ARE THEY SELLING ACTIVITY OR RESULTS?

My last article probably came off as angry… because I was (and am). If you haven’t read the article on how to actually fix a problem like   “pencil whipping” in your shop, you can read it here.

I’m angry because I’m tired of watching company after company and product after product pop up in our industry designed to do nothing more than confuse activity with results.

As shop owners, we get it from all angles…

• When they tell us to focus on number of cars instead of the size of the ticket.
• When they tell us to focus on how neat and clean our forms are instead of the effectiveness of our technicians or thoroughness of our inspections.
• When they tell us they can call our clients for us instead of us building relationships ourselves.
• When the tell us they can create a Facebook page and post to it daily instead of working with us to truly represent our image online.
• When they tell us to fix our gross profit by gouging a few customers instead of taking the time to create a working parts markup matrix.
• When they tell us to literally underbid our competition for customers instead of focusing on lasting relationships with our neighbors.

These aren’t solutions — these are the reasons that we end up losing everything we care about.  These things focus on removing the temporary pain while leaving the cause of the pain intact.

Imagine stepping on a nail and getting a shot to dull the pain but leaving the nail in your foot.

I have 40 years worth of material I could write here, and over the next couple of articles, I’ll address some of what I know.  But what I wanted to do here was give you an exercise you can use to determine if you’re focusing on results or activities.

No matter what bad idea is being thrown at us, they all have the same tell: they all want you to measure the wrong thing.  It’s what keeps you distracted (and paying them).

But the next time you’re evaluating a new product or service try this:

Write down their core goal.

Since I spent the last article talking about online forms, I’ll use that as an example today.  In this example, their goal is “Techs fill out inspection forms better.”

Follow that promise to its conclusion.

In this case, the ultimate conclusion is “Techs do more thorough inspections.”  The ultimate goal isn’t for your techs to fill out the inspection forms better, but to have them do thorough inspections and identify all work needed by the customer’s car.

Compare their goal with your desired result.

If their goal is one or more steps removed from the needed result, it’s probably just an activity.

Does a tech filling out a form better mean they’re doing a more thorough inspection? No.  It can be an indicator that technicians aren’t doing thorough inspections.  But ultimately, a form being better filled out is an activity.

Another Example.

Take the bullet point I listed about a Facebook page.  This one is common in this industry, since most owners have nowhere near the time or the desire needed to create an online community.  Companies come along and tell us they’ll create the page and post to it for us.

• Core goal: Facebook page created, posts written
• Desired result: Facebook creates Top of Mind Awareness, leading to more customer visits each year
• Compare: without a plan, without regular interaction, without understanding you, your shop, your image and goals, creating a Facebook page and putting up posts is an activity, not the desired result.

I hope this exercise helps. It’s not meant to cover all possibilities, but rather to give you a quick tool to analyze the big claims we see every day as shop owners.

I have plenty more to say on this subject, and next time I’ll tackle how to measure your team’s results instead of their activity (and how this leads to greater accountability and less stress for you).

I have also posted this blog on Motor Age- Click here to read it.