It's Your Business Archives - Page 5 of 16 - Transmission Digest
Bill Paying and Reputation

Paying bills is one of the most difficult things we have to do in business for a number of reasons. One that always bothered me was that the money I worked so hard to get didn’t even have a chance to get all warm and comfortable in my checking account before I had to take it out to pay bills. The old “hard-come, easy-go” scenario. It was almost like the money was never really there. Time is another factor. The time it takes to pay bills pulls you away from money-making activities, and we all know that’s where we should be placing most of our energy. Of course some of us have bookkeepers to help with the bill paying, but often we need to get involved anyway to determine who needs to get paid now, who can wait longer, and how much we can pay each creditor.

How Fortunate We Are!

Did you ever stop to think about how fortunate we are to live in a place where we can ply our trade with only minor guidelines imposed by government agencies, a place where we can get what we need so quickly that we get bent completely out of shape if we call the local parts store for a delivery and the driver doesn’t show up within 20 minutes with the exact right part in his hand? We tend to take all that for granted, but there are many places in the world where that kind of luxury just doesn’t exist.

If You Don’t Tell Lies, You Can’t Get Caught in One

Upon arrival I noticed that all three service advisers were on the telephone. There were no other customers waiting at the counter. I could overhear their phone conversations and it didn’t sound to me like any of them were talking with customers about their vehicles, yet not one of them bothered to greet me or cut their conversations short. Standing there that way for what seemed like an eternity made me feel very out of place, but I wrote it off. After all, I’m new to the area. Maybe that’s the way they do things here.

There’s No Excuse

Great people throughout history have chalked up numerous failures before succeeding at whatever their chosen profession or goal. Is it OK to fail? Sure it is, and sometimes often and quite miserably, before finally reaching your ultimate triumphs. Business owners don’t always make it on the first try or the second or third for that matter. Inventors often try and fail hundreds of times before finding a solution. Did you know that the famous artist Van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime, all the rest sold after he died, but that never stopped him from painting? Henry Ford went bankrupt five times. Albert Einstein was expelled from school for being a terrible student. Winston Churchill lost every election in which he ran until he became prime minister at age 62.

Keeping Up with Change

I come from a time in this industry when building a transmission was a simple thing. Of course we didn’t know it then. The problems we faced looked just as big to us way back when as the ones you now face. We were dealing with hydraulic pressure and vacuum with just the slightest bit of electricity thrown in, but even then, that kickdown solenoid that didn’t work could have us scratching our heads for quite a while. Today you have lots of solenoids, sensors, and one or several computers to deal with, and if you’re a rebuilder or a troubleshooter you’d better know how they all work and what to do when they don’t or your shop will lose an awful lot of money.

Monologue vs. Dialogue

A two-way conversation in which both parties are giving and receiving information is a dialogue, and it’s what is needed to make successful sales. You may be the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to mechanical skills. You might even be great at handling customer situations and problems after the sale, but if you can’t have a successful dialogue with a potential customer over the phone or when they pay a visit to your shop, those wonderful attributes won’t mean a thing because you won’t be making profitable sales.

Price Negotiation – Steer Clear of It

Negotiating price on a repair job you’ve already quoted is never a good idea. It will always leave you with a lower figure than what you started from. After all, you can never go up, only down. So if you had priced a job to make the least amount of profit you could live with (as many shops do) and the customer gets you to drop your price, you’ll have made nothing or maybe even lost money. As we know, it also sends the message that you’re easy to undercut. Customers put that in their memory banks and will use it against you whenever possible in the future, so it’s a bad trend to start.

Expectations

What exactly do you expect from the people with whom you deal every day? Do you have certain expectations of your employees, suppliers, and customers? But the bigger question is, Do they know it? Do they know exactly what you want from all of them, or are you the type who just thinks they should all be able to figure it out for themselves and then if they don’t, get all bent out of shape?

TRUTH OR DARE

The other day while waiting for one of the forever traffic lights they have here to turn green I started studying the sign posted just outside the office of the automotive shop on my left. It read, “WE WILL BEAT ANY WRITTEN ESTIMATE BY 20-40%.” Really? What does that mean? Will they write their own estimate that’s 20-40% less, but is that just what they will write, not what they will charge? Will they just knock 20-40% off whatever the other estimate was? Will they actually do the job for that much less? Will they provide the same kind of quality for such a lower price if indeed they will ever actually sell the job at the lower price they are going to quote, or will they tell the customer who walks in after reading that sign that it only applies to certain types of cars or jobs and that his isn’t one of them?

THE MOVE FROM HELL

Moving is never easy, especially when it’s half way across the country to a place you’ve only visited a couple of times. Uprooting your family and changing your lifestyle from one that you’ve known for most or all of your life can be traumatizing. I’ve always prided myself in being adaptable and I’m sure I’ll get used to my new surroundings quickly but that wasn’t nearly my biggest problem with this move.

What We Want and What We Need

As much as we get used to what we are doing on a daily basis, sometimes the way we do it needs to change as conditions around us do or when we realize that what we’ve been doing just doesn’t get the job done anymore.
Marketing is one area in which this might hold true above all others. It’s just too easy to fall into the trap that “the way we’re doing it must be alright because it’s the way we’ve always done it.” Look around you. Nothing is the way it used to be–especially not the way you receive or convey information–and isn’t that what marketing and advertising are all about? Your message may not have changed very much because you still want to offer your excellent services to the public, but the way you deliver the message certainly has, and the types of offerings you put out need to make sense to your potential customers. Customers have to see your offer and immediately say to themselves, “I need that.”–not “I want it”, but “I need it.”

Is Your Shop in a “Bad Mood”?

When your whole shop has somehow worked itself into a bad mood it affects everyone. Customers, suppliers and employees are uncomfortable, and as a result, you lose productivity and sales. The spiral effect just continues downward until it reaches critical stage. Then, if something isn’t done to turn it around, all could be lost. So once the symptoms are recognized, changes need to be made quickly.