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Hello from a noob

ray

By ray
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ray

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Hey guys, I am a relatively young shop owner (31 next week). I currently have a single location shop in Baltimore MD. I started the company in 2006 out of my 20x20 home garage, and now have a 10000 square foot facility. We specialize only in European automotive performance, maintenance, and repair. We basically have 3 divisions here in our shop. We have a web store, a service repair shop, and our performance division. We have grown incredibly fast, and that is why i am here. i hired general managers to operate the administration of the company and always stuck to what i did best, working on cars. While those guys were really good and loyal, they inadvertently handicapped our company because they were without my support, and made some poor decisions, and were forced to be reactive instead of proactive. I re-took control of the administration of the company and I have very big goals for growth. I am here to learn from you much more experienced guys on how to further do this. We kind of differ from most general shops, but the core operating remains the same. We manufacture our own parts, and stock many other performance parts. We also have international relationships with companies that distribute our products. We also burn a lot of money in R&D as well as engineering and performance equipment. I was not fortunate to have any financial backing starting this and pretty much built it as I could. This shop is my life's work, just like most of you, and I am truly terrified of making mistakes that can cost me and my personnel dearly. i look forward to knowing you guys and receiving guidance from you. My goals are to have a very state of the art facility for my development, and multiple franchise locations for my service shop. But I need to get the groundwork built first. Its pretty sad that we are at this level and I am just learning to properly run a business. Thanks for reading and I will be up for a while browsing!

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CARMandP Proficient

CARMandP

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Welcome to the site Ray. As a young shop owner myself (35) I am encouraged by your success in this business. I have also learned a lot from the "older" owners on this site that have been doing this business longer than you and I have even been alive. Ask questions and don't be a stranger here.

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