Process and People Are The Silver Bullet

Bruce Lee once said, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." I love this quote. It really hits home for me, especially in my line of work.?

I also love this quote. “I don’t know karate, but I know ka-razy.” - James Brown.?

Anyway, as much as I hate to age myself, I’ve spent the past 20+ years working in the auto industry and I’ve seen a lot of well-intentioned business leaders get in their own way because of a critical missing element: they didn’t have a repeatable process. They’d say, “You’ll learn as you go.” Or, “This is how I do it, but figure out what works best for you.”?

It’s ka-razy. (O.k., I’ll stop.)

I don’t care if you run a dealership, a repair shop, or an insurance company, you need a process people can count on. Take CarMax’s success. Out of the gate, their business was built on quality repeatability – from customer service to appraisals to inspections to no-haggle pricing. Even their training programs are consistent. I know because I worked there. Now, depending on who you speak with, I may have deviated from the path a time or two, but I was quick to adjust. There wasn’t any room not to adjust.

A consistently good process is just good business. It’s how you get people to stay and learn productive patterns. It’s how you determine who’s a fit for your company and who’s not. A good and repeatable process eliminates the broken chain. It enables you to better align skill sets and make solid product decisions.?

There’s less room for mistakes, too. Employees know what they’re doing and clients know what to expect. You reduce staff turnover and customer churn.?

When everyone in your company follows the same solid process that they’ve repetitively learned and improved upon, it’s easier to track, measure, and maintain standards. It’s simpler to spot and fix problems.?

Likely one of the biggest advantages consistency brings is transparency, which is absolutely essential to building trust.??

I recently joined the Click-Ins team and what immediately crossed my mind was the need for repeatability in the auto testing, inspection, and certification market – a staggering $33B. (More on this later.)

Anytime a car changes hands – whether it’s a trade-in, a rental, lease return, or car-sharing return – the intake process is mission-critical. Understanding fleet condition, and not just telematics data but the actual physical condition of inventory, answers the question of, “Why did Car X sell for this and Car Y, which is very much the same car, sell for this?” Understanding condition helps residualize fleet properties as well as specific builds to understand the returns on certain types of equipment.?

A repeatable intake process means every vehicle is inspected correctly. It removes doubt. It mitigates mistakes. It eliminates the friction that exists when people think their vehicle is in better condition than it actually is. There are a ton of advantages.

Click-Ins built its AI-powered inspection tech on this philosophy: we deliver consistent results every time. We’re reliable, straightforward, and easy to use. Our process is reproducible no matter the car, surroundings, conditions, or user. You get trustworthy inspections, each and every time.

Repeatability is really, really, really important (see what I did there?), regardless of whether you own a hair salon, run a restaurant, or manage a dealer group.?

Pick the process then pick the people who you want to practice the kick 10,000 times. Feel free to reach out to me at [email protected].