a problem customer? A problem customer is someone who demands special handling and unusual solutions. Here are ten indicators that you probably have a problem customer in front of you. Problem customers say (and do) things like this:

• “I have my own parts, but can you put them on for me?”

• “I called the dealer and found out that I could have bought the exhaust output muffler bearing for less than what you charged me.”

• “Can you tell me what the firing order is for my 1989 Chevrolet?”

• “Don't worry about the fact that the brakes won't stop the car, just do that ‘special’.”

• “Since you worked on my car, I can't seem to tune in to Radio Moscow anymore.”

• “You opened the door and my engine fan flew off and destroyed my radiator. What are you going to do about it?”

• “Can you put an Allison Transmission in my Toyota?”

• A customer calls you from Outer Mongolia about his failed fan clutch that you once worked on. He insists that you give him $800, the amount it cost him to tow his car to the nearest shop. He also says that he wants $1500 for his hotel bill from his three-day stay at the if-you-got-to-ask-the-rate-you-can't-afford-it hotel. He also mentions that he intends to collect for his loss of wages and at least $1000 for emotional distress.

• A customer with a name like Mr. Super Critical-Jones, owner of the car from hell, demands that you completely redo the job on his car because it is still not working right. Of course, you can't find anything wrong with it. You have worked on his car six times and he has never once been satisfied.

•  A guy calls you and says that he is the boyfriend of a woman whose car you just fixed. He claims that the car didn't need that much work and that you have ripped her off. He threatens to sue you.

Even dealing with a few of these types of customers a week is enough to increase your blood pressure to well over 400. Unfortunately, the tendency is to start creating unusual company policies to make sure that you NEVER have this kind of problem again. You start running your business to handle the problem customer.  This is a mistake. You tend to remember only the troublesome customers, and not the majority of really nice people that come into your shop, who go along with the way that you do business, and refer their friends to you. The right way to run a successful operation that makes you lots of money is to pay attention to those quiet, non-troublesome customers that are fairly easy to deal with and who are the real reason you are in business.

Quit running your business for the problem customer! You would be better off if you would refer all of them to some other shop in town. When you recognize that you have a problem customer in front of you, be polite and indicate that, unfortunately, you are probably not the one that can best handle the customer's car problems. You can, however, recommend a shop down the street that would be better qualified to service his/her needs.
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ATTITUDE by Mike Lee Management Success!

Mike Lee
Co-Founder
Management Success

It is amazing how much your attitude affects the results you get in business. In an auto repair shop, the owner’s attitude directly affects sales, gets mirrored in the attitude of the employees, and attracts or repels customers. A good attitude can carry you over even the worst setbacks. But a bad attitude also tends to gain momentum. When business gets bad, it has a tendency to get worse if your attitude goes bad with it, which causes the business to get worse, which causes your attitude to get worse.

A few years ago I was called to consult with the owner of a transmission shop that wasn’t doing well. The owner was depressed. He blamed the economy for his troubles and believed that nobody had any money. He was doing about half the business that he had been doing a couple of years earlier. He didn’t know what to do to improve things.

I got right to work attacking his attitude. “With your lousy attitude, it’s no wonder business is so bad!”

I asked how much business he was currently doing each month. He said that he was doing about $20,000 a month. I asked him how many other transmission shops there were in his area. He told me that there were six other shops that did nothing but transmission work. After some rough calculations, we figured that there was about $200,000 a month in transmission work being done in his area, which was down from about $400,000 two years earlier.

Then I pointed out that his REAL problem was that he wasn’t getting enough of the business that was there.

I asked what his “break-even point” was. He said that if he made about $21,000 a month he’d be able to pay all the bills. I asked how much business it would take to really make money. He said about $27,000 a month. We figured out that all he needed was to get about two more big jobs a week to be really profitable.

Then I gave him my four-question Attitude Test:

1.  Do you come in to work later than you used to? Do you want to go home earlier because it is slow?
2.  Do you assume the customer is not going to buy or doesn’t have the money instead of taking the attitude that he is going to buy and you are not going to let him out of there until he does?
3.  Have you stopped doing a full road check on each car and stopped using a diagnostic road check form and a complete checkout on the rack because you know he doesn’t have any money?
4.  Do you set your daily target and weekly target and go after it?

He gave all the Bad Attitude answers (“Yes” on #1, #2 and #3, and “No” on #4) and, with a bad attitude, proceeded to tell me it was all impossible and nothing could be done about it. Then I broke the news to him.

I told him that it was easy to get two more jobs a week if he had the right attitude. I set a target for him to sell a certain dollar amount, enough to be profitable, for each day of the next week and gave him several other things that I wanted him to do.

The following week, he did about double the business of his average week. I asked him how much of the business was due to the difference in his attitude. He admitted that he got three jobs that he wouldn’t normally have gotten, ALL BECAUSE OF AN IMPROVED ATTITUDE! (By the way, he is currently averaging about $27,000 a month.)

But there is another, perhaps even more common way in which the owner’s attitude affects his income. Your attitude directly affects how your employees respond to you and the amount and quality of work they produce.

