Leaderboard

Best way I've found to jump start business? Bring your own car into the shop, and tear it apart so it's stranded on the rack and tying up a bay. The shop will instantly fill and you'll be in desperate need of that rack. Every friggin' time.

Your solution for feeling burned out: By winning! As long as your losing in life or in business you will always feel burned out. Pardon me for stating the obvious but YOU SUCK as a business owner. You blamed the long hours, the bills, the taxes, the customers, the employees, you might as well say your god damned as well. Basically all the components of business are your problem. The common denominator is you! "All work, no play, little reward" Who's decision is that? Who's decision was it to go into business for themselves? So let's start there! It's ok everyone sucks at somethings. Especially when they are untrained. But first step is realizing it and taking responsibility for your condition. You are lacking successful business owner qualities. If you are not making money you suck at sales and marketing. If you are dealing with unreasonable cheap customers than you suck at handling communication. If your employees suck than you suck at hiring and training! If your taxes, bills and insurance are a problem than you suck at administrative know-how. If long hours suck for you than you suck at setting a schedule and prioritizing. Luckily no one has to suck forever. It's a personal decision to recognize problems and not do something about them. The above things that you suck at is a list of your homework of things to study, learn, apply and improve. I will empathize with you but you get no sympathy. Let's see how many of these things you can improve in a month. If you can fix a carburetor, you can fix your business. With Confidence In You, Andre

Oh by the way I am a very rich man. I may not have $1,000,000 cash but I have a wife that I love and who loves me and we have been MARRIED 43 1/2 years. I have three wonderful children and nine wonderful grandchildren. I have a roof over my head, clothes to wear, a warm bed to sleep in, and a full belly. I just got back from a trip to Fort Lauderdale where I dined like a king and stayed in a 4 star resort. I am healthy enough to get up and go to work today. I have a successful business. I have no complaints. Come to think of it in more ways than one I am a millionaire.

The following is a story that I sent to the local paper as a letter to the editor. It was ran this past Tuesday. Think you may enjoy reading it and be inspired. http://www.courierpress.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/commentary-spotlight-on-caring-epd-officers_65881643 Editor, The Evansville Courier & Press 300 E. Walnut St. P.O. Box 268 Evansville IN 47702-0268 Dear Editor: Val is a lady in her 50's that I have known for several years and I consider her to be my friend. She is not very tall and probably doesn't weigh more than a 100 pounds soaking wet but is intelligent and as gritty and spunky as a pit bull. Unfortunately, Val is unable to work due to chronic back problems that multiple surgeries have not cured. While living in constant pain she bravely survives on a meager disability income which leaves her constantly scrambling to make ends meet. Val has been coming to our shop for several years to have her car worked on and we have helped her at times by doing work at reduced prices and allowing her to pay as she was able. However, lack of money to do needed repairs and the age of the car all came to a head recently. When she came into the shop there was no way around it. Her car needed a $1000 worth of repairs to keep it on the road, probably as much as the car is worth. While I could do a bit to reduce the cost there was no way to eat all of the work or let her charge an amount that large. It was a nut simply too big to crack. I gave Val the bad news and she went outside presumably to call family or friends. This is when the wonderful story that I am going to relate begins to unfold. It just so happened a first time customer, a retired policeman who now teaches criminal justice at an area university, had paid for his car, picked up the keys, and walked out the door but a few minutes later he came back into the shop. He told me that there was a woman (Val) out on the front sidewalk crying and he wanted to know the cirumstance. I explained the situation and he told me to let him see what he could do. He would talk to his friends including several police buddies. A few minutes later he came back in asking me to do what I could to keep the cost down and telling me that he would raise the money to fix the car. Subsequently, he brought me $200 in cash and an hour later a uniformed Evansville police officer I have never met brought me a check for $100. The next day all of the parts needed for the repair bought and paid for by he and his friends were brought in. When it was all said and done Val's car was fixed and she was able to pay her part of the repair in full. Now she has a dependable means of transportaion again due to the fine gentleman and his friends. What a wonderful reflection this is on our community, on our police and our law enforcement officers. Police are receiving a lot of bad press but I would like to declare that there are many officers who are kind, compassionate, considerate human beings that put their lives on the line for us everyday. We also hear a lot of bad press about race relationships especially abuse of the African American community by the police. Did I mention that Val is African American and that all of those who helped her fix her car are white? No one ever saw black or white they just saw a woman in need and reached out to help. I say hurray for the fine citizens and police of this community who let me participate in and witness this wonderful act of kindness and compassion. “God bless us everyone”! G. Frank May, Manager Car-x Auto Service

