May 2020

BY John Batten I t’s been an odd few weeks to say the least. My team and I have been in the thick of it witnessing the effect that soft lockdown has had on our industry and the garage owners we work closely with. Lockdown raised a barrage of questions; Should we furlough our team? Do I need a loan? Am I getting a grant? Should we stay open? How do I keep my team safe? There were dozens more besides. Important decisions had to be made and then re-made an hour later as new and more accurate information came into view. On the whole, if you were a garage owner between 23 March and mid-April you’ll have squeezed more strategic thinking into a two-week period than you may have done since the inception of your business. Like I said, it’s been an odd few weeks! Then something interesting happened We’ve squeezed around 30 hours of webinars in over a three-week period and as we moved into week three of lockdown I noticed the disposition of the groups (all garage owners) change. No longer was there a frantic thirst for knowledge on what action to take to save their garages. Those questions had been answered. Instead everyone was accepting their new reality and seeking ways to use their time effectively. Here’s where it gets interesting. Some of the most important work to be done as a garage owner has nothing to do with working in your garage. If you really want your business to work for you then strategic work is where it’s at. Like Abraham Lincoln said, “If you give me six hours to cut down a tree I’ll spend four hours sharpening the axe.” Abe was no slouch when it came to strategic thinking and there’s much that you can learn from him when running your garage. So, our group's mood had changed and as they we’re no longer at work they now had the time for strategic thinking that had not existed in our world before lockdown. But where to start? Or more to the point, what strategic thinking would be prudent for your garage given the nations position. Well, as this article is about workshop strategy, I figured a case study would be appropriate showing how one garage owner sharpens his axe and fells multiple trees with one strike. His name is Matt. He’s a nice chap, you’ll like him. Matt had a problem Matt’s very much like you. He loves fixing cars. I’m sure he’d do it for free if his business partner would let him. Diagnostics is his thing and the more challenging the better. As much as Matt loves the work, he knows one thing: There are just too many vehicles coming through his door for one chap to deal with. Quite frankly it doesn’t matter how much you love your job, or how good you are. One diagnostic geek can only fix so many vehicles in a day. It was a problem, but what to do? Well, Matt’s a bit like Abe. He’s smart, and knew that working longer hours or buying more tools wasn’t going to cut it. Matt knew it was time to sharpen the axe. Start with the end in mind Knowing what you want the outcome to be is always a great place to start, and Matt knew for his garage he’d need four of his techs to have strong diagnostic skills to lift the weight from his shoulders and cope with the workload as the business grew. Now, that’s a lot of people to train but Matt now has a goal and just needs to join the dots to make it happen. Matt decided the most effective solution would be a blend of training. He’d be using our face-to-face technical programme, as well as online learning backed up with regular in-house sessions led by himself and attended by all of his team. It’s a plan I supported whole- heartedly and it’ll become clear as to why. Matt chose to attend our programme ahead of his team. He knew that experiencing our training ahead of his technicians would put him in a great place to continue their training once back in the workplace. He rattled through diagnostic skills, electrical diagnosis, oscilloscope diagnosis, several different types of engine management course and a whole bunch of other technical learning, we really did fill him up to the brim. Upon his return to work Matt bought similar tools he’d used on the course, as well as some of the 20 AFTERMARKET MAY 2020 BUSINESS www.aftermarketonline.net THE WAY OF THE DIAGNOSTIC SAMURAI With time to ponder due to current restrictions, John asks if the most important work you’ll ever do is going to be undertaken during lockdown