auto repair

Do you agree with these FOUR statements about Automotive Processes and Systems?

1. Automotive Processes and Systems run your business, whether they are written or unwritten.
   __Yes__No
2. Your People run the Processes and Systems.
   __Yes __No
3. Making your business process and systems dependent, rather than people dependent, is the major objective of the Manager
   __Yes __No
4. Your Daily Operations Silver Bullets do not exist.
   __Yes __No

At You Net Results we utilize what we like to call “YOUTOOLS.” They are a set of automotive business tools that can help you manage your business better as you grow it.

Online and In-Person Training

Throughout COVID, we have been meeting together online. We review processes and systems that help businesses operate smoothly and thrive. We have all gone through many changes during the pandemic. Online learning has helped our businesses pivot and grow during these challenging times.

In June 2021, our 360 Full Circle Group met in Atlanta, GA, in order to share our auto repair businesses’ methods. Look at all of those smiling faces in the photo above after we saw each other in person, shared hugs, and broke bread together. What a great event!

We see such great success among the auto repair shops we coach at You Net Results! Because of that, we are, of course, continuing our online and in-person educational programs.

Now, let’s look at the answers to the questions asked above about automotive processes.

Yes, processes and systems help run your business. However, they are clearer and easier to reproduce when you write down those Standard Operating Procedures down. Congratulations if you have all of your processes documented. However, you are in trouble if they are stuck on a shelf in a three-ring binder collecting dust. They need to be living, breathing, updated SOPs in order to work effectively.

Yes, your people run the processes and systems. But the question remains, are they doing it correctly? If you’re not sure, take a look at what your customers say about your business — both good and bad. Can you identify what must be improved? Can you determine if anyone within your team is sabotaging your systems and processes? If yes, then we can help you determine how to regain control.

Yes, the Manager’s main objective is to make your business process and systems dependent, instead of people dependent. If you focus on the systems and processes, then your business is more scalable. Imagine if McDonald’s could only run if one specific person were present. Would the restaurant be able to stay open as long as needed if it was entirely people-dependent? We think not. Because of well-documented systems and processes, McDonald’s has evolved into a multi-billion dollar, worldwide operation.

Yes, your Daily Operations Silver Bullets do not exist. You simply cannot write down your daily operations once expecting them to hold for a decade. Things change. Systems change, software changes, people change. It is crucial to treat your Standard Operating Procedures as living, breathing entities. “Silver Bullets” imply “one and done”, or “set it and forget it”. If you want your business to be successful, then that’s just not the case.

Take the YOUTOOLS Automotive Processes Journey with Brian Gillis

At You Net Results, we host coaching groups just for auto repair shop owners. Together, we can all reach our own turnaround points. You will move from a business owner to a confident business leader. Then, and only then, you can eliminate everything that is holding you back.

Are you ready? Let’s do this!

Don’t keep hiding in the weeds! Let’s Maximize our Daily Operations.

To find out more, contact us for a complimentary consultation. Brian Gillis will discuss your business strategies, and then find ways to improve both your annual revenue and company culture.

We all know that it is challenging to pick up new habits, but anything worth doing can be hard at first. You have to keep in mind that every person has their own pathway and their own method of success. However, we all have one thing in common: how difficult that changing your mindset can be. Always remember that everything is possible when you put in the work to achieve it! 

What are some of the things that you personally think about when it comes to achieving success? Is it…

• more sales for your auto repair business?
• increased car count, thus filling up your bays?
• depositing more money in the bank every week?
• additional free time to spend doing the things you love?
• expanded customer engagement with your front counter staff?

Advice for you from famous thought leaders

Here are some helpful videos which can help you upgrade your own success habits. We collected these from some of our very favorite thought leaders:

Denzel Washington “Fall Forward”

Simon Sinek “This Will Change How You View Success”

Grant Cardone “Tips To Become Successful”

Gary Vaynerchuk “The Most Important Habit of Successful People”

You Net Results are here to help you form your own success habits

You may think that you have good luck or bad luck, but the truth is that your success will only come with the habits that you create for yourself! Remember that for a business to start, it needs both help and support from many different people. The team at You Net Results is always right here, and we are waiting to help you! 

