Chris Cotton Weekly Blitz

Does everyone remember the receptionist on ghostbusters?

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When I started thinking about this episode I went back to an old slide deck that I put together and I want to share some random bullet points from it:

1. What I see most often in small businesses is that we rush to hire and then fail to follow up with employee training.

2. We put new hires on the phone not knowing if they know how they talk to customers. Why aren’t we following up on what the new hires say to the customers?

3. By not praising and rewarding them on what they did right we are teaching and training them poor customer service. Your employees don’t know what they don’t know!

4. Locate and identify small problems before they become bad habits

Identify training and operational weaknesses

Identify opportunities to serve customers more effectively than the competition

5. Link incentives to performance—don’t punish people for doing things wrong, you coach them through that part of things, reward them for doing right.

Great ways to identify this is by Mystery Shopping and Auditing phone calls. https://bit.ly/3ze561S

The only thing that separates your business from others is customer service, that type of service doesn’t happen by accident. Train yourself and your employees to excel and the results will amaze you!

Steps for Giving Great Phone:

1. When you hire, make role playing the phone part of your hiring process.

2. On the employees first day give them the script for answering the phone and then have them practice it.

3. Then only have them answer the phone for an amount of time and do nothing else! A lot of times we just put people in their seats and say here's the phone, the pos good luck and then we get upset because they don’t know how we want them to do it, because we never told them….

4. Next we present them with the other scripts and practice, then start letting them work with customers in that way, all the while, recording, coaching, and rewarding them doing the right things.

5. One last thing, when you go through the role play on how to greet a customer, have them pretend it’s their long lost buddy from high school, great big smile, the feeling should be how the hell you've been and I can’t believe I’m seeing you now…………Your job should be fun, make it fun for the customer and the employee and you will be blessed in so many ways you can’t even begin to imagine.

Shout out to New Zealand!

Coach Chris Cotton

AutoFix-Auto Shop Coaching

Visit Auto Shop Coaching website HERE.

940-400-1008

Email Chris: [email protected]

Chapter 1-The Visionary

If you are a visionary you are entrepreneurial, a creator, and most likely you founded your company. You are an Idea generator, You have lots of ideas. As an idea generator, you probably have 10 new ideas per week and sometimes maybe 10 per day. Many of them might not be good and or not fit with the company’s focus, some might even be dangerous but in the end, some are absolutely brilliant! Those few great ideas keep the business growing and as the person that has/creates those ideas you are priceless to the business!

Chapter 2- The Integrator

Integrator is one who integrates, they harmoniously unite the major functions of a business, they are the conductor and keep the train running on time, they also create focus, accountability, and alignment.

An Integrator’s role and skills are unique, they are the glue and the visionary’s right hand, they beat the drum and make sure everything gets accomplished they are referred to as the inside man or inside woman. Do you have an integrator in your organization? Are you the Integrator?

Chapter 3- The Relationship

The 2 roles are a complementary force coming together to form a system where the whole is greater than the parts, one without the other is doomed, together they create and the interaction evolves and they transform each other via complement, I want you to think of a rope with two twisted strands.

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Coach Chris Cotton

AutoFix-Auto Shop Coaching

Visit Auto Shop Coaching website HERE.

580-491-3519

Email Chris: [email protected]

Repairing Your Auto Repair Shop - Chris Cotton Weekly Blitz 041

You've realized it's time to make a change and now it's time to put in the work/rise and grind! you didn’t get here overnight!

1. Start at the beginning: Income Statement-This is how we check the margins, true scorecard for success! Has to be organized in a way that is readable, 5 areas of Income: Labor, Parts, Tires, Sublet, Shop Supplies. You have to have offsetting categories for COGS. Email me for a link of a sample Income statement. YOU can’t run your business without one.

2. Hire a bookkeeper, or do it yourself but you should never be more than 24 hours from your Income Statement is up to date. My preference would be someone (YOU) updating it daily. If your current accountant and or bookkeeper can’t do that then fire them.

3. Do you have a great POS system? You need to have great reporting. Time management, ability to interface with the customer and a DVI, need to be able to see your margins in real-time and on the work orders/estimates and be able to adjust.

