It’s Your Business

• Subject: Leadership
• Essential Reading: Shop Owner, Center Manager
• Author: Terry Greenhut, Transmission Digest Business Editor

If you own and/or operate an automotive aftermarket business you have no doubt found yourself in a continuing struggle over the past several years. To grow and prosper or simply to keep it all going until the so-called better times return has been a major challenge.

To make business even harder for the rest of us, the greedy and the crooked of the world over-inflated the prices of oil, real estate and stocks until the bubble burst, just to skim their money off the top without any regard to what would happen to “Joe Average” as a result. Now they’re all crying “crocodile tears” for the economy while they transport their millions to hidden overseas accounts. Of course, the part of the equation they missed or didn’t care to consider is that “Joe Average” makes the world go around. When he isn’t working or is afraid for his job, or when the everyday necessities like gasoline and electricity leave him with nothing but lint in his pockets, he stops buying the goods and services the “fat cats” think he should still be able to buy.

No, Joe won’t buy the new car or house right now. He doesn’t want to make that kind of a commitment with all his uncertainties, but for the most part he is still working and still has to drive every day. That means the car he is driving has to be reliable. Joe has to have it fixed when it breaks and maintain it until he gets comfortable enough with his situation and the economy in general that he is willing to take the plunge and buy a new one. So those good times you were waiting for are here now, and there won’t be a much better time to take advantage of them.

Here’s where your role as a leader comes into play in several ways. You’ll need to lead your customers to make the purchases of your services that they require, you’ll have to lead your employees to a sense of well-being and excitement about their futures in the industry, and you will want to take the lead in your communities by setting an example of enthusiasm for other small businesses to follow. After all, recessions end when enough of us believe they are over. If your enthusiasm is contagious you may be able to help hasten the process.

Your customers

Although you may have always thought your customers were hard to sell, they were never as hard as they will be now. One reason is, of course, that they really don’t want to buy what you have to sell; but then again, they never did. Another is that they have choices. They can choose among all the other automotive businesses they hear or see advertising. Some of those shops will try to low-ball them in the door with ads for cheap services or by quoting minimum figures over the phone for repairs. Yet another reason may be that they don’t have much money or are afraid to part with it. Still one more is that they know from watching way too much television that we live in the age of the con artist, the person who would rip them off. So getting them to believe they even need some of the repairs or services you recommend will not be easy.

The answer is leadership and dedication – leadership in taking charge of each selling opportunity and having the customer follow you through the entire process. You’ll not have the luxury of allowing them to figure anything out for themselves. You’ll need to take them through each step of the process in detail – a tedious task, you may think, but a necessary one. The shop with the best sales techniques and the service adviser who will spend the time to execute them to their fullest will win.

With low-ballers quoting ridiculous prices either in their advertising or over the phone, you need to realize that you can’t get involved in that kind of a pricing war because you can’t win it. You and the competition can’t keep underbidding each other until the prices cause everybody to lose money instead of making it. You have to be smarter. Smart is not to quote prices at all. Give the customer a chance to believe what he wants to, that he may not need the extent of the work that he thinks or that others are trying to convince him he does even before seeing the vehicle.

Talk callers in with hope, the hope that it might not be as bad as they think or that some minor repair or service might take care of the problem. You must insist (in a nice way), though, that a real price can be obtained only by having the vehicle thoroughly checked out.

Offer to check it for free. Saying anything about diagnostic charges over the phone will scare them off quicker than almost anything. Although they hate paying for repairs, they will do it once they know what those repairs are. What they hate more is paying someone to find out what’s wrong. That doesn’t mean you can’t charge for diagnostics; it just means you shouldn’t try to do it initially. Get the car in first. Do a free road test and preliminary examination. If you can’t determine the problem and solution immediately without further tests and hooking up diagnostic equipment, by all means sell that service. Just don’t try to do it on the initial phone call, while on a road test or in the driveway.

Customer retention is the catch phrase. It’s the act of keeping them there once you get them to agree to come into the shop. You can have terrific telephone techniques that will get them to the driveway, but if you can’t persuade them to leave the car when they need something it’s all for nothing.