I used to start each morning in the shop by having a small meeting with the employees. I would go over what we had to accomplish for the day and what I expected. If we were busy, I’d tell them, “I don’t want anyone standing around–I expect things to happen!” If things were slow, I would say, “When everything is done and the shop is cleaned up, then you can relax.” If I needed extra effort from them that day, I would tell them this so they knew what I needed. If it was going to be a just a normal-flow day, I would take a few minutes to make them laugh and then tell them to get to work. No matter what, I made sure to set a positive tone for the day.

If it wasn’t too hectic, I would also make a point of going out into the shop once in the morning and once in the afternoon to talk to each guy and see how it was going, to make him laugh and to keep him pointed in the right direction. The effect that this creates is amazing. Some owners don’t realize how many employees are willing to work hard simply to get an “ATTA-BOY” from the boss.

When your attitude is good, you’ll remember to communicate with your employees and acknowledge the good work they do. When your attitude is bad and you only complain, it drags everyone and everything down.

Attitude is a big factor in success. If you’re tired of feeling bad or if you’re not accomplishing what you want to, maybe it’s just an attitude problem. If so, go ahead and give yourself an ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT–a “check-up from the neck up.”

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Business is Slow, and I Need More Leads! - by Mike Lee, Management Success!

Mike Lee
Co-founder
Management Success!

My service writer says, "Business is slow, and I need more leads!"

It is not unusual for some of our good clients to occasionally say they were doing okay, but it has slowed down. This is one of the areas which drives shop owners crazy. Just when they thought they were going to make some real money, the business slows down. 

There are several possible sources for this problem, but the one we are going to discuss in this article is: If business is slow, it is always the service writer. 

I can't tell you the number of times I have heard about shops having problems, and suddenly they change their service writer and - boom! - the business takes off.

Shops do not become busy by luck or accident. Oftentimes, successful businesses have a service writer who is good at selling, while the shops not doing well try to figure out where all the customers went. Let's look at some service writer basics which determine whether a shop will be busy or not.

Selling is a Necessary Evil!

A service writer needs people. It is amazing how many service writers really do not like to deal with or talk to customers. A good service writer likes people and enjoys talking to them. 

Oftentimes, when we interview service writers from shops around the country, they will indicate that selling is a necessary evil. This is a sure-fire indicator the service writer does not like dealing with people.

I Don't Want to Make Them Mad!

A service writer has to be willing to handle customers, even the tough ones. A good service writer is not afraid of the customer! 

A service writer has to have the ability to tell customers things they do not want to hear - upsetting things, such as it is going to cost more to get their car fixed. Unfortunately, some service writers are afraid to handle customers and tell them the truth - it costs money to fix cars! 

Some service writers are so afraid of upsetting customers and not willing to risk it, so they resort to not telling customers the full story on their car. They try to sell only what they think customers will pay for the job, instead of asking for the money on the full job. 

They suffer from the "Tricky Lower-Jaw Disease." This is the disease that afflicts service writers when they need to tell customers the repairs are going to cost $750.00. Their lower jaw goes into stutter mode, and $450.00 comes out of their mouth!

I Never Want to Rip a Customer Off!

Some service writers have high personal integrity and are careful to make sure they never rip customers off, especially by not overcharging for the work that needs to be done.

Again, this decision leads to service writers becoming rip-off artists. They end up ripping off the business, the employees, the employees' families, the owner, and the owner's family.

It is the responsibility of service writers to sell the work profitably, so all employees and the owner(s) of the business make enough money to live comfortably.

This comes from not knowing what is a fair price to both the customers and the business.  Most shops set their prices based on the "Grand Fake 'Em Method." Their prices are not based on their own costs, but on what their competition is charging. Of course, their competition is going broke, but they have to be competitive.

Can't You Give Me a Ballpark?

Price jobbers! This is the area which drives a lot of service writers nuts. Many service writers are not good at handling potential customers over the phone! Some shops quote prices for major work over the phone to new retail customers. 

This comes from not knowing how to handle price shoppers and, in some cases, the belief a shop must give prices over the phone for major work. 

The truth is that good service writers will normally be able to get 20-30% more business if they learn how to handle price shoppers and do not quote prices for major work over the phone. There is a technology to effectively selling. Most service writers have not had any professional training.

The result is a loss of income for the business and a lot of frustration.

I Need to Speak to a Technician!

A lot of women are involved in the automotive business and many let the lack of training stop them from becoming service writers. They are afraid that male customers will not be willing to listen to a woman because she is not a technician.  

At Management Success!, we have found a lot of women have the ability to be very effective service writers. Some of the most effective service writers in the industry are women who have learned to handle customers. One of the main reasons they are so effective is that most women do not have the technical knowledge for cars - and the less technical knowledge a person knows, the better they are able to sell the work.

In addition, women generally tend to be better at listening and have better communication skills. As a result, they do a better job of handling customers because they listen and do not overwhelm customers with a bunch of technical jargon that the customers do not understand.

I Want to Think it Over!

What the customers are saying with the famous "I want to think it over" statement is they are in confusion and are not sure that what their service writer is telling them is true. This is an indicator that the service writer is not in communication with the customer.  

