Friday, October 8, 2010

Dealing with FEAR in Moving Your Business Forward

Shop owners from Coast to Coast are falling into a rut that produces an immense amount of internal fear. They have not taken the steps required to transition their business from the break down and repair model to the preventative maintenance model of doing business. Instead they hold on to the routines that seem to be familiar to them. Unfortunately those routines from the old business model do not work any more when it comes to growing the shops net income required to move their business forward.

Consider that in a previous BLOG I pointed out that many shop owners look at the better shops and to them, those better shops appear to be lucky. The definition of LUCK is "Laboring Under Correct Knowledge". These progressive shops sought out the knowledge and made the transition into the new world of automotive maintenance.

Well now it is time for shop owners to understand the term FEAR. The definition in business for this word translates into "False Evidence Appearing Real".

Too many shop owners seemingly don't believe the preventative maintenance model is the way to go, therefore they hold on to the old methods of doing business. They believe any change over to the preventative maintenance model could destroy their current customer base in terms of the work the shop does for them and of course they don't want to give those customers and that type of work up. This is not the case what so ever when the business transitions to the new model format.

The math does not lie. Consider that the vehicle technology that has been developed tells us the breakdown and repair model is now out of date. Instead of seeing customers 3 or 4 times a year, the shop will only see them once maybe twice a year on average. This will change shop profitability opportunities dramatically if not properly addressed. The vehicles are built so much better but they must be maintained. Complete vehicle maintenance is very critical today. When the newer vehicles do break down however, the client is extremely inconvenienced. We as an industry can ensure the client does not experience this inconvenience when we "Manage" their vehicle professionally with a preventative maintenance system in place within the shop. It is our professional responsibility to ensure the customer/clients vehicle is safe and reliable. Safe and Reliability management of vehicles produces substantial net income opportunities.

False Evidence (Mis-information not understanding) is misleading these shop owners and it is destroying their current business not to mention the owners self confidence.

Everyone must examine their "Fears" very carefully and understand exactly what is required to move their business forward. It really is not as scary as many people perceive. In fact it is very refreshing to have a new procedure and understanding that reduces stress, brings the shop employees together and grows the business net income.

1 comment:

Zara Wishloff said...

I remember hearing once:
Luck is when hard work and preparation meet opportunity.

As you mentioned,the APS's taking the time/energy to "get it" will appear to others to be lucky in the future...Thanks for your part in creating so many successful "lucky" business's!

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