January brings a familiar flood of resolutions—hit the gym, eat better food, spend more time with family, etc. We make these promises to ourselves with real intent, and by February, most of us have abandoned them.
Successful shop owners don’t approach growth as a New Year’s resolution. For them, growth is a non-negotiable business architecture. I’m not talking about vague goals like “increase revenue” or “improve culture.” Those aren’t resolutions, they’re wishes.
Here are three specific shifts that separate shops stuck at their current size from those building something that can genuinely scale. These aren’t trendy ideas. They’re patterns I’ve watched play out across many successful organizations, proven through real profit and loss statements and actual organizational transformations. Creating a concrete roadmap and committing to manage through it can feel uncomfortable, but that discomfort is the price of admission for the next level.
Resolution 1: Build a vision worth working toward (then actually work toward it).
Most shop owners spend the first quarter of every year fixing problems from the previous year. They’re reactive and fighting yesterday’s battles while the market moves on. But here’s the deeper issue: they’re not just solving last year’s problems. They have no clear picture of what they’re building toward.
Here’s the resolution: This year, I will create an 18-month vision for my business and identify the strategic priorities needed to get there.
I’m not talking about generic or vague goals like “being the best shop in town” or “grow revenue.” Instead, you need a clear, specific picture of what your business looks like.
• What are your profit and revenue goals?
• What’s the weekly car count, and what’s the average repair order needed to support it?
• How many bays are you running and at what capacity?
• What does your leadership structure look like?
• What types of work are you known for?
• What capability gaps have you closed—diesel certification, fleet contracts, a tire program, or European specialist credentials?
Here’s an example: Instead of “we want to grow,” a vision is: “By July 2027, we will be producing $12,600 in weekly profit running 82 cars per week at an $850 average repair order across six bays with 85% capacity utilization. We will have a working service manager who handles all scheduling and customer communication, freeing me to focus on strategic growth. We will be the go-to shop in our market for European vehicles, and we’ll build a concierge pickup/delivery program that handles 40% of our customer base. We’ll add a tire program that generates sales from 30% of our weekly car count.”
Specific, measurable visions give your team clear goals and a blueprint to follow. This clarity drives progress and allows others to make decisions that align with your vision and goals without you having to be there.
The Power of Strategic Priorities
Once you have that vision, identify the two or three things that MUST happen to get there. Not 10 things. Two or three strategic priorities that, if executed well, move everything else forward.
For example, in line with the vision, three strategic priorities could be:
- Build service manager capacity
- Develop the “Euro-specialists” market and brand
- Launch a comprehensive tire program.
Notice what’s NOT on that list are things like improving efficiency, boosting close rates, updating the website, and fixing the parking lot. Those might be important, but they’re not strategic priorities. They’re operational improvements that likely support the priorities, but they are likely just one-off tasks or projects.
Why Your Team Needs This
Here’s what occurs in shops without a clear vision: talented people work hard with no idea if they’re moving the business forward or just keeping it afloat.
Without a vision and clear priorities, every decision becomes a guess, focused solely on putting out the fire of the moment rather than an outcome that also aligns with where you are trying to go long term. People default to what feels urgent in the situation, which may not align with what’s important to the strategy and vision. An example would be the opportunity to buy a new piece of equipment because it is “an amazing deal.” It might be a really good deal. However, if your current equipment is doing the job, and a strategic priority is “paying down debt and building cash for growth,” then today’s good deal likely wouldn’t align, and walking away from the tool truck is the better strategic decision.
Make It Actionable
To make this plan a priority, begin by blocking off time to work on it—away from the shop if possible. Consider including some of your key leaders or team members. Then, build your vision with specificity, identify your strategic priorities, and define success in measurable terms.
Then, and this is critical, share it with the entire team. Hold a meeting as soon as you can to explain your vision and priorities. Show them how their roles connect to the bigger picture and how the vision’s success will benefit them. Your team can’t help you if they don’t know where you’re going or why it’s important, so you have to talk about your vision and strategies regularly. Tie decision-making conversations back to the vision so they always understand alignment.