We believe deeply in you, and we know that you can do this.

Sign up now and receive 16 hours of habit-forming front counter training each and every month!

You Net Results’ very first live automotive training event took place on June 23-26, 2021. Our group of auto repair shop owners, general managers, and service advisors gathered in Atlanta, GA for intensive learning experience. Let’s recap what made our first event so special!

Automotive Training Event Day One – Conference Meeting #1

After our bus arrived and we settled in at the hotel, we met for an insightful series of discussions. Brian set the table for our intense day of learning, then we reviewed the Monty Moran book “Love Is Free, Guac is Extra”. Afterward, Upswell Marketing Agency President Tim Ross discussed marketing strategies.

After lunch, YNR members circled up for roundtable discussions on both leadership and marketing. Each attendee was challenged to bring their own ideas to the table.

Finally, Jennifer Filzen of Rock Star Marketing gave an exciting presentation on how shop owners can use video marketing to leverage their brands. Once Jennifer finished her talk, we all discussed the shop tour the following day and adjourned.

Day Two – Shop Tour of Chloe’s Auto Repair

Our in-person shop tour took place at Chloe’s Auto Repair. YNR members got to see up close and personally what makes the Chloe’s team so successful. Our group saw the front of house crew in action, then moved on to observe the layout and site of the shop. Finally, they observed the rest of the shop’s employees in action.

After breaking for lunch, we held a panel for shop owners to quiz Chloe’s team about their procedures. When our group’s questions were all answered, we adjourned to rest up for the last day of the event and our most intense session.

Day Three – Conference Meeting #2

During our Saturday meeting, our group of shop owners joined in a variety of breakout activities. We started with our popular Dollar Time game, presenting our best business ideas to the group. There may or may not have been a cash prize for the shop owner who best argued for their idea.

Casual Photos

Our trip wasn’t all work, no play! We made time to relax and see the sights around Atlanta.

Want to attend our next 360 automotive training event?

Do you want to take part in our next automotive training event? Click below to buy an individual event ticket, or join our 360 Members Group so you will always have a seat to our live events!

When you hear the phrase, “Go For No,” how does that make you feel?

• Does hearing “go for no” make you uncomfortable?
• Do you feel kind of creepy or pushy?
• Does it trigger fear of rejection?

What if I were to tell you that the services you offer could be the answer to someone’s prayers?

What if I were to say that money and the exchange of it is a dignified conversation?

Do you suppose then that talking with clients and finding out their needs could be a good thing?

When you Go For No, you’re not pushy. 

You’re not even confrontational. Instead, going for no is a simple conversation that finds out what your clients need and don’t need. 

If you fear hearing the word “No,” I invite you to join me on a journey. Let’s examine why that word is one of the most helpful words on your path to success.

• “No” defines boundaries.
• The word “No” allows you to “know” your client better.
• “No” helps you know where you stand and what needs to improve before you can get to yes.
• “No” is “no-thing” to be afraid of in business.

That’s why we say “Go For No.”

Our 360 Group recently met for our first in-person event in Atlanta. It was a great time, and we all learned new techniques about running our businesses better. 

Along the lines of “No,” we learned incredible things about both ourselves and our team members. 

• We learned what we would no longer tolerate as business owners who want to grow our annual revenues. 
• Marketing is nothing to fear. 
• Potential clients will more often say yes to you when you communicate with them and educate them through video marketing. 
• We discovered that going for no really means not giving up until we have found our God-given purpose.

Take the NO Fear Journey with Brian Gillis. 

At You Net Results, we offer coaching groups for auto repair shop owners and service advisors. Together along with your fellow automotive professionals, you can reach a turnaround point. Then, you will evolve from a business owner to a confident business leader, by eliminating the obstacles holding you back. 

Are you ready? Let’s do this. 

If you’d like to find out more, then contact us for a complimentary consultation. Brian Gillis will discuss your business strategies and then find ways to improve your annual revenue and company culture.

Are you feeling crushed under the weight of running your business? You’re not alone. Many auto repair Owners and General Managers wonder why running their businesses is so hard. But not all of them. What strategy is in play to create their success?

