Building That Great Team

When someone drives onto your lot, do you wonder if they are returning to complain or if they are a new customer? When a customer leaves your office with the keys, do you wonder if everything will be alright when they get into their car? Do you place bets as to when you will hear back from a customer depending on which technician or apprentice in did the work on their vehicle?

If any of these things have happened or are still happening then you need to sit down and quietly reflect on how much you have to develop the right team in order to keep your stress levels down and the satisfaction of your customers up.

Let’s face it, the days of a service lot overflowing with vehicles in need of repair and the phone ringing of the hook are over. Today, it is very rare to find a service shop being successful by focusing exclusively on fixing vehicles quickly. Everyone today, even the local lube shop, is looking for ways to generate additional revenues.

But to generate those extra service revenues, requires more than just knowing what kinds of services to sell. It is just as important to have the right team of people in place to successfully sell those profitable services and to keep customers coming back.

How do you build a winning team?

The Canadian Oxford English Dictionary defines a team as being made up of two or more people working together towards a common goal. That is a great definition. But there is even more to a team, and the first step is knowing what else goes into building a great team.

What we first have to understand is that all good teams start with someone who understands all of the systems and procedures that are necessary for a team to know what its goals are and how to reach those goals. As the shop owner or manager, your first job should be to know where you want to take your business and how your team, your service writers and technicians working together, are going to work together with you to reach that goal. Good teams and their leaders have the goals clearly defined, the procedures fully understood by everyone and each person knows what their responsibility is and how they will work with everyone else.

Now, before you start thinking that all of this sounds too serious and makes the workplace a rather dull place, think again. A team that knows its goals and how to get there is a team that also knows how to have fun. Everyone in the team is excited about their jobs and everyone encourages each other to do their best and improve their skills.

But the core of the team is the leader. And too often problems develop when the person leading everyone is not focused on building the team and making sure goals are met. Sometimes, the leader is a grumpy technician who is tired of not being heard by the customers and becomes frustrated at how thing are operating in the shop he is working for. When that frustration goes on too long, they become crusty in nature. Trust me, I know how that happens. Not too long ago, I was that crusty technician. Because of my frustrations, I bought the shop I now own. But I soon found out that I really did not know how to operate it and I lacked the skills needed to be a good leader.

Deciding that something had to be done, I began to read a lot of business books and took a lot of courses on leadership. That willingness to learn, to understand how to be an effective leader helped me to take the initiative to start building the team that was needed to grow my shop and business.

One of the best pieces of advice I every came across was during one performance group I was participating in. Someone said, “Knowledge without action is pure entertainment.” When the time comes to make the changes needed to build your team and grow your business, you cannot hesitate. How many times have one of your techs, or even a customer, looked at you kind-of-funny when you said, “Things are going to change around here.” That is because they know that things must change, but they are waiting for you to take that first step.

Know your team and leading the way

One of the keys to running a successful shop is taking the time to meet each of your staff members for a 30-minute “check in” review at least every three months. These ‘check in’ meetings are a great way for you to learn how things are going and to discover new ideas from your team and about how things really are on the front-lines in your business. This helps you as the leader of the team understand more about the stresses in the business. Stress in the business means stress to your customers which relates to lack of profit.

As the team leader you should take the time with your team to collect and review the numbers from the business every day, studying them for at least 15 minutes so everyone understands what was achieved and what can be improved upon to improve profits.

As well, you need to take the time to review and monitor all the systems and procedures with the team so everyone is working together, smoothly striving for the same goals. At my shop, we have two-to three-minute meetings every day where we discuss our shop numbers and to discuss what we have achieved, what we missed and what we going to do to improve the numbers for the next day. I know some shops that have five-to 10-minute meetings every morning just to set the tone for the day. Sometimes during these meetings, you will need to make small changes to make sure things stay on track. If a larger change is needed, don’t be nervous about calling everyone together. When you have everyone together, you will go over your concerns and then what you want to see happen to deal with the problem. You will then open the floor to a frank and honest discussion and have everyone work together to make the necessary changes to systems and procedures. Monthly one-hour team meetings are also important to help keep everyone on the same page.

What you will find is that these kinds of meetings will help you find out not only how your team is doing, but it will help you build rapport with your staff so things will run smoothly. And this is important to remember: these meetings don’t have to be formal affairs. As your skills as a leader grow, you will find that the meetings become more like friendly conversations and everyone will soon feel more relaxed and open about making suggestions and discussing how to improve the business. Everyone will soon feel less like an employee and more like a family member, and soon everyone is having a less stress and more fun as their jobs.

Once that starts happening, you will quickly discover that you will not dread when a customer comes to your shop. Instead, you will greet everyone with a smile, you will ask them with genuine enthusiasm how they are doing and invite them for a coffee and to chat about their vehicle’s problems with you. And with the right management systems and shop procedures in place, your customer will not only have their problem fixed, but will leave wanting to return to your shop because of the excellent service your motivated team provided. Soon your revenues will increase while the leadership you are providing helps keeps things running smoothly and reduces everyone’s stress. At the end of the day, everyone is happy, eager to begin the next day and as the owner, you will find that you have the time to not only appreciate your business, but to have the time to enjoy life, your family and even some pretty cool hobbies.

What do you think? Have your say and speak your mind! letterstotheeditor@ssgm.com