Customers who are in confusion will not buy! They will go somewhere else. Trained service writers should know whether or not their customer is tracking with them and what they are thinking - this should happen before they get to the end of the sale only to find out the customer wants to think it over. 

When the customer says...

1. "I have to talk it over with my spouse."
2. "I want to think it over."
3. "I will have to wait."

...they are really saying, "The service writer hasn't sold me yet!" A lot of service writers spew out their sales procedure unaware of what the customer is really thinking. The service writer is not in good communication with the customer, but is really just talking to the customer.  The customer is wondering if the car really needs the work and the service writer is telling him or her how much. 

The customer is in confusion and the service writer does not know it. This is because the service writer has not been trained. Most service writers lack the technique of selling and are not in good communication with the customer. When this happens, the shop loses sales and customers.

The Phones Are Not Ringing!

"The phones are not ringing!" This is a favorite statement made by service writers when sales are down. It is normal for a shop to have one or two slow weeks; but overall, if one shop's sales are down, but other shops in town are doing well, then the problem lies in that one shop - and the problem is the service writer.

It takes a person who is motivated, likes people, and does not have his or her attention on other things to be good at sales. One problem of owners being service writers is they are splitting their attention among lots of things which need to be handled. If they have something pressing which needs to be handled, sales will drop. It does not take much for a shop to lose two or three jobs a week when the service writer is not focused. This is why it is best to have someone whose sole function is sales. When you have a service writer, the key point in sales is the rule: It is always the service writer.

I can recall numerous occasions when a client indicated the sales were down, and I gave them the rule. When they got in communication with their service writers, they found that he or she was having marital problems, had a sick child, or had another personal issue, which was diverting their attention from the job and affecting their customer service.

When a job has been growing, sales have been good, and suddenly it starts to go down, the first thing is to pull in the service writer and find out what is going on. Service writers will say it is slow and the phones are not ringing. That is a sure-fire indicator that they have something going on which is preventing them from doing their best.

Being a service writer requires a person's full attention. Service writers must like people and must be willing to tell customers things they do not want to hear. They must know how to do it and need to have good communication skills to know what the customer is thinking.

The Solution to the Above Problems

Just as you would not put someone with no training and knowledge on a tough computer diagnostic problem on a car, you would not allow an untrained person to be your service writer, correct? The sharp businessperson will make sure the service writer in his or her shop is knowledgeable in the technique of sales and has all the tools necessary to do a good job.

I recommend all of our clients who have started their training in business management to come to the five-day service writer course and bring their service writers to learn sales techniques and good communication skills. This is a challenging course that demands a lot out of the attendees. In the end, attendees leave the class with improved communication and sales skills. But, it is only money - yours!

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Marketing To Women: A Female Shop Owner’s Perspective By Nancy Knight Management Success!

Nancy Knight
co-owner of Knight’s Automotive
Ledgewood, NJ

As a wife, mother and major decision maker in my family when it comes to purchases of goods and services, I have lots of experience as a consumer.   My past experiences as a female consumer, both good and bad, have helped influence the way I market and manage my own auto repair business.  I make sure that our shop gives the same friendly service and high quality products that I expect from the people I do business with.    In particular, I pay special attention to meeting the needs of my female clients.  

Why do I have so much attention on female clients?  It turns out that I am not alone as the major decision maker on purchases for my family.   Even in what is perceived as a male domain, women request 65% of the service work done on cars (in our shop it’s closer to 75%)  Women spend over $200 billion on new cars and servicing of vehicles each year.  We buy more than half of the new cars in the US and influence up to 80% of all car purchases.  There is power in the female demographic indeed.  It pays to find out what your women customers want and need then deliver it.   To do this successfully you must first understand that men and women—for the most part—communicate and make decisions differently. 

Besides trust, which is important to both male and female consumers, women want a “relationship.”   We all know that being in a relationship requires a higher level of care and communication to nurture and sustain it in the long term.  Women want more information about what is being done to their vehicle and why.  They want you to listen to them, educate them and not talk down to them.   I call this the C.A.R.E. factor:  Completely And Respectfully Explain their car care needs to them in language they can understand.  We like to use visual aids at the counter and walk the customer out to the car when necessary. 

While men tend to communicate less and want a brief explanation of price and function of the repair or service, women want more details.  Female clients also prefer you to take a personal interest in them, their families, jobs and hobbies.  Ask a woman about her kids, her business accomplishments or her hobbies and watch her brighten up immediately.  This increased familiarity, sincere care and concern goes a long way in building long term relationships with your female customers.  Since, happy, long-time female customers are more inclined to refer business to your shop than male customers (in my experience); they are the best customers to have.

