February 2021

FEBRUARY 2021 AFTERMARKET 15 www.aftermarketonline.net their stories. I think they will be excellent reads, as they are about real life. Learning I’m not just helping the businesses I work with through The Garaage Inspector programmes, I am also learning from them. I try and learn something from everywhere I go. I’m a walking library. I take all this information, and I share a lot of information. There are always what I call little golden nuggets that I can take away, something that I have never seen before where I think “wow!” Then, I try and share it, whether it is via the courses or elsewhere. What I will do is quote the garage in question. I’m not in the business of taking the credit, but I do want to make sure everyone knows where it has come from. For me that is also very important. That is why I want everyone to share their successes. Yes, I am very knowledgeable, and yes I am very passionate, and I probably know more than most, but I don’t know everything. It is about learning from my peers, and they are my peers. My little Facebook group now has so much going on – the last few days, around the time I wrote this article, the discussions and topics being covered have been fantastic. They are picking it all up themselves, as they are the ones that are putting a question out, and everyone else is responding. This is what it is all about. We have already lined up three highly knowledgeable and competent people to write within this strand alongside me, and we will be expanding that. There are more who will bring great insights to the magazine. It will be very refreshing for readers. Developments As for what I think the readers of Aftermarket can expect from this new development within these pages, there will be new voices, new business anecdotes, practical advice, basically a little of everything. It will be real stories and real outcomes. It will be experiences they have gone through, changes they have made, investments they have made in specific areas of vehicle repair, and why they have made them. It’s important for people around the country when they are reading this to see that depending on your area, what someone else has done up north may not work down south. But it might encourage them to look at what they are doing in a different way. “If they have done that, is there a market in our area?” Hopefully it will stimulate thinking and it will motivate people to look at their business to see what else they can add. It could also be a garage owner talking about struggles they have had, and the solutions they have put into place, which will resonate very much with the readers. There is nothing like having real examples. Many people like reality TV, well this is reality garage. This is the people that are living it, breathing it, that had to deal with COVID-19. Yes I am right in the middle of it, and I will stay in the middle of it, and I can provide many solutions, but it is great to see others grinding at the stone, and doing their upmost. At the end of the day, these are the people who are running their local businesses, and working in their local community. Let’s expose them. The other advantage is that they can expose that write-up in their local community as part of marketing. There are many reasons why it is important to expand, to do something uplifting and encouraging, so people can share their views and experiences. It is refreshing and much-needed. There will be new voices, new business anecdotes and practical advice, basically a little bit of everything ”