How Tolstoy Helped Our Car Wash

In the last few months I’ve been receiving an unordinary number of compliments on Metro Car Wash. It’s nice to hear; we’ve been working very hard to make our Company better. But of course, like anything that comes together, it takes more than hard work. Hard work has to be directed. I thought I’d take the time on this blog to mention where Metro’s impetus for improving our car washes came from—the unusual place we found direction. For what it’s worth, I think it can be applied to just about any business. And so maybe this can be a help to someone else too.

Curiously enough, Metro’s “business makeover” began with Anna Karenina, the novel by Leo Tolstoy. More specifically, it came after reading another great book, Guns, Germs, and Steel where the author Jared Diamond introduced me to the Anna Karenina Principle.

Anna Karenina begins like this: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

The Anna Karenina Principle, based on this opening line, essentially says the following: To have a happy family, everything has to be just about perfect (there has to be love and respect, kids have to be obedient, there’s a good economic income, etc.). But if just one small thing is off, it can take away the entire shot at happiness. In other words, it doesn’t take much to mess things up!

Diamond used this principle to help describe an evolutionary trait. Metro Car Wash adopted the Anna Karenina Principle in a different manner.

We said: All great car washes are alike; every bad car wash is bad in its own way.

What did we mean by this? We decided that for a car wash to be a great business it has to be succeeding in all of the following areas:

§ A Quality Product has to be delivered

§ The product has to have a Value Price

§ Great Customer Service has to be delivered

§ The Facility has to be clean and inviting

§ The Employee Working Environment has to be fun and positive

§ And all of the above has to be accomplished while managing cost

If a car wash falls short in any one of these categories, then it can hurt the entire business. To repeat what I said earlier: it doesn’t take much to mess things up!

But thinking about our business in this manner really gave us direction. We started with that simple list and created a Plan that addressed fixing our business in any area we felt we might be falling short. Of course no one is perfect. And every business knows there is room for improvement. But by simply taking the time to write down everything that has to be in place to be a great business, we found we had a much clearer view of the path we needed to take.

That path, by the way, wasn’t an easy one. Another thing the Anna Karenina Principle did for us was to show us just how far away we were from the Company we wanted to be. It took well over a year before we felt things started coming together … and we’re still not satisfied. But that’s another thing Tolstoy is doing for us: he’s given us a measuring device that we can repeatedly match ourselves to. We see what it takes to be great and we gauge ourselves constantly to see how we’re doing in chasing that goal.

It may not be scientific. And it may not be earth-shattering. But this simple principle has helped us a ton. I hope it might help some of you.

And until next time, stay clean my friends.

DJ DripDry

Where Are All the Employees?

My wife and I sat down in the bar of a local restaurant the other day. It was mid-afternoon—not a typically busy time—but we seemed to have arrived during a little bit of a rush. It took longer than normal for the bartender to get to us and when he did, he looked a little flustered. He grabbed our order in a hurry and there wasn’t much in the way of friendly customer service (certainly not the normal bartender banter). Then it took too long for our drinks to actually arrive. I leaned over to my wife and made the comment: “This place is really under-staffed.” I spoke with the critical, knowing-edge of a sharp-minded business person. “They need to get their act together,” I added firmly.

The next day, as I walked down the hallway of Metro Car Wash, I overheard one of my customers talking to our cashier. The customer said: “Wow, you don’t seem to have many employees today. Is this going to take a long time?”

I quickly hijacked the conversation. I swooped in and assured the customer that her wait time would be around 15 to 20 minutes and that there wouldn’t be any problem in quickly getting her on her way. I smiled confidently, letting her know she could trust me.

“But where are all your employees?” she persisted.

Together we looked around. It did seem quiet. It reminded me of how much had changed in the last few years—how many more employees we used to have—and then it sheepishly reminded me of my comment about the restaurant needing to get their act together the day before.

The truth is, most business have fewer employees these days. And no one should be surprised by this. It doesn’t matter what your politics are, it’s about economics.

First, we’re still seeing the effects of the increases in Minimum Wage. Minimum Wage increases may be good in the long run, but in the short term, businesses have to figure out how to deal with this increased cost. They have two choices. They can either (a) raise prices or (b) cut jobs. And let’s face it, in this economy, raising prices doesn’t sound like a great idea.

At the car wash, we had to completely re-engineer our Operations Model to be able to provide the same quality, in the same time, at the same price, with fewer people. It wasn’t an easy task. But it had to be done. And the hard work paid off. We’re a better Company for it. We’re more efficient and we’ve kept our prices low. The only problem: it doesn’t change the fact that we’re employing far fewer hard-working Americans.

It got me thinking about the bartender and the restaurant. This establishment was fighting against the same economic forces as any business: a sputtering economy, fewer dollars being spent, and rising costs. They needed to survive, and they were working hard to do so. But one of the things they hadn’t done? They hadn’t raised their prices. The cost of our drinks (and subsequent meals) were about the same as they were a few years ago. As a matter of fact, there were a few specials that might have made things even cheaper.

I had complained about the lack of service. But the truth was, we had just dropped in during an unplanned rush. They couldn’t have known they would be busy then. And they shouldn’t have staffed more employees just for us. Staffing extra bodies to handle a potential rush in a bad economy isn’t a good business decision … at least not if you want to keep prices low for your customers. It was me that had been wrong, because I’d been impatient.

Look, I’m not saying you should ever have to be satisfied with poor customer service. You shouldn’t. But what I am saying is this: Maybe, just maybe, we can all learn to be a little more patient in this rough economic time. If things take just a little longer, because a struggling business is trying to watch their expenses, it might be good to remember that they’re saving you a little money too.

