Successful Auto Repair Shop Owners Know that Preparation is Key

by Rick White, President 180BIZ                                                      (Estimated Read Time 4 minutes)

Today I’ll talk about preparation. It's a word that’s missing in our industry. Why do I say that? Because you need to look at what you're focused on. Most shop owners, not all, but many are in such pain because they're in constant reaction mode. They only focus on what's going on right now, right here. They're not looking around. They're not seeing things. If they would look up and look around, they would see issues coming. They would see trends. They would see potential and opportunities. But they don't. They don't see it because they're all focused on getting to the end of the day, the end of the week, or the end of the month.

When you focus heavily on money, you lose sight of your destination.

When you focus on money, when you focus on production so heavily, you lose sight of your destination. Granted, if you're not getting the money, you need to work on it. That's a given. You need two visions. You need to focus on two things, not at the same time, but you need to focus on two things. You need to focus on what you're doing today and on where you want to go, and what's going on around you. Both are important. If all you do is focus on today, you're going to react forever. However, if all you do is focus on the future, you're dreaming, and your business is going to fail because you're not making money. So, you must have both.

When you recognize issues and trends coming up that you may not be aware of, that's a big deal.  When you see an opportunity pass you by, that's a big deal. It hurts when you're reacting. In my opinion, you are in pain because you're not prepared.

The word of the day is Preparation.

That's the word of the day. Preparation. Preparation is key. What's that old saying? I call it the five Ps. Proper prior planning prevents poor performance. That’s six Ps. You must see what's going on around you. Then you must plan. This is where you're proactive. This is where you get out there and you look around. You might see that there’s some construction happening that may cause an issue.

What can we do about it? That's the big part of it. Prepare. So plan first, prepare second. Having a plan is essential. You need to see what's coming. Then plan for it.

Here’s the third word. At first, I was going to say, perform. Plan, prepare, and then perform. And that made sense to me. But then as I thought to myself, I realized that the term perform has a lot of weight to it. It means I'm upfront and I'm being judged and people are criticizing and everything else, so perform I decided wasn't a great word. I don't think it captures exactly the concept that I want to get across today. So, I want to talk to you today about is to plan, seeing something coming, seeing an opportunity out there, seeing how you're going, seeing where you're going, so you're going to plan. That's recognizing either an issue or a potential coming your way, and then you're going to say, “Okay, what am I going to do about it? What are we going to do about it?” It's even better when you get the team involved.

Joe Frazier said, “Champions aren’t made in the ring…”

Yes, but then you're going to plan. Then you're going to prepare, what do I have to get ready for? What do I have to practice? I love the quote from Joe Frazier where it basically says winners or champions aren't created in the ring. They're recognized in the ring. We don't get that often enough. We don't understand that concept. You don't see the 98% of the preparation that went into someone like Joe Frazier or Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali or anyone great at what they do. You don't see the preparation behind the performance. That's the issue we have today.

On-the-job training is a myth. Here's what really it is. It's on the job reacting. OJR. It's on the job reacting. You need to prepare. That means recognizing that things will slow down. The economy will have some issues. People will get scared. I must prepare. I must reevaluate how we're presenting things. I need to give options. I need to train my staff so that they are more empathetic. They can see someone stressed out. This is preparation.

Plan, Prepare, and Play

instead of calling it a performance or a perform, I want to call it Play because play is fun. Play is learning. Play is, I don't need it perfect, but I'm going to do it better. It's plan, prepare, and play. Part of prepare is practice. You need to practice. You spend too much time reacting and not enough time practicing the plan. Be aware of what's going on, put something together, and then you're going to prepare. Part of that is practice, practice, practice. Then play.

Please share this video.  We have our Shop Owner’s Round Table, on the second Thursday of every month, 7 p.m. Eastern, and we would love you and your friends to drop by. Shop owners only. And then we have our upcoming Pocket Business Genius webinar on the second Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern time. 

God bless. stay safe, have some fun, and go make some money.  Take care.

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