JUST ONE THING
The Four Biggest Threats to Auto Repair Shops—and How to Overcome Them
Episode 191
with Rick White, 180BIZ
Good morning, good afternoon or good evening. My name is Rick White from 180BIZ, business and coaching company for the independent automotive and truck repair shops. — and this is my just one thing.
Recently, I was invited to do a guest spot in a mastermind for newer shop owners. I was invited in to speak with them, and it was really an honor to do that. One of the questions that came up really kind of was thought provoking, and I wanted to share with you all and I want to see if any of this hits with you.
The question was, what is the one thing you see kill shops?
And I thought for it a moment. I have no idea what's going to be asked. And I was thinking it through for a second. I said, You know something, I can think of four things that kill auto repair shops all the time. These are four very basic foundational components that you need in your business, and I want to just touch base with them with you today and see if any of these might hit. I'd love to hear your comments — and please do me a favor. If you find the content in this video is really helpful, eye-opening, whatever the case, insightfu, please share it. We need your help to get the word out to others, and we're committed to doing that. I could really use your help with that.
So let's talk about the first killer of a shop, and that is not having a destination. What do I mean by that when you can come to work every day for something bigger than money, for something bigger than just coming to work, just to do what you did yesterday, right? It is a game changer for us. Personally. We are here to make the world a better place, one shop at a time. That is our credo. Everybody in our company understands that, and we all work very, very hard to do our very best to have an impact, a positive impact to others that will help them create the business of their dreams, to become better business owners so that they can become better employers and better leaders in their community and everything else. I think it has this trickle down effect. So for us, destination, and honestly, it's a destination we're never actually going to achieve. But it's one we go for and shoot for every single day for an auto repair shop. It really needs to be the same thing. If you're just going in and focused on money, people are going to smell that a mile away. But if you go in and you're focused on serving your family right, like when you first get started, you want to take care of your family, that is a very noble thing to have, and don't apologize for that, or to take care of your team, or to create a better environment for your team, or benefits or working conditions for your team. I think that's amazing. To serve your community, to find a PC or community that really is underserved, and being able to reach out and touch them in a way that makes a difference. I think that's important. Because if you don't have that destination, If you don't understand why that destination is important, then all you're doing is chasing money in that same shit everyday. So that really doesn't work. Okay? So that's number one.
Number two is no profit model. You cannot allow another company to dictate what your pricing is. You cannot allow the dealer or other shops or your cheapest competitors to dictate what you need to charge in order to create the experience that you want for your clients, or to provide the quality that you want to be able to provide. It just doesn't work. You gotta figure out this is what I want to do. This is what I want to deliver. This is what I want to give, and this is the profit I want to make doing it.
Remember the profit, right? I heard, this is probably one of the best I've ever heard. Profits, the applause your clients give you for a job well done, but you don't spend any time on it anymore. What you do is you devote your time to loving and caring for your clients, for providing such great service that they want to be a part of it. So that's number two, and please understand I could go a lot deeper on each one of these things. In fact, I'm thinking about making this a class, because I think it would be a really good one.
So let's talk about the third shop killer. The shop the third shop killer is no “grow it” mode. What do I mean by that? In every business, I don't care what business you're in, whether it's chiropractor, doctor, plumber, you know, candlestick maker, it doesn't matter. There are two modes to every business. There's the ‘do it’ mode, which generates product, generates the sales and the profits. But then there's ‘grow it’ mode. What that is is it creates and feeds tomorrow. So I get to do it again tomorrow, and I do it again the day after. And I'm going to tell you that in our industry, we love ‘do it’ mode. We're comfortable with it. “I know how to fix a car. I know how to talk to a person.” It works, man, I just love it. Okay, so the issue here is we really suck at ‘grow it’ mode. Typically, the only time we go into ‘Grow it’ mode is when there's no business — and that's called reactive marketing — and it's the least effective, most expensive marketing you'll ever do, because you're fighting the laws of nature. See, in nature, you're going to plant a seed, you're going to nurture it, you're going to take care of it, and it's going to eventually reap you a harvest, right? You're going to be able to get bounty from it. Well, with reactive marketing, you want to plant the seed today and reap today, and that goes against the logs of nature. So you've got to give away the store. You've got to. It gets very, very hard and very difficult.
Marketing isn't something you do when you get slow. Marketing is something you do so you never get slow. So there's gotta be stuff you're doing every single day that you know work that, and there's going to do different things with it, right? The marketing's either going to get somebody's attention-attraction. So it's attention, attraction, retention and recapture. Those are the four different areas of marketing, and you want to be working on each and every one of them, because one of the other things that they see is a shop markets entirely to their database. And it works really, really well, and it should, because it makes it super, super easy, right? You spend less money, there's more impact. Why? Because they know, like and trust you. But what happens is, if you're not marketing for new people, your database gets smaller every year. So what happens is, you're doing the marketing, but you're not getting the return, and you're thinking, “Oh, it's because everybody's got their car worked on it, so they got all the work done.’’ No, it's because you started with 1000 people you were marketing to, and three years later, you're only marketing to 600. So now you have a much smaller pool. You're gonna have a less opportunity. So that's number three.
And then the last thing is no differentiation. You're not the same as anybody else. If you want your business to be outstanding, you to stand out, proactive, not reactive. It costs less. It absolutely does, right? So I want you to understand that you're different. You're unique. I want you to allow that uniqueness to shine, and I want you to recognize that the way you do things, how you treat people, the benefits that you offer, the work that you do, the kind of work that you do, the kind of cars that you work on, the people that you do work for, I guarantee you — they're different. And what you want to be able to do is stand out. You want to be able to stand out. You have to differentiate yourself. And I know that’s scary, because you're over here all by yourself, and everybody's over here. So that herd mentality, man, it's over here. It's not as good. But here's the thing, when you're in the herd, you're the same as everybody else, and the only differentiation can be price. When you can step over here and say, Hey, this is what we bring to the table. This is how we treat you. These are the things we're going to do better and differently. You've got to be able to differentiate yourself. Okay, you got to know why someone wants to do business with you.
Okay, so no destination, no profit model, no grow it mode, no differentiation.
Those are the four killers — which one hits with you? I'd be really curious. So in your comments, open up a little bit. Let's talk about it.
Okay, everybody, I want you to have a great week. Thank you. Please share this. If you'd like to get more of this. Our Business Genius Webinar Series, that's the second Thursday of every month, plus there's a library of over 80 different management libraries, I mean, webinars, it's awesome, really great resource.
And we also have our Shop Owners Round Table coming up on the second Thursday of the month, okay, 7pm Eastern. Would love to have you there, everybody.
I want you to have an amazing week this week. I want you to have fun, and I want you to go make some money. Everybody take care and go make some money.
I'll see you later. Bye, bye, bye.
