Juke & Jonna, you’ve got a great business in Austin, Texas…beautiful building and a terrific team. How has your use of goals changed from when you opened to now? –The shop’s initial goals were sloppy, poorly defined, and led to backwards steering, which is the shop steering the owner. I started with the mental goals of always be honest and kind to customers, and keep up with the work load. We went from busy to outrageously busy to constantly wildly slammed. So the goal of “keep up with the work” wound up driving the shop instead of me driving the shop. Ultimately we became inefficient and my personal and professional kindness suffered under a mountain of stress. This was unsustainable and forced me to seek outside council (Drive), where I learnt how to eat an elephant. I learned to identify the top, most immediate needs. To make a plan that involved very doable steps. Much chaos can be irradiated by learning how to recognize the main culprit, then correcting it. I call it identifying the cat shit in the spaghetti. Once it is identified, I sit and write a simple step by step plan to correct it. Crazily, identifying the issue, admitting that it needs to change, and writing down the steps needed for change, is the hard part, not the actual work making the changes. I believe this is because we’re all hard workers.
Why do you feel setting goals is an important element of being a successful business owner? – My business only goes forwards or backwards. Setting goals keeps me moving forwards. If I stay where I am, in 10 years I’ll be that shop that is 10 years out of date.
Do you have a time during the year that you reserve for setting the goals of the shop? e.g. every January, every quarter, etc. – There are many different types of goals constantly being set and pursued. Many of the long term goals at Juke Auto are thought out more clearly at the end of the year then listed in the new year with follow through plans. The more immediate goals are listed every Monday and reviewed with managers on Tuesday. We also do in-depth employee evaluations twice a year to help evaluate weaknesses and training needed to help to understand and achieve shop goals.
How often do you refer back to goals that have been set to check the progress and status…every quarter? yearly? – Goals are referred back to depending on what type of goal it is. Long term goals are checked approximately every two months. Employee evaluation goals are checked twice a year. Manager and Owner goals are referred back to and checked weekly.
Is your team involved with setting goals? – Absolutely my team is involved in goal setting. My managers help identify areas of improvement and either weekly write down their goals and plans for improvements or brain storm with me improvements. We do a one-on-one every Tuesday morning and a management group meeting every Thursday where we spitball ideas, create plans, and let each other know where we are in our plans. We also involve the Techs and Service Advisers in goals, whether it be in the daily morning meetings, or the larger Monday morning meeting. We will also play a variety of shop games to help meet and beat shop goals.
Check out Juke & Jonna’s guest appearance on DRIVE FACEBOOK LIVE HERE!
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