AndersonAuto, please don't take this the wrong way. "I REALLY HATE THE CHEAP OIL CHANGE GIMICK." In my opinion, giving out a cheap synthetic oil change like you are doing gives our industry a bad image. Why? Again, in my opinion, because it distorts the consumers' perception of what it cost to do business. One of the reasons that fancy car manufacturers strive to have you use a machine to reset the maintenance interval is because it gives the impression that you need a qualified technician to reset the little light. Think about the biggest industries that thrive in people's ignorance: lawyers, insurance, and finance. Please do not take this personally, as I understand you have to do what is best for you. But in my opinion, you are hurting yourself and others by doing cheap oil changes.

So about 3 weeks ago, I fired my service writer. Shop profitability was suffering due to too much discounting. He would let too much diagnostic time go uncharged. He was also of the mentality "well I wouldn't pay this much for this part" so he would discount the parts to a more "reasonable" level. After stressing the importance of hitting needed margin numbers, they were coming up slowly, but not fast enough. I finally had enough and let him go. I replaced him with a tech I was training. He had most of his previous experience in sales, selling both cars and electronics, so I figured he would be a better fit at the front counter. So far, parts margins are up well over 10% (total, not an increase of), and more hours are on the books. Best decision I've made yet in my business. By the way, the previous service writer was me. Margins still have a bit to go, but part of that is me still interjecting at times. I need to remove myself completely from the RO. Moral of the story: If you're too much of a nice guy to charge what needs to be charged, get the hell off the front counter so you can make some money.