Acknowledging birthdays, anniversaries or writing personal thank you cards are successful marketing actions to consider in building relationships with your female client base as well as personal follow-up phone calls after service is performed. Some additional points to ponder when marketing your repair shop to women are:

• Make sure that your shop is clean and neat both on the inside and the outside. Do not confuse this with fancy. The reception area should be scrubbed and fresh smelling.  Include comfortable seating where possible. Female-friendly magazines, coffee, bottled water and fresh baked cookies are nice touches. 
• Pleasant music playing is preferred over a television blaring bad news.
• Insure that your bathroom is sparkling clean and smells good. 
• Just as your physical location should be scrubbed, so should your online reputation.  Women are more likely to engage in social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook as well as check review sites such as Google, Yelp or Insiderpages before deciding who to do business with. Respond to your reviews and engage your customers on these sites.  Happy customers will share your information with their friends and family members online.
• Make certain that your website is fresh and attractive. Including personal information about yourself and your employees makes you real to potential customers. Pictures and education points are also helpful.
• Set up regular maintenance schedules and send reminders. Utilize all the current technologies such as text messaging and email as well as direct mail according to the individual preferences of your customers. 
• Leave your customer’s cars clean and smudge-free. Besides making a good first impression, making a good last impression is also important especially to the more discerning female customer. Use floor mats, seat covers or steering wheel covers to prevent any dirt or grease from damaging the interior. Do not change the radio station. Offering a complimentary car wash or interior vacuum for large jobs are also welcome treatments.
 
These are just a few female friendly ideas to get you started.  Of course the best way to find out what your female customers want and need is ask them!  Survey your female customers.  They will love that you care enough to ask their opinion.  This is another action which builds long term relationships. 

At the very least, ask your wife, mother, girlfriend or daughter her opinion of your shop.  They will tell you like it is, both the good and the bad.  Adjust accordingly.  It is helpful to ask yourself: how would I want my wife, mother, girlfriend or daughter to be treated? Go over this viewpoint with everyone at your shop from service writers, managers to technicians.

Though I have addressed the female customer base, many of these points are good practice when dealing with your male customers as well.   Make the women happy and the men will certainly follow.    It takes a little effort, but it will pay off in the long run, with repeat business, future referrals and an increased viable customer base.  That is a huge return for just “making Mama happy.”

I learned ALL this and so much more with Management Success’s amazing and knowledgeable staff. I very highly recommend that you attend the How To Increase Your Profits seminar—don’t wait! Let their staff show you just how successful your shop can be!

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A Bad Week, by Robert Spitz, Management Success!

Robert Spitz
Snr VP of Business Dev
Management Success!

Recently, a shop owner was venting to me about the “bad week” he was having. He was not really interested in running his shop anymore. He just wanted to coast along until he could sell it, so he could do what he really wanted with the rest of his life.

When I say he was “venting,” it was worse - he was furious! Earlier that week, his lead tech had been into a Ford block and had managed to sheer off the head of a bolt. So, the tech got a bolt remover and sheered the bolt remover as well! That is when the tech ran out of ideas and gave up. The owner, who is an excellent tech, stepped in. He removed it, re-threaded it, and finished the job - bang, bang! Boy, was he ticked off about all this. This incident was not the only thing that had gone wrong during the week, but it was the one that drove him over the edge.

Here is the truth. The entire incident was a direct assault on what he was trying to accomplish. He hired a tech that he thought - in other words, hoped and wished - could do good work. He wanted to slide along as an owner. He definitely did not want to be there, but he had to be there; otherwise, everything would fall apart. Like a ball and chain, he felt he not only had to be at the shop, but he had to have his head under the hood. In his eyes, several things crashed in at once - a very bad week.

This shop owner is a super individual, definitely worthy of the best possible life. So, after I heard this I cut straight to the heart of it all and asked him what he really wanted to do with the years to come. He first apologized for venting and then eloquently outlined some excellent dreams.

He said his time spent thinking about visions of a better future was the only thing helping him get by with a work situation he sometimes hated. But there was an unworkable fantasy in the middle of all this, and I knew it would block his dreams if he did not tackle it. He was sick of sheered bolt removers, but he was even more tired of employees who sheered off bolt removers! He still had a shop and he still had employees, but in his mind, he was done with all of it - and there he sat.

Quite frankly, this adds up to more than a bad week. 

I could not help him with his week, but I could certainly help him with his future.

He needed to learn how to get others to do a good job. An owner’s primary duty is to get others to get the work done. This is easy to say, but it takes tremendous skill. That, alone, would change his life in a big way. Yes, he could do an excellent job himself. That is an exceptional starting point in any activity. If you cannot deliver the goods, then what matters? 

Here’s the bottom line – many shop owners are great techs. They will say (and they are often dead-right about this) that they are the best tech they know. However, they need to be able to say “I make the best techs I know." When they can truthfully say that, from that point forward, their life will change fast. Many things will not change for a repair shop owner until they can make that one thing happen.


It is not the end of all bad weeks, but it is the beginning of a bright new future. Now, here is my question to you: Can you make the best techs you know?

At Management Success! we can show you how. Then, the new game can begin.

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In Search of a Good Technician By Bob Spitz Management Success!



