The Power of Attending a Gear Performance Group Meeting

Written By Head Facilitators & Coaches, Jennifer Hulbert & Aaron Woods

As Gear Performance Group (GPG) Lead Facilitators, we wanted to share the topics that were discussed at the last group meeting for automotive repair shop owners.

Our group process focuses on the core elements of owning and managing a repair shop in 2025. These topics range from day-to-day operations, recruitment and employee relations, staff development and training, market and brand building, development of standard operating procedures, financial health, understanding Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and the development of a high-performance culture.

During the latest round of meetings, we developed and delivered high-level training to our members on two important topics: Maximizing New Customer Opportunities and Developing & Implementing a Workflow Strategy.

During the Maximizing New Customer Opportunities presentation, we introduced a formula to help our members determine what their cost per new customer acquisition is. With this data, members gained a clearer understanding of their current marketing efforts. We discussed the terminology and tracking metrics needed to measure marketing performance, including Customer Attrition Rate, Customer Acquisition Rate, and New Customer Counts, which gives the owner not only an understanding of a shop’s marketing efforts, but where they are doing well and where the areas of improvement are.

We also reviewed how Google AdWords and Local Service Ad campaigns work and explained the terminology commonly used in the marketing industry. This included how Ad Groups and Ad Campaigns are created, what positive and negative keywords are, and which KPI tracking metrics matter most, such as Click-Through Rate, Cost Per Click, Conversion Rate, Impressions, and Cost Per Acquisition. We provided members with goals and targets so they could compare their results against benchmarks.

Each shop was also presented with a secret shopper phone call conducted by our lead facilitators to assess how well each service advisor identified customer needs, provided empathetic and supportive context, and maintained control of the call to convert the client into an appointment. This exercise helped owners identify both successes and areas for improvement to ensure every call is handled consistently, objections are overcome effectively, and value-based language is used throughout.

As a result of this training, owners were tasked with developing a phone script that includes a proper greeting, training service advisors to overcome common objections, focusing on what the shop can do rather than what it cannot, developing a list of unique selling points, and monitoring their marketing KPIs to ensure strong new customer conversions. This was an enlightening discussion for everyone involved.

The second training was Developing & Implementing a Workflow Strategy. During this training, we discussed ways to build a skeleton schedule. This process helps maximize technicians’ sold time by scheduling not only incoming appointments but also sold work. It gives each shop a clear layout of what incoming appointments each technician has available and helps maximize their sold hours by scheduling out previously sold work.

In order to determine the sold-hour goal per technician, we started by setting daily, weekly, and monthly goals for each technician. We provided a tracking form to help calculate and understand labor inventory. Some of the metrics we reviewed include sold hours, inspections performed, comeback rates, available time, and proficiency. Owners will use this tracking method to establish each technician’s sold-hour goals, an important metric every shop owner should know.

We also discussed the responsibilities of both the service advisor and the technician in developing and maintaining a proper schedule. Service advisors must ensure the schedule is set for the next day, confirm all parts have arrived and are correct, determine what hours each technician has available for the next day, enforce the 75% rule by having technicians stop at 75% of their sold time to evaluate progress and discuss any roadblocks, and ensure the first vehicle on each technician’s schedule has arrived before the scheduled time.

Technicians must review the schedule the day before to ensure they have been assigned jobs appropriate to their skill level, review invoices to confirm all parts have arrived and are correct, adhere to the 75% rule, submit requests for any additional parts or specialty tools needed, work through challenges to stay on task throughout the day, and communicate with the service advisor about any changes or roadblocks they encounter.

Shop owners were tasked with writing the necessary processes to develop an effective workflow and communication system to ensure a proficiency benchmark between 90-110%.

As group facilitators and auto repair shop owners, we ensure the necessary training topics are brought to our members, and we hold them accountable for putting the proper procedures in place to improve their Key Performance Indicators.