Just ONE Thing
The Power of Small Wins: How Auto Repair Shops Can Achieve Big Success
Episode 192
with Rick White, 180BIZ
Good morning, good afternoon or good evening. My name is Rick White from 180BIZ. We are a Coaching and Management Training company for the independent Auto and truck repair shops. And this is my Just ONE Thing.
So what I want to talk to you today about is being small — or you know what I mean — not even being small, doing small. And the reason why I say that is over the weekend, I was away training, and I was talking to some shop owners who were really fantastic in the class and everything. It was fantastic. It was just great. And as I was talking to them, I could see the amount of frustration they had with where their business was at and the issue that I was having is they were looking for this big win. They were looking for a big client. They were looking for a big fleet to turn everything around. And as I was flying back on Saturday, I was thinking through how many times we as human beings are looking for the big win. We're looking for that grandiose act or event to happen where it just goes in our favor — and it's like that. And when it does happen, it's amazing, but it's not sustainable. That's the thing I want you to get at, right? So I want you to understand that you're either moving forward or you're moving backwards. There's no like standing still. That's what you gotta understand.
I want you to step back and think about this — are you waiting for something big to happen? Are you putting things off until something big happens? Like I can't hit my goals until I get a tech. I can't do this until this happens. We do it all the time, and in doing that, it causes feats and starts and stops and it doesn't work, and it keeps you stuck.
I want you to stop looking for the big wins. I mean, be aware, and if you see one, take advantage. But I don't want you to plan on them. I don't want you to wait for them. I want you to show up small every day.
What do I mean by that? It means that you're looking for that small, incremental improvement every single day, whether that's in your communication, the way you're selling, presenting, producing, whatever it is. Because the reality is, you can lose your business one small compromise at a time, or you can transform your business one small win at a time. Does that make sense? You can lose your business one small compromise at a time, or you can transform your business with one small win at a time. I want you to think that through for a little bit. I want you to recognize that. Let me give you an example. You know, there's this thing that I I've heard before — and I think it's really helpful here. If you had a choice of being given a million dollars or given a penny that doubles every day for 30 days, which would you rather take? Most people think it's the million dollars, and that's what they would go for. But when you do the math in 30 days, they give you a penny. The first day, it's two cents. The second day, four cents, the third day, eight cents, and so on. By day 30, it's $5,368,709.12!
See? That's compounding interest. That's amazing. But here's what I want you to understand: when you put one win and one win and one win and one win, and even though they're small, you're just going like that. You're stacking them up.
In life, we have something that's not called compounding interest. It's called momentum, and momentum is life's gift to us for those small wins, because it creates momentum instead of looking for the big wins. And it starts, stop, wait, start, stop, wait, start, stop, wait. And a lot of times it starts, stop, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, and you're just missing out, and you lose that gift of momentum. And the reality is, momentum can be a gift or it can be a curse. Because if you're doing one small thing, a little thing every single day, moving you towards where you want to go, you're going to have something amazing. Momentum is going to kick in what was hard in the beginning. To get going is going to get easier and easier and easier as you go, because you've got momentum on your side. You're momentum can also work against you if you're making compromises a little bit at a time. It is so dangerous because momentum builds up there, but it's a sad slippery slope. Say that three times fast, sad slippery slope. So these are the things that you've gotta be aware of. And instead of looking for “Hey, man, we're gonna go from here to here,” and you don't hit it and you don't hit it and you don't hit it, it causes disillusionment, frustration, bitterness. Go for the little ones. And you know what happens? Those little ones over time start to get bigger. Just by nature, it does that.
So I really hope this is kind of hitting you. So I want you to stop looking for the big wins. Okay, I want you to stop waiting. That's a better way to say it. I want you to look for the big wins, but I want you to stop waiting for them, because what you're going to find is, when you do these small things every single day, they're going to be big wins.
That's what's amazing. Okay, I've seen it over and over again in my what 2022, 23 years of coaching. Now, where, you know, you got shops, or just, do you know, I gotta get this. I gotta get a tech. I gotta do this. I can't get this. I gotta get this many cars and all that. That's, that's the issue. Okay, that's what's holding you back. And, you know, something that's what's making you feel like a failure.
Start, going for the incremental start, going for those little wins. You know something, I'm on a path to weight loss. Yeah, I say that a lot, right? But I started at the end of December. You know, I thought, I was thinking it was funny. The last time I started this real big path was back in 2020, December 2020, and I was in New Hampshire then too. So I thought that's kind of funny. I was thinking of that this morning. Was walking the dogs. But I want you to understand that it's just little stuff I'm trying. I started by tracking my food. Okay? I started tracking my water, and then I started doing just like one push up a day. That's all I did, one push up. And then now I'm up to 50 push ups, and I'm down 23 pounds, right? You just do the little things. Do the little things, do the little things, and they get easier and easier and easier. And it's just so, so cool.
Please share this video. There's somebody out there that needs to hear this. I promise you, you're going to help somebody. You're going to make somebody's day a little better, their week a little better, when they stop chasing the big bones and they start going for little ones.
Also, we have our Pocket Business Genius coming up, as well as our Shop Owners Round Table. Second Thursday of the month Pocket Business Genius is at 1pm, and the Shop Owners Round Table at 7pm everybody.
Thank you so much for being here. God bless Have a great week. Have fun and go make some money. I'll see y'all later. Bye, bye.
