There are many commonalities between the homeless living on Skid Row, the mediocre, and the successful. Each may have received a low or high-degree of education. Each may have been born into a humble or affluent family. And the universal commonality: each has been knocked down many times in life. The homeless man has [...]
Make it a game. In the popular 1980’s book, The Game of Work, author Charles Coonradt wrote, “People will pay for the privilege of working harder than they will work when they are paid.” He was referring, of course, to the fact that people will put tremendous effort into recreation, when it may be [...]
A common practice I have noticed among hugely successful collision repair shops is that they hold daily production meetings and discuss an accurate delivery list. The list is shared between all members of the team. It is like holding a huddle prior to snapping the ball in a football game. The list represents your [...]
In a world where there is so much marketing information and so many so-called advertising solutions, it is easy to get lost in all the minutia and forget that the number one form of advertising has always been, and always will be, “word of mouth” advertising. This organic formula for growth involves giving customers [...]
What is Continuous Improvement? Continuous Improvement. Another buzz word? Worthless Lean terminology? I don’t think so. Yes, the term has been used for a couple decades now by Lean gurus and companies like Toyota, but I want to ask you to think of ‘Continuous Improvement’ from a real world, practical, and much-needed perspective. Forget [...]
Do you run your shop or does it run you? I spend many hours in collision repair businesses and unfortunately what I see is usually the latter. The collision repair businesses that are really getting it done these days take a systematic approach to success. Today’s article focuses on how successful shops own their [...]
It has been said that the skills required to operate one body shop location is vastly different than running several. I couldn't agree more. I have seen many failed attempts to grow into an MSO by those that did not heed this advice. In one of my favorite classic business books, The E-Myth Revisited, [...]
Do you hate meetings as much as most people do? I really don’t blame you! I used to hate them too. I don’t know anyone that likes to sit in a time-wasting meeting where one person talks on and on without a speck of constructive dialogue going from one tangent to the next. However, [...]
There are numerous philosophies in our industry on the subject of pre-ordering parts. I have noticed that in some markets across the country, most everyone pre-orders everything and in other markets, not so much. So, just to clarify, a pre-order is when a collision repair shop orders the parts for a repair job after [...]
I frequently hear from body shop leaders that are frustrated with their “blueprinter” because they make too many mistakes. The blueprinter defends him or herself with reasoning that they are “only human,” therefore it should be acceptable to make an occasional blueprint mistake. As a former shop leader myself, I too struggled with how [...]