Strategy – Big Picture Planning

We often hear the mantra, “Work Smarter Not Harder.” What does that mean? Let’s talk about Strategy versus Tactics for a bit. Understanding the difference between them is critical to your business’s success.

Strategy is looking at the big picture planning you need to do before diving into the tactics. If your spouse wants you to build her dream house, you don’t just run to Home Depot and purchase a pile of bricks. If you HAD a pile of bricks laying around in the backyard, would you then start laying them out? No. You would end up with a disappointing mess, as well as an unhappy spouse. Not good.

When you want to build your dream house, there are specific steps you need to take before beginning the build process. First, you need to purchase the land and survey the land. Next, you will meet with an architect and draw out the plans. Then, meet with the builders, acquire the permits, and make sure there is money in the bank to pay for it all. That’s called strategy.

Tactics – Laying the Foundation

After all that, THEN you can begin laying the foundation. You’ll be counting the number of bricks you’ll need, setting up the framing, installing the infrastructure, hiring the electrician, and so on. That’s tactics.

If you try building that dream home without strategy or tactics, you’re screwed. It doesn’t matter how good the architect and builder are. Without strategy and tactics, you get stuck with analysis paralysis! You wonder why that dang house has become such a money pit.

How Do Strategy and Tactics Apply to Your Auto Repair Business? 

Well, if you want to build your ideal company, then you need to put together your strategy. Once your business plan and marketing strategies are mapped out, you need to employ the tactics that will get you there.

Fortunately, You Net Results has the experience to walk you through both the strategy and tactics you’ll need to get your business to the next million dollars in annual revenue. It’s not an overnight project. It takes a lot of work. However, it’s a solid plan that will help you reach your goals, as long as you implement and take action.

At You Net Results, we facilitate coaching groups for auto repair shop owners. Together, we  can all reach a turnaround point. You will emerge from the experience of moving from a business owner to a confident business leader. Thus, you will eliminate the obstacles that hold you back. 

Are you ready? Let’s do this. 

To find out more, contact us for a complimentary consultation. Brian Gillis will discuss your business strategies and find ways to improve your annual revenue and company culture.

Here’s a clip from our Advisor Results Academy meeting, where we talk about Auto Repair Financing. First, Brian and the service writers on the call touch on the importance of financial assistance. We discuss comparing ourselves to other auto shops in our area. While we may charge more for labor, do our customers get what they pay for? Do your competition offer shuttle service? How about preventive maintenance inspections, and other perks to ensure customers return?

Why are auto repair financing options important?

Finally, we transition to our main topic, another key feature all automotive shops should offer. Financing is so important for many customers.

Having a reliable vehicle is a basic need for most people, since they need a safe commute to work. Most of our customers are hard working, honest people who hold down full time jobs. However, they have fallen on hard times or have bad credit. That is no reason to punish them further! Affordable financing could determine whether or not they opt in for necessary repairs. As an auto repair shop owner, you must offer a financing option for these customers.

As the video concludes, service advisors discuss the financing companies their shops work with, in order to add needed flexibility to customers. They also add dollars to their bottom lines. Services such as SNAP, Car Care One, and Easy Pay are all discussed.

Does your automotive repair shop offer customers financing options? It could make the difference on selling auto repair jobs that you might not otherwise! Survey the other automotive shops in your area and see what they’re doing right or wrong. It may make a huge improvement to your own shop’s financial health!

Get in on the discussion – join one of our Tuesday calls for free!

Why not sign up to join a FREE live Zoom meeting with Brian and your fellow shop owners? You’ve got nothing to lose, so sign up today!

If you are looking to expand your team and grow your business, you must put your systems and processes in place, so new hires can learn them. Otherwise, you’re in for a surprise with people winning stupid prizes by playing stupid people games.

What?! Yes, that’s right. Let me explain.

How many times have you hired someone who you thought was a promising candidate? Someone who interviewed well, passed your criteria, and looked like a winner on paper. Then, you hired that individual and found later that they were poor performers. Or worse, you thought they were just plain stupid.

