I’m struck when I speak with shop owners around the country just how differently they have responded to what’s happened this year. Some have actively taken steps and looked for opportunities, while others have remained passive, just watching idly as if there’s nothing they can do to improve their situation.
Which type of shop owner are you? Here’s some questions to ask yourself.
Is your staff better trained now than they were in February? If you’ve complained that I-CAR or other training pulls your staff away from their toolboxes or out of the shop when your shop is busy, this year should have been one loaded with learning. I had clients who used their PPP loan money to pay their staff while they completed online training during the early days of the pandemic, and in-shop training when it became available. Those shops will have far less difficulty maintaining their Gold Class status in the coming years, and will have more a more knowledgeable and efficient team.
Is your facility looking better than it was in February? It’s a lot easier to deep clean or paint a shop or recoat the floor when there’s fewer cars in it than when it’s packed wall to wall. Remodeling the office is a lot easier when customers aren’t coming in and out of it. Especially when, again, PPP loan money provided paid labor to do some of the work. Did you reinvest back into your facility?
Is your standing with consumers and insurers or other referral sources higher than ever? Fewer customers means you have more resources to focus on taking great care of those you do have. Have you been doing something extra on every job? Have you realized you have more labor you can put toward improving your cycle time, putting more people on each job, for example, or using extended hours to both reduce the number of staff in your facility at one time while also adding the daily touch-time on each job?
This year has also offered opportunities that some shops have capitalized on to be seen a contributing member of the community. Did you get out there to help out fellow smaller businesses in your area that are struggling? Did you step up your activity in whatever your local Chamber of Commerce or Rotary has been able to do this year? Did you team up with vendors or insurers to repair and donate a car for a family in need?
Have you instituted practices and procedures you maybe should have years ago but just didn’t feel you had the time? It’s lot easier to work with your team to create and implement standard operating procedures when you have time to spend on doing so. Some shops have taken a magnifying glass to all those procedures in their shop, to find and fix the things that hadn’t been working, and creating the documentation for the things that are working.
Have you taken steps to specialize – or to diversify? There’s a shop in the South that I know that has long focused on repairing just two makes of luxury vehicles. A second location for that kind of business could handle all the variety of other vehicles, but that one shop is just an awesome machine: equipped and trained and experienced to power through those two lines of vehicles. I think such specialization makes even more sense today, when there’s no way you can have the OEM website access, scan tools and calibration equipment – let alone the detailed knowledge – for every type of vehicle.
On the other hand, no matter what’s happened in your market, there’s likely less collision work available now than there was a year ago. That may or may not change quickly. So how are you going to make up that loss of revenue? The shops I know that are faring the best are those that have diversified: adding sources of work beyond direct repair, or offering new services like mechanical or RV repair and bedliners.
If reading this makes you realize you have been a little too passive and may have missed some opportunities this year, turn around. Stop looking backward, and instead get aggressive.
