Success in business today has a lot to do with not just meeting the demands of your customers, but anticipating them. Be where your customers are just before they get there and offer them something they didn't even know they wanted. You can do that by understanding the trends that will affect your business in the next few years. Those people who recognize and use them well will be the ones who'll succeed and excel in the years to come.

The ideas presented in this article come from trend specialists, research companies, experts in a variety of fields and shop owners just like you. Probably not all of these trends will apply to you and your business right now. But it's very likely that in the coming months and years, you will see many examples of these trends right in your business neighborhood. Think of your success as a journey and recognize these trends as milestones (or lookout points) along the way.

The Portrait - and Size - of the American Population is Changing
Population: Does it seem like the freeways are getting more crowded and more people are in front of you at the drive-up windows? You've spotted a trend in population growth. Every hour in America there are 460 births, 250 deaths and 100 immigrants. That's a total of 310 more people in our country every hour - 2.7 million new Americans every year!

As our planet gets more crowded, the demands on goods and services will be heavier, which is good news for anyone in business. It's bad news for consumers who hate having to wait, and want to feel like an individual rather than a number.

Diversity: My mom used to say, "Wouldn't it be boring if we were all the same?" You probably know people who would disagree with that. In America, the most diverse country on earth, we should celebrate our diversity. Creativity flourishes where different viewpoints are encouraged.

Below is a table showing the portrait of our population today, and what the projections are for 2050.

As the population changes, so does buying power. There is a trend away from a homogenous white marketplace to a broader ethnic market with huge buying power. Check out these buying power figures:

• African-Americans - $533 billion
• Hispanics - $383 billion
• Asian-Americans - $229 billion

With nearly one of every five dollars being spent by a non-white consumer, make sure you broaden your marketing efforts.

Aging: Our population is aging. Futurist Terry van der Werff says today, one in eight residents is 65 or older, and by 2020 the number will be one in six.

Other changes are taking place. We have a much more age-diversified population than we've had in the past. Age is more than a simple demographic, it is a window to the mind-set of your customers and your employees. Understand the needs of these generational groups and you will be better able to motivate employees and excite customers.

Four generational groups make up the consumer market, says J. Walker Smith, president of Yankelovich Partners Inc., and author of Rocking the Ages, The Yankelovich Report on Generational Marketing. The generational groups are shown in the table below.

Armed with your new knowledge of these different age groups, start to notice how major television and print advertisers market to the different groups. Try to figure out which group the advertiser is appealing to. You may get some clues as to how to structure your marketing efforts as well. Get tips on the Yankelovich Web site at www.yankelovich.com or the book mentioned above.

People are Keeping Their Cars Longer
Ken Roberts, vice president of communications with the Automotive Service Association, says this is one of the biggest trends facing shop owners. With the average age of a family's primary vehicle now at 5.6 years, there is a greater need for post-warranty repairs.

This, combined with the fact that fewer people are doing their own car repairs - 47 percent in 1991 vs. 39 percent in 1998 - is great news for your business. But there are challenges. "We are going to need more technicians," says Roberts. "And we're not seeing them enter the field in great numbers. So with the shortage of technicians, cars will stay in the shop longer."

With your customers' dependency on their cars, combined with the technician shortage, you must become more efficient with repairs and service. Roberts said it is important for repair shops to make accurate predictions on when they can begin repairing the person's vehicle and make appointments. The days are gone when shop owners can say to a customer, "Bring your car in at 8 a.m. and we'll have it out as soon as we can."

The Definition of Value is Changing
The No. 1 thing people want when they shop is still value, but its definition is changing. Convenience is being factored into the equation. "People used to not put a value on time," said Alex Sodek, account executive with Roper Starch Worldwide. "Now they will pay more money for convenience, which is very different than a few years ago." He adds, "In the early '90s the only way to sell a product was on quality and price. Now you still need those, but you must also have convenience." Other factors in the value equation are stagnant, but he said the numbers that are on the rise are for convenience.

Keep convenience in mind as you fine-tune your services, prices and marketing. Some shop owners have found that when they slash their prices to the bare bones, it will attract a very fickle customer who will come in for the "discount" oil change, but will desert them as soon as someone else advertises a cheaper price.

Decide which kind of customer you want and are best able to serve. One shop owner said, "Our customer is just not the person who will drive all over town to save a few cents on a can of tuna fish. Our customer is someone who values the quality, convenience and services that we offer."

Convenience is Essential
Do you find yourself wishing for the "good old days" when life was simpler and the pace was slower? As we work longer hours and strive to stay connected through e-mail, pagers and cell phones, we begin to feel "leisure squeeze," which is a definite blurring between work and leisure. Not surprisingly, Americans feel more stress than ever before. Sodek said more than half of us feel stress and tension almost every day - and the most stressed group is women.

"In this environment, convenience is king," Sodek said simply. Businesses everywhere are adapting. You can now order your groceries over the Internet and have them delivered to your door. You can check into your hotel at the airport, on the shuttle bus, or outside the hotel. You can do your banking over the Internet or from your car in speedy drive-up lanes, and drop off and pay for your rental car before stepping into the airport.

The challenge for you is to ask yourself, "What can I do to make it easy for customers to do business with me?" People want to do business with shops that value their time and meet their needs for speedy service and appointment options.

Innovative shop owners are using different tactics to meet customer demands in this area. Some are taking automotive service and repair to a person's place of business or home. Mark Delp with Fleet Response in Orange County, Calif., has such a service and specializes in fleet accounts. His specially equipped service vans can do light-duty oil changes, brake and windshield repairs, battery changes and repair flat tires. If the vehicle requires service that will take longer than an hour, he'll take it to one of his shops. "Business is great," he said. "We had a record month last month and have just opened a second location."

