THE RPMTK WITHOUT THE FOUR YEAR REPORT – WHY IT’S SEVERLY UNDER-UTILIZING THE TOOL!

Imagine this scenario: you go to Best Buy and pick out a new TV for your living room. You get it home and installed, get your speakers attached, maybe your blu-ray player. Your new TV is great for watching television and movies, and your family is happy.

Then one day, your friend comes over to watch the game on your new TV. “Wait a minute,” he says. “I’ve read about this TV. It can access the internet and it learns your favorite programs, right? And if you flip this switch, it shows in 3D without glasses, doesn’t it?” And then he gets up and flips that switch and your TV becomes even more powerful.
You have that same kind of switch in the RPM ToolKit.

A lot of the RPM ToolKit focuses on what’s happening right now. Knowing how your team is performing in real-time is the key to knowing whether they’re following your policies and procedures. It’s the key to knowing if you’re winning and losing each day. Daily measurement empowers you to make good decisions about your team and your business…and it’s what helps us break out of the rut of mediocre results.

But it’s not all that the RPM ToolKit does.

Right now in your RPM ToolKit, you have a feature called the Four Year Report. And every day that you don’t use your Four Year Report is like going another day without flipping that switch on your internet/3D TV.

How much can you expect to grow this year? What are some realistic goals? What are your slowest months? Where does your team need help to get over the hump?

Planning for the future with questions like these can happen in one of two ways:

You can rely on your memory. If it seems like you’ve usually had the lowest car count in February and September, you can structure your marketing spending around that. If it seems like you’ve usually grown the same amount each year, you can project sales for the next 12 months the same way. If it seems like your Average RO is pretty consistent all year long, you can rest assured you have good policies and procedures in place…

Or, you can rely on the numbers. As Terry says, the numbers don’t lie, and they don’t get emotional. If November is your slowest month for car count, boosting marketing for February and September won’t help. If growth has been slowing the past few years, projecting high will lead to overspending. If your Average RO consistently drops during busy months, your procedures are breaking down and costing you money.

In other words, the only way to make good decisions about how to grow your business is to use the Four Year Report to know where you’ve been and where you’re going.

Do you have to flip the switch and use the new features you didn’t even know you had? Of course not. The RPM ToolKit is still a valuable tool for leading, managing, training, and holding your team accountable daily.

But now that you know the Four Year Report is there — and just how powerful it can be for growing your shop — I hope that you’ll work with your CDS to flip that switch on and take control of your shop’s future.

Bottom line: our team is here to help you. That means helping you get your four year data entered AND helping you understand what those four years show!