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Anyone have a dealer license to compensate for slow times?


Jay Huh

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I've been lucky so far but I couldn't escape the "slow" season forever. I'm in NC and we got 2 inches of snow and the whole city/county shut down for days.....

We got snow Saturday, had pretty much no customers Friday, Sat (closed) Monday and today and tomorrow doesn't look good either (no appointments).

 

Techs are getting frustrated with no work (they are flat rate and usually stay busy) and obviously not good for me or the business. Do you guys go to auction and buy cars to sell? I usually have 1 car that I work on at all times for myself to sell but I haven't bought a car off of a customer in a while.

 

It's a bit of a pain to get a dealer license here so wondering if you guys do it

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I didn't realize you were in NC! We got around 7" in the mountians, but that hardly enough to slow us down. I'm not sure that a repair shop and dealer fit together well, if you do. I'd create a separate company and maybe a separate lot, and hire someone to run it. Let the shop repair cars and the lot sell them. Combining the two seems like a good way to get lots of "I bought this now it needs brakes....for free. " type of situations!

 

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Yea very true. Selling cars would come with its own set of headaches. I was thinking about just selling 1 or 2 cars a month just to subsidize income for when it's slow, not having any sort of lot or anything.

 

But yea we are in Raleigh, technically Durham but just on the Raleigh Durham border. Must be nice to be in the mountains. I love snowboarding, been forever since I've been

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Yea very true. Selling cars would come with its own set of headaches. I was thinking about just selling 1 or 2 cars a month just to subsidize income for when it's slow, not having any sort of lot or anything.

 

But yea we are in Raleigh, technically Durham but just on the Raleigh Durham border. Must be nice to be in the mountains. I love snowboarding, been forever since I've been

If you ever come to Boone let me know!

 

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I do have a dealer's license. What normally happens is it gets slow so you find a car to buy. As soon as you start working on that car, business picks up and the car gets pushed outside. By the time you get back to it you've already robbed parts off of it to fix a customer's car in a pinch. It sits outside for a few years and then gets scrapped. If you make a point to stay on the car, it can and has been profitable.

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An old employer used the time old method to obtain cars. He got permission to do tear down and inspection for report say for $500.00. Then when the customer declined to fix it he had the customer sign over the title instead of paying for the tear down and storage fees.

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      It always amazes me when I hear about a technician who quits one repair shop to go work at another shop for less money. I know you have heard of this too, and you’ve probably asked yourself, “Can this be true? And Why?” The answer rests within the culture of the company. More specifically, the boss, manager, or a toxic work environment literally pushed the technician out the door.
      While money and benefits tend to attract people to a company, it won’t keep them there. When a technician begins to look over the fence for greener grass, that is usually a sign that something is wrong within the workplace. It also means that his or her heart is probably already gone. If the issue is not resolved, no amount of money will keep that technician for the long term. The heart is always the first to leave. The last thing that leaves is the technician’s toolbox.
      Shop owners: Focus more on employee retention than acquisition. This is not to say that you should not be constantly recruiting. You should. What it does means is that once you hire someone, your job isn’t over, that’s when it begins. Get to know your technicians. Build strong relationships. Have frequent one-on-ones. Engage in meaningful conversation. Find what truly motivates your technicians. You may be surprised that while money is a motivator, it’s usually not the prime motivator.
      One last thing; the cost of technician turnover can be financially devastating. It also affects shop morale. Do all you can to create a workplace where technicians feel they are respected, recognized, and know that their work contributes to the overall success of the company. This will lead to improved morale and team spirit. Remember, when you see a technician’s toolbox rolling out of the bay on its way to another shop, the heart was most likely gone long before that.
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