With AAPEX’s biggest event in Las Vegas just around the corner (November 1-3), we sat down with Lucas Underwood and David Roman, co-hosts of the Auto Shop Owners Group (ASOG) podcast, and the two shop owners themselves – to discuss the value of training and attending conventions, and how they can help store owners grow their own business.
As a workshop owner, it can be very difficult to manage a workshop, let alone know how to ensure that it is constantly growing and changing to meet the needs of the ever-changing automotive aftermarket. Roman finds that one of the biggest challenges facing the owner of an individual store is to properly evaluate the service of his employee, that “if he understood this, it would effectively solve all the other problems in the industry. , i.e. the shortage of technicians”.
He believes the shortage of technicians is “the root of a deeper problem, and that deeper problem is the lack of management training”. If merchants were better equipped to manage their technicians and knew how to better manage and value their employees, perhaps more people would respect the profession of technician. Roman finds that many store owners “get stuck in this situation of not charging enough, not earning enough, and so they can’t do all these other things to be successful – one of those things being the management training.
Challenge number two, which coincides with challenge number one, is that traders lack perspective. According to Lucas, “it takes 30,000 feet of perspective to look at the business and figure out where we’re missing things, where we’re not getting things done, and where we need to get things done.” Store owners need to see business value, but it’s hard to see business value when they’re in the thick of it (or in the wallet). Hindsight might help the store owner see that they are not doing as well as they thought. That they need help.
The good news about these two major challenges is that there is an easy and simple solution.
to solve the root of the problem: training and attending events. Both solutions offered can help give shop owners a great perspective on their shops and the automotive aftermarket. Underwood finds that the events help “you begin to realize that you are just a tiny piece of th[e] pie which is a massive pie of technicians and tradesmen and service advisors”. Not only that, but attending events provides the opportunity to network with other technicians and other stores opening up new avenues and opportunities for your store.
Two sessions Roman and Underwood are looking forward to at AAPEX 2022 are “What is a Group of 20 and Why Should I Care?” and “Business Sales, Strategies and Design”, both sessions offer excellent opportunities for auto shop owners to learn and prepare their business for the future. Because, in Underwood’s words, the best way for auto shop owners to improve their business is to “train, train, train, train, train” and what better way to do that than to attend AAPEX 2022 in Las Vegas? register here
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