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They also take effort, commitment, and dedication to your vision.
Planning is often easier said than done, amid all the ups and downs of being a Small Business Owner. Rarely is anything a straight line when it comes to our lives and careers. If you had told me 15 years ago that I would be an integral part of running my husband’s family business, I would have laughed. I like driving nice cars… I know nothing about fixing them! At the time, I was still mostly a stay-at-home mom, having raised three kids with our last in the early years of elementary school, and my previous work experience lay in the health care field. The journey that lay ahead, I would never have dreamed of for me and my husband, Scott.
Scott became the 2nd generation owner of Dave’s Automotive in the spring of 1998, right after our second son was born. Thrust into ownership, unprepared and not understanding the business by the numbers, led to many years of stress during an already stressful time raising a young family. We were rarely on the same page with money. We lived well, but the demand only grew with each passing year. What used to be somewhat easy with expenses in the business became more and more demanding. Trying to stay on top of the amazing advances in technology slowly eroded our profits. Keeping up with the demand and what we truly needed to charge our customers was not at the forefront of Scott’s mind at the time. Working on cars, writing estimates, ordering parts, and trying to balance it all was far from efficient, and after years of doing it, his career felt joyless.
Fast forward, we began working together in 2010. We got on the same page and took a huge leap of faith and invested in an extensive (and expensive) training program with a highly reputable automotive training company. It was one of those “Leap And The Net Will Appear” moments. Through an 18-month program, Scott opened his mind and allowed a business coach to pretty much tell him what he was doing wrong. For many, that is not easy to hear. Very often, those who have been in the business for so long only hear what they want to, and rarely implement the real changes needed to forge ahead and start working ON THE BUSINESS and NOT IN THE BUSINESS.
Investing in our future to bring the business to the next level was the first step in what would prove to be an amazing journey. Committing to growth and dreaming of “what could be” felt amazing. Through months and months of training, we learned to look at the business by analyzing our Key Performance Indicators (your business’ margins) and understanding where they need to be for the business to make a profit and grow, and for us to make what we needed to sustain our life and what makes us happy. One thing is for sure: numbers don’t lie. They are what they are, whether we like what we are seeing or not. It was not overnight, or even over the course of several years, but slowly we worked to get them where we needed them to be.
“Investing in our future to bring the business to the next level was the first step in what would prove to be an amazing journey.”
The growth we saw year over year energized us. Being in tune with our margins allowed us to know when to hire for our next level of growth, and how much to budget for marketing to accelerate the growth with Acquisition.
All this would not have been possible without a commitment to developing ourselves professionally.
We continue to be involved in both an automotive professional development group as well as Royalty Rewards® Platinum Elite Mastermind Group.
Planning our year based on our real numbers has become what drives us to hit our goals effectively. Setting achievable but growth-focused goals, and monitoring them week by week, allows us to know when we need to set the bar higher and diagnose if something is trending in a direction we don’t want.
Who knew all those years ago that we would end up working together as a team and bring the business to a multimillion-dollar business, managed and grown by the two of us being on the same page and open to ideas from those around us who have achieved wonderful successes?
If I could give any inspiration to fellow Small Business Owners, it would be this:
INVEST in your own personal and professional growth and be willing to recognize areas of weakness and listen closely to others. You will not regret it.
REVIEW your KPI’s weekly and set aside the time to go over (Key Performance Indicators) so that you can closely track when something is off and CELEBRATE when you are hitting your goals!
SET GOALS to be in line with where you envision your business to be. Reverse engineer it so that they are realistic and achievable.
TAKE CARE of your customers as if they are your own family. Providing a loyalty program like Royalty Rewards® shows just how much you care and want them to come back.
MANAGE your reputation and connect with your customers and the community through answering reviews and social media posts.
CREATE A CULTURE where your employees feel at home and truly valued. Teamwork makes the dream work, but a Work Family would do anything to help each other. Don’t forget to have fun together and try to make it a daily thing to laugh. It makes the hard days easier!
About the Author
Christa and Scott Browne are owners of Dave’s Automotive in Stockertown, PA. They have been Royalty Rewards® Merchants since 2014 and are valued members of the Platinum Elite Mastermind Group.