The blog entry below was written while our organization was operating as ASA-Midwest. Effective September 14, 2018, ASA-Midwest became the Midwest Auto Care Alliance.

I was a member of a Bottom Line Impact Group for over 10 years and I learned more about being a good businessman than I ever could on my own. Sometimes I assume that everyone has probably experienced the same thing, but often I find that not to be the case. This story shows how being prepared can make a difference.

One of our clients is the kind of guy that tells people when he has good service, and we make sure we give him good service whenever he is in. Yesterday he called and asked if he and his new boss could drop by around 10:30 to discuss S&S working on their company vehicles. I said sure, hung up, ran to my file cabinet and brought out one of the Fleet Services notebooks that I had put together as part of my BLIG assignments years earlier. We had updated logos since then, so I had to reprint the documents on new letterhead, update a couple of items, and that was all.

When Darrell and his boss showed up right at 10:30, I greeted them, introduced them to the staff, showed them our facility, and then explained how we do business at S&S. The boss thanked us for taking time during the day to show him around. We thanked him and I handed him the freshly printed “Fleet Services” booklet.

About an hour later, we received a call from Darrell to tell us that his boss was so impressed with the “Fleet Services” booklet and the staff that he didn’t feel like he needed to talk to any other repair facilities.

Some really good information from my old BLIG 20-Group was one of the reasons that S&S added twenty-two vehicles, most of them late-model F-150s, to our customer vehicle list. I wish Bob O’Connor was still alive so I could thank him.  Many thanks also to John Wafler with RLO Training for everything he did for me over the years. And I know there are several other groups available that can help you succeed.

You should take a couple of things from this:

1. Try to plan ahead (having a fleet book or ?) so that when opportunity knocks, you can take advantage of it.
2. Also, joining a 20 Group or an SOS group can pay dividends for years.

Happy New Year!