The other thing I’m saying: If we all work together, we just might get through this mess.

And of course, stay clean my friends.

-DJ DripDry

How You Can Save the Economy

I think it’s fair to say that we’ve all been affected by the economy. And not just now, but in the long-term as well: our perceptions on spending and saving and the true value of purchase have been fundamentally adjusted. This is a good thing.

But it’s also fair to say that a lot of us tend to knee-jerk to the other end of the spectrum. The media sells sensationalism and we’re pushed into fear. We grip our wallets tighter and wait for the worst. The only problem is: this isn’t helping the economy recover any faster.

Economists say we won’t recover until consumers start spending again. But consumers need to, understandably, be prudent. Where is the balance?

In my own family, we’ve actually discussed this. We’re spending less. We’re saving more. But we’re also making a conscious decision to start dipping our foot back into the consumer pool. We’re loosening up our pocketbooks a little in the hopes that (a) we’ll enjoy life a little more and (b) we’ll help the economy a little bit. To help us in our spending decisions, here are a few ground rules we’re laying down:

First, we’re trying to spend locally in Tucson. If small businesses are the backbone of the economy, then that’s where we’re going to spend our money. Buying from local Tucson companies (whatever the product or service may be) is going to help create Tucson jobs and bring a pulse back to our economy.

Second, we’re going back to good old economics to help us in our decisions to purchase. More specifically, we’ve been talking about opportunity costs and how “doing it yourself” isn’t always as cheap as it seems.

As an example, think of the real cost of eating at home. First, you have to grocery shop—you have to drive to the store, find a parking spot, push a squeaky cart, and stand in line behind someone paying with pennies, all before you see the register tape that will invariably total more than you thought it would. Following a trip back to the car (same squeaky cart), unpacking groceries into your now blazing hot vehicle, you drive home to unpack the very same items. Your supplies now taken car of (assuming you didn’t forget something on the list), you now have to prepare the meal. Obviously cooking time will vary (depending on what you are concocting and how many you are feeding), but all in, you’ve spent at least an hour and half before actually eating your culinary masterpiece. Then, of course, you have to clean up.

The point? Your time is money. Everyone places a value on free time differently, but it is at least worth what you make per hour at work. Taking this into account, when you add the hard cost of your groceries to the time it took to shop, prepare, and clean, you’re spending a lot on a meal. Probably more than you realize. And in this economy, there are restaurant deals every night that offer a meal (and service and cleanup) at a price that may be less than what you’re spending at home (FYI: sites like www.tucsononthecheap.com are great for finding nightly deals).

There are hundreds of examples like this. Of course, here at Metro we prefer the car wash example: at Metro Car Wash you can get your car vacuumed, dusted, washed and the windows cleaned in 15 minutes for under $10. And the price to do it a home? Add up the cost of two hours of your time, an increased water bill due to a running hose, and a scorching sunburn on your neck—there’s no comparison.

Here’s the thing: Saving money is important, but we need to think about doing it in the right way. Sometimes, we might save more by not doing it ourselves. And then, in addition to saving yourself time and money, you’ll feel significantly better knowing that you helped save the local economy too.

Stay clean my friends,

DJ DripDry

Happiness is a Clean Car

Here’s a quote I bet you haven’t read before. It’s from Sri Sathya Sai Baba, an Indian Spiritual leader born in 1926.

“You cannot be fresh and feeling fine, wearing a washed vest under an unwashed shirt; or, an unwashed vest over a washed shirt. Both have to be clean to provide a sense of tingling joy.”

The tingling joy part aside, it reminds me of something my uncle said to me the other day:

“Clean cars. Clean underwear. They both make you feel a whole lot better.”

And they do!

There are a lot of reasons you should wash your car (preferably at Metro Car Wash) including the maintenance of your paint and vinyl, keeping up the saleable value, and not looking like a slob to your boss in your company parking lot. But all that being said, one of the best reasons to get your car cleaned is simply to make you feel better.

A lot has been written lately about removing stress from your life by getting more organized, cleaning your house, or giving your office filing system a makeover. I think keeping a clean car does the same thing, on several levels.

First, it does feel better to walk out to a shiny car in the parking lot. You may not acquire the same confidence you would if you were walking out to a new Porsche, but it will let you hold your head up just a little bit higher. Let’s face it: it says something about you. It says you care and that you’re responsible. In an unassuming manner, it’s sort of stating that you’re cool. And feeling even a hint of cool will almost always get you feeling better.

Next, there’s that great feeling of sliding into an uncluttered surrounding. When there aren’t balled up bank receipts and tissues on the floor, when the console isn’t sticky with latte spills, when the dash isn’t sneeze-ably thick with dust, when there aren’t cracker crumbs and broken toys in the child seat … well, there’s peace. It may not remove all of your stress, or solve the mess you might have gotten yourself into last night, but it certainly can be calming—a little, sealed space in this world where things are clean and neat and you can listen to the music of your choice. Even if it’s only for a little while.

I often like to tell my employees that we are in the business of making people feel better, we just happen to do it by cleaning your car. And there is truth in this. You can see it in our customer’s faces when they drive away—they’re happier. I just wish more people knew this trick.

So the next time you’re feeling a little down, don’t go blow your diet on an ice cream sundae (which you’ll regret just a few minutes afterwards, and the mess of which will probably end up cluttering your car even more). Instead, try a car wash (again, preferably from Metro). And find out why I always say:

Stay clean my friends!

DJ DripDry