Watch The Facebook Live Recording Below:
A Shop Owner’s Most Valuable Asset
TRANSCRIPTION: Since we’re almost to the weekend, that will be the topic of today’s Facebook Live. I am gonna give you permission to take the weekend off. Yeah, yeah. I know, you probably got a lot of things to do at the shop that’s just not getting done every day. You’ve been staying late, but you just can’t seem to get everything done.
So, you’re gonna go into the shop this weekend to finally finish up all those projects? I’m going to tell you, don’t do it. Take the weekend off. You have my full permission to do so. Look, you put your blood, sweat, and tears into this business every single day.
You’ve been doing it year after year after year, and you’re putting in some amazing hours. You’re working really hard, but if you’re working really hard and a lot of hours, chances are you’re not working very smart.
Now what do I mean by that? I’m not calling you dumb. By the way, please don’t get that idea from it. I’m talking about working smarter and doing things that you need to do during the day when you’re there, when you have to be there, doing the things you need to do so that you can take the evenings off, so you can take the weekends off. Because we’re finding time and time and time again, you’re working way too many weekends and way too many evenings.
Putting in 12 hour days, which, look, I commend you for your work ethic, but I’m gonna slap you for working so many hours ’cause there’s a life outside the shop, believe it or not. You may not believe it, ’cause you haven’t seen it in awhile. But, yes, there is life outside of your shop.
How do you get back those evenings and how do you get back those weekends? I want to kind of give you, I guess, some food for thought about getting those, that time back, ’cause that’s your time. Time is your, by far, your most valuable asset you will ever have.
Once this minute is gone, once this five minutes that you’re watching this video is gone, it’s gone forever. You will never ever get it back. Nobody’s invented a time machine, that I’m aware of. Look, we need to make sure that we value every minute, every precious minute.
So, that’s the reason why I’m gonna give you some really good value on this video.
Let’s, talk about the how to get back some of that time during the week.
What are you doing that’s causing you to have less time? Well, number one, believe it or not, you’re on Facebook right now and that is a giant time suck. Now, I get it if you’re on here, ’cause you’re getting some good value here, but how much time is wasted looking around Facebook just because you’re bored?
You’re not really trying to do anything, but you’re on Facebook simply because it’s a habit. I want to tell you, stop doing that. If you log how many hours you’re in Facebook every single week, there’s a lot of hours there that you can get back simply by not constantly being here.
Of course, you want to be here and check in in the morning to watch this video, but past that, get the hell off Facebook ’cause it’s a giant time suck. You’re not making any money on there and it’s eating away at your free time.
Same thing with email. There’s so much crap going around in emails, except the emails that you’re getting from me if you’re on my email list. No, a lot of times you spend too much time on email and when you answer an email, when you look at an email, you’re looking at somebody else’s schedule. Everybody else’s is trying to schedule your time and try to take time away from you during the day.
If you’re working evenings and weekends, I gonna tell you, just turn the email off. Just forget about email. Don’t even look at it anymore, except to look for emails from me, of course. Right?
What else are you doing during the day? You’re probably putting out fires. Not like this raging fire I have going behind me. It’s actually a kind of a cold, dreary day out here in Cincinnati, so I figured I’d warm the place up with at least a video fire today.
But, you’re probably running around putting out fires. In other words, you don’t have systems in place to handle things so you have to be there and you’re the answer man. You’re the person that people come to for answers all the time.
So, that goes with the things that go on with your clients, things that go on with your parts people, things that go on with your billing, things that go on with your technicians and you’re probably answering the same questions over and over and over again. Or you haven’t given your employees permission to go and make decisions on their own.
That’s eating away at your time. Time that you will never ever get back again. You will always lose that time when you’re answering the same question time and time and time again.
So, start to systematize things. Give your technicians and your office staff permission to fail. Look, it’s gonna happen every once in awhile, but let ’em fail. Then, just let ’em know how to fix it the next time and I guarantee it won’t happen again. Now you’ll start getting all that time back.
Think about all the time that you’re running around doing minimum wage work. What I mean by that is, you’re running for parts or you’re running client’s home or, I don’t know, there’s, you’re cleaning the bathroom. All of those things. You do not need to do that.
As the owner, you should value your time. I mean, what do you, what would you charge if you’re a technician and some of you are still turning wrenches? What is your time worth? What do you charge per hour for your technician work?
Let’s say it’s $100 an hour. Well, why are you doing anything that is not bringing in at least $100 or isn’t worth $100? If it’s not worth $100, pay somebody $15 an hour or $10 an hour to do it for you. You as the owner have to take advantage of the time that you do have. I don’t want you to be eaten alive by your business.
That’s really what’s happening with far too many people. They’re just working too hard. There’s an old saying that, look, if you don’t have time to do the important stuff, you’re working on the wrong things. So, I want to make sure that you’re working on the important things. Things are going to drive your business forward. Things that are gonna give you the money, the freedom, the time, the lifestyle that you started the business for. That’s really what this is all about. Giving back your time.
Now, if you want to find out how much time you’re actually losing during the week, I’m going to give you a really quick little exercise to do. I want you to take a sheet of paper and write down from the time you get to the shop. So, let’s say you get there at 7:30 in the morning and you leave at seven at night.
Write that out on a piece of paper in 15 minute increments. In other words, you get there at 7:30, 7:45, eight, 8:15, 8:30, 8:45. Just mark it down on a piece of paper. Then, for a solid week, carry that paper, piece of paper around with you and write down what you did during that time.
You have to be honest with yourself. Did you waste time? Did you … Were you on here, on Facebook and spent 10 minutes on Facebook? Write it down, because at the end of the week, you’re gonna look at it and you’re gonna be able to look back and see how much time you had that was actually productive and how much time was wasted time.
Remember, we will never get this time back. Time is the most important asset you have and once you’ve wasted on something that is not productive, that doesn’t take you to where you want to go, the time has gone. It’s robbed more time from you, because now you’ve gotta stay late at the office or you got to go in on the weekend.
So, it’s time to take control of your most valuable asset, which is your time.
Now remember, I gave you permission to clock out at six o’clock if that’s when the shop closes and do not show up until you normally show up in the morning on Monday morning. You have my permission to take the weekend off.