Auto Repair Shop Owner's Daily Dose 75: The Last One

The Last One by Rick White, President 180BIZ

I have a surprise for you. This is the last daily dose. Yes, it is. It has served its purpose. When we started the Daily Dose 75 days ago, it was to help shops get through a very scary time. And I think we've done that. Things have become a new normal now. Shops are busy and states are reopening. So, I think we've done the job. What I set out to do, I did. I'm incredibly happy and humbled at everyone coming in and watching. So, I'd like to just do a quick reflection today.

Don't make this an event or a hiccup that you had to go over to keep going the way you were going. Give yourself the gift of this as a turning point. Something to nudge you in a different, better direction instead of going back to the same path you were on before the virus. Please, please, please let that be the case.  I’d like to go over the four key gifts, lessons that I'm hoping you took these Daily Doses, and our time together that are helping you to move forward.

1. The first lesson I want you to learn from this is you are stronger than you think. For all of you that started going through this and immediately went to fear and thought, “Oh my gosh, I'm going to lose my business. I'm not going to make it.” Guess what? You made it and I am so proud of you.  You are stronger than you think. The most powerful tool for your business, you have lives between your ears. It is your mindset, your expectation, your focus, your intention, your actions, your reactions. These are the strongest tools that you have, and the amazing thing is that you can learn to control them. It's a continual journey. You can get better and better at it. So please remember that you are stronger than you think. This pandemic is a generational identifier. Years, even decades from now you’ll talk to your grandkids and great-grandkids about how you made through this time. You will sit proudly with your chest out, shoulders back, and chin up because you walked through it. You didn't grovel through it. You didn't crawl through it. You didn't cry through it. You stood up, you dusted yourself off and you made it through, and I am proud of you for that.  So that's the first lesson is that you are stronger than you think.
2. What's the second lesson? You need a bigger audience. You do not have enough people listening to you. You need a bigger audience. Don't let your marketing fall off. Get more people to know, like, and trust you. Use this as a springboard to go even deeper and wider into social media, which is free so that you can become known as the expert in your market. When you continue doing this, you will see your business grow exponentially while others are faltering.  They’re doing business the way they did 10, 20, 30 years ago. You're doing business from five weeks ago. You will see the difference. So, understand that you need a bigger audience and that's all the time. There's a lag when you market.  From when you do the act of marketing to getting the results, there is a lag. Do not let your foot up off the gas on your marketing, even when you are busy to overcome that lag.  Keep your message out there, loud, and clear. People want to get to know you. They want to see you keep doing this. The second lesson is that you need a bigger audience.
3. The third lesson is raising your standard. Use this time as a reset and set a higher standard for yourself, for your team, and for your business. Don't go back to doing business the way it was. Do business better.  Please write that down. Do business better. What are you going to do? Write down a list, prioritize it, and then work on one thing. When that thing is done, go to the next thing. This is an ongoing process. One of the biggest mistakes we make is we get caught sleeping at the wheel. We're not paying attention, we're just going in SSDD same stuff different day. You don’t make your business, you create the environment, you decide on the experience, you determine the quality. So, raise your standards and do it now. This is a great time for that. It's a reset. Make that happen.
4. The fourth lesson here and I hope you have all learned the fact that you need an emergency fund. You need three to six months of expenses sitting in a bank account so that if something happens, you don't go into freak out mode. It's not hard to do. It's easy to do. You just need to have a plan and work the plan.

If you need help with any of this, reach out to me. I'm easy to talk to. I really am. It's [email protected] or you can call me at the office. It's area code (540) 833-2014 extension 11. Do not give up on yourself. Use this opportunity to realize you can shake off the cobwebs. You can shake off that old stinking thinking and you can grow your business to the next level. It's up to you.

Guess what? I’m growing our business. It's up to us. It's up to me. So, we've got to be able to do bigger, better things. Now I know you’ll no longer see me every morning, but you know something? We've got this amazing thing called the Pocket Business Genius webinar series. The live webinars are on the second Wednesday of each month. That'd be a great way to connect and get some really great lessons. Our next webinar is all about how to overcome price-cutting competitors. I’ll give you three great strategies to help you overcome them. It's really easy to sign up if you've never seen one before, you get the first one on us, and then if you like them, it's 29 bucks a month. Is that going to break the bank? I don't think so.

Now the other thing we're going to be doing is are we're going to start doing our Just One Thing every Monday morning, at 9:10 Eastern.  It's going to be one thought for the week. That's going to help you get going and I hope we see you there.

We also have some online classes. Please get on our mailing list so that you can be aware of them. They're going to be really affordable. And we're going to donate the money from those classes to a great charity. So, we're going to help grow our industry at the same time.

So again, remember the four lessons I hope you took away from this.

1. You're stronger than you think
2. You need a bigger audience.
3. Use this as a reset. Set a higher standard for your business and take off to that next level. You deserve it.
4. You need an emergency fund. You need an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses.

You're going to see an amazing difference. You have the ability to really put a dent in the world. Go out and do it today. And I'll see you Monday morning for our Just One Thing. Thank you so much. Take care. Have a great weekend and go make some money today. God bless.