Bryant: September’s Not the End — It’s the Edge

Let’s be real; summer didn’t go the way most of us planned. 
Maybe you had more turnover than expected. Maybe the wheels came off a few initiatives. Or maybe it just felt like one long fire drill with 105-degree heat indexes and every insurance company ghosting you until the third “just checking in” email. 

If you’re in that boat, you’re not alone. 
But here’s the thing I remind my team and myself every September: 

This isn’t the beginning of the end. 
It’s the edge. 
It’s the line between coasting and committing. 
And the way you lead through this month determines whether Q4 becomes a sprint toward growth or a slow crawl toward “good enough.” 

The September Shift: From Drift to Drive 

Here’s what happens industrywide every year around this time: 
Kids go back to school. Summer PTO ends. Fall sports ramp up. The “we’ll revisit that in the fall” list starts to pile up. Suddenly, leadership teams are buried in reactivity again. 

But the elite shops? They’re not waiting for January 1 to recalibrate. They use this moment right now to shift gears. 
September is our industry’s unofficial reset button. It’s when you take all the pain, lessons, and chaos from Q1 through Q3, and you do something intentional with it. 

You don’t need a perfect roadmap. You need clarity. 
Clarity around your people. Your process gaps. Your blind spots. 
Because clarity is what gives culture a backbone and culture is what carries you through the noise. 

Three Questions I Ask My Leaders in September 

At DB Orlando Collision, we treat September like a pressure test. I ask each department leader to reflect on three things: 

1. Where are we bleeding time or morale? 
   What bottlenecks or bad habits have quietly become “just how we do things”? 
2. What’s working that we’ve stopped celebrating? 
   Momentum dies in silence. When wins aren’t recognized, they stop multiplying.
3. Who needs a challenge, or a change? 
   Some employees are stuck because we haven’t pulled them forward. Others are stuck because we haven’t been honest with them. 

This kind of clarity check isn’t a blame game; it’s a reset. It’s how you take control back when the year starts slipping. 

Fall is Where Leaders Show Up 

When things are chaotic, it’s easy to go heads-down and focus only on production. But September isn’t just about workflow, it’s about vision. If you don’t give your team something to aim for between now and December, they’ll default to survival mode. 

Start casting the Q4 vision now. 
It doesn’t need to be flashy; it needs to be clear. Show your team where you're going. Tell them what matters most. Get specific about what “winning the quarter” looks like. What we need to do to “finish strong.” 

When leadership goes quiet, people assume the worst. When leadership gets loud, (in the right way) it creates certainty. And in a business full of uncertainty, certainty is currency. 

What You Can Control 

If you're feeling like this year hit you harder than expected, you’re not alone. The tort law changes in Florida alone turned our timelines upside down. You can’t control what legislators pass or what insurance companies delay, but you can control your team’s communication rhythm. Your estimating integrity. Your blueprinting accuracy. Your cycle time reporting. Your coaching cadence. Your culture. 

Start there. 

Start small if you have to. 
But whatever you do, don’t wait until January. 

My September Challenge to You 

Here’s what I’m asking from my team and what I’m challenging you to do with yours: 

• Audit your culture. Does it reflect accountability and ownership, or avoidance and burnout? 

• Revisit your SOPs. Are they being followed, or have they quietly slipped into “guidelines”? 

• Reignite your leaders. Pull them into the fight with you. Don’t carry it alone. 

• Reconnect with your why. The industry needs shops that lead with conviction and care. Don’t let the noise drown that out. 

This is your moment to decide: 
Are you riding out the year, or preparing to define how it ends? 

When other shops slow down, we level up! 
September isn’t our finish line…..it’s our opportunity to correct the course and finish strong.