Welcome to this new column, “Hi-Rev.” The name comes from a book Jim Cathcart and I co-authored, “Hi-Rev For Small Business.” Jim has written over 100 articles for Gears magazine, so you’re familiar with his work. Our history goes back over ten years when Jim began working as a business coach and consultant for me and others on the ATRA team. This book started with a casual conversation, then a series of notes, and before we knew it, we had a new project on our hands.
The name, Hi-Rev
, has two meanings: High RPMs, or performance, and high revenue. We liked the play on words, so it stuck. We use a lot of racing metaphors in the book, but in terms of business types, it’s generic; not specific to the transmission industry. For this column, we’ll keep it specific to your business and others like yours. Future topics may or may not come from the book. Others may come from questions from shop owners writing to us about problems and business concerns. It’s a blank page that we’ll fill in as we go. Let’s get started.
If you’re a race fan, you’ve seen drivers head down Pit-Road for a tire change, fuel, and other services to get the car (and driver) back to racing condition. The crew chief doesn’t measure time in the pit in minutes or even seconds. They get down to tenths, and even hundredths of a second. The team choreographs every move. The crew chief assigns tasks to each crew member and develops the steps and tasks to achieve the best outcome. And you can bet that these tasks are in writing and reviewed regularly. It’s no different in a business. A winning team (business) uses processes and systems to get the best results. Sure, we figured this out years ago with our first What’s Working study. Knowing it is one thing. Doing it is a bit more challenging, until now.
In a business, tasks and procedures might start with a “job description.” You sit down with your team and ask them to write down everything they do during the day. They get to work on them.
You re-group the following day and go over their lists. You’re impressed with the detail; they even include taking out the trash and making coffee in the morning. After a few days of editing and refinement, everyone’s happy with the results. Congratulations, you’ve just completed your company’s job descriptions. You’re so pleased. You have a special place in your file cabinet where you file them away. You never look at them again but feel gratified for having accomplished the project. This is a typical scenario, and if the shop owner doesn’t immediately abandon the project, they will once the tasks change, and they have to re-write the entire document. But there’s a better way.
Instead of writing a document with a list of tasks, you can write a document with a single task. This approach offers two advantages:
- You can modify and refine each task without re-writing an entire job description.
- You can assign a task to different people as their position and duties change.
It’s the Hi-Rev approach, and it goes like this:
This system consists of a four-digit code and uses the acronym AMPS, each having a specific meaning.
- Administration — Guiding the business
- Management — Running the Business
- Production — Doing the Business
- Sales — Getting the Business.
We also use a card to record the tasks (figure 1).
Let’s use this simple tool and build your processes and systems for your Hi-Rev business.
A – Administration.
This is the most vital role in the organization. As the business owner, you set the tone and establish the culture of the business. You can’t expect your team to “figure it out” by watching your work or anticipating what you want. Whether it’s a profit-first or customer-first model, there’s too much at risk for the business owner to leave it to their team for interpretation.
With that, let’s fill out your first card. Circle the “A” and enter the number “1” in the box on the right. Then enter your name on the “Department/Name” line (This is your task card).
Now’s the time to declare the purpose of your business and how your business benefits people. You could use “A1” for your mission statement. Review this often and revise it as needed.
Other cards you might use for your administrative role might be:
A2. Establish your accounting and bookkeeping procedures (you may need multiple cards, each with specific details).
A3. Identifying your target customer.
A4. Establishing staff meeting intervals to reinforce your business purpose and target customer.
A5. Performing job reviews with your staff.
The essence of the administrative role is to clearly establish that this is who we are, what we do, and why. Don’t get caught up in detail. Once you get started, you’ll find that you’ll want to refine it. Let’s go to the next task group:
M – Management.
When we think of management, it usually translates to managing people. You know, setting lunch schedules, filling out the time-off calendar, and scolding John or Mary for showing up late. It’s a “taskmaster” affair. But that’s not the role of a manager.
The role of a manager is to make the people on the front lines more effective. The manager takes the owner’s (administrator’s) mission and filters it to the team. An effective way to approach this is to watch your team at work. You might notice that the parts washer is too far from the builder’s bench. You find that you’re constantly pushing cars out to make room for others because you don’t have the parts to do the job. After carefully examining what goes on in the shop, you’ll establish rules and procedures that eliminate waste and maximize your team’s efforts. It’ll make your business more efficient, and your team will appreciate it, too.
Other tasks/rules you’ll jot down might be:
M1. We open our doors at 8:00 and are ready for business.
M2. You track the daily appointment schedule to identify slow and busy times (and days). You then create a staffing schedule that reflects the traffic flow.
M3. Ensure there’s always fresh coffee and other refreshments available for the customers.
M4. Have a Wi-Fi hotspot so waiting customers can use their phones (or other devices) while waiting. This is for people who arrive early or in case of a situation that negatively affects the scheduling. In this case, the manager revisits their procedures to accommodate the problem.
These are all titles for processes and systems (you’ll have to fill in the detail) targeted at a specific outcome, making every customer in the shop feel they’ve chosen the right shop for their transmission repair.
This manager will succeed because the owner (administrator) took the time to develop a culture and only accepted processes and procedures aligned with that culture.
The manager then develops the production and sales tasks based on the business culture. And again, if the owner doesn’t establish the culture, the manager will do it for them. These become production (P1, P2, P3…) and sales (S1, S2, S3….) tasks they give to the rest of the team.
This business may wind up with task cards such as A1-A6, M1-M17, P1-P29, and S1-S21.
This totals 73 cards, with details for the specific tasks. Each person on your team is responsible for their assigned tasks. They can refer to the cards as needed, and the manager can use them to assess the effectiveness of everyone on the team. Does this seem too involved and complicated? Ok, start with the most important tasks, which might total only nine cards. The point is that you’re establishing processes and systems to refine the day-to-day activities. And since they’re in writing, you can hold John and Mary accountable.
You can use the same system to create a document title if you want to include greater detail than what will fit on the card. Such as:
P1-Getting the shop ready to open.doc
If your business is large enough, you may have departments. List them on the card, too. You may learn that one person is better suited for certain tasks, so you can move the tasks as needed. This system allows you to reassign work without re-creating a job description.
It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s Hi-Rev!
Hi-Rev For Small Business, written by Amazon Bestselling authors, Dennis Madden and Jim Cathcart, covers a range of simple techniques and processes to increase business performance and profits. For questions about the book, this article, or your business you can contact Dennis or Jim at: info@hi-rev.net. You can find the book at the ATRA Bookstore, Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
