March and April are a difficult time for many business owners; it is the time of year I call, “the dip.” As winter ends, many people yearn for the renewed spirit of Springtime, yet it still feels distant. The dip is a period when many people – and especially business owners – give up [...]
As much as 2020 was a pain in the butt for small businesses everywhere, it was also full of valuable lessons for those who paid attention. A handful of collision repairers in North America refused to fall prey to the challenges faced last year. Some business leaders charged ahead, growing and improving their businesses, [...]
With 2021 finally on the horizon, we all have an opportunity to return to, what I hope is, a “new normal.” For far too many business owners, the old normal was actually, kind of, well… mediocre. Why settle for a mediocre 2021 when there is so much opportunity and abundance available to those businesses [...]
Stress. We all have it. We all wish we didn’t. But that isn’t the end of the story. It’s how we handle our stress that tells the true tale. The effects of stress are ‘contagious’ and the negative energy grows exponentially within an organization. As the leader, not only is your stress level typically [...]
Struggling businesspeople can often be heard reciting all the reasons they aren’t making enough money. When pressed, however, they rarely know how to make money. In fact, they usually can’t even tell me what their revenue is so far this month or how much they need to make to be profitable! Look, I agree. [...]
A lot of shop owners have reached out to me recently inquiring about ways to create a better incentive program. When asked what they are hoping to accomplish by unveiling a new incentive or “bonus” system, they respond that they want to get their people more motivated. Many shops are wising up and moving [...]
According to a Gallup poll I recently discovered, the U.S. economy suffers from between $450 - $550 Billion dollars annually in lost productivity. The cause? 66% of the workforce are un-engaged at work. For you readers outside of the U.S., you are not off the hook by any means. Worldwide, the Gallup poll indicates [...]
If you're a team lead or a manager, you'd agree when we say that most of your time is likely to be consumed in meetings. Studies reveal that leaders nowadays spend nearly half of their week in meetings. However, some meetings are crucial to strategize better and make timely decisions, but some are just [...]
As I write this, I am on a long flight home from Australia where I had the pleasure of speaking to shop owners facing many of the same challenges as those in the U.S.A. You know the usual topics – labor shortages, pressures dealing with insurance companies, speed of technology, etc… I also heard [...]
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 [...]
