auto repair

Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash.

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 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. 

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?

If not for the repair shop offering financing, this customer couldn’t have gotten necessary repairs!

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!

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 just weren’t smart.

Do you really think they were airheads? Seriously, after all that vetting, do you think you hired a foolish person? 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 any at all) — and that “ignorant” person was thrown into the fire with no procedural support system. 

After all, we don’t hire unintelligent folks. Instead, we have lacking systems and processes that make them look reckless, forcing them to underperform. 

In short, it’s not their fault. It’s ours. We failed them because no one is inherently careless. 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

Are the people stupid…or are the business practices?

I was talking with a shop owner recently. During the course of our conversation, he told me everyone he hired was unintelligent, 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 foolish 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 the architect, you have 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.