August President's Letter

My monthly message to the best detailers, suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors in the world.

I’ve been back now for a month from the most amazing IDA trip EVER!!!!

If you haven’t heard, I had the honor of traveling to visit our chapters in the United Kingdom and Norway, and I was in Paris for the launch of our France Chapter.

I was traveling with Alan Medcraf, who I affectionately refer to as an “International Detailing Rockstar”.  The trip was super successful and in this issue, you will find more details and pictures from our travels, so be sure to check that out.

Before I jump into my monthly “Build a Better Detailing Business” mode, I wanted my HUGE thanks to everyone to be front and center of this issue.

I want to thank EVERYONE that made “The 2019 IDA European Tour” possible. I mean everyone, the individual countries and chapters for all the coordination and amazing hospitality, the office staff at the IDA that made all the arrangements and led the event advertising and registration, the IDA Board of Directors for having the foresight and commitment to our members to put their faith in Alan and I to carry this super important initiative forward.  And lastly, I want to thank all the members who came out, disrupted their businesses and lives to spend time meeting us, furthering their education and accomplishing the highly impressive result of Certification and Skills Validation!

I take my hat off to everyone that supported this trip!! Thank you So Much!!

Ok now on to bettering our business… 

“Success in every area of the detailing business is built on a foundation of good systems” 
- Jonathan Munsell, IDA, President

Invest in, create, and use systems to repeat processes and grow.

Don’t get overwhelmed.  You’re probably already working 80 to 100 hours a week and like most of us, you just can’t handle any more.  Don’t work longer and harder, do different things to systematize your business.  Take a look at the overall results of a process and monitor the results - don’t do everything yourself.

You need to know what your bottom-line profit is on an ongoing basis.  It doesn’t mean you need to do everything; it means you need to have a system.  Delegate what you can, follow-up on the things you delegate, and then measure the results every month.

The reality is that you need to empower your staff to give them systems to allow them to handle the items that you handle.  If you don’t have a staff, then you actually need to be even more systematic. Yup, more systematic.  If you are on your own you need a routine and you need a solid daily, weekly, and monthly list of things you must do. Otherwise it is very easy to get swept into things that feel good and not really driving your business. 

Make a list of all the things you spend your time on that recur from day-to-day or month-to-month and pick the ones that take up the most amount of your time and develop a system and delegate or outsource these things.

Using a system has the ability to revolutionize any business.  If you can make them robotic and put them on autopilot, such as customer thank you with a request for them to rate you, monthly newsletters, 30 day automatic client follow-up, 60 and 90 day lost customer campaigns, etc., you won’t have to think about them - you won’t have to worry about what you need to do right then and there.

The measuring stick should be - what is it that you want to earn in a year?  What are the things that you can delegate that are below your base earnings target that someone else can do cheaper?

The Time Value of Money

If you want to make $100,000 this year, work 40 hours a week, take 3 weeks off and have a real business, then you need to produce more than $50 an hour for every hour you work ($100,000 / 49 weeks / 40 hours = $51 an hour).

They reality is no one is ever 100% productive. So in reality you are probably 30-40% productive (think about distractions, interruptions, the time it takes to get refocused when that happens, etc.) The reality is you need to multiply your time value of money by probably three.  You need to produce $150 per hour that you work.  

If you can get an item done for $10, $20, or $30 per hour, you need to be doing that because it’s the only way that you’re going to get to the number on your earnings target.  Anytime you can delegate something that’s cheaper than what your time value is, you should be doing it. 

Remember, good systems provide organization, easy repetition, scalability, ease of onboarding, and training. Systems allow you to leverage productivity and get more out of less.

Also remember, you can’t focus on the minimum wage activity and expect to make a high salary on the other end.  The math doesn’t work.

Not a sermon, just some real thoughts.

As always, reach out to me or the IDA if we can help in any way!

Respectfully yours,

 
Jonathan Munsell, CD
IDA President