EDUCATION TRAINING

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CASE STUDY

How to have effective one-on-ones

Using regular meetings to inspire team growth

BY ALISON JOHNSON

Most auto care centers have regular staff

meetings, sometimes even every morning. But according to shop owners who swear by one-on-one meetings with their employees, those gatherings aren’t enough.

Individual sessions, they say, are where they can truly learn about an employee’s short- and long-term goals and—at work and at home.

At Done with Care Auto Repair in Merriam, Kansas, owner David Roman schedules recurring weekly meetings with his four technicians and one service advisor. He calls the closed-door, lunchtime appointments in his office “personal development interviews.”

The first part of each 30-minute meeting focuses on accomplishments, concerns, complaints, and ideas about shop operations. The rest is a free-ranging chat about the future: potential training and certification opportunities, budgeting concerns, investment options, family plans, hobbies, bucket list items and much more.

“If we’re invested in them, they’re invested in us,” Roman says. “In my mind, the shops that will succeed in the next three to five years are the ones that can retain experienced, skilled technicians. Even if you can’t out-pay another shop, you can offer that personal connection and show employees that you want to help them grow as people.”

The sessions also have taken pressure off him as a leader, he adds: “The thought that an owner has to come up with every thought or solution for a business is ludicrous. Empower your employees. If someone has a great idea, try it out or bring it to a group meeting.”

Rob Choisser, owner of Choisser Import Auto Services in Davidsonville, Maryland,

aims to hold individual meetings with his 10 employees at least once every two weeks. Choisser, himself a former auto technician, wants them to feel their job is about more than a paycheck.

“If they don’t see a bigger purpose–if everything is just transactional–they’re not as likely to buy in,” he notes.

“They’re also probably not going to handle stressful or busy days as well. To me, one-on-ones are vitally important to staying on the same page and staying cohesive as a team. If you feel someone cares about you, you’ll work harder.”

Both Roman and Choisser use group meetings very differently than one-on-one sessions, while never substituting one for the other.

Roman has a rule to discusses only positive points and celebrate wins during the larger gatherings, leaving the negatives to private conversations that have replaced annual employee evaluations at his shop.

If a single auto technician isn’t cleaning cars well before returning them to customers, for example, Roman covers that with the individual rather than bringing it up as a problem to the entire team.

“Otherwise, the morale of your top performers is going to come down, while the low performers get to hide,” he says. “You’ve just got to have the guts to have the honest, goodand-bad conversations with people, and to be clear about what you need.”

Constant communication should prevent skilled technicians from suddenly quitting a job out of stress or frustration, which is a major shock and financial burden for owners. Choisser likes to ask employees about their biggest “pain point” during the workday.

Past answers have included ineffective equipment, inconvenient locations for parts in the shop and poor lighting in a work area. Once he is aware of an issue, Choisser checks to see if other staff have the same concerns and brainstorms fixes.

“If I were to ask that same question in a group, I’m more than likely just going to get silence,” he says. “No one will want to speak up.”

Employees also have time during solo meetings to share details on how they handled more difficult or unusual repairs. If Choisser thinks a particular job has lessons that would be valuable to all employees, he adds it to group meeting agendas.

Owners need to be careful to meet employees where they are in life, based on age and situation, he notes. If a young technician doesn’t have any one- or five-year goals, a leader can gently nudge him or her to set a few. Passing along information on industry certification courses and credentials also is advantageous to employers and employees alike.

A few more tips:

1. Show up.Routinely cancelling, postponing, or arriving late to meetings will make employees feel unimportant and resentful.

2. Be a listener. Let the employee do most of the talking. Ask open-ended questions and turn off cell phones and email notifications.

3. Express gratitude. Say “thank you” on a regular basis.

4. Explain the goal of meetings.Share with busy employees that setting time aside for regular one-on-one sessions will benefit them.

5. Follow up.Check back with an employee to see if a concern has been addressed. Or, if they’ve requested information on topics such as continuing education or budgeting, connect them with resources and later ask for feedback.

6. Be honest. Employees should always know where their boss stands by the end of a meeting. If they don’t, insecurity likely will affect their job performance.

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A Shop Management Software That Grows With You

While the past year has been an eventful one for most, the new year is just around the corner. Maybe your shop has raced ahead with some unexpected growth or maybe you could use some help keeping up with the breakneck changes happening in the industry. Whether your shop is seeing more volume than your current system can handle or if you just want help with a fresh start, Bay-master is the shop management system that can take your next steps forward with you.

We’ve stuck around by developing e cient, adaptive, and creative shop management solutions for your daily and long-term needs. The company is 100% based in the United States and has been serving mechanic repair shops for over twenty years. The Bay-master team is close-knit with a deep interest in how day-to-day changes in our industry a ect you. Our software and our company has been able to stay healthy by forging relationships with our shops. With the rapport we build, we can understand actual user needs which tell us what updates and features should roll out.