Then review your plan quarterly to determine:
- Are you making progress on your priorities?
- Are your strategies correct, or has the market shifted?
- What’s working that you should double down on?
- What hasn’t worked out that you may need to pivot on?
Here’s the truth: you can optimize operations, fix systems, and improve marketing, but without vision and strategic priorities, you’re just getting better at being who you are instead of becoming who you want to be. The shop owners who scale focus and work toward specific goals that are aligned with a powerful vision. Their team knows where the business is headed and their decisions align with strategic priorities.
Resolution 2: Stop being the answer to every question.
The single biggest constraint on your growth is staring back at you in the mirror.
Look at your calendar from last week. How many times did someone interrupt you with a question they should have been able to answer themselves? How many decisions landed on your desk that a service advisor or shop manager could have handled? Likely you know that frustration.
Every time you answer a question or make a decision that the team should have made for themselves, you’re not being helpful. You’re becoming a bottleneck.
Here’s the resolution: This year, I will build my team’s decision-making capacity, not just technical competency.
What this means is creating clear authority boundaries. Your service advisors need to know exactly which decisions they can make without asking you. Your shop foreman needs defined parameters for handling production decisions or workflow issues. Your team needs to understand when they can say yes or when they should say no.
I know a shop owner who implemented a simple “Decision Authority” standard for each role. Each position received a laminated card listing the decisions they owned outright, those that required consultation, and those that needed manager/owner approval. Within 90 days, interruptions dropped 60%. More importantly, his team’s confidence soared.
The metric that matters here: track how many times per week someone asks you a question you wish they’d handled themselves. Set a target to cut that number in half by March, then in half again by June.
This isn’t about becoming unapproachable. It’s about training your organization to function at capacity even when you’re not there. It teaches them how to make decisions and gives them the confidence to do so. If your shop can’t run without you, you don’t own a business. You own an expensive job.
Resolution 3: Fire your weakest system, not your weakest person.
Shop owners love to blame problems on people when the real issue is often a process problem.
Is your best tech struggling with when or what to recommend? That’s not a people problem; it’s a checklist problem. Are your service advisors not closing enough work? That’s not a training problem; it’s probably a value communication problem. Your shop runs smoothly on Tuesdays but is chaotic on Thursdays? That’s not a staffing problem; it’s a workflow design problem.
Here’s the resolution: This year, I will look at systems and process for weakness or failure before I consider replacing anyone.
Start by identifying your biggest recurring headache. Not the one that annoys you most, but the one that costs you the most money, customers, or time. Then ask yourself honestly: Is this really about the person, or is it about the process they’re trying to follow?
I recently spoke with a shop owner who was really frustrated with his team because they were always “waiting to hear back from the customer.” Calls were missed, and customers were frustrated with poor communications. It turns out their phone system was ancient, and they weren’t receiving voicemail notifications, leading to missed opportunities and unnecessary delays. Their backup phone answering plan was nonexistent—no one took responsibility for picking up the phone when the advisors were tied up, and nobody had a clear understanding of scheduling priorities. They weren’t bad at their jobs; they were working within a system designed to fail.
They invested in a modern phone system with proper routing, created clear coverage protocols for phone backup, breaks, and lunches, and gave the team expanded scheduling structure and authority. Customer complaints about communication issues dropped by 75%.
While sometimes the wrong person is in the seat, many owners cycle through employees trying to fix a system or policy issue. If you’ve cycled through several people in the same role with the same problems, you’re treating symptoms, not causes.
Start by picking your most costly consistent issue, document why it fails, redesign it, and test it. Then measure whether the problem improves. If it does, you just saved yourself a hiring cycle and probably improved morale in the process.
Making Resolutions Stick
The New Year’s resolutions that stick are the ones that become systems, not goals.
Don’t just commit to resolutions. Build them into your calendar and your processes.
Six months from now, you’ll either be dealing with the same constraints that frustrated you last year, or you’ll be building the foundation for genuine scale.
Want to talk through how these resolutions might apply to your specific situation? I’m always up for a conversation with shop owners who are serious about scaling. Reach out at [email protected].
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