The main reason for losing sales in the driveway is rushing the procedure, trying to close the sale before the customer has enough information to make an intelligent and informed decision. Customers need to know what they are being asked to pay for and why. Even if they don’t fully comprehend the mechanical aspects, they need an explanation they can understand. You have to be able to explain it in layman’s language. You can’t tell them they need a new Finnegan pin under the cluster bar. You have to speak in terms of what the part does and why they need it, so every time you mention the name of a part immediately follow it with the explanation of what it is and what it does.

Customers in our present economic situation will be reluctant to buy anything but what they absolutely need. Your challenge will be to convince them that they need parts and services they can’t actually see. For example, you may be of the opinion, as are most, that when a transmission is rebuilt a rebuilt torque converter also should be installed. In most, if not all, cases you’d be right, but the customer who has been shot a price by a low-baller who didn’t include the converter in his pricing might believe he can get away without one. The same would hold true for replacing a power-steering pump when a rack-and-pinion unit tears up inside or the other way around; the customer will need to be convinced that he needs both even if one still seems to be working properly.

Start thinking more about the big picture, the complete sale and the different phases that get you through to the close. Tell yourself: “If they made it to my front door, they are my customers. It’s totally up to me what happens next. I am in control and I’m going to make sure that if they need service or repair they will get it here.” In your own mind, take choice out of the equation. Once you truly believe the customer is yours you will assume much more of a leadership role than if you are dealing from a weak position, fearful of losing the customer. You won’t just recommend repairs and services; you’ll state them as matter of fact: “This is what you need now” as opposed to “Well, we could do this now if you want or it can wait for another time.” There is no other time. What we should have learned by now is that we have a very small window of opportunity to make a sale. If the car leaves the driveway we probably will lose it.

An excellent technique for leading the customer through the sale is “back-tracking.” It involves telling the customer why you performed the previous step or steps in the sales process to show how they led to the step you are now trying to get them to approve. The technique reconfirms your reasons behind every action along with reminding them why they brought in the vehicle in the first place, what was bothering them, what they wanted to solve. It re-establishes everything they’ve approved so far while showing the logical progression of the sale. It shows them that they didn’t get to this point by magic. It’s all logical and makes complete sense. That makes the rest of the process seem logical to them as well, leading all the way to the conclusion: closing the sale.

I like to use the process at each individual step of the sale and then go through it in its entirety at closing time. For example, when the customer comes into the shop I might say: “Mr. Jones, when you called you mentioned that you thought your transmission might be slipping. That’s why I asked you to come in so we could check it for you.” Later I’ll add the reason we took it for a road test, the results that indicated we needed to do an internal inspection, the conclusions learned from the internal inspection and how we got to the final price. I will also be sure to mention the customer’s approval of each procedure and ask whether they recall giving it. I want them to view the final approval as simply the next step in a process in which they have already said yes several times.

Your employees

Leading employees through these times is a matter of letting them see your enthusiasm for the future. You set the tone for your business. If you come to work upbeat every day and don’t talk about how bad the economy is, if they see that you are promoting your business by getting out and doing outside sales calls, creating new promotions and contacting existing customers to ensure a steady flow of business, they will feel more secure in their jobs, leading to higher productivity and the maintenance of a high level of quality. They won’t spend their time worrying about whether the shop will stay in business. They will see that someone is actually steering the ship, giving them a greater degree of confidence.

Your community

Do more to get involved in the community. This of all times is when you should put up a successful front. Don’t just join organizations like the Chamber of Commerce; attend the meetings and promote the concept of a brighter future to anyone you engage in conversation. Volunteer your assistance with community projects to keep your name and that of your business in front of the public. You might want to offer a discount to other small businesses for using or recommending your services.

When anyone asks you how business is, answer, “It’s just unbelievable.” They won’t know whether that means unbelievably good or unbelievably bad. Let them draw their own conclusions. All you have to do is say “unbelievable” with a big grin on your face.

Never commiserate with the small-business owner who tells you how bad things are. Either he wants to make others feel bad because he’s not doing well or he’s looking for confirmation that business is so bad there is nothing to be done about it so he can justify doing nothing to help himself. That kind of bad behavior is just as contagious as the good behavior of showing your excitement about the future and telling others what you are doing to make it happen.

You have the power to lead your customers, your employees and your community to a brighter future. Use it!

Terry Greenhut, Transmission Digest Business Editor. Visit www.TerryGreenhut.com.