Bob Spitz
Snr VP Business Dev
Management Success 

Let me tell you a story about a shop in Anytown, USA.  Anytown is an expanding upcoming prosperous suburb of a major city.  The town has four dealerships and twenty independent service facilities.  Pat’s Family Service Center is one of them.  Nice shop, good customer base, plenty of work.  In fact too much work as far as Pat (the owner) was concerned.  Pat was frustrated and worn out from the long hours that come with not having qualified help.  He fired one of his three techs that day and ended up back turning wrenches to get the cars done.  He knew tomorrow was already stacked up and he would be turning away new work, which he knew was a really bad idea. So that night sitting in his office with his hand on his head he was thinking,

“Where do you find good help?
There are no good techs in my town.
I ran an ad for a month, but the only guy who showed up was the one I fired two years ago!”

Pat was disgusted and thinking maybe he should close the doors and do something else. He tried everything he knew how to do and it was not working.  His kids were growing up without him and he and his wife had not had a vacation in years.

Although this is just a story this is one of the most common problems in any industry that requires skilled labor.  It is not just the automotive repair industry.  If you are suffering from this problem let us take a look at some things before you throw in the towel, hop in your truck and head off into the sunset.

Do You Really Need Another Technician?

In some shops, the solution will turn out to be getting more production out of the technicians you already have. In other shops the problem can actually be too many people on board. There is a guideline you can use to sort this out. Take your gross sales (minus sales tax) and divide by the number of production people you have. The resulting figure should be at least $17,500 per production person per month. Most shops should be in the $17,500-$20,000 range. If you are a specialist, your numbers should be in the $20,000-plus range. If your number is a lot lower, you’re not getting enough production out of the guys you already have.

All too often, an owner’s solution to low production is to hire more people. However, if the shop is not properly organized for production, more employees will only add to the confusion and adversely affect your income.

You Really Do Need Some Techs!

But sometimes you really do need additional help or a replacement. While you may have had some frustrating “adventures” trying to find a new technician, rest assured that there are good employees out there. You just have to maintain a good attitude and persist in your search. If you believe that “there are no good techs”, or “nobody wants to work,” you probably will prove yourself right and you won’t find anyone! So that is the first step; decide that it is possible to find someone. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready for the next step.

Working the Grapevine

In every community there is an informal communication system called the grapevine. Good technicians don't usually have to look in the paper for a job; they just use the grapevine to find out which shops in town are good to work for. Here are some people who can help you get your message out on the grapevine.

Tool-man
Tell him what you need and want in a tech; give him your business card. Keep mentioning it to him WEEKLY.

Parts Vendors
Talk to the salesmen you deal with, and even the parts delivery people that go into most of the shops in your area. Again, give them a business card or two that they can pass on to prospects. Some parts houses have a bulletin board on which you can post a small ad.

Customers
This is probably the most ignored communication line available to you, your loyal customer base. Put up signs in your sales and waiting areas. If your zoning codes allow it, put a similar message on your marquee or on a signboard in front of the shop. Your customers might have a friend, a relative or a neighbor who is a technician looking for a job.

Local Trade Association
Many local trade association chapters actively help members find technicians. They run ads in the paper (paid for with membership fees), they contact tech schools, interview applicants and sometimes will even build a pool of prospects and resumes that their members can utilize. Usually the pool includes guys with all levels of skill and experience. 

Churches and Synagogues
Talk to your minister, your priest or your rabbi. Let him know you want someone to join your family of employees. Give him a business card, a 3x5 ad for a bulletin board, or run an ad in the Church Bulletin. Or do all three.

Local Business People
Spread the word via everyone you do business with in town, from the person you see every week at the grocery store, to the guy at the printing shop. Give them all business cards and let them know what you need and want.

Vo-tech Schools
Contact anyone you know at the local Vo-Tech, or call one of the teachers and ask for the names of the best graduating students. You might even end up hiring one of the teachers! One note of caution: some Vo-Tech schools are magnets for addicts and criminals who choose tech training to stay out of jail or the army. Make sure the school has high standards for its applicants.

Military Placement Agencies
A local military base will sometimes have a placement service for guys leaving the service. Call and see if they have one of these offices.

 If so, mail or fax them a description of what you need and want in an employee. Guys with motor-pool experience and military discipline usually make good employees.
By now you’ve gotten the idea that you cannot ignore any possible avenue of communication for your search. The more you tell people what you need and want, the better your chances are that you will find what you need and want.

Place an Advertisement

If, in spite of your efforts, the grapevine does not provide enough prospects, do some advertising. There are some very good web-sites for placing help wanted ads. Not only are they less expensive, but you are likely to get higher quality prospects responding to your ads in them.

Your ads should be worded so that they will attract people with good attitudes and some experience. It is better to hire someone with less experience who wants to be part of the team and is willing to work, than to hire some “Super-Tech” with a giant chip on his shoulder. An employee with a bad attitude will affect everyone’s production and drive you crazy.  I have personally heard from many clients how well the  ads they got from Management Success work.

It is also better to hire two or three guys at the same time because one might not show up for work, one might not be able to produce and only one might be a “keeper.”  Rarely will you run into the problem of having too many good technicians on board.