Do you really think they were stupid? Seriously, after all that vetting, do you think you hired someone dumb? I would argue that you didn’t hire a foolish person. Instead, you had non-existent or poorly defined systems and procedures in place — if there was any documentation at all — and that “stupid” person was thrown into the fire with no procedural support system. 

After all, we don’t hire dumb folks. Instead, we have lacking systems and processes that make them look stupid and force them to underperform. 

In short, it’s not their fault. It’s ours. We failed them because no one is inherently stupid. But too many business owners don’t recognize this, and they continue pretending. They’re winning stupid prizes by playing stupid people games. Here’s what I’m talking about:

Nicole Mason on Unsplash

Stupid people…or stupid business practices?

I was talking with a shop owner recently. During the course of our conversation, he told me everyone he hired was stupid, and they never did what he told them to do. I asked him who hired them? There was silence on the phone. Was it the owner or the people? What prize do you think he won?

Quite frankly, it’s a stupid way to run a business.

Let’s rid ourselves of this “stupid” label and take a different approach.

If you were to build a house and laid the foundation before meeting with the architect, you have on your hands a failed and expensive home-building process. Your systems and processes dictate your success, and we have seen too many small business owners jump into action without having a solid plan called systems and processes in place. That is why Standard Operating Procedures or SOPs are critical to the success of any business.

McDonald’s and other major fast-food chains have learned how to streamline SOPs in such a way that the average 16-year-old high school student can train in one or two days and become highly productive within their first week of employment. 

So here’s the question: What is preventing you from hiring intelligent and talented people who prove to you over time that they are worthy? What’s stopping your new hires from reaching success is your lack of Standard Operating Procedures guiding them steadily toward that success.

Let us help you solve your systems problems!

If you are genuinely searching for a streamlined system that will help your employees win, your business grow, and will lower your stress level, and you need to adapt well-thought-out systems and processes. When you work with You Net Results, we will take you through proven systems and techniques that will help your business grow. Our strategies help shop owners reach their next million dollars in revenue and help their company culture thrive as well.

Who do you know that could benefit from well-documented, seamless systems and processes? If you know anyone who could benefit, including yourself, please schedule a consultation with You Net Results. After all, great intentions don’t pay the bills. If you are willing to invest in yourself and your team, you are on the right track in avoiding stupid people games that waste your time and money.

At You Net Results, we dedicate many training hours to business systems. Our classes and coaching sessions address how to reduce mistakes and prevent lost details. To find out more, contact us for a complimentary consultation. Brian Gillis will discuss your business strategies and find ways to improve your annual revenue and company culture.

Have you ever played the game “Telephone”? You start by lining up a group. Then, you whisper a sentence into the first person’s ear. They then whisper the message to the next person. The game continues until the message gets to the final person in line, who announces out loud what sentence they heard. It is often much different from the original sentence. Quite the exercise in communication!

At You Net Results, we know this game shows what happens when messages, systems, and processes are undocumented. Just like in the game of “Telephone,” something can get lost in the telling. When you don’t write down instructions, client comments, or repair orders, this is inevitable.

Communication breakdown

In auto repair businesses, it happens like this:

The Customer tells the Service Advisor something. Time is short. The Service Advisor doesn’t write it down, but they repeat it verbally to the Technician. The Technician may also skip documenting it, so they present the Service Advisor with new information. The Service Advisor then reports to the Customer via phone. More back and forth happens, and then the Customer picks up their vehicle. Later, the Service Advisor is surprised to read the Customer’s one-star review. Why? Communication was not clear. They lost something in the telling.

How can you avoid losing something in the telling?

Do you see how simply repeating verbal information can lose accuracy? It is obvious how the customer felt wronged. How can your team reduce miscommunication? How can they improve clarity?

The answer? Use transparent systems and processes to document all communication. Enter repair issues through DVI reports, notes in your CRM, text messages, recorded phone calls, and other exchanges. When you do, you will reduce your chance of poor reviews.

Perfect your shop’s communication chain!

At You Net Results, we dedicate hours of training to communication. Our coaching sessions help prevent mistakes and lost details. To learn more, contact us for a free consultation. Brian Gillis will discuss your business strategies and ways to improve revenue and company culture.

