Driven Performance Advisors

Do you want your shop to make you a lot of money? Driven Performance Advisors’ series Roadmap to Profitability provides you the step-by-step path to make it happen.

The first step you need to take to build your shop to high levels of profitability is overhaul and simplify your strategy. I want you to answer the question in one sentence: what are you selling? Then I want you to ask yourself: are you selling what you’re good at?

If you deliver high quality work in a specific area, but offer services that extend well beyond that area, you’re killing your profitability. My logic behind this claim is this:

1. You can do your best work consistently, both in quality and time. It’s predictable.

2. This predictability helps your ability to schedule to minimize both backlog and downtime.

3. Your highest quality work makes customers happy.

4. Those customers tell their friends, who bring you more work. Cheap marketing.

5. With more demand for your best work, you’re able to charge higher prices without changing your expenses. Pure profit, consistently!

6. You can then use that profit to invest in creating other areas of excellence and expanding your team to grow and repeat this cycle.

So, let’s define your “best work.” This is pretty subjective, and most shop owners are nervous to focus so specifically in fear of losing sales in other areas. However, I’d like to bring your attention to the biggest problems facing shop owners today, that kill off 99% of all independent aftermarket shops.

Lack of staff, or lack of customers.

We’ve already dealt with the lack of customers above. Referral business generates sales, but only if you focus on making every single customer 110% happy with your work.

Now, let’s deal with lack of staff. Your goal is to create an environment where people are lined up to work for you. How do you do that? Give your people a job that they love to do.

Ask your team what they’re best at. What work do they most enjoy doing, that they can do all day long, while producing or learning to produce consistently high-quality results? Form your sales offerings around what your team can do. If you are the top specialist of the shop, build your team around your knowledge and spend your time building their knowledge.

When your team is doing what they love, they’ll tell their friends. Cheap recruiting of quality talent, who can help you push out even more work. Growing your profit and providing great jobs.

In addition to the hands-on work, what can you sell? Are you an expert at selling and marketing a specific product or service, so much so that it just walks in the door? If you give your customers a top-notch sales experience, you’re increasing your referral business. Design your shop to fit your sales style, whether gritty and old fashioned, or modern and sleek.

In conclusion

Focus on your strong points. Don’t try to fit in with the crowd or give your customers something other than your best work. If you want to make a lot of money in your shop, do what you’re good at.

Let me know how it goes – email me at arun@drivenperformanceadvisors.com.