Your positive attitude can create a good, secure atmosphere that will attract and keep good employees. On the other hand, a negative disposition can repel the best guys. Good people don't want to work for a grouch, and sane people don't want to work in a chaotic, insane environment.  Similarly, employees that have a lot of baggage, such as drug or alcohol abuse problems they bring into the workplace, will contribute to an “unsafe atmosphere” that will drive the good prospects away.

Sloppily run, unprofessional shops that have no basic systems or policies in place will attract non-productive, unmotivated technicians who cost you more money than they make you. On the bright side, a tightly run, efficient shop in which everyone is making decent money and which has policies that limit personal baggage will be most likely to attract good technician prospects.

The bottom line is that, in spite of any difficulties you might encounter in the adventure of finding technicians, over 80% of the people out there are decent and willing to help you achieve your goals. Positively decide you are going to find the right one of them for your team. And good luck in the hunt!

“Hi Honey, I leaving the shop early, things are under control.  Why don’t I pick up the kids from school?”

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Building a Winning Team! Getting Everyone on the Same Page - Bob Spitz Management Success!

Bob Spitz
Snr VP Business Development
Management Success!

I was talking with a shop owner the other day and he said to me, “I am having a hard time getting my crew, especially my service writer to understand what I want.  I go blue in the face explaining over and over how I what things done and yet he always seems to be on a different page.  He’s a good guy and sells well but honestly he’s driving me crazy.  How do I get employees to be on the same page as me?”

Wow!  That is what I call a quick question that does not have a quick answer.  I told him I do not like to do off-the-cuff consultations especially on the subject of employees, but let me see if I can help you here.  Before you pop a cork sit back take a deep breath and relax for a moment.  Employee management is the trickiest part of a business.  The reason most employees go off on a different direction from the owner is a lack of understanding what you the owner is trying to accomplish.  There is no agreement.  Telling people what you want done and how to do things only works when the understanding is already established.  In other words when the employee twigs on how their job related to the overall plan. 

What is the goal of the shop?  What are you trying to get done?  Have you put this in writing for yourself and your employees?  You need to do this as a first step.  If you are clear on where you want to go and what you want to accomplish and how you want to get there then it is easy to communicate those concepts to others.

You do this in the form of policy and staff meetings.  You should have a meeting at least once a week to reiterate the purpose of the shop and what it is you want to get done.  The next step is getting an employee to understand his/her job, the purpose of his job and how it all fits in with the overall big picture of the business.  With a service writer you have to break it all down, how many jobs or hats is he/she really wearing?  In most independent shops the service writer wears a multitude of hats: Reception, sales, parts, dispatching, quality control (checking the vehicle before the customer picks it up)  etc.  Each one of these has to be broken down into their actual components or functions and then taught on how the job is to be done according to company policy.  Just telling people does not really work in most cases. You need to hold training sessions where the employee practices the new procedure or technique.  But be careful here, you do not want a group of clones, you have got to leave room for initiative and creation on the position, other wise you end up with robots who can not think.

One of your biggest barriers to training people is if the person you are attempting to train feels there is nothing to learn; they already know it all.  You have got to know how to handle this kind of person and better yet know how to spot this kind of person before you even hire them.  You also need to know how to motive people to attend training.  There are many ways of doing this, but beware of the person who you can not motivate, there are other problems in this case.

People learn in gradients; step-by-step.  It is so easy to overwhelm a new employee by piling on too much too quickly.  Owners tend to forget how much they know especially about their own business.  Too many owners have trouble communicating want they want and how they want it done. To them it is too simple and too obvious.  How could this new employee not get it?  Well I am going to tell you to a new employee neither of these is necessarily true.  It is not necessarily simple, or obvious.

 You have got to break it all down.  Remember, the only thing you ever have in an employee is willingness.  
In the case of a service writer, break down all the hats they are wearing as I mentioned above and take one hat and work out step-by-step what you want them to know and do regarding the functions of that position.

There are many tools you must have and know how to use when you attempt to train people.  But attitude is critical.  If you do not have a high tolerance for stupidity you should not attempt to train anyone!  You have to be willing to go over points time and again.  Most people learn through repetition. 

By the end of our talk this particular shop owner agreed that he had not spent enough time training his service writer and agreed to take some of the tools I gave him and would take a half hour a day to work with his service writer one thing at a time! I heard from him about a month later and he told me that things were starting to improve, and his service writer was not stupid after all!

Management Success is the leader in quality management training.  As an owner you must have strong organization and communication skills, and a big part of organizing is training for yourself and your team. 

Get trained and learn how to train others.  Your life and the life of your employees will greatly improve. It is the only long term solution.  Wishing you success!

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Is There a Tiger in Your Shop? By Bob Spitz Management Success!

Bob Spitz
Snr VP Business Development
Management Success!

Several years ago a shop owner from New York, a personal friend of mine, called me and began telling me about some tough employee issues, poor production, and stagnant sales.  He was working some crazy hours, said he could not take time away from the shop fearing that all would go wrong if he left.  I asked him why he felt that way.  He said the last time he took a week off the shop sales plummeted and he found himself putting out fires the first days back from his vacation.  He had gotten to the point that if he was to take another vacation he would just close down for the week and give all his employees a paid vacation.  From the way things were going it would cost him less and he would not have to deal with the aggravation. 

