It’s Your Business
- Subject: Taking back control of your business
- Essential Reading: Shop Owner, Center Manager
- Author: Terry Greenhut, Transmission Digest Business Editor
Are you in a continual state of being overwhelmed by either having so many customers that you can’t find adequate time to sell properly and do for them everything they need, or not having enough customers and always being behind with the bills you have and sometimes cannot pay? Either scenario is not healthy for you or your business. In fact, the first could easily lead to the second if not remedied. Not spending enough time with your good customers and selling them what they really need when they come in for minor services can lose many of them for you and put you in the unenviable position of not having enough customers to generate the dollars you need.
In the first scenario you suffer from the “too busy to make money” syndrome in which you have so many customers clamoring for your attention that all you want to do is get them in and out of the revolving door as quickly as possible so that those who are waiting don’t freak out and go somewhere else. This causes you to not check cars thoroughly and focus on only what the customer came in for, or checking them but not selling everything for fear of tying up lifts, which would keep other customers waiting too long.
Either way, you aren’t making money. You’ll have an awful lot of repair orders but they’ll all be small, mostly routine services that are not profitable. Even the quick-oil-change shops can’t make money without selling add-ons, and they’re set up to do an oil change every 10 minutes; you’re not. You can, however, knock out a brake job in almost the same time it takes you to do an oil change because that’s what you’re set up to do.
As a consultant I become very disappointed in the owner’s or service writer’s ability to sell when I see a stack of tickets in a transmission or automotive shop with nothing but oil changes on them. It is such a waste of the shop’s time and resources to get paid 0.3 hour for the same amount of labor time for which you would charge out 0.75 to more than an hour if it weren’t labeled “oil change” and get well over $100 labor for it plus the markup on the parts.
So the first scenario has you losing money because you won’t try to sell the customer for fear of tying up the car too long or worrying that they will think that every time they come in for something minor you’ll try to sell them something bigger. In the second scenario, which is even worse, you make no money because you are simply in fear of customers saying “no” to either the job or your price so you either don’t try to sell it or make a half-hearted attempt at it that’s the equivalent of or worse than not trying at all.
Want to get out from under the overwhelming? Take back control. Take control of the shop, of the customers but, most of all, of your fears. For example, if you’re afraid of their being upset by your tying up their car, give them a ride, a loaner or a rental. You can afford to do that if you’re selling what they need and at a profitable price.
If you’re scared they’ll think you’re selling them too much, don’t be, as long as everything you’re trying to sell is legitimate. The little twinge of doubt is always in the customer’s mind anyway, so worrying about it won’t do you any good. Whenever possible base your sale on the vehicle service history along with what you find diagnostically, as in: “Mr. Johnson, you’re going to need rear brakes. The pads are worn down and the rotors are warped, but it only makes sense. It’s been over 40,000 miles since we last replaced those brakes according to our computer records. Would you prefer we have the car ready by this afternoon or would tomorrow be OK for you to pick it up?”
Your good customers should always be told what you find. The only time you should try to force them into buying now is if the problem is critical to their safety or that of others with whom they share the highway. Other than that they should have it explained and be given the opportunity to buy now. If you have more than one repair or service to sell you might want to think about bundling a couple of jobs with a small discount for letting you do them all now or, in lieu of a discount, throwing in a free oil change as an incentive.
Either way, selling it now is far more economical for you and your customers than making them come back to have something done that could have been handled now. Make sure they understand what the economics of doing it that way mean to them. Tell them how it will save them time and money by doing it all now. Don’t ever be afraid to brag about a benefit you are giving a customer, and don’t think it’s so obvious that you don’t have to tell them what you did or are doing for them. They won’t get it on their own. They aren’t tuned in to looking for it so they have to be told.
As far as your second-scenario customers go, if they aren’t buying you don’t need them. Sounds radical, I know, but what good is a customer who won’t let you make money? If you check the history of a customer who has normal mileage on the car and find that the only business you are getting is oil changes and state safety and emission inspections every year while you have been making repair and service recommendations all along, it’s obvious he’s taking the gravy work somewhere else. Ask him where and why the next time he comes in. If he won’t give you a shot at the repairs on which you can actually make some money, fire him as a customer. All he is doing is taking advantage of your loss leaders while letting someone else make the profit you should be making from him. It may sound harsh, but the last thing you need is non-profit customers taking you away from the ones with whom you can make money but don’t think that you have the time to service.
Another group that can overwhelm you is “waiters.” They want to wait for the fluid change and/or the tire rotation. They can cost you in several ways. First, they didn’t come in planning to leave the car for anything, so no matter what else you find it will be hard if not impossible to sell. Second, they have nothing else to do while they wait than talk to you, your employees and other customers, all of which can be costing you. Third, they give you the continuous evil eye while they are waiting, often making you give them priority service just to get them done and out of there. Look at how that affects your business. It takes your resources away from good-paying jobs that have been promised to do basically non-profit jobs just to get waiters out of your face.
Head them off at the pass. When a customer comes in looking for a minor service without an appointment, ask, “How long can you leave it with me?” Do it before they have a chance to say they are going to wait for it. Then offer a ride home or to work. If they accept be sure you get a phone number at which you can reach them just in case you find anything during your inspection. If they can’t leave the car today try to get them to make an appointment to leave it tomorrow instead of waiting.
If they insist on waiting, make them wait. Don’t pull a technician off a good-paying job to accommodate a waiter with a non-profit one. By making the waiter wait longer there is a good chance that next time he or she will take you up on your offer to leave the car.
So you can be overwhelmed by too many customers, not enough customers, too many bills that you can’t pay or too many waiters eating up your resources. The good news is that you can control most, if not all, of these conditions by slowing down and taking the time to evaluate each situation, then selling each customer what they need at the price you need to be profitable. This is not a race. The fastest shop doesn’t win; the most-profitable one does.
How adamant are you about closing a sale when you are 100% certain they can’t go on without what you are offering? You look people in the eye and say in no uncertain terms, “You need this brake job now!” Notice how most, if not all, of them go right along with you. Why? Because they can sense your belief in what you’re selling. That’s the same posture you should take each time you really want to close a sale. Say to yourself, “They really need this and I’m going to make sure they get it.”
None of this guarantees that you’ll never have another stressful or overwhelming day, but it sure will cut down on them a whole lot.
Terry Greenhut, Transmission Digest Business Editor. Visit www.TerryGreenhut.com.