The program boasts a massive amount of features at nearly half of what our competitors go for and that feature list will only continue to grow. Please read on about just a few of the features Bay-master can o er you to grow with us.

Automation

Our program is about you and your shop. We want to free you up from as much desk work as possible to keep you doing what’s important. Bay-master’s various automations will let you do that without any extra clicks. Reach out to customers or pull profi t, tax, or cost records for a whole quarter in seconds. Set yourself up with pre-made jobs that know what inventory parts to pull on the work order, saving you a step as you get ready for repairs. Turn on automatic marketing options to let your customers know what’s happening at your shop or just to say thanks for their business. With our help, you’ll have a full texting suite to keep up with them. Simple questions, appointment reminders, messages to inactive customers, remote payment, or text blasts to your entire customer base are all at your disposal. Texting is by and large the easiest way to get a hold of your clientele and Bay-master lets you do that without leaving our program.

Open customization

We know that every shop is a little di erent. State regulations, your customers, or even personal preference means not everyone is going to have the same way of doing things. Our program comes with a lot of automation pre-made for you, but we know that everyone is di erent and allow for customization of your saved jobs, your inspections, invoices, and messages. You and your shop’s identity are important to us as much as it is you. We make sure the program refl ects that.

Vendor integration and comparison

More and more of the industry is going online. Ordering parts from all of your suppliers is easy to get to, but now you need to keep multiple websites in order to make sure you’re not paying too much. Bay-master’s vendor integration not only lets you place and add any parts order to your tickets, but you can also see the same part from your di erent vendors side-by-side. Don’t miss out on a lower part cost. Save you and your customer as much as you can.

Performance tracking

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what is or isn’t working at your shop. You can go by raw numbers, profi ts, and sales, but sometimes it’s even hard to start there. We can look at your sales and profi ts, but we can give you more than that. Our program provides the diagnostic tools for you to look at stats like your best selling parts, your actual time on jobs against billed time, or your own shop’s performance over time as well as how you compare to other shops through a variety of visualizations.

Auto Repair Customers Feel the Sting of Record-High Inflation

What are you doing to relieve the stress of auto repair costs?

BY EASYPAY FINANCE

Nationwide sales support and all-star merchant and customer service have cemented EasyPay as the industry preference among main street auto repair shops. Our Merchant Partners are not the only benefi ciaries of EasyPay’s expertise; thousands of customers across the US have been provided access to credit they might not have otherwise. We exist to help bridge the everbroadening gap of fi nancial access and inclusion that prevents everyday Americans from accessing the goods and services they need.

We are committed to providing your customers with transparent payment options to help them through their precarious fi nancial situations. Primary credit o erings often have stringent approval requirements leaving large swaths of the population unable to access fi nancing. EasyPay approves customers with a wide range of credit scores and credit history, enabling purchases for customers cast aside by primary credit o erings.

Americans in all corners of the country are feeling the sting of decades-high infl ation rates and rising auto repair costs. Not only have auto repair costs increased an average of 61% since 20001, but with national infl ation at 8.5%2 customers are struggling more than ever to a ord scheduled and preventative maintenance costs. Contrary to popular belief, a majority (61%) of the country is living paycheck to paycheck3. Even households earning 6-fi gure salaries are fi nding themselves short of cash for routine car repairs4 .

This is a stark contrast to a commonly held belief in the industry that only customers with broken down cars from the mid-2000’s need fi nancing.

Identifying the need for credit is much more complex than assessing a customer’s vehicle or state of potential repairs. Even those who are potentially fi nancially stable can struggle with unexpected expenses and might need alternative payment options. Our decades of experience in the industry have taught us that the need for credit is shared by individuals and families residing in several di erent tax brackets. These customers may not be vocal about their lack of purchasing power; instead, they rely on you to recognize their need and help them solve it.

One of your local competitors may be leveraging EasyPay to maintain high weekly car counts and ARO’s; becoming an EasyPay Merchant Partner is the fi rst step to ensuring you’re keeping up with your competition while doing the most for your customers. There are hundreds of thousands of searches online for “mechanics who take fi nancing” and “auto repair fi nancing” amongst others. These potential customers are looking for auto shops who use services like ours. Partnering with EasyPay Finance increases your exposure online and helps more customers fi nd you.

Our decades of experience have taught us that with top-notch customer and merchant service comes fl ourishing partnerships and satisfi ed customers. This is precisely the reason that we have thousands of active and prosperous Merchant Partners. We want to enable transactions between you and the customers struggling to a ord your recommended repairs.

Provide your customers with purchasing power and watch the customer loyalty and repeat business follow suit.