I told him not to make any drastic changes because I was already planning to come to New York and I would pay him a visit. 

I did not tell him when the visit was going to be so that I would get a truer picture of what was really going on.  The day I arrived I stood outside of the shop and just observed for a while; my friend did not know I was there.  Within a short period of time one of the employees stood out.  His actions were about as far away as you could get from being called “good for the business”.

I walked up to the counter where my friend was working – he was writing his own service at the time – and I asked him to introduce me to his techs.  The first two guys where personable and social.  The third one (the one I had observed) was a tiger.  I had my friend turn the shop over to his lead tech, the tiger for a while so we could go up to his house and talk.  We sat down and I rattled off a list of things this guy was doing and how he was behaving in the business.  When I was done my friend looked at me as said, “that is exactly what this guy (the tiger) is like, how did you get that out of a handshake?!”  I told my friend that even though I had never met this guy his personality traits are not new to me.  I’ve seen them in other shops I’ve worked with.  I asked him if he wanted some help straightening out this problem.  Since it seemed insurmountable to him he eagerly agreed.
It took a couple of weeks to work out a careful plan to remove this tiger from his shop because my friend was convinced he needed this guy!  The day my friend let him go he called me sounding like a schoolboy who finally got his first date.  “HE’S GONE, HE’S GONE!  I feel 10 years younger and I feel like 100 lbs has been lifted off my head!  The lights actually look brighter in the shop and the other techs are smiling and having a great time throwing out all of his junk!” The very next month the shop did more production with just two techs than it had ever done with three.

I have always found it amazing how one person in a business can hold down the whole shop.  And it always seems to be that key guy the owner feels he must have!  He’s the guy who knows his stuff, he can tackle the hard jobs, the ones that other techs shy away from, but he does it at a price. This is the guy that puts owners between a rock and a hard place.

One of the responsibilities of an owner is to create a safe and friendly work space.  People need to get along with each other and they usually do.  But you have no chance of creating a good team if you have a tiger in the mix.

Another problem with a guy like this is it makes it hard to recruit new team members.  Word gets around and techs know who is working where.  A shop also loses good, hard-working, personable guys with a tiger around.  No one wants to work with him except maybe other tigers --- Great!  Now you have two of them.

Long ago I worked in a dealership and we had two of these characters.  They tore up the production lines and made everyone’s life miserable.  The service manager did not know how to handle them and the owner ignored the problem.  Ultimately they drove off all the other good techs and then left together leaving the service department woefully undermanned.

Knowing how to read people and hire the right people the first time is a skill owners must have.  It is just too painful and costly not to know.  Having trouble in the production area?  Too many upsets and noise?  Look for the tiger—he’s the one in the bushes with fangs and claws ready to pounce on the next unsuspecting victim.

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Help! Help! I Work At A Madhouse! By Mike Lee Management Success!

Mike Lee
Co-founder
Management Success!

When I used to do on-site consulting, one of the first things that stuck out in a real busy shop was how insane everyone was. The first time I saw this was in a very busy shop in Maryland. They had two Service Writers and they both needed space-age phone talker helmets. They had cars and customers all over the place and the phone was ringing off the hook. The owner was so busy helping out that he just waved to me because he just didn't have time to talk.

I watched them for a while and concluded that the two Service Writers had to be crazy to work under that much stress and the owner definitely shouldn't have been involved in the process.

Later, I noticed that time after time, I would go into a busy shop and would see everyone was running around like crazy. Occasionally, I would hear heated discussions or very upset people muttering to themselves. It was very obvious that nobody knew how to organize the place and they were killing themselves and not being very efficient at anything. The biggest problem was that they weren't even aware of how much money it was costing them to do things this way.

The Owner Promised Me It Would Be Done Today!

Nothing drives a Service Writer crazier than to find out from the customer that the owner had promised the customer that his car would be done today and not told the Service Writer.

Did the Part For the Buick Come In Yet?
Don't you just love it when you are busy trying to sell a job to a customer and a technician wants to interrupt you to handle some problem?

Is My Car Going To Be Done Today? I have seen Service Writers actually throw phones against the wall because one of their customers calls every five minutes to see if their car is going to be ready.

When Is My Car Going To Be Done? You Told Me the Same Thing Yesterday!
This is another version of the customer who calls constantly wanting updates on his vehicle. It is amazing how much time is wasted answering the phone and then checking on the status of the customer's cars.

Did You Get the Authorization To Work On the Ford Truck?
How many times a day does someone in your organization ask the Service Writer or you questions about the status of a car or when is a part going to arrive?

There Is No Change. It Is Still Doing the Same Thing It Was BEFORE You Worked on It.
Just Ducky! Just Marvelous! This is just what the Service Writer wanted to hear at the end of a super busy and crazy day. Sometimes, they want to kill the technician who did the work on the car.

I Thought You Ordered It.
This is another lovely piece of news to a Service Writer trying to handle a customer on the phone about when his car will be done. It turns out the part the car needed was never ordered and of course, it will take a week from today to get it. You're thinking, "Do I have to do everything myself?"