This post is a description of a very successful direct mail program we run consistently. If you're contemplating a budget for direct mail, it's worth the read. There's a lot to say about direct mail pieces, but some of the very best postcard mailings I've seen, are overshadowed by a micro-mailing program someone turned me onto years ago directed at acquiring new customers. The premise is simple, actually. Of course, we all know that the quality of your list is paramount, but without reitterating some of the most common aspects or practices of a program like this, I'll tell you what I really liked: Once you have a quality list defined, buy only a small portion of the target. In this example, let's say that it's 250 addresses. Scrub it against your own customer database - for our purpose, there's no need to solicit to anyone who's been to your shop before. Assume you need to drop 50 addresses (good for you...they've already been to you before, and if you like...you can mail them folks something different later.) This brings your usable control group down to 200 addresses. Now here's the exciting part - prepare 4 or 5 ad pieces (postcards work well for all but the final one). Create a marketing message that expresses who you are as a company, but DO NOT advertise any discount offers with fun little dotted lines around them. The point of the mailing is to introduce yourself to the prospects ONLY. You're going to mail out 200 postcards to people who have never been to your shop. Tell them where you're at, what awards you've won, how much you care about your customers, maybe offer a list of the services you offer...but NO discounts or "special offers". Just introduce your shop, and ask them to consider visiting you for service. "Does your mechanic not seem to care as much anymore about keeping you happy? Give us a try!" Give the post office 3 days to make sure they reach the prospects, then add a solid business week to the timeline, and make sure your staff is asking how new customer heard about you, so you can tell who's responded to the postcards. Let's say it was miserable. All that hard work, planning, and design work...netted you 3 responses. (Could've been 2 oil changes & a price shopper, doesn't matter). After a solid week goes by, send out your 2nd postcard to the same list, minus the ones who already responded to the first one. Mail out 197. The 2nd card is kind of like the 1st one - You talk about how much your customers appreciate your hard work – maybe even include a testimonial with a picture of one of your customers. Emphasize the flexible scheduling, your staff’s training & certifications, & tell them what hours you’re available to service their needs. NO DISCOUNTS. Wait 3 days for delivery, start tracking the response from the postcard again for a solid week, and tally them up. Maybe the 2nd mailing only netted you 1 more response. Maybe it was a brake job, though. Of course, your first postcards are still out there, too, so this week, maybe you got another one from the first round of cards. That’s only a total of 2 more…but it’s 5 altogether. Subtract the responding addresses from the list, and (you guessed it) send out the 3rd card. This one is really special, though…it has the American flag on it, and your face, and you’re smiling. There’s a short comment from you about how much you’ve been looking forward to meeting them, but you haven’t seen them. Tell them you’d like to personally invite them to come in for a cup of coffee, a brief tour of your shop, and that you’d like them to tell you EXACTLY why their old mechanic has let them down. NO DISCOUNTS, and send it to the remaining 195 folks on the list. Wait 3 days…then track the results for at least one solid business week. Now, a really cool thing will start to happen, and you have to try it to see for yourself, but people will start to respond! The right message sent to the right prospect, at the right time…and a direct mail program comes to life! I’ve seen the 3rd step of the program personally work to bring in a response of as high as 2% without offering an discounts or offers. Afterall – PRICE isn’t all they’re bargaining for, right? So if you’ll let me finish the story…a 2% response on 195 addresses is a whopping 4 responses! This one can be fun, though, because they want to talk to you about why they hate their old mechanic. Got time for that? Aren’t you going to tell those 4 people how horrible that is, and how YOUR shop works hard to prevent EXACTLY those kinds of issues? You’ll sell them more than an oil change, for sure. So after 3 mailings, you’ve received a total of 9 responses. (I won’t speculate on the gross sales…there’s too many variables, and that is truly up to your sales staff to control) Now you only have 191 addresses left. I’ll spare you the longer version of the remainder of the program, and just tell you to repeat the process of mailing/tracking for the last 2 pieces, but the nature of the pieces will change. #4 – You use a headline on the postcard that says, “We really want the chance to show you how hard we’re willing to work for you!”, and then you can finally add a SOFT discount on the card. Either give away a congruent service like a tire rotation, with their oil change, or offer a soft dollar or % discount off another, common service. Brake work? 5% off. Fluid services? $10 off. Give them the call to action they’ve been waiting for. Whatever response rate you’ve been seeing on average for the first 3 mailings will DOUBLE on the 4th. #5 – The rope-a-dope. Prepare a letter. Really – a personal letter, on stationery, with your company’s logo on it. Let the “Title” of the letter be something that pops, like, “Did we do something wrong?” Tell them in a paragraph or two about all the new faces you’ve been seeing, and let them know how much you want the chance to earn their business, and show them that what they’ve been reading about your company is true. Tell them that you’re SO ready to prove it to them that you’d like them to take advantage of you by redeeming a discounted oil change at your shop, and that you’re doing so only as a last ditch effort to meet them, shake their hands, and prove to them how hard you’re willing to work for them. Now, I use a $10 synthetic blend oil change (up to 5 qts. Includes filter, on most cars), and give them ONLY 30 DAYS to redeem it. If you track new customers, and you track average repair order figures, and you’ve been tallying up what the 5 mailings have cost you out of pocket, by the time you have the 5th mailing out to them, you’ll smile as you realize that the return you’re getting on a direct mail program is 6-8 times higher than those reported as averages by the DMA. I’ve seen total program responses of as high as 20-25%. (That’s 40 responses on your list of 200). You MUST remove people’s address who’ve responded, and keep track of sales, profits, etc., as well as keeping your schedule. 5 mailings in 6-8 weeks. The beautiful thing is that once you’re “finished”, you’ll be managing your new customer followups like normal…and you can start with 200 more that meet your list requirements, and do it again. Sorry about the long post. We’re currently managing a list of 300 at a time, and have 2 campaigns running concurrently. Our average response rate per campaign is 9-10%. Just one man’s (really long) story.

A woman called her dentist the other day and asked how much would a root canal cost. Her dentist replied, “Sure, hold on, let me look that up. Ok, that’ll be around $1400 for that job. Would you like to come in and have that root canal done?” Ridiculous scenario, you’re thinking? I agree! A dentist would never give a price over the phone without first examining the patient. Why do some shops continue to give prices over the phone? Even something as simple as a wheel alignment price can lead the customer and you in the wrong direction. Do you really know the car needs an alignment? Pricing over the phone is the same as giving them a diagnosis. When a customer calls for a price on a water pump and you give a price, you are saying to them, “Yes, it IS the water pump and here’s the price. And then you get the car in the bay and it needs hoses, a thermostat, and the radiator is leaking, not the pump. Giving prices over the phone also tells the caller to please judge you on price alone; a road I refuse to go down. I know this is going to push a lot of buttons today, but my tip today is to resist giving prices over the phone. Get the car into you bay, perform the inspection and/or the proper testing and then when you know what the problem is, sell the job. We are professionals, no different than the Dentist. Your thoughts?

