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Showing content with the highest reputation since 12/06/2024 in all areas

  1. We are almost at the end of 2024, a time when you need to do an assessment of 2024, and look forward to the future. Leaders must have clearly defined written goals. Have you taken the time to establish your goals, shared them with your team and created the steps to attain these goals?
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  2. Define marketing company, An entity that just wants to do direct mail and little else an entity that wants to do digital contacting or PPC and wont do anything else or a true marketing company that will combine all of it ? # 3 is very hard to find, i've been looking and talking to a bunch and they are rare as hens teeth.
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  3. I could say car count or profit percentage but my main goal is to be comfortable enough to go to Brazil on vacation in September. In that goal we do need to get better at processes and procedures so that the shop which can operate with out me. It can unless a problem arises. I don’t wish to be an absentee owner or anything like that. I want to be here. Hell I’m here on the first of the year play with my kids.
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  4. I want wish everyone the very best this holiday Season, and a prosperous and healthy 2025 and beyond!
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  5. Thanks for recommending Carm's podcast on hiring. I learned I really don't know how to conduct a technician interview. Why? Out of all the seminars, trade shows, and classes I've taken over the years, NOT ONE CLASS ever covered the hiring process. I have come to the conclusion that I've been "flying blind" for my entire 40-year career. The closest I've ever come to training in human interaction was with the sales training I've taken. Of the few great hires I have made, I believe it was more due to sheer luck than anything else. The most common challenge shop owners discuss between themselves is finding and hiring a great technician. Like me, few shop owners receive any training in this area. Most larger companies have entire Human Resource (HR) departments to handle recruiting and hiring. Since I retired, have I seen any training in this area, mainly through podcasts. https://gopromotive.com/ and https://hireology.com/ are two podcasts that come to mind, but they were trying to sell themselves as somewhere between a recruitment service and a complete HR department. Of course, today's Carm podcast, but he wasn't trying to sell anything. I'm interested to see what other ASO members' experience is like.
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  6. I agree with your assessment. While we need to track and improve tech production, I too spent a lot of effort in making sure that we wrote proper estimates, and paid great attention to labor hours per invoice. Great assessment!
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  7. Whenever I saw low productivity, I would try to diagnose the cause. Not only that, I would also ask myself the question, "Is the low productivity within my power to control?" Most of the time it was within my power to control. Occasionally, not. I've never been a fan of the flat-rate system, although that's the main tool I use to measure productivity or the lack thereof. Ironically, the majority of the time, I would cure the problem with an adjustment that's made on the front counter and not out in the shop. What I was able to do was done with changes I made to more accurately written estimates and invoices. Because we were a transmission repair shop, we billed by the job and not by the hour, although we used time as a common reference point. Our estimates and invoices never had the number of hours or how much an hour it was for any particular job. Using that method of billing made it easier for both my techs and myself. Of course, I wouldn't start billing with reckless abandon for fear of pricing ourselves out of the market. I understand that most shops do have an hourly labor rate and bill by the hour. I'm not saying to follow my method because it's not for everybody and every shop. Customers usually have some vague idea as to how long a job takes and how many hours sounds reasonable. Major transmission repair work is not that way in the eyes of the customer. They have no idea and generally just look at the bottom line, including sales tax. Our customers had a written estimate upfront, so there were no surprises. 99% of the time, our estimates were written in stone. Because of this, we rarely had price objections.
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  8. I think you method gave you an insight on the true costs of what it takes to operate your business. There are other methods. One thing to add, while know what the costs are for every hour you are open is crucial, add an additional amount for profit. This would give you a number to shoot for to pay your expenses, and for profit. Just a thought.
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  9. I may have done it all wrong when I owned the last service business in figuring my true costs, but this is what I did. Took every single expense that we had for the entire year, everything from taxes, materials payroll, utilites, advertising, damages. Tried to not miss one thing and got a total. Then counter every single hour worked in the shop, if I or any employee was there, it got counted as worked hours. Didived that and got my true cost to have the business by hour opened. So I knew what I was having to bring through the doors to be open and break even. Knowing that I knew to make a profit, or I should say to make the profit I wanted I then knew how much over that dollar per hour rate I needed to make, on every hour we were working. Right or wrong it kept me on my toes and we did make a decedent profit every year. It also let me know how much every year to raise my prices to keep my profit where I wanted it.
