Just ONE Thing
Adapt or Fade Away: Why Staying Stuck in the Past is Costing Auto Repair Shop Owners
Episode 198
with Rick White, 180BIZ
Good morning, good evening or good afternoon. My name is Rick White from 180BIZ. We're a training and management coaching company for the independent auto repair shop owners. Today, this is my Just ONE Thing.
That's the thing — OBSOLETE. Why do I want to talk about that? Because I came across a quote last week that absolutely blew my mind, and I want to share it with you. And it said,
“The moment you think you know everything you become obsolete.”
Think about that for one second. “The moment you think you know everything, you become obsolete.” Because instead of being dynamic and growing and moving, you become static and the same all the time, and we get complacent with this. I want you to just think this through for a second.
How many times in the day are you doing the same thing the same way all the time, and have never revisited it in a way where you step back and say, “Is there a better way? Is there a quicker way? Is there a cheaper way? Is there a more elegant way?” You just don't know.
The reality is — and we're human beings, we all do this — when you decide “I know it, this the way we're going to do it, and it works,” — that's amazing! But please, don't ever, ever think that what works today is going to work tomorrow. And I'm seeing this over and over again. And this actually came up with a call I had with a shop owner. They basically were complaining about how hard it was to fix cars and stay profitable. And they're being a very generalist kind of shop, where they want to work on everything. They want to fix everything. And can we all agree that's getting harder and harder to do? And basically what I had to come down and say was, “Listen, you're trying to run a shop in 2025 like it's 1970.” We can't run our businesses the way they've always been run. We've gotta constantly be looking to see if there's a better way, right? We gotta see that. Now I'm not saying jump from ship to ship to ship. We can't do that either, right? There's gotta be a middle here, a middle ground. We gotta be able to step back and say, “Okay, what we're doing is this. How do I watch this? How do I make sure it's still working?” Because sometimes we get so stuck on the path, we forget the destination. If what you're doing worked back then, but isn't working as good today, you have got to do something different. You have got to step up. You gotta step back first. You gotta step back. You gotta look. You gotta learn. Then you gotta step up, and you gotta make some changes, because the reality is, technology is changing. The world is changing. The climate, right? The emotional climate is changing. The client. Your customers are changing. Their buying patterns are changing. And you have got to be able to step back and look at different ways of doing things so that they work not only for you, but they work for the client as well. I think this is critically important, and I want to be there to help you do this. So I want you to think this true, right?
What are some things that you gotta revisit. I would like you to take a half hour to an hour. What I need you to do is step back and look at every area of your business. And I want you to see where the dust is really pretty thick.
You know what I'm talking about, where it hasn't been touched in a long, long time. Maybe it's your employee handbook. Maybe it's the way you're greeting your customers. Maybe it's the way you're presenting. Maybe it's do you see all these things? It makes such a difference. And I just want you to understand that the moment you think you know everything, you become obsolete.
You know, it's amazing. When I was in my 20s, I thought I knew everything, and here I am in my 60, my sixth decade, right? I'm going to be 63 in July, and I'm recognizing I don't know anything. The amount that I don't know is just so big, so huge. And I'm just so, I so want to do it better.
You've all got a choice today. You can just keep on plowing, doing plowing forward, doing the things you've always done, or you can step back. You can step back and you can go. Wait a minute. You know we don't have as many new clients as we customers as we used to. That's a sign, hey, I get younger texts, they're not coming, they're not they're not staying. That's a sign. I want you to step back, think it through. Okay? I hope you got as much out of this as I got when I started thinking about this quote.
Please share this video. I really need your help with this.
Okay, also, two things. We got our Shop Owners Round Table, Second Thursday, 7pm Eastern — second Thursday every month. We also have our Pocket Business Genius Webinar Series — if you want to get a little bit more of me, but not with coaching right now, this is a great way to do it.
Okay? So I hope you all have a great week. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Really need you to share this video. I promise you, there's some old curmudgeons out there that need to see this. Right? Y'all know who I'm thinking about, right? You can think one or two right away. Let's make that happen.
Okay, everybody, thank you for being here, I want to say, God bless. Have a great week. Go make some money.
