Business SENSE: PLANNING FOR NEXT YEAR . . . AND BEYOND

Motor, Nov 2007 by O'Connor, Bob

We've found that most shop owners do not formally plan how they're going to grow their businesses from one year to the next, and even beyond that. They work hard every day toward two main objectives-increased profitability and personal time away from the business. Most fall short in achieving both objectives mainly due to a lack of formal planning.

Most shop owners usually are or feel like they're so overwhelmed with day-to-day operations issues that they don't have the time to devote to formal business planning. Part of this planning would include reflecting on past performance to establish trends leading to the establishment of new objectives, formulating implementation processes and monitoring the progress of those processes in achieving the new objectives.

One method of getting started is to schedule time to devote to the planning process. One of the most widely used methodologies by both small and large businesses is taking business retreats. This lets you get away from the stress of daily operations to focus on the planning process and enjoy yourself at the same time. It also clears the heads of other staff members you choose to involve in the planning process.

We've been doing this for more than 20 years. Our choice is a nice, quiet hotel located on a beachfront along the Oregon coastline. Not surprisingly, we've never missed a planning session!

Once you decide to implement the process of formal business planning, decide who you're going to involve in the process. Schedule the dates, times and locations for these planning meetings. While you should prepare to discuss all the important areas of your business, this article will touch on four major areas-human resources, financial trending and forecasting, marketing and business promotion and, finally, long-range plans, which really means your exiting from the business.

Human Resources

Many employee issues could be avoided if shop owners took the responsibility to implement a few good tools, making sure the staff knows exactly what is expected of them, then mustering up the intestinal fortitude to hold staff accountable for their performance.

We have presented hundreds of workshops dealing with the human resources (HR) aspects of the auto repair and service business. They contain a number of fundamental tools to help shop owners streamline their HR procedures.

While well-intentioned, the majority of workshop attendees ultimately implement very few of the tools and concepts to which they're exposed. There are some good tools that can be used to establish guidelines for behavior and expectations for performance. Among them are:

Detailed Job Descriptions. Job descriptions should reflect the company philosophy and describe the responsibilities, duties and requirements for each position.

Skills Assessment Form. Developing a skills assessment form begins with using the job descriptions as a guide to determine the skills each employee should have. This form should be used as a hiring guide as well as a way to determine what training may be needed.

Employment Application. Creating a detailed employment application makes interviewing and selecting staff with desired skills and behavior much easier and significantly more accurate.

Employee Handbook. An employee handbook is, in essence, a set of behavior guidelines for all staff-company policies as they relate to attendance, hours of work, time off, company benefits, employee communications, cell phone use and the use of company property such as computers, Internet connections and software.

Employee Training Flans. All employees, regardless of their position, require ongoing training to remain efficient and productive. By using your skills assessment form as it applies to each position, you can determine your staffs training requirements.

The industry has done a great job of sourcing, supporting and utilizing training for its technical staff. However, shop owners still have a long way to go when it comes to training for the other staff positions-for example, tiaining in the use of computer software and hardware for all staff, sales training for service advisors and support staff and management training for key employees.

Performance & Behavior Review Form. Most shop owners do not conduct performance and behavior reviews of their employees because they've never been trained to do so and do not have a specific written form that would make the job easier.

Nondisclosure/Noncompete Agreement. There appears to be a trend of employees quitting fheir jobs and starting their own businesses, often in direct competition with their former employers. In many instances they not only take other employees with them, they may take many of their previous employers' customers as well.

Contrary to popular opinion, a nondisclosure/noncompete agreement, if written well by an attorney, is completely enforceable. You can begin implementing this agreement by explaining to your employees that it's for their protection as well as for the protection of the company. After all, if an employee leaves and takes other employees and business with him, it will have a profound effect on the business and remaining staff. With proper explanation, most employees will see the value in such an agreement and would be very willing to sign one.