5 Things to do RIGHT NOW to Save Time

Thank you for joining my class, “I Don’t Have Time – Time to get Organized!”

We covered a lot of ground during the class, but I wanted to send you home with something extra. Here are a few of my time tricks that you can try this week in your shop.

1. Do not spend all day on the phone

If you’re not already doing it, you should be limiting calls at your office. Vendors and salesmen are constantly trying to steal your time. Feel free to take calls from customers you know and who want to do business with you, but don’t waste your time with salesman if you’re not interested in what they’re selling. Instead, ask them to get to the point so you decide whether or not you’re interested. If it will take more than a couple minutes, divert the call to email.

Set up an email address for these sales calls. You could use your regular email, but it could clutter your inbox if you receive a lot of vendor and sales calls. Don’t let calls steal valuable time that could be applied to making progress in your business and your life!

2. Don’t accept walk-in sales presentations

Parts vendors tend to be the worst at this, as they’ll drop in without warning with a rep to show you the newest offering. Just say no! Teach every one of your vendors to respect your time. Tell them, “If you enjoy being our first call whenever we need a part, then you will never walk in here and try to monopolize my time.”

These reps realize that few people are willing to put up with an unannounced visit, so the owners who are get an inordinate amount of their attention. The salesmen always bring along distractions and disruptions that take away from workplace.

Instead, ask them to make an appointment – or better yet, send the information to your email. You can deal with these “opportunities” at your discretion when your hair isn’t on fire.

3. Set up a Cell phone blocker

I’m sorry to say it, but most of your employees are spending 2-3 hours every day screwing around. You can fix that, right now, but simply setting up a cell phone blocker. Keep it on during the work day and turn off only when you need to forward the shop phones to a cell.

I can’t tell you how many times I walked into someone’s office and they immediately shut the screen off. Why do they do that? If they’re working on something I’m paying them to work on, they should want me to see it.

When 4 out of 6 employees are hiding their screens, that tells me they’re dishonest, they’re stealing, and they’re holding back my company.

4. Create an Internet policy

As a business owner, I can tell you I use Facebook way too much. It distracts me. There are things I learn and accomplish on there, many that are good for the business. But does that justify the hours I spend daily getting sucked in?

Facebook is like cocaine – it’s an addictive habit, and before you know it your entire paycheck is gone.

Have a conversation with employees about appropriate workplace internet use, create a policy and have them sign it. If the problem continues, set up computer monitoring so you can look back after slow days and see who is really doing their job. If they are distracted online, you’ll see it in the numbers.

5. Delegate!

You don’t need to micromanage, watch over shoulders, or do everything yourself… you need to delegate! This boils down to two things: training and policies.

Train your employees so they know exactly what you expect and exactly how you expect them to do it. Create the policies they can follow to reduce errors – imperfect people can operate at near perfection when they follow a perfect process.

(We talked about this much more during the class – get a copy on CD so you can go back and listen to it a few times every year as a refresher).

These tips have saved me countless hours, and earned thousands of dollars in increased productivity for the business!

If you have any questions, please reach out at 303-703-8000 or send an email to contact@autoprofitmasters.com