The SOP: Training Yourself and Making Plans for Improvement
In automotive repair, training and education are an absolute necessity. Even the most experienced technician requires continual training as the industry changes. That doesn’t change for those who operate auto repair shops—on the contrary, there’s a vast array of different skill sets that will need to be exercised if you’re to thrive.
As the founder and CEO of both Aspen Auto Clinic, a six-shop operation in Colorado, and auto repair consulting company Transformers Institute, Greg Bunch has worked with countless shop owners on innovating new ways to run their businesses in the midst of hectic schedules.
Here, he breaks down how you can narrow your focus and set up a plan for continuous improvement.
Touch Every Aspect of Your Business
To get a good idea of where you should be focusing your efforts, it’s best to analyze your finances, not just surface-level skimming, but understanding what each metric means and acting accordingly.
“That's mission-critical to any business,” says Bunch. “I work with a lot of shop owners that are multi-store, multi-million, who are still kind of running their business through their checkbook and not fully understanding the importance of financial statements; how to read them, how to manage them.”
While Bunch has heard from many who tout a 60% gross profit as the ultimate goal, bigger companies have made most of their money from focusing on high-ticket jobs such as shocks, struts, and brakes. The key is understanding what specifically will work for your business, and starting from there.
“A shop owner needs to be cognizant of the fact that every action has a reaction. Every KPI has emotions behind it, and has long-term and short-term consequences—both good and bad,” explains Bunch. “And unless you get a good understanding of what your strategy is, you could think you're fixing your company in the short term, but having a negative long-term effect.”
For that reason, understanding finances can provide the clearest look into your business, and help lay the groundwork for what you may want to spend your time on learning more about and experimenting with. Take the time to learn how to read financial statements, how to manage those statements, the difference between gross profit percentage and actual dollars earned, and not to focus on just one financial metric.
As a shop owner, training and learning look a lot different from that of a technician or service advisor. Rather than specializing in a certain area, you have to learn to be what Bunch calls a generalist: not an expert in everything, but someone who has a baseline understanding in each area of the business.
This includes taking the time to understand marketing, sales, technology, and human resources; again, not with the goal of being a master in each one, but educating yourself enough to engage with those crucial parts of your business.
“I think it’s a transition that's difficult for a lot of shop owners, especially those who started as technicians. They’re comfortable in the shop, and they feel satisfied when they suit up, go in the back, and fix a car that's been there for three days that nobody else can fix,” tells Bunch. “There's a time and a place for that, but at the end of the day, you're fixing a small problem, and may be allowing a bigger problem to manifest because you're not paying attention to the rest of the components of the business.”
Make Time in Your Schedule
So you have an idea of what areas should be on your radar, but how do you go about doing the work to learn more? It’s easier said than done. It will take pure discipline to build a strict schedule that you can adhere to. Plan your day, and schedule a couple of hours sometime to sit down and do nothing but learn.
The way you learn can take shape in a lot of different ways. Whether it’s through reading a book or attending a webinar, it will be time well spent. Listening to podcasts can also be helpful, especially as they can be consumed while doing other tasks or during long commutes. It’s all about getting creative with how you can work in time for you to learn about whatever skill you want to improve.
“A lot of shop owners go into their shop every day, and whether it's a five-minute or 50-minute commute, there's time to get some nuggets on their way there and back,” explains Bunch. “I speak a lot and travel to different shops, and I have leveraged that time on the airplane. I put in a good audiobook, have my laptop open so I can make notes, and ask, ‘How does this apply to my businesses?’”
No one will be able to study for the entirety of each time block every day without fail—sometimes things outside your control will crop up and demand immediate attention. But if you’re able to accomplish even half of the time you set aside, you’re making a difference.
Walk Away With an Action Plan
It isn’t enough to learn; it’s what you do with the knowledge you gain that matters. Have an action plan for what needs to be improved in your business and how you will get there. Having others in the industry to connect with, especially a coach, can help with holding you accountable and keeping you motivated to pursue consistent improvement.
In situations such as attending a conference, where you’re absorbing a lot of info at once, it can be helpful to take a day or two afterward to digest what you’ve learned and how to act on it.
You won’t see instant results. As with most things in life, it’s all about staying steadily on a path of improvement that never really ends. It isn’t until years down the line that you’ll look back and see how much you’ve learned and built up.
“Don't try and eat the elephant all at once. If someone can afford it, I think getting some additional help—like a peer group or coach—will get you there faster. But at minimum, I think Stephen Covey said it in ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’: Take time to sharpen the saw,” says Bunch. “Start with a book like ‘The E-Myth’ (by Michael Gerber), digest it, and apply it to your business. Get the next book, digest it, apply it to your business.”