4. Profit Margins in order, parts matrix in your POS, labor rate that pays your people well and lets you make a profit.

5. Tracking and measuring, KPI’s–ARO, Average Estimate, ELR, LHPRO, Technician Productivity

6. Working on Processes and procedures: Huge List, you should be able to hand someone on their first day all procedures pertaining to their job. If you don’t have these things then you don’t have a mechanism to hold employees accountable. Most employees want to be held accountable and want others to be held accountable. Time Off Policy & Procedure Blog Post: https://bit.ly/3zi2aRN

7. Starting to actively coach your employees and hold them accountable to the processes and procedures. RO Audit Process: https://bit.ly/3sJEPY4

8. Identifying the right people to keep in the business and the people that aren't going to be able to continue with the business.

9. Phone Skills & Coaching—Phone CAll Auditing: https://bit.ly/3ze561S

10. Sales Skills

11. Pay Plans for Service Advisors, Technicians, must be easy to understand and explain to their significant others!

Coach Chris Cotton

AutoFix-Auto Shop Coaching

Visit Auto Shop Coaching website HERE.

580-491-3519

Email Chris: [email protected]

Looking Back on 2021 - Chris Cotton Weekly Blitz 040

1. Growth of Business and industry

2. Chris' Personal growth as a coach–almost 10 years as a coach, 19000 hours, Kimberly and I have traveled over 25,000 miles this year.

3. ServiceUp

4. Tire Profit Gateway

5. Peer Groups-Open to others in the automotive industry

6. What you allow is what will continue. 2021

7. Don’t put a wishbone where your backbone should be! 2022

8. Wise words from Ashlan Kaplan, Not changing things we are improving, improving from where we were this year and where we ended, and improving things in 2022.

9. Health & Wellness……………

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Coach Chris Cotton

AutoFix-Auto Shop Coaching

Visit Auto Shop Coaching website HERE.

580-491-3519

Email Chris: [email protected]

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Show Notes:

One quick note before we get started. Every shop is unique in its situation and what takes one shop 6 months to complete may take another 3 months and or 16 months. That's why we believe as a company there is no cookie-cutter plan and progression to get you from where you are to where you want to be. If you have a great handle on 'C, D OR E' then we can catch up and master 'A & B' and then move to 'F' and so on. In future episodes, we are going to go into greater depth in all of the topics that I am going to talk about today.

• Pre-Phase, Acknowledging you need help, you ask for help and receive help.
• Phase 1, You've asked for help, now what? Getting profits in place and processes and procedures.
• Phase 2, Growth Mode- Do we need more cars, fewer cars? Marketing and planning.
• Phase 3, Time to put a bow on it! Are we expanding? Are we happy with the shop we have? Exit Strategies and planning.
• Phase 4, Hero rides away or Margaritas on the beach? Everything has worked out and it's time to move on.

You must remember, you can't do any of this if you don't ask for help!

Coach Chris Cotton

AutoFix-Auto Shop Coaching

Visit Auto Shop Coaching website HERE.

580-491-3519

Email Chris: [email protected]

It is OK to say NO!

1. Establish your proper boundaries and policies -- early and well

2. Just say “no"

3. Offer an alternative.

4. Be assertive, but remain courteous.

5. Don’t respond immediately

6. Know your value.

7. Practice your response.

8. Be more selfish.

9. Use the ‘Broken Record’ technique.

Coach Chris Cotton

AutoFix-Auto Shop Coaching

Visit Auto Shop Coaching website HERE.

580-491-3519

Email Chris: [email protected]

Do You Have a Yellow and Red Envelope? - Chris Cotton Weekly Blitz 037. Chris talks about the Importance of planning the continuation of your business in case of a short-term or life-changing moment.

Slow Down to Go Faster - Chris Cotton Weekly Blitz 036

Gratefulness - Chris Cotton Weekly Blitz035

Behaviors That Limit Success - Chris Cotton Weekly Blitz 034

Six behaviors that prevent us from achieving the success we desire. Behaviors that are limiting our success in life.

1. Jealousy 
2. Self-Limiting Beleifs 
3. Living in the Past. Living Life in the Rear View.
4. Gossip
5. Giving Up Too Soon. Throwing in the Towel.
6. Negative Thinking