The One EASY Habit That Will Transform Your Auto Shop
Most shop owners are busy. So employee training often becomes reactive, something you do when a problem shows up, not something you consistently do throughout the days. That’s exactly why so many teams struggle with inconsistency, miscommunication, and unclear expectations. One simple daily practice fixes that.
We call it Take Five.
What Is “Take Five”?
Take Five happens every morning at 6:45, before the shop opens at 7. It typically lasts about 15 minutes, but sometimes it goes 30–40 minutes — basically until the first customer walks through the door.
And let me be clear about one thing: This is not a casual check-in. It’s not a recap of the weekend, the Patriots game, or a fishing trip. This is training time. Each day, we take one small part of a larger concept, break it down, and work on how to get better at that specific piece.
Why Most Shop Owners Aren’t Doing This
Before shop owners go through the Auto Shop Answers program, most of them aren’t doing anything like this.
Training usually looks like:
Teaching one person when an issue comes up
Explaining something once and assuming it stuck
Handling problems individually instead of systemically
The problem is, everyone gets different training, different expectations, and different interpretations of “how we do things here.” That’s where Take Five changes everything.
The Biggest Benefits of Take Five
1. It Creates Real Buy-In
Take Five makes it obvious who is actually engaged. When training is this consistent, you can see right away who is buying into the culture and who isn't. That awareness sets a high bar for accountability and keeps everyone moving in the same direction.
2. It Fixes Team Consistency
Before Take Five, training was usually just putting out fires. One person got coached on software, another on a phone call, but no two people were ever on the same page at the same time. Now, the whole team learns together. There is one standard, one message, and one set of expectations. This approach minimizes confusion and closes performance gaps almost immediately.
3. It Makes Expectations Crystal Clear
When the whole team hears the same thing at once, there is no more guesswork. There’s no "I didn't know." There’s no "no one told me." Everyone knows exactly what is expected of them, which brings a sense of structure and confidence to the entire shop.
4. It Turns Big Goals Into Daily Habits
Vague goals are usually where shops fail. Take Five connects those big goals to what we do every single day. For instance, if the goal is more Google reviews, we don't just talk about it—we train on the exact process and language to use. Suddenly, the goal isn't just a wish; it’s a shared, measurable action.
Other days, we might train on:
Answering the phone
Presenting a job to a customer waiting in the office
Improving customer communication
Refining workflow or systems
The topic changes, but the structure always stays the same.
Why This Simple Habit Makes a Huge Difference
The real power of Take Five is the shared learning in a community setting.
When information is transferred:
to everyone
at the same time
in a consistent way
Performance improves faster. Communication tightens. Expectations become clear. And the shop feels more peaceful and less reactive. It’s not complicated. But it works. And for most shops, it’s the first system that should be implemented.
If you want to implement Take Five the right way, and build systems that actually stick, this is exactly what we teach inside Auto Shop Answers. Learn more here.