MEN ARE JUST HAPPY PEOPLE This needs no explanation - and is a fun read, no matter your gender. Men Are Just Happier People! What do you expect from such simple creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. You can never be pregnant. You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to a water park. Car mechanics tell you the truth. The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky. You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress - $5,000. Tux rental - $100. People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood all the time. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks. A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. You can open all your own jars. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend. Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Two pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost never have strap problems in public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes. Everything on your face stays its original color The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to shave your face and neck. You can play with toys all your life. One wallet and one pair of shoes - one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look. You can 'do' your nails with a pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache. You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes. No wonder men are happier! NICKNAMES If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah. If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Bubba and Wildman. EATING OUT When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in $20, even though it's only for $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back. When the girls get their bill, outcome the pocket calculators. MONEY A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs. A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need but it's on sale. BATHROOMS A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel. The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items. ARGUMENTS A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument. FUTURE Awoman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife. MARRIAGE A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does. DRESSING UP A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book, or get the mail. A man will dress up for weddings and funerals. NATURAL Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed. Women somehow deteriorate during the night. OFFSPRING Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house. THOUGHT FOR THE DAY A married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!

I hope everyone had a great month. April seemed to be off for a lot of shops, so if yours was one of them I hope it turned around for you. I had a great month! My guys turned in an all time record month. They beat the snot out of the previous record by $15K, and had a higher GP doing it. Car count is up, ARO is up, and I spent most of the month at the lake working on my boat while my guys took care of business. Tomorrow is one of my favorite times. I get to go in and write some serious commission checks. I'll probably flip everyone a Benjamin while I'm at it. Life is good.

Can't do much else...but get better. This fruit basket will be a part of it. Thank you guys.

I have spent the last 20 minutes looking at your website, advertisements, reviews, Facebook, google street images, and more. I have some definite profitable improvements in mind, and I am going to share them with you. If you have been there since 2000, you have lots of people that trust you, and you have plenty of room for much more profit!! You will want to build on that Big-Time!! "The shop has been known for cheap oil changes." *** How does the following sound? "My shop is known for precision front-end and undercar work and is a leader in computerized alignments." How about this?? "I know brakes and I perform long-lasting, smooth-stopping, and quiet brake jobs. "I can diagnose your "Service Engine" light for you and get it turned off after the necessary repairs and services have been completed." "We are known as the Go-To shop for Air Conditioning Service." Think about what it would be like to have from three to four alignments scheduled for one day, and you get them in and some need repairs and/or tires. I see that you advertise alignments and promote them on Facebook. When folks come in for an alignment, many times they are prepared to invest a lot to have their car repaired in order for it to drive and perform properly. When folks come in for a cheap oil change, their mind and pocketbook are on a cheap oil change. So....think about this!! Nobody else (I imagine) is doing $18.95 oil changes, so you need to up the price and add more benefits!! Walmart oil changes are about $35.00 and Jiffy Lube about $50.00. So when Miss Jones comes in for her oil service with safety inspection, you tell her up front: Miss Jones, you have been a great client of mine!! And I thank you for that!! I am going to give you better service than ever, because I have integrated a safety and maintenance inspection with our oil change services. I am going to use a checklist, inspect your car, and go over any needs with you. Your investment in this is only $29.95 plus tax. Please have a cup of coffee or hot chocolate while I'm bringing your car in the shop!! **** Note: 3 important sentences coming up: A client came in to my shop Friday with his 2011 Altima for an oil change service only. I told him that the factory maintenance recommended a belt, air filter, cabin filter, and trans. service. His invoice was $440.00. They won't all buy, but lots will, and that's what counts. Now notice that you didn't say that "oil changes" went up....you told her about the added benefits. ***PLUS most of the later model cars take 0W20 Synthetic motor oil and the Oil Change Services are usually $44.95 to $59.95. Be sure to ALWAYS SPECIFY the factory recommended oil because it's what the car and your cash register require!!! $$$ You will want to work on enhancing your train of thought from Cheap and Lowest Price to Precision, Performance, Smooth, Quiet, Vibration-Free, More Power, Long-Lasting, Straight, Hot for heat, Cold for AC. Practice selling the benefits and you will see MUCH HIGHER ARO'S, more satisfied clients, and MORE CA$H in the BANK!!! I'm ending for now, but please pay close attention to the above, start tomorrow, and have a CHANGED WEEK!!! I will be in touch!! