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This is the aftermarket radio network.
It's your weekly Blitz with Chris keeping you in the game.
Are you ready to supercharge your auto repair business?
This is Coach Chris Cotton from Autifix Auto Show Coaching.
The weekly Blitz is where industry expertise and business innovation collide, revving
your engines for the week ahead.
Every episode has game-changing insights, up-to-the-minute industry updates, and practical tips to shift
your business into high gear.
We're talking about stuff you didn't even know you didn't know, folks.
This episode is brought to you by Shop Marketing Pros, the experts in marketing for top-tier
auto repair shops.
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From websites and SEO to social media and digital ads, Shop Marketing Pros helps
shop owners just like you and me feel our bays, grow our revenue, and build the life we've
been working for.
If you're ready to take the guesswork out of your marketing, I want you to visit
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and start building the shop of your dreams today.
Hey, everybody, today I'm breaking down the X's and O's of running your auto repair
shop just like a championship football team.
Everybody knows I have a background in football.
I love football, been able to watch a couple of great games the last couple of weeks.
Football with NIL and all this portal crap is very interesting, very exciting, and you
never know what you're going to get when you step onto the field.
We're going to call this episode, run your shop like a championship football team.
My store manager at the shop, both of his sons, play little league football, and
he asked me to come help them coach.
I'm going to try to do that this next week.
And I'm thinking about what do you teach?
What do you coach little league football players to get them to another level or
a next level?
And so I wrote down a short list.
And then after I wrote down the short list, I'm like, hey, I can expand this list
and we can use this in an auto repair shop.
And so what does the football side of it look like?
And what does the auto repair shop side look like?
So I put it together.
Here it is.
Off we go.
Football isn't just a sport.
I think football is a masterclass in leadership, discipline, and execution.
If you can run your shop like a winning football program, you can build a
culture that's unstoppable.
So what does that playbook look like?
Let's get into it.
Number one, have a high motor.
If you don't know or you haven't played or maybe you've never heard
this expression, you've played with players or there are players on
the field that have a good motor or a high motor.
These are people that hustle everywhere.
And these are people like if you're standing on the back side of a pile
after a play, you better watch out because this guy's going to take your
head off.
Like that's a person with a high motor.
The high motor revs and it's going all the time.
The players who stand out are the ones who never stop moving.
They hustle to the huddle, chasing down every play, running on and off
the field.
And so that's what we call it.
Coaches call it having a high motor.
And I'm okay if you've got a high motor and you're a gas and you need to
come off the field for a player too.
Great.
Cause I know every time you're out there, you're at max capacity
with your motor revving in the shop, owners and leaders set the tone.
If you drag your feet, your team drags their feet.
If you hustle in your morning meetings, people see that you need
to hustle when you answer the phone, hustle when presenting work.
That energy trickles down to everybody else.
If we think about an example for that, if a customer walks in and
your service advisor greets them like they're already tired of the day,
that's off sides.
Compare that to hustling, smiling, moving with urgency.
Who would you buy from?
And if we turn that into a coaching point, high motor equals urgency
plus enthusiasm.
And when you do that, it's contagious.
Next, losers jump off sides.
And off sides penalty is a lack of focus.
It's giving the other team three yards.
Losers do that over and over again.
Winners stay locked in the shop.
Jumping off sides looks like cutting corners on inspections,
skipping process steps, hiring employees without vetting,
discounting because you don't know your value.
Every one of those costs you free yards in profit, time and customer trust.
The coaching point is stay disciplined.
Don't give up yards before the snap.
I'm pretty sure there's never been a team that's led the
league in off sides penalties and won the Super Bowl.
I could be wrong.
Maybe a Raiders team, but I don't know.
Next, play your technique the way you've been coached.
Linebackers have their reads, linemen have footwork,
quarterbacks have timing.
If you don't use the technique, the play falls apart and you lose your battle.
When we're talking about people on the field, we want every individual
position to win the battle.
And if you win enough battles, you win the war.
But if you don't follow the technique, the way you've been
coached in every practice all your life, if that breaks down, then you're in trouble.
And so if we look at that in the shop, your playbook is your processes and
procedures, and that is your technique.
Completing DVI is the right way, writing estimates fully, presenting
work with confidence, not hesitation.
Following the financial playbook, budgets, KPIs, things like that.
When players freelance, they blow the play.
When employees freelance, they blow customer trust and profit.
Coaching point, consistency beats flash.
Execute the system every down, every day, every time.
Next, be a hero.
Coaches call plays for specific players in critical moments.
Sometimes you're the one whose number gets called.
In that moment, it's your time to shine.
Your coach is opportunity.
It's a tough diagnostic problem when it lands in your bay.
It's a $4,000 ticket hits your advisor's desk.
A new hire needs leadership.
That's when you be the hero.
Don't play small, don't hide, deliver greatness.
Coaching point, rise to the moment.
Don't just play not to lose, play to win.
Next, work your ass off when nobody's looking.
On the field, championships are won in the weight room and film room.
The world sees the Super Bowl, but not the 5 a.m.
training sessions for all of your life.
In the shop, success comes from the unseen grind.
Prepping financial reports, training your advisors,
coaching techs on better inspections, reviewing marketing metrics.
Nobody cheers you for that.
But when you walk into a packed shop with a smooth running team, it shows.
The coaching point, the unseen grind separates average shop owners from great ones.
Number six, you've heard me talk about it before.
We did a podcast episode.
I should have written that one down so you can go back and listen to it.
But this is no news to any of you that follow me.
Number six, be pissed off for greatness.
Ray Lewis said, if you aren't pissed off for greatness,
that means you're OK with being mediocre.
In the shop, mediocrity kills businesses.
Customers don't need just OK.
Texts don't want to work for average.
The best employees, the best clients, they want greatness.
Being pissed off for greatness means you hold yourself accountable.
You don't settle for 70 percent inspection completion
and you don't accept excuses from yourself or others.
The coaching point is the fire you bring to greatness
is the culture your shop will live by.
If you aren't familiar or haven't read any of Ray Lewis's stuff
or listened to any of his speeches, I'm going to run through a list
of some of my favorite Ray Lewis quotes.
Here we go.
Greatness is a lot of small things done well day after day.
The hardest thing to do is work hard when no one's watching.
I think this is my favorite one, probably effort is between you and you.
There's nobody else in there.
Like, what kind of effort are you putting in?
I will tell you this first time I mentioned on a podcast, I recently
well, I guess I talked about coaching in the last episode
and what it's like to be coached, how that came up.
But for me personally, I went to school, graduated college finally.
And so I'm like, what do I feel my time with or what am I doing next?
Previously, I was not ready to go on like a weight loss journey
and work on myself physically.
But now I am.
The time is here and the effort is between me and me.
Like I get up in the morning, I make sure that I'm working on my 12,000 steps a day.
I'm doing my supplement regimen.
I'm doing the workouts.
I'm making time for that.
I don't have the time for it, but I make time for it.
And so that's what it is.
But as I say this, I weighed in this morning, I'm down 23 pounds
from where I started in the last six weeks.
I think I still have a long ways to go, but I back up to say all this again.
Effort is between you and you.
So it's all on me.
I'm doing it.
Kimberly's involved a little bit, but mainly she's there.
Like, you know, we had a rough Monday.
We were driving back and it was 430 and I hadn't done any more walking.
Hadn't done any of my workouts.
And I was kind of like wanting her to be like, oh, it's OK.
You've had a hard day, which I know Kimberly's not that kind of person.
So you know, shame on me.
But 430 in the afternoon, after we've been doing everything else,
I ate like trash that day, everything else.
I got my workout in.
I got my steps in.
I got it done, but effort was between me and me.
So effort is between you and you.
OK, don't let your alarm clock be the only thing that wakes you up.
You have to be willing to outwork your competition.
You have to be willing to sacrifice at any time what you are
for what you will become.
Nobody's going to give you greatness.
You've got to take it.
Do whatever it takes to be great.
Stop wishing for it.
Work for it.
And then another one of my favorites is don't be afraid of being different.
Be afraid of being the same as everyone else.
If we look at the closing, here we are when the two minute drill
running your shops, no different than running a football team.
It takes hustle, discipline, execution, leadership and a fire
that says we will not be average.
If you live those these six lessons, you'll build a shop
that doesn't just survive.
It dominates and dominates the field.
It dominates the competition.
I want you to share this episode with another shop owner
who needs a locker room pep talk and remember in football
and in business, don't just play the game, play to win championships.
I want to give another shout out to our sponsor, Shop Marketing Pros.
They're the only marketing company I recommend
and they handle all of the marketing for my own shop as well.
If you're serious about growth, you need strategies that actually work.
Better websites, higher Google rankings
and ads that bring real customers through your doors.
Visit shopmarketingpros.com forward slash Chris to partner
with a team that understands your business because every great shop
deserves marketing that's just as great.
Thanks for tuning into the weekly Blitz.
Remember, it's time to rise, grind and keep your mindset positive.
Until next time, this is Coach Chris Cotton signing off.
Have a great day, everybody.
You've been listening to the weekly Blitz with Coach Chris Cotton
on the aftermarketradionetwork.com.
Follow Chris on your favorite podcast listening out.
Let him know what you'd like him to cover.
His email is in the show notes.
Chris is all for advancing the aftermarket.
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