It’s Your Business
- Subject: Developing relationships that benefit your business
- Essential Reading: Shop Owner, Center Manager
- Author: Terry Greenhut, Transmission Digest Business Editor
No, not wheel alignment – people alignment; aligning yourself with the right people for the situation you happen to find yourself in at any given time.
All the books we’ve read and audio programs we’ve listened to about goal setting and achievement tell us that after we decide on what we want and set a goal we have to make and stick to a plan. Part of that plan has to be identifying and aligning ourselves with people in the right places who can help us get what we need.
First we must identify those who can help us. Often it can come down to a choice from only a couple or a few groups or individuals. When that happens there is a very good chance that choosing one automatically eliminates the others, so you must choose carefully on the basis of facts, not emotions. It’s like when someone chooses to run for office and has to pick a political party to join. By choosing one you pretty much alienate everyone in the opposing party, so before doing so you need to look at who has the numbers, the power and the belief in your concepts.
What or whom you like may not be able to get you what you need. Employees, for example, who hang out with other employees because it’s comfortable to do so or because they don’t want to stand out or be different from their peers will likely never be noticed by managers and will therefore lose the opportunity for promotions and salary increases. If, instead, they align with management by showing initiative, cooperation and the willingness to go the extra mile, they will be noticed and likely rewarded for their efforts. Although it may not make them too popular with their coworkers the question they need to ask themselves is, “What if anything can my coworkers do for me as opposed to what management can do?” They also must ask a very basic question: “Why am I here? If I’m here for the social involvement then it’s OK to be a part of the group and hang out as opposed to standing out, but if I’m here to build a future and make money then I have to give myself every opportunity to do so, even if it means moving out of my comfort zone.”
As a business owner, aligning yourself with the right politicians can be helpful – but only if they continue to get re-elected. Others you do business with can sometimes give you ideas or introductions to influential people who can help you, but your customers are truly the key. They can give you strong recommendations to others, and their loyalty will be money in the bank, so it’s definitely worth cultivating.
Often I’ve heard shop owners say, “There is no customer loyalty anymore.” Truth is that there never was any for owners who didn’t continually work to maintain it. It’s not easy to keep your customers happy and aligned with you. It takes work, especially if you want to get a decent price for what you do. You have to make your customers understand every time why they are paying you the amount they are; otherwise, they can easily fall victim to your competition’s low-price ads or low-ball, sight-unseen telephone estimates. When you’ve gained their trust and they understand what they’re paying for and why, they are less likely to think that a low-ball price they get somewhere else can be legitimate.
It’s not just a matter of money, though. Your competition may use price as an incentive to grab new customers, but that works on them only once unless the quality, speed and comfort of doing business are there as well. Before your competitors even get the chance to lure your customers away with low prices you have to form lasting relationships with them. You do this by becoming their friend – part of their family, if you will – by always being able and willing to help; by keeping your promises and honoring your commitments and warranties; by always saying “Yes” to any request (which doesn’t mean you can’t charge for it); by taking care of any problem they might have so they never have to visit another shop, even if it means farming out the occasional job to an expert in a particular field to accommodate the customer’s needs; and by continually checking to make sure your customers are happy and reminded of the services they need performed.
A great example of going the extra mile is a shop owner I know who will take a customer’s car to the dealer when he finds out that a certain repair is covered by factory warranty rather than making his customer do it. He doesn’t even charge for the service but knows he can make it up in some other way. Of course, he lets the customer know just how much he has saved her by doing her this favor. That’s a very important point. Anytime you go out of your way to help customers, don’t be shy about letting them know you did it. Many of them will not realize the value of what you’ve done without being told. They need a continual reminder of why they come to you.
Nobody does really well in business if they isolate themselves from those groups or associations that can provide them the feedback and training they need to maintain their business or reach the next level. Joining tech-service groups, trade associations and 20 groups is a must today. You need to know what fixes others have come up with for both your technical and business problems.
Sending shop employees to seminars and ongoing training has dropped off over the past several years. The recent recession, of course, has a lot to do with it, but attendance was receding long before that. Many owners claimed that their people had all the tech courses in the past and that everything is now a boring repeat. Others say their employees are just tired of attending classes because they’ve been doing it for so many years.
Now, unless something has drastically changed, our businesses are still revolving doors with older or long-term employees being replaced fairly often with newer, less-experienced ones who have never taken these classes, so that excuse isn’t really valid. Additionally, I’ve never attended a seminar or training program in which I didn’t learn something new even if I’d heard it all before. Humans tend to absorb information only when they have a use for it. Since your information needs change with your current set of circumstances, attending a class a couple or a few times can be a whole new experience or serve to remind you of things you were doing right immediately after you learned them but then have allowed to fade away over time.
Long-term relationships are not common. They tend to be few and far between because we move on in life, but it’s really nice when you have some. As I finish writing this piece I am winging my way from New York to Santa Barbara, Calif., where three of my best friends run their businesses. I’ve known Ben Caswell of Ben’s Transmissions and Nikki and Robert Ayers of Ayers Repairs for more than 30 years. They originally were my students and later became invaluable friends.
On one trip to California about 23 years ago I broke down and wound up in a hospital in Goleta, just outside Santa Barbara. I was there for several weeks. Ben came to visit me every day, sneaking sushi into the hospital for me to eat, and Robert and Nikki took care of my family. Now, all these years later after we’ve maintained our friendship, they’ve invited me to come out and train the next generation of owners, managers and service writers. Can’t wait to get there.
Never underestimate the value of relationships, and don’t let the fact that you’re always busy interfere with maintaining them and forming new ones. You never know who will be able to help you somewhere down the road.
Terry Greenhut, Transmission Digest Business Editor. Visit www.TerryGreenhut.com.