I Am Sorry, We Are All Booked Up! I Can Get To It In About a Week!
When I hear owners and Service Writers saying that to customers, I go NUTS! I want to grab the owner and the Service Writer and explain to them how much money they are costing themselves by not having the shop and the front organized.

I remember visiting a shop where the Service Writer told me that he was in overwhelm and it was a madhouse and he didn't know how he was going to get it all done. I looked at the parking lot and the bays and asked "Is this all of it?" He indicated that it was. I told him that it didn't look that busy and that he probably would be over the hump by 2:30, if he did it right.
He handed me the clipboard and said, "You do it then!" I took the clipboard and got all the data on every job and where it stood and when it was promised and who had what. By about 2:00 o'clock it was pretty much a piece of cake from there and he indicated he could handle it. After closing, I sat down with him and showed him how I did it.

Some Basics

If you ever want to watch a really organized operation, be on an aircraft carrier doing flight operations during wartime. It is an amazing thing to watch. They have lots of people doing dangerous activities at a breakneck speed and have occasional unplanned disasters happen, but they handle it all with incredible speed and efficiency. The key is they are trained. They are organized. They have procedures. They all know how to do their jobs.
Of course, if you don't want to join the Navy to learn how to speed up your organization and handle a lot more cars with half of the effort and stress, you and your Service Writer should come to our three-day Controlling The Front Workshop.

At the workshop you will learn how to handle the basics of organizing and controlling the front part of your operation. You will learn how to handle more work in less time and under less stress. You will gain new insight on how to turn your front operation into a lean, mean, money-making machine. It's only money! Yours!

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I am Too Busy to do the Controlling the Front Workshop By Mike Lee Management Success!

Mike Lee
Co-founder
Management Success!

There are 3 ways to increase the bottom line in a shop.

1. Increase your prices.
2. Cut your expenses.
3. Increase the volume of work being done by the shop.

One of the fastest ways to make money, when a shop tends to be very busy, is to organize the front of the operation so it can handle more work effectively.

Boom and Bust!

Without organization and training, one of the things that can happen to a really busy shop is the Boom or Bust phenomenon.

This is especially true with clients who have entered a period where the shop is really busy. Just like a race car, a shop will peak out at a certain level of efficiency. When they go beyond that level of work that they can handle effectively, a lot of negative things start to happen.

The Service Writer starts to become overwhelmed. He starts to make little mistakes and then sometimes bigger mistakes due to the lack of control and organization. When this happens, the shop starts to become less efficient.

He then starts to spread his overwhelm to the production people. Technicians start making silly and costly mistakes. Things are forgotten. The small mistakes creates comebacks and this adds to the confusion and the overwhelm and spreads back to the already overwhelmed Service Writer.

How to Lose Customers

When a Service Writer gets into overwhelm and things start to get chaotic, most Service Writers will begin to stop the flow of business. They begin to not push to get customers into the shop as soon as possible. They start pushing work away. They tell the customer that they are super busy and can't handle it for a couple of days or next week or occasionally for a week or two.

When this happens, they don't realize that they are killing their future and losing good customers. The difference between being super busy and slow is not that much on a per day basis. It only takes about 2 or 3 more cars a day to make a shop super busy. So it doesn't take much of pushing work into the future to start to slow a shop down.

The other missing piece on this is when you put a good customer off for 3 or 4 days or a week. Occasionally, they will decide to take it somewhere else to get it fixed because your shop is too busy. Sometimes, those customers will like the new shop better and you have lost a good customer and you don't even know it.

Normally, within about 2 to 3 weeks, things have slowed down. The shop doesn't realize that it is partly responsible for creating this problem. They are not aware of what is happening, so they continue to let things slide until the shop is dead slow. At that point, the owner now is screaming for more business.

So the shop starts another cycle of boom or bust.

Too Busy or Too Slow!

At Management Success! we have watched this happen repeatedly to our clients. One of our Service Advisors will call a shop about doing the Controlling The Front Workshop and the owner of the shop will say "Man, we are swamped and can't do it now. Call me in a month."

The Service Advisor will call again in about a month and the owner of the shop will say, "It has quieted down and I want to think about it. Call me in another month." The Service Advisor calls in another month and the owner says that they have no business and they want our help with marketing, because they need customers.

Organizing the Front Office Improves the Bottom Line

The owner of the shop doesn't realize that one of the fastest ways to improve the bottom line is by organizing the front part of the operation. When the owner and the Service Writer are trained on the basics of controlling the front operation, it means big numbers on the bottom line.

Example: Shop A: The owner and the Service Writer are not trained and the shop tends to max out at about $10,000 a week in volume. After doing the Controlling the Front Workshop, Shop A can easily handle $15,000 week and seem slow. Also, Shop A will not tend to have this constant pattern of boom or bust.

Time to Change!

So are you tired of this boom or bust pattern? Are you tired of chasing the business? Are you tired of going through periods of craziness followed by periods of boredom? If you get into a condition where the shop is so busy that you can't handle it, that shop needs to have both the owner and the Service Writer do the Controlling the Front Workshop. But it is only money, yours!

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