Recently Gavin was interviewed by Russ Hill, National Client Manager at Crashzone about his book Know Your Numbers! It’s The Heartbeat Of Your Business. Russ has been in the industry as long as Gavin and says there can be skepticism about experts telling repairers what to do, Russ wanted to clear that up. Gavin started out on the tools as a young bloke before transitioning into IT with Terry Flanagan at Auto-Quote, he then developed his own software and is now sharing those experiences.
Old cut & shuts
Gavin agreed, that’s absolutely how it all happened. He loves this game and remembers being in his own shop doing things like the old cut and shuts which nowadays is something that is scorned at. Back then it was commonplace to do a cut and shut and as long as you sleeved your sills and sleeved your pillars, you could make them equally as strong, if not stronger that what the original car was. Gavin had a great deal of joy in seeing two halves of a car set apart and then suddenly coming together as two different colours and then making it into one again.
Gavin had a great passion for the industry and then transitioned with Terry at Auto-Quote. Terry is a great mentor for Gavin, a guy that really knows his numbers and really know his costings. Terry fights tooth and nail for the industry, to get the best deal he can for repairers. He is a true legend of the industry.
Can’t keep using spreadsheets
Moving on from Auto-Quote, Gavin started his own consultancy business that led into software. The software came about because Gavin knew he could not keep using spreadsheets, he needed to be able to scale his business and make it easier for himself. That is where Planning Plus came in and it has been a great journey. It has taken Gavin to different countries, and he has met some amazing people that use the software. He has had some great conversations and learnt a lot from these people. One of Terry Flanagan’s great lines is “None of us are as good as all of us, and if we can all learn a little bit from each other, we can just improve that 1% here or there.”
Writing a book, this was something that had been in his head for a while, and he just wanted to get it and put it on paper. So many subject matters came to mind when he was conceptualizing the book, he just kept writing and then changing it up and now some 15 or 16 months later he has the book as a print version, on Amazon Kindle as an e-Book and Audible and a few other audio channels.
Russ was lucky enough, several months ago to get a sneak peak at it, and it was one of those things where he thought he would read a bit now and then the rest later, but he read it in one hit. It is not a hard read and he really enjoyed the book and wants to know when book number 2 is coming out.
Helping on a personal level is really rewarding
Gavin isn’t sure but the feedback he has been getting has been really encouraging so maybe in the second book he could look at diving a little deeper. Gavin is in the process of writing another book at the moment, but it is not an industry book, it is another book he has had inside his head that he needed to get out also. He is about 60% through writing the book and it is again, something he is passionate about. It is a self-help book because when he coaches people, he does it a little bit alternately. Gavin loves the engagement with people and just being able to help them from a personal level is really rewarding.
In Know Your Numbers! There are several chapters and in Russ’s summary of the trade, the business is broken down into three sections, panel, paint, and parts. The tradies look after the panel and paint and then the parts are looked after by admin and that all falls under the business owner.
The true journey begins
Russ asked Gavin if he found that shop owners that spent years learning the trade feel that because they can do the trade that they can also run the business and do the admin and did they really understand just how important the front end of the business really is. This is a great question as Gavin was one of those tradies. He was on the shop floor and transitioned into the office and that is where his world changed because he thought the people up the front were lazy and didn’t really do a lot. It wasn’t until he landed there himself that his true journey as a businessperson began.
It is a big transition, you are so passionate about what you do, you know how to fix the car, you are hands on but then you move into the office, and you have to use more of the upstairs to say “Well, what is this business really about? What do I want from this business? What is my vision and my purpose with this business?” And that is a difficult thing to step into so if there is help around, reach out and get the help because why try to do something that someone else has already done? If you can leverage that knowledge from other people, and there are a lot of people around that can help, take advantage of that, and really dig deep into learning and knowing the true drivers of your business.