Shop coaches help boost operations, profitability

LAS VEGAS — Maybe you do need a coach. Even LeBron James has one.

You've been running your tire and auto repair business for years, but it's just not as profitable as you had hoped. It may be time to seek some outside advice.

"People think asking for help is a sign of weakness. It's actually a sign of strength. It means that you are comfortable enough with yourself to realize, 'I don't know everything,'" Rick White, president of 180 Biz, said during an AAPEX 2022 Shop Coach seminar with Bill Haas, president of Haas Performance Consulting.

Professional shop coaches have been around for years, offering advice and strategies for auto repair shops to improve their operations and bottom line.

Even the shop coaches have coaches.

"We have coaches that we work with to help us be better. There's nothing wrong with having a coach," Haas noted.

Many shop owners won't seek help out of a sense of pride, that "I should be able to figure this out," according to the two shop coaches.

Many shops were started by technicians and the transition to becoming a shop owner can be difficult as they deal with new responsibilities, such as pricing, profits and employee benefits.

"You have to transition into becoming a business owner instead of a technician that owns a shop. It's a big step. Sometimes it's a little scary, but it's absolutely amazing what's on the other side," White said.

"We provide understanding of how different your life is going to be and how the role of your job changes," Haas said, adding, "People in our industry have great technical backgrounds and very little business background."

"The reality is you can only manage a business to the point you have been managed, too," White added. "You need someone that's up here that can show you how to get there. That's what's going to make a big difference."

Seeking help can also improve your work/life balance. "So if you feel like your life is consumed with work, we can help with that, too," Haas said.

"You can step back and spend 20 years trying to figure out how to do things in your shop. Or you can use other peoples' experience," White said. "And what it does is turn decades of struggle into days of learning and it makes a really big difference."

He said one of his favorite sayings is: You can't read the label when you're in the jar.

"What you need is other people outside of the jar to tell you what you can't see. And I think that is one of the big things that a coach brings, along with accountability," White said.

"When you're an employee, you're accountable to your boss; when you become the owner, it's really easy to start feeling lost because you're not doing the things you should be doing and there is nobody there to hold you accountable. So a good coach will also help you get accountability."

In addition to hiring a coach, shop owners should seek out the advice and consultation of other shop owners, trade associations, vendors who can connect them to other shop owners, and trade shows that offer business management seminars.

The coaches urged owners to meet their peers at trade shows and talk with them — they probably experienced the same issues you have — and learn from them.

White suggested finding shop owners who are doing very well and invite them out to lunch to talk with them.

"Then you can start to get into that orbit of people like that because that's what you want to do." Surround yourself with people you can aspire to, he said.

White advised owners to interview various shop coaches to learn what their experiences are, how they evaluate a business and if they are a good match.

"You want to make sure this is somebody you are comfortable with, that is willing to help and go where you want to go," he said.

White said there are two important questions the coach should ask the owner: Where are you at and where do you want to go?

"You don't want to join a coach organization with a cookie-cutter approach because the issue with that is if you don't agree with one little piece of that cookie cutter, it all falls apart," White warned.

He said a business owner needs to make sure the coach understands who they are, where they want to go and what their issues are. Then the coach and owner should both be coming up with an action plan that the owner can be on board with.

"In a coaching relationship, the client should be pulling the coach along. It shouldn't be the coach dragging the client along," White said.

Haas agreed that interviewing a potential coach is important. The owners should have very specific things they expect from the coach.

It's just like hiring an employee, he said. An owner should ask coaches about their experience, why they became a coach and what do they get out of coaching. He suggested owners ask the coach for references of current and past clients.

Haas also suggested that business owners ask the coach: What have they tried that worked and didn't work? What do they want to achieve? The key is to know what you want to get out of this relationship, he said.

White said the coach and the business owner need to establish a good working relationship.

"There's a lot of people that think if they write a check to the coaching company, their business magically gets better — and it doesn't. It takes work. In fact, when you first start, it takes more work than what you were doing when you called me, because we got to change things with new procedures and processes," White said.

"I can't tell you the number of times that a shop will thank us for what we did. It's like, no, you did the work," Haas said. "I gave you the idea. I gave you the push. I gave you the resources. I provided you with tools. But you're the one who had to do the work. You do the heavy lifting and we hold you accountable to make sure that it is happening. But don't forget that you are going to do the work."

White said a business coach is a lot like a sports coach.

"What does a coach do? A coach sees something in somebody else that they don't see in themselves. That's a big part of it. And yes, sometimes you got to get tough. A great coach is going to hug hard and they're going to kick hard. That's just the facts."

Haas said people are motivated in different ways.