Check out this clip from our General Manager Process online Zoom meeting. Members can watch the whole discussion in our You Net Results members library. In this video clip, our own Brian Gillis asked a roundtable of automotive repair Owners and GM’s to list ten things that every General Manager must do well. Once our discussion was done, we had compiled a comprehensive list of duties. When you read through them all and focus on each one today, then you will truly up your game!

Tasks 1-3 for Effective General Managers

After Brian set the table for our YNR members, he called on veteran shop owner Jerry Kaminski of AutoWise Car Care. Jerry suggested that keeping an eye on your numbers is an imperative move. Whether you review your financial records daily or monthly, taking a regular look is key.

Next, Andy Arndt stressed how important it is to delegate tasks you can’t make time for yourself to your staff. No matter how skilled you are, you can not do it all! You must trust your staff to take some of the workload off of your already full plate. Your time is valuable! If a general manager is stuck under a car, he or she can’t handle their administrative duties.

Task Three that a general manager must do well means both finding and maintaining the right staff. Jim Ryckman invoked the acronym PAHR – Prepare, Attract, Hire, Retain, which is the method we teach for staffing. Without the right crew on hand, none of these other tasks are possible.

GM Duties 4-6

Our friend Dana stressed that good communication skills are essential in any management situation. You must stay cool under pressure, and learn the right things to say to both your staff and concerned customers. Above all else, listen!

Brian then called on Bart Brown, who listed leadership as his GM task of choice. Repair shop General Managers must continually train in, and then put into practice, the methods they learn in order to guide their team. The importance of having the proper leadership vision can not be underestimated.

Edward Couture then weighed in with two more tasks that every GM must master. In order to improve workflow, you must learn to manage your time well. Edward credits his time management skills with many of his own business successes over the years.

Tasks 7-8 that a General Manager Must Do Well

Edward continued by saying that all managers must learn to be diplomatic. When you are managing a team of skilled automotive technicians and service advisors, conflicts will inevitably arise.

You should not show any favoritism between your children. In much the same way, you must learn to step in and resolve the disagreements between your staff, whether they are personal ones or professional ones.

Leon told us that every owner, as well as every manager, needs to designate a time one day per week to focus on the business itself. We have always taught this crucial concept as “Working On It Tuesdays”.

It is so easy for us to get caught up in the day to day tasks going on in an automotive repair shop. If you do not reserve a block of time to work on the nuts and bolts of your business, then it is not going to happen. Go in your office for an hour and shut the door. Don’t forget to also tell your crew that you are not to be bothered for that hour.

During that time, study the methods that will increase your effectiveness as both a leader and a general manager. It will save you countless headaches and so much time down the line. Do not do this at home! Operating hours are for business, so you need to take that time to find perspective. Then go home and recharge with your family.

GM Checklist, Tasks 9-10

Next in line, Jerry Kaminski returned to stress the importance of writing and training systems (SOPs). Writing down every task that runs a shop is necessary to get buy-in from your staff. When everyone knows the who, what, when, where, why, and how, they don’t have to hunt you down to ask!

Finally, Andy Arndt mentioned that all General Managers must motivate their teams. Remind your staff members regularly that you are working toward a common goal. Share your vision when you hold your daily and weekly team meetings. When your technicians and service writers are in tune with that vision, then your shop will run like a well oiled machine!

General Manager Task List Review

To summarize this session, Brian then surveyed our group of experienced auto repair shop Owners and General Managers. They determined the following list of ten things that every GM must do in order to succeed:

1. Review your shop’s numbers regularly
2. Delegate tasks to your staff
3. PAHR – Prepare, Attract, Hire, and Retain the right staff
4. Master your communication skills
5. Lead with a defined vision
6. Manage your time wisely
7. Be diplomatic with your team of employees
8. Spend a set time working on the business one day each and every week (Working On It Tuesdays)
9. Write and then train SOPs
10. Motivate your team properly

Learn More – Get Your FREE Strategy Session

Schedule your own FREE business strategy session with Brian right away! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so sign up today!