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  10. I just discovered this topic from back in October and I see nobody has made a comment since. I didn't have very much luck with a shop foreman. The main cause, in my opinion, was twofold. If I hired one, right off the bat they wouldn't be productive. If I promoted one of my techs, they had no practical experience running a shop. Eventually, if not sooner, their productivity would also end up as nothing. Either way, I ended up losing one of my best techs. If I ran the shop, it would run the smoothest and most profitable. However, that meant I had to delegate the front counter responsibilities and phone answering. I had my greatest success doing this because it was a lot easier to find someone who fit that job description. I quickly learned from that experience that I had to write a job description for every position. Easier said than done. Over the course of a year, I was constantly editing and updating every job description until I was happy with the employees' outcomes. The old adage about 20/20 vision applies here. Looking back, I should have written a shop owner's job description and included that with all the employees' job descriptions so they would know what to expect from me instead of assuming.
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  11. If you’re running a small automotive business, doing a year-end review gives you an accurate picture of your performance over the past twelve months. The information you collect gives you the opportunity to create a tangible action plan for growth as you enter 2025. While this may seem like a daunting task, it is actually a helpful tool that will set your business up for long-term success. This blog post will help you conduct an effective yearly review so your automotive business can thrive next year. Why a Year-End Review is Critical A yearly review is essential for several reasons: You collect data to identify positive and negative patterns within your finances. You have an accurate depiction of your yearly growth. You have the opportunity to reconcile accounts and address discrepancies as needed. The financial data you retrieve from your review is the key to setting realistic and achievable goals for the future. Therefore, conduct your year-end review prior to setting your new goals for 2025. How to Conduct Your Year-End Review Now that you understand why your review is critical, it’s time to get to work. This process should take approximately two hours to complete. Since you’re a busy business owner, it helps to schedule your review on the calendar and treat it like a shop appointment. You wouldn’t cancel on a customer, so don’t cancel on your review appointment. Settle down in a quiet space, turn off your notifications, and dive head-first into your financial records. For a full list of documents to review, check out this blog post, and be sure to download our free End-of-Year Checklist. Here are questions to reflect on as you go: What were your financial goals for your business at the beginning of the year? Consider the state of your business at the beginning of the year. Recall your goals and compare them to your 2024 financial data. Did you meet your financial goals for the year? Evaluate your progress toward said goals. Did you meet them, exceed them, or fall short? Identify why you did or did not achieve your goals this year and reflect on financial data to create a profitable plan moving forward. What went well this year? What could have been improved? Numbers don’t lie, which is why it’s important to be informed of your business’s yearly performance. They are a concrete indicator of what went well and what could have been better. Create a list for each so you can continue the positive patterns and make improvements as needed. You’ve completed your review. Now what? Take a deep breath, pat yourself on the back, and celebrate the completion of another year as an entrepreneur. Now that you understand your yearly progress, it’s time to set new goals and tackle them intentionally and strategically. Remember: It’s okay if the past year did not go according to plan. The data from your year-end review will help you stay on track and succeed over the next twelve months.
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  12. I couldn't find a place for book recommendations, so I started one. Here's a great list of "must-read" books for business. It's from Ratchet & Wrench magazine. https://www.ratchetandwrench.com/toolbox/educationtraining/article/55242667/strengthen-your-leadership-muscles-12-must-read-books-to-fuel-success-in-2025 https://www.ratchetandwrench.com/shop-life/columnists/article/33006771/bennett-10-must-read-books-for-auto-repair-shop-owners
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  13. Not sure why shipping companies are laying off people. But, your point on bonuses is a good question. Bonuses should be tied to performance, expectations, completing certain training, and other criteria. It needs to be managed by the shop owner and/or manager, and YES, it needs to be factored into your cost of doing business.
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