Today is the day to begin anew and partner with a true authority in the auto repair fi nancing industry: EasyPay Finance. The fi rst step is simply enrolling your business in our Merchant Partner Program. Together we can help your customers meet their repair needs through better access to credit, post-purchase fi nancial education, and fl exible and transparent customer contracts.

EasyPay has helped transform countless businesses across the nation, and we want your shop to be next. We’re looking to work with you and your shop to serve your community. You work tirelessly, day-in and day-out, to keep your customers cars on the road and driving reliably; it’s time for you to have a partner just as committed. Enroll today and watch the seeds of change take root in your community. We couldn’t be more excited to have you join our network of industry professionals and continue progressing your community forward.

Loans made by Transportation Alliance Bank, Inc., dba TAB Bank. See exclusions at www.easypayfinance.com/privacy-policy.

1 Forbes: Soaring Cost Of Parts Means Your Car Is More Likely To Be Totaled In An Accident 2 U.S. Infl ation Calculator 3 PYMTS: New Reality Check: The Paycheck-To-Paycheck Report 4 CNBC: Amid high infl ation, 36% of employees earning $100,000 or more say they are living paycheck to paycheck

Digital Marketing for Your Auto Service Shop

Leads Near Me can help your business uncover new potential customers

BY DIAMOND GARDNER

Auto repair shops are essential in every community to keep us on the road safely and efficiently. But how do shop owners make sure that they are reaching the people they need to keep the service exchange going? Many auto repair shop owners rely heavily on word of mouth, which is a good tool to use, but it should be combined with digital marketing. For many years, Ryan Burton, founder and CEO of Leads Near Me, has been bridging the gap for shop owners from word-of-mouth advertising to digital marketing. Digital marketing allows business owners to reach more people who need their services and, in return, increases their shops’ call volume, customer conversion rates, and revenue. The auto repair shops that are fortunate to work with Ryan and Leads Near Me have seen tremendous growth with his team’s expertise and knowledge in the world of digital marketing.

How to find the right marketing company

The challenge that most auto repair shop owners face is customers being unable to find their website, the presentation of their website, and increased conversion rates. As a shop owner, you are in charge of many roles, but marketing should not be one of them. Finding the right marketing company can save your shop both time and money. With the right marketing company, such as Leads Near Me, shop owners are able to focus on the other aspects of their business and trust that the marketing company they have partnered with will work diligently to continuously increase their number of customers.

When an auto repair shop owner is fortunate enough to find an outstanding marketing company such as Leads Near Me, some initial conversations need to take place. It is important that the marketing company you choose to collaborate with recognizes and acknowledges the work that has already been done. Still, in order to achieve the results that shop owners expect, it is important to focus mainly on the facts and to make changes accordingly. Ryan has been able to successfully work with all of his shop owners and provide them with constructive feedback so that the owners are educated on what is not working and what changes need to be made to achieve their goals.

How to make the phone ring with Google ads

The majority of auto repair shop owners are not using Google Ads simply because they are not aware of how it works and how effective it is. With Leads Near Me, Ryan has had success over time in encouraging more auto repair shops to utilize Google Ads in order to increase traffic to their website and, in return, increase conversion rates.

Having a skilled marketing team run and optimize a company’s Google Ads campaign can save that company both time and money. Google has technically constructed Google Ads as a self-serve platform, but it takes a lot of expertise to optimize it to the best of its ability. Well-written ads need to be keyword rich and include all of the aspects Google looks for when ranking your ad. Along with fully optimizing Google Ads to get calls in, there are also a few key elements that a shop would need to focus on in order to tie everything together. A couple of those elements would be budget and a good website for your customers to land on after clicking your ad. Having a budget for your marketing, specifically Google Ads, is essential for the success of your marketing campaign. Ryan with Leads Near Me is a strong believer that a company should not leave their budget the same as they grow—it should always increase as the shop increases.

After a customer finds your Google Ad and you have successfully caught their attention, the next page that they are going to land on is typically your website. A good-looking website is definitely a part of the formula for customer conversion rates, but it does not top the importance of keywordrich content throughout the website, as Google uses those keywords to bring your website to the attention of customers.

How to answer phones

Once you work with Leads Near Me to get your Google Ads going, it is guaranteed that your phone will be ringing off the hook afterward, so it’s important to know how to actually handle those calls. The best way to measure your success with answering phone calls is to actually listen to them. Listening back to phone calls that have been taken allows you to see what can be improved, and it can even give you the opportunity to take notes on what went really well for future conversations.

Increase Profitability in Your Shop With a Consistent Customer Experience

When it comes to building a successful business, one of the most significant factors to consider are the people who are being served – the customers. The customer experience – whether good or bad – can make the difference between the customer returning or leaving forever, and that can have a significant impact on a company’s bottom line. From hotels and fast food to auto repair shops, the most profitable businesses are those that create and maintain a consistent customer experience, no matter who the customer is or which location they visit.

