Overland Park, Kan. Chris "Chubby" Frederick, president of Automotive Training Institute (ATI) of Savage, Md., lectured on "How to Work On Your Business, Not in Your Business" at the Vision Hi-Tech Training & Expo on March 4.
After a brief introduction, Frederick posed a question to his seminar audience. "What do you want out of your business?" he asked. "Do you want to work 80 hours a week in your business? Do you want to rarely be there? Work on your business there? Work on it somewhere else? Work on it to sell and retire? Or, work on it to be succeeded by family or associates?" Then he asked the attendees to write down what they wanted to do.
"What should I work on short term?" Frederick said. He went over four points from key performance indicators: net operating profit (NOP), stabilizing car count, finding a manager, and developing your leadership skills.
"You need to know what strategic advantage your business has to offer," he said. "Why should your potential customer choose your shop instead of other shops in your area? Should it be differentiated services or low-cost repairs? Your market and your products must be internally consistent.
"Advertising needs to reflect the way you go to market," Frederick said. He said a shop needs to tell its customers what it is successful at doing. "The shop owner needs to know what market he is going after. Is it customer acquisition marketing or customer retention marketing?" He said that depends on your customer database and gave examples on how to determine which market a shop needs to be pursuing.
"Using an effective tracking system is critical to measure the success of your advertising program," he said. "There are at least six things ATI believes you should track at a minimum." He then gave an example of how to examine the results of the tracking system to measure the success of the advertising program.
Finding a service manager, Frederick said, is the next step. He described key responsibilities that a person in that position needs to have, and he handed out a performance checklist to grade the service manager. "We believe the service manager's compensation plan should be based on their ability to increase several critical goals," he said, and laid out the goals for the attendees.
"What should I work on long term?" Frederick asked. He listed a number of goals an owner should strive to achieve with the company, individuals, community involvement, and situation management. He had ideas on how owners can overcome separation anxiety. "Make sure everyone knows everyone," he said. "Let them try baby steps first, and wean yourself out.
"Results are driven by human behavior," he said. "We suffer behavior issues. First we must change these beliefs. The ancient wisdom gives us the secret we need to change core beliefs. This secret has been used for thousands of years to produce high-impact results when formulating strategy, leading to successful change, and dramatically enhancing human and organizational performance."
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