Just ONE Thing
Dream, Measure, Do: The Simple Planning Framework Every Shop Owner Needs
Episode 222
with Rick White, 180BIZ
Good morning. My name is Rick White from 180BIZ. We're a coaching and training company for the independent auto and truck repair shops, and this is my Just ONE Thing.
What we're going to talk about today is PLANNING.
The reason why I'm bringing this up is because—I don't know if you can see in the background here—but Brenda and I are back in the Smoky Mountains. We're here in Sevierville in Tennessee. It's right next to Pigeon Forge, and we come out here every year to do our annual planning.
So, what we're going to talk about today is planning. And the reason why is because, you know, I was thinking about this last week or the week before, and I said to Shannon, I said, "You know, more people put more effort into planning a vacation than they do their business." And it was like—bam—I gotta talk about this.
So what I want to talk to you about is a really simple framework on planning.
What I want you to do is recognize that there are three sections to this.
The first part of planning is number one: dreaming. It's stepping back. Now, we've been doing this annually, and I’ve got a surprise for you. All right—Brenda’s downstairs right now shaking her head, watching—but we have actually talked about starting to do our planning quarterly instead of annually.
How cool would that be? To be able to take a week every quarter to step back, look at where you're at, and decide where you want to go. Right?
That's what planning is about. It's about dreaming. That's really what a plan is, right? It's a dream with some legs to it. That's all there is to it.
So what I want you to start with first is dream. That's the first section: dream about where you want to go.
Don't let your current situation dictate where you feel like you could end up. Don't let your location determine your destination, because your destination can be so much better. Don't let your past define you. Let it help you step back and use it as lessons so that you can get better and better.
So that's number one—the first section: dream.
Okay, then you gotta measure.
Now, what I recommend doing is—let's say we're going to plan quarterly—here’s what I want you to do. In the measuring stage, we're going to measure daily, weekly, and monthly.
Daily, you're going to measure your sales. Weekly, you're going to measure your gross profit. Monthly, you're going to measure your net profit.
It's really simple: sales, gross profit, net profit.
It gives you a chance, when you measure, to step back. And don’t ask yourself bad questions. Don’t ask questions like, “Why do I suck? Why can’t I do this?” Those aren’t going to help you.
“Why” questions don’t help make it better. What you’ve got to be able to do instead is start to ask “what” or “how” questions:
What can I do better? How can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? What can I improve on? What can I do that I’ve never done before?
These are all questions that you can ask yourself in the process of measuring, because I need you to remember that what gets measured gets managed.
When you don’t measure it, there’s no managing it. When you don’t measure something, then it’s all gut feel. Right? And for some of us, that’s a pretty big feeling—I’m working on that, though.
So I want you to understand—but then here’s the really special part of this. This is where the rubber meets the road.
Daily, you do. Okay? Daily, you do. So: plan (or dream), measure, and do.
But I want you to step back and think about: How do I want to grow? How do I want my shop to get better? How do I want to make a difference for myself, my family, my team, my community, my clients?
How do I want to grow and become the very best version of myself? That’s the dreaming part. Then you put a plan in action, and you measure it. And then you gotta remember that it’s not magically going to happen.
It’s amazing how many shops are out there hoping gross profit is going to get slipped under the pillow at the end of the month—because they’re not doing anything actively to make it happen.
I need you to step back. I need you to see that.
Please share this video if you feel like this is hitting something for you. I’m going to ask you to share this, okay?
Also, I want to talk to you real quick about our Shop Owners Roundtable: second Thursday of every month, 7 PM Eastern. And if you want to get more wisdom like this, we have our Pocket Business Genius webinar series.
But listen—here we are, beautiful Tennessee. Do you think we’re going to work the entire time we’re here? No. We’re going to sit down, we have a punch list that we’re going to put together of things we want to accomplish this week, but we give ourselves time to rest, recharge, reset, and celebrate—we made it another year.
So what are you going to do so that running your business isn’t a reaction? So that you’re not constantly just feeling like a victim: “I can’t find any help.” “I can’t do this.” “I can’t do that.”
It’s because you’re in react mode, right? That’s what I need you to understand.
If you could step back and just say, “You know something—I want to create something. I want to make something so amazing, something that I can be proud of, something I can show my kids and my grandkids what’s possible when you really put yourself to it.”
Not living with the “can’ts” or the “shoulds” or all the limitations—but being able to step back and go, “Wow. Let’s create something amazing.”
Now, I love this thought process, okay? And I hope you do too.
Dream, right? Plan. So I guess there’s four steps: dream, plan, measure, and then perform. Measure, and then do. You gotta do it—that’s the thing.
So we’re starting here, right? Let me do this. We’re starting here, and then we’re funneling it down to where the rubber meets the road. That’s the difference.
So you do. You measure. You check your plan. And you achieve your dream.
Everybody, I hope this helps you out. I’ve got—actually, I’ve got two minutes left.
You all want to talk about—I think this is pretty cool. Is this hitting any of you? How many of you feel like you could plan better? How many of you feel like, “You know something, I can do better than this”?
I think that is such a cool thing.
All right, so what I want you to do is have a great week this week. I want you to rest today, enjoy, okay? And then I want you to hit the ground running.
We’re coming into our fourth quarter. Can you believe that? Coming into the fourth quarter already. You know, it wasn’t that long ago we were talking about all the great things we’re going to do in 2025. How are you doing on those?
We can’t treat our plans like we do our resolutions every year. Right? That doesn’t work.
A plan is a dream—a focused dream—with steps and measuring.
So I hope this helps you. God bless, everybody. Have a great week. Go make yourself some money. Take care. We’ll see you now. Bye-bye.