Some shops have interactive Web sites and let customers make appointments over the Internet. "Eventually some maintenance services will involve no face-to-face communication at all," said Roberts. "People will get online to schedule appointments for service. In many instances the service will be provided at home, will be billed electronically and will be paid electronically."

Make It Customized!
The days are gone when customers will accept a cookie-cutter solution to their problems. They demand a customized solution that fits their needs. This is the merging of two of the biggest trends researchers are noting: self-reliance and information seeking.

Remember the days when you shopped at the corner drugstore and the hardware store on Main Street? You probably knew the owners of those stores and they knew you - and your parents and kids. You trusted them and their recommendations. Now, in many areas, that trust and familiarity are gone and you're buying services and products from total strangers.

In this environment, we have to look out for ourselves. "Consumers want to be able to do it for themselves or decide for themselves," said Sodek. "People are looking for personal solutions. We tend to be information seekers, to gather information that will help us make our own decisions." He said almost half of us use toll-free numbers to seek information and of the people who are on the Internet, 75 percent research items online.

The impact on your business is to recognize that customers will want information about you and the services you recommend, and will demand that you have options that meet their needs. If you have a Web site, make sure all information is quick-loading and easily searchable.

Rick White with the Tremont Street Garage in Melrose, Mass., has one of several automotive Web sites that demonstrates what I'm talking about. (White's Web site, located at www.tremontstreetgarage.com, was named one of AutoInc.'s Top 10 Shop Sites in 1999.) Consumers can read articles about car repair and maintenance topics, find out information about the shop services, and read credentials of the employees.

People also want customized solutions to their problems. Instead of telling a customer what type of maintenance schedule you recommend, ask first what kind of driving habits they have (for example, highway or stop-and-go traffic) and help them make an informed decision based on their needs and driving habits.

Internet Use Will Skyrocket
Just five years after the birth of the World Wide Web, Internet use has skyrocketed. A University of Texas study uncovered some mind- boggling facts:

• Seven new people join the Internet every second
• In 1998, the Internet generated more than $300 billion in revenue and is projected to have reached $507 billion in 1999 - most of it driven by small business
• It potentially doubles every nine months
• Internet-related jobs exceeded 2.3 million in 1999
• 2,000 new secure Web sites are added each month
• If the Internet economy were to grow at just half its current rate (68 percent) for the next three years, it would generate $1.2 trillion in revenues in 2002.

To give some comparison, it took the automobile industry 100 years to scale such heights.

If you aren't using the Internet, what are you waiting for? Even Main Street businesses in historic, 100-year-old buildings have jumped on the bandwagon (only their buildings and their company values are old-fashioned). A USA Today article recently reported that Main Street businesses are now doing 20 percent to 40 percent of their sales from their Web sites.

Before you scoff and say, "You can sell products, but you can't sell service on the Internet," think again. To give you a sense of what other automotive service shops are doing, check out their Web sites. If you haven't already done so, log onto the ASA Web site at www.asashop.org. Go to the AutoInc. magazine section and find the listing for other Top 10 Automotive Repair Web Site winners. You'll get some great ideas.

The trend is toward interactive Web sites. In addition to making appointments, people with automotive problems may be asked a series of questions including, "What part of the vehicle seems to be the problem?" They can then choose their answer from a list of possibilities. With today's technologies, customers may even listen to a menu of sounds, then decide which most resembles the one that the vehicle is making. Sound futuristic? Not so. "This service will be launched in 2000," said Jeff Sweet, president and CEO of IDENTIFIX, an ASA associate member business that provides information and resources for technicians.

Technologies We Can't Even Imagine Will be Invented
Can you imagine motors the size of mosquitoes or generators the size of pin heads? How about gears so small that one needs a microscope to see them? These ultra-small nanotech devices already exist, and will soon be in your shop.

Many high-tech gadgets are already available for mobile workers, defined by trend experts as people out of the office 20 percent of the time. We have personal communicators that are cell phones, hand-held computers and fax machines combined. Devices the size of a compact disc player can copy documents and display thumbnails of the image on a built-in liquid crystal display.

In the automotive repair industry, repair technicians may soon be routinely using "wearable computers." Combining the leading edge of speech technology with the latest developments in computer technology, these computers are already being successfully used by the military and have been tested in automotive service bays.

The wearable computers would be hooked to a modem, allowing the technician to instantly download from the Internet all procedures and training required for a specific vehicle. Issue a command or ask a question and the appropriate diagram will appear on the screen. Ask what tools you need to make the repair or perform the service and you'll see photos of the tools. The concepts are readily available, according to Jim Roach, vice president of Mentoring Systems with Intelliworxx. Log onto their Web site for more information at www.intelliworxx.com.

How you use technology now and in the future won't just have an impact on the efficiency of your business, it also has an impact on your customer. It can be a big selling point for your shop. If you use high-tech tools - and tell your customers about them - you set yourself apart from other shops without such tools. The image you project is of cutting-edge services, innovation, precision and accuracy. Quite an impression!

Is This A Great Time Or What?
I love the IBM advertisements on television where they show unlikely people using the most high-tech devices. The tag line is, "Is This a Great Time or What?" I agree.

With so many changes, new technologies, and a new breed of ever-demanding consumers, the future promises to be very interesting! It's time to put complacency to rest. It's time for a transformation. The new millennium calls for new people. We need people who aren't content with the status quo. They will be left behind. We need people who can not just manage, but people who can guide, motivate and inspire others to meet the challenges of the 21st century. You can be such a person. Good luck!

Jeanne Smalling Archer is a writer, professional speaker and co-author of the best-selling business book, Up Against the Wal-Marts: How Your Business Can Prosper in the Shadow of the Retail Giants.

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