"A good coach will understand your personality. I can assess pretty quickly how hard I can push, for how long I can push and who I can't push. And I modify the way I'm working with clients based on their personality to get the results they deserve," Haas said.

White said it's a matter of building trust. Relationships are built on trust and the better the relationship, the more a business owner is willing to do without question.

When the coaching process begins, White said he first looks at the overall shop, noting that to be successful, the shop needs happy clients and profits.

"Most of the time when we're looking at shops, they have the happy-client part down fairly well; it's the profit issue that's the problem. And the reason for that is because, whether it's a production issue, they're not getting everything out of the shop they should be and they don't know how to. It also could be a pricing-model issue.

"The first thing we're going to do, especially if the shop is bleeding and spending more than they're making, is to help them turn that around and stop the bleeding. And then we're going to start going for growth," White said.

"Every shop is in a different spot. You've got to meet them where they're at and help them through where they are," he said.

Haas noted that there are no cookie-cutter-solutions for fixing a shop. Each business is very individualized and unique. The bottom line is: "Where are the profits?"

"So the biggest part of the evaluation is to understand if the shop is making money. Is it capable of making money? And what do we start to work on to get this to a point where we start doing the things we need to do?" Haas asked.

Math is a big part of this — accounting, taxes, payroll, etc. "You can't do checkbook accounting," he said.

"To me the foundation always comes back to getting a solid handle on the financial piece of this because everything that we do as coaches ... is improving the financial performance of this shop."

In the beginning, it takes a lot of reassurance, White said. The owner may take about an hour or two a week to work on one issue that needs addressed at the business. The coach and owner focus on one thing at a time and monitor the progress.

The coach and business owner may meet one hour a week, "but that's not the end of your time commitment because there are things you have to do prior to us having that meeting," Haas said. "You might spend an hour or two doing the things I've asked you to do in reporting, etc., so you're prepared to have an effective meeting. … I'm doing the same thing on my end."

From a time standpoint, it could total two to three hours a week for the coaching assignments, he said. As time goes on, there may be more things to do. The coach should take steps toward a goal and not give the owner all the tasks at once.

"The more time you commit to it, the faster it's going to happen, the better you'll feel about it, the better experience it's going to be for you," he said.

Some shop owners agonize over the time commitment, he added, but he countered that owners have to make the time if they are sincere about making changes to their businesses.

White said some clients stay with a coach for years, while others hire them on an as-needed basis.

"I truly believe a shop should always have a coach. It doesn't always have to be the same coach," he said, noting that sometimes an owner has learned all he/she can from a certain coach.

"For a business to get better, you have to get better. You have to become a better communicator, a better leader, a better manager, a better listener. So that's some of the stuff we help you with," White said.

Haas said a good coach will do more than promote more marketing or more mailers.

"It's about taking care of your customers, making sure you have the ability to, with some growth strategy and retention strategies to make sure your customers are coming back."

Shops are often overbooked and overworked, so they have to look at what to do differently — and there is no single answer, Haas noted.

White said that shops are afraid to say "no" to a customer and end up overbooking.

"You can't run your business that way. Know what your capacity is. Work to that capacity and get the production you can out of your shop. And once you're there, that's as far as you go. If you want more, you need more help."

Haas said knowing the shop's finances is imperative to dealing with inflation and market uncertainty. A shop needs to analyze every invoice because prices are always changing. The shop should have someone dedicated to developing job estimates, checking for parts and pricing, etc.

White said owners need to understand the gross profit on every invoice and be aware of that number.

To make sure inflation isn't hurting employees, White said he told a client to raise his labor rate 10%, give his employees an 8% "cost of living" raise and explain the price increases to the customers.

"We've been subsidizing auto repair for our clients for decades, for 100 years," White said. "We can't do that anymore because in order for us to be able to achieve the staffing levels, and quality of staffing that we want, the only way we're going to be able to do that is when we can pay them properly.

"Every technician that is any good should be getting $150,000 a year. Same thing for your advisers. … Explain (to customers) the value that we bring so that we can afford to pay health insurance for our team and their families, so that we can afford vacations, so that we can afford 401Ks and different things we are looking for. The reality is there, we can't hide from it. We need to address it."

Haas added: "So I want you to think about something. If your net profit is half of what it should be, which would mean it's about 10%, if your net profit is at 10% and inflation is at 9%, what just happened to your net profit?"

White concluded: "Shop ownership can be an absolutely amazing experience. It can be one of the best things you ever do in your life. … It amazes me how so many people start off with this amazing dream and it turns into a life-sucking nightmare, and it doesn't have to.

"It can be something really amazing. Stop thinking that where you're at is all you got, because it can be so much better. Seek help. I don't care who it is. Find somebody and get the help you need."