Episode 209 - Turn Your Dream Into a Destination: 10-Year Planning for Auto Repair Shops

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening. My name is Rick White from oneady Biz and this is my. Just one thing. Put Rocket down. So what am I talking about today? I'm talking about dreams. Why? I know that sounds funny, but let me explain to you why this is important. I'm willing to bet there's already something going on in your life that's just today. Just making it like, oh God, here we go again, right? Could be a client complaint, you could be dealing with parts issues, somebody didn't show up. Things are just going nuts right now, aren't they? And here's the issue. When you're drowning in your daily problems, how do you remember why you started the shop? How do you keep moving forward? Right? And let me just give you an example. When you focus on today's problems, and that's all you focus on, every setback feels like a failure. Does that make sense to y'? All? When you're focused only on today's problems, every setback feels like a failure. Let me give you an example. Oh, I don't know. How about that transmission job that didn't go right? Or you just got a call from somebody that's bitching about a bill and you know you did it, right? What about the equipment that breaks down and it's the busiest day, busiest week you've had all year. See, without a bigger picture, these problems, and they really are in the scheme of things, small problems, they consume all your mental energy. Okay? Now what I'm suggesting is that you need dreams, right? You need big dreams, long range dreams to overcome short term frustrations. Write that down, please. You need long range dreams to overcome short term frustrations. So let me show you what I'm talking about, right? I'm not talking about goals. I'm talking about a vision, a destination that of what your shop is going to become, of what your shop represents, of, of how your shop is going to serve the community over the next five or ten years, right? Building a shop that runs without you every day, creating a shop that families can trust, your community can trust for generations.

Training the next generation of skilled technicians and advisors, or becoming that go to shop that just takes care of all those really tough problems, right? When your dreams, what do your dreams do to these things? What do your dreams do?

They turn today's frustrations into tomorrow's learning experiences. Think that through for a sec. Right? They turn today's frustrations into tomorrow's learning experiences. Let me talk to you about what I mean, okay?

What I want you to do. Here's the just one thing strategy for this week. I want you to write down your 10 year dream for your shop in one clear sentence. Okay? Then you're going to ask yourself something every single time you run into a frustration. Is this frustration or does this frustration move me closer to or further from my dream? Does this frustration move me closer to or further from my dream? Okay, think about this for a second. You have a difficult client. Customer, right? They're probably not even a client yet. Okay? You have a difficult client. You can focus on the difficult part or you can step back and recognize. This is an opportunity to, to recognize how you can step up and become a better communicator, a better service provider and maybe even a better qualifier. Okay. That will help you move towards the, you know, the dream that you have. Right. What about that piece of equipment that fails on the busiest day? Well, if you want to have an efficient shop, that's your dream. A shop that can just do any kind of work that you want to do. If you, you've got the most up to date equipment, you're working with the best people, then you, it gives you an opportunity to upgrade your equipment and become closer to what you're looking for. What if you have shortages? What if you have somebody leave? You know, it's funny, I was, I was talking to somebody recently and they hired an advisor and the advisor lasted three days and left. And, and they were really upset about it and I said no, no, no, step back. This is awesome. Because they self qualified, they got to a point where they're like nope, this isn't going to work. How much better is it for somebody to say no, they're not going to be there. So that it gives me the opportunity to find someone that will thrive in that environment. Someone that lives our dream, that believes in the same thing that you do.

That's an amazing opportunity. It also gives you an opportunity to step back and look at your processes, your communication flow. Do you need to work on this? It's an amazing opportunity. Okay, What I'm going to ask you to do, number one, is write down your dream one sentence. Don't make it big and long because you're not going to be able to remember it. I want you to write down your 10 year dream for your shop. Okay?

Then when you hit a frustration, I want you to ask yourself, going through this frustration, is this moving me towards my dream or away from my dream? If it's moving you away from your dream, you're dealing with this wrong stuff. Okay, now here's my promise. When tomorrow's frustrations hit, when you have this strategy, you're going to have something bigger to hold on to. Okay? Here's why. Because every successful shop owner who's ever made it through some really tough times has all always, always had something bigger in front of them, pulling them forward. Okay? I want you to have your Martin Luther King moment and I want you to have a dream. Okay?

Our dream is to make the world a better place, one shop at a time. And we do everything. Everything we do, every is focused on that. And every time we hit a frustration or a setback, we learn from it. Tom Shearer, famous for saying, we win or we learn, right? And that is a core principle of how we operate. If this makes sense, please share this. People need to hear it, because the reality is, when you're in the toilet, most people think the only way to get out is to go down the drain. But there is another hole at the top of the toilet and much bigger, much brighter, and it smells a lot nicer, right? So I want you all please share this video, number one. Number two, Shop Owners Roundtable, June 12, 7:00pm Eastern. And if you want to get into our Pocket Business Genius webinar series and get more information just like this, and have access to Rick 2.0, which is in our library, you can absolutely do that. So again, thank you all for being here. I hope this has made a difference. Let's go change the world today. And the only way we're going to do that, write this down. The only way you're going to change the world is if you have a dream. So thank you, everybody. Have a great week. Go make some money. See you all there. Bye. Bye.