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FEATURE SToRy www.outdoorpowerequipment.com OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT APRIL 2015 17 OPE when you bring in the equipment, you have the parts available to re- pair it. This speeds up the process by working on what you can while getting the parts ordered the first day, so that you can schedule the "parts waiting" equipment in the third or fourth day based on parts being received in the dealership. Your goal as a service department should be to have equipment in and out in seven business days even in your highest-volume season. With a goal like this, major changes would have to be made to the process in most dealerships. As I previously mentioned, another part of the process that needs to change for efficiency sake is that technicians must remain in their work area 100 percent of the time. This means that you may need to change job descriptions or hire additional people to make that happen. I have previously stated that parts need to be brought to service technicians and staged at or near their work area, but I also feel that someone needs to be there to bring them equipment to be worked on and help them when they need it in case of a problem. I call this position a service assistant. I see this position being filled by a young, energetic person, who might have an interest in becoming your next technician. As the service assis- tant grows, he or she might do minor oil changes or remove guards off of equipment so the technician doesn't have to do it. However, the service assistant's primary responsibility should be to facilitate the moving of equipment in and out of the service area, so that the technicians are always focused on servicing equipment. If you are 100-percent efficient, a person like this can be paid minimally at first, but hopefully be groomed into a technician position and help train the next service assistant. ManageMent and coMpensation are key As the owner, you are going to have to stay on top of the hours billed vs. hours worked in the service department. I tend to favor making sure that the technicians know where they are on a daily basis. Updating a white board in the service department to show them how they did the previous day, as well as how they are doing for the week, will show them you care about their efficiencies. Gen- erally, I recommend that you hire a service manager when you have three full-time, highly efficient technicians. At that point, you can justify that position to manage the area, so you don't have to be as involved in the service area. How many billable hours are deemed efficient? I consider 2,000 billable hours, per technician, per year, to be 100-percent efficient, if that person is following the processes that I have laid out. If you still use them for side projects, then those hours need to be deleted from each week to find the total of num- ber of hours in your location. If your technicians are being efficient, I favor a base-plus- commission approach to their compensation. I would never let the base get too high because I would rather increase the compensa- tion for the commission as they become used to it and successful. For more information about compensation for technicians, refer to my article on "5 tips on how to treat your service technicians" in October 2014 OPE or online at outdoorpowerequipment.com. I started this article about how low expectations for the service department can really cause you to not really expect profitability from it. As Sam Walton once said, "High expectations are the key to everything." To be successful in all aspects of your business, you need to have high expectations to move forward. In your service de- partment, you need to hit the re-start button, make sure you expect to make a profit, and do everything in your power to accomplish it. Don't let low expectations take you in the wrong direction. Jeff Sheets is the founder and owner of OPE Consulting Services. Whether a business is thriving or struggling to survive, Sheets' rich experience in both the corporate and not-for-profit sectors allow him to partner with business owners to customize unique strategies for their needs. For the past nine years, he has worked extensively with hundreds of outdoor power equipment dealers to create best practices in business structure, personnel management and financial profitability. For more information, he may be contacted at opeconsultingservices@ gmail.com or (816) 260-5430. You can also follow him on Twitter @opeconsult, connect with him on LinkedIn, and visit his website at www.opeconsultingservices.com.