At an auto repair shop, creating a consistent customer experience can be a direct path to growth, whether for a single-location shop or a multi-shop organization. When a customer has a great experience at an auto repair shop, they are building trust and loyalty with the business that increases their likelihood of returning for future repairs. Businesses continue to prove over and over that retaining existing customers is more profi table than fi nding new ones. The most profi table hotels, fast food restaurants and auto shops retain their most valuable customers with consistent customer experiences - no matter which location they visit. When that experience is consistent, more customers are satisfi ed with the service and return for future repairs, thereby leading the way to increased profi ts and continued shop growth.

Establish A Centralized Data Management System

Regardless of your shop size, the first step to creating a consistent customer experience is establishing a centralized data management system. When all your data is located in the same, easily accessible system, you are better able to review that information and make adjustments to operations to improve the shop’s performance.

Track Key Metrics

After establishing a data management system and beginning to collect data, you must also take steps to measure that data over time. An all-in-one system like Tekmetric allows shops to measure over 50 key metrics consistently and automatically, from the daily shop performance to overall ROI. When a shop has multiple locations, a uniform system also allows you to access your shop’s data on any device, anywhere. Make sure you can review individual shop data, compare shops or look at all locations, so you can make informed decisions that benefi t the entire business.

Implement Standardized Processes

Whether you are growing one location or expanding into multiple locations, you must also implement standard procedures and processes across all shops. This not only helps maintain consistency when measuring data; it also ensures that anyone who walks into your shop knows exactly what service they will receive.

Overall, whether you are a single-location shop or a multi-shop organization, creating a consistent customer experience can give you the boost you need to increase trust and customer loyalty. In the long-term, this leads to profit growth, allowing you to explore new growth opportunities for your shop, whether that means adding a new bay or a new location.

Tekmetric’s new feature-set, Tekmetric Multi-Shop, allows multi-shop organizations the ability to run your entire organization from one central location. This provides an easy-to-manage system that will increase your efficiency and strengthen your customer experience. Want to know more? Sign up for our webinar, “How to Grow Your Shop in a Recession,” with Ratchet + Wrench this December, or visit www.tekmetric.com.

The 3 Keys to Fundamental Profit

There is a new empowered consumer. This savvy consumer shops and compares internet parts prices before authorizing a sale. The traditional markup that many shops use is no longer e ective. It is a common misconception that hitting gross traditional profi t targets will deliver the desired result. Gross profi t targets focus on a top-down fi nancial model that may not account for the total cost of the job. Alternatively, a bottomup fi nancial model that starts with net profi t and accounts for all expenses will produce the desired profi tability. The key to creating a bottom-up profi t strategy and winning with the consumers lies in 3 fundamental concepts.

1. Labor Sales Must Carry the Weight of Profi tability

Many shops use a 50/50 blend of part sales vs. labor sales. The shop owner is then counting on the parts sales to create half of the profi t. The problem with this method is two-fold. First, most shop management programs do not catch part slippage. Part slippage is the money lost by ine cient inventory management and not every part installed on a car gets billed out. Second, over 85% of consumers will check pricing on a repair either before, during, or after the transaction. A savvy consumer has access to parts pricing. Now we have a consumer that can judge the value of a transaction based on a perceived mark-up. If the internet is going to set the market value on parts, it will lead to a lack of trust, lower profi t margins, and more customer turnover. When the parts sales do not generate the profi t forecasted, profi tability su ers. Repair shops cannot count on the parts profi t to cover the shortfalls of labor slippage. It is time to consider shifting the revenue split to a laborbiased ratio. For example, 65/35, where 65% of the revenue is labor sales.

2. The New Labor Force

The team your shop has assembled is a unique labor force that cannot be duplicated. We must value the time invested in delivering the fi nished product. This includes every front-line person involved in the process. A service advisor who invests 30 minutes to build an estimate, source parts, receive parts, dispatch parts, organize the workfl ow, communicate with the customer and technician, fi nalize the repair order, quality inspect the vehicle, and deliver the vehicle is the real labor revenue. This is lost revenue many shop owners do not build into their invoice.

3. A Labor Rate to Sustain Profi tability

Statistically, many shops in the United States are substantially below the labor rate they should be charging. To attract the talent needed to thrive in the future, automotive technicians need to be paid signifi cantly more per hour, plus benefi ts. Would we have a technician shortage if our techs could earn a six-fi gure income? To pay these salaries and benefi ts, it will require a much higher labor rate to maintain profi tability and a comfortable lifestyle.

This is the direction the top shops are heading towards. By placing more weight on the labor side of the invoice and less on the parts side, you will retain increased profi t margins, attract a better pool of techs, and the customer will perceive a greater value.

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