I know it’s a lot more sexy to set up a Facebook account and post cute pictures of kittens or pursue the intricacies of search engine optimization but what good will those efforts toward car count do you if you and your people are not inspecting and making recommendations for repairs and maintenance on the cars you are already seeing?
According to the Car Care Council there is $55 billion (that’s billion with a “B”) in unperformed maintenance in the US annually and there is no doubt that some of that is because Americans don’t maintain their cars the way they should. A larger factor is the automotive aftermarket failing to embrace a vehicle inspection process, their failing to embrace vehicle maintenance and failing to ask our customers for the business.
If you’re not looking, I can guarantee you’re not making appropriate recommendations for maintenance and if you are not making the recommendations, you are under servicing your customers and contributing those billions of dollars. Is it surprising that the number one consumer complaint in the US is centered on automotive repair? I can promise that the new car dealerships are making those recommendations and you should be too!
I have a friend up in the northeast who I would never describe as a typical shop owner. He is very hard working, always striving to improve his operation and willing to try anything in that pursuit. If he needs a lift, he buys a lift. If there is a new and viable approach to marketing that he hears about, he buys into it and is meticulous in getting it properly implemented.
He is very willing to set high standards for his people and very good about following up to make sure that the things he asks for are being done and done to the high standard he has set. In short he is focused on excellence and is willing to spend the time and effort making sure his shop is the best it could possibly be.
In a recent conversation I asked this owner how business was. His response was “okay”. He went on to explain that even though car count was flat compared to last year, his average repair order and number of billable hours were off and sales were down somewhat from last year. I am not his accountant or consultant or privy to his numbers, so in a very unscientific effort to help him come to grips with all of this, I asked him to check with the company that sold him his flush equipment and chemicals and simply ask for a comparison of kits purchased thus far in 2011 and compare it to the number of kits he had purchased for the same period in 2010.
You have to start an investigation like this somewhere and with car count being flat and billed hours and average repair order being down; it seemed to be reasonable to begin to look at maintenance and maintenance services in trying to understand where he was. This is a shop that a year ago was doing something in the vicinity of 200 flushes per month. I was very curious to know where that number was.
Within a few days, a very angry and despondent answer came my way, informing me that the number of flush kits he had purchased thus far in 2011 was down 50% when compared to the same period in 2010. That’s 50% or down approximately 100 flushes per month! I am sure you can do the math on that. I am guessing that looking at the average pricing for the five types of flushes that he does, we are talking about $100 each but let’s just say our average flush is $75. That’s $7500 per month and annualized that is $90,000! A frightening number but one that I believe to be entirely realistic.
What could you do with $90,000 in additional sales? Car count is flat so we have seen the same number of cars each day, week and month but we’re not selling the flushes we were selling a year ago. If we are forgetting the flushes, what other maintenance items are we neglecting? He doesn’t have all of the answers yet but I can assure you that this owner is in it up to his knees and will find out what is driving these numbers.
Even doing 100 flushes a month would put him ahead of most shops but this owner has always strived toward something better and I ‘m certain he will find it. The big concern here is what happened between 2010 and 2011 that allowed our inspection process (yes, those darn courtesy checks are what identifies the maintenance items that need our attention) and our approach to maintenance to breakdown and become so much less effective. We obviously had a process in place but somewhere we lost sight of it and it became less of a priority.
This is not process. This is a breakdown in leadership and accountability.
In my professional career, there was no time of greater satisfaction than the years I spent as a leadership and management coach serving the tire and automotive repair industries. Part of it was the great company I worked for, no doubt about that, but a great sense of satisfaction came from the growth and improvement I got to witness and be a part of in helping an owner measure and manage his or her business. By first measuring the business and assisting the owner or manager in seeing and understanding the things that were impacting sales and profitability, I was often able to help make dramatic improvements in the operation and get the business moving in a much better, more profitable direction.
You could easily describe initial efforts as going after the low hanging fruit (and in most shops there was plenty of low hanging fruit to go around). However, the yield was often significant and it was not unusual to see a dramatic improvement in shop performance and profitability just stressing the basics, beginning to properly inspect the cars we were seeing, understanding where we were from week to week and what was driving our results.
If it were possible, I’d freeze this moment in time for most of the shop owners and service managers I have known and keep them in that frame of mind of focusing on transforming the business and moving it in a better direction. A lot of us expect that once we have identified and fixed the most immediate problems with our shop, we can throw our arms in the air and celebrate victory. The very real truth is that all we have done is define how big the elephant in the corner is and put together a plan that will have us consuming it, one manageable bite at a time.
Too often there is an awful lot of elephant remaining when we abandon these important efforts in favor of falling back on bad habits and broken belief systems. In fairly short order, we are back struggling with sales and profitability and not inspecting or servicing the cars the way we should be. Instead of handing out our business card to anyone who looks in our direction, like we did when we were starting out, suddenly we are too busy to even acknowledge our customers.
Instead of looking for and asking for the business, we expect it will walk in off the street, keys and wallet in hand. Though I am sure we all hope for days and weeks and months like that, a more practical approach might have us going to great lengths to service the customers we are currently seeing and thoroughly inspecting their vehicles as they are coming in. There is plenty of business out there but only if we are looking for it and only if we are asking for it. Do the damn courtesy checks!
Baseball, just like running a tire or automotive repair shop, is just a game of balls and strikes. Too many strikes and you are outta there but if you can avoid those strikes, those missed opportunities; it’s just a game of balls. I am hopeful that, in this, you are planning and prepared for success and packing the lumber to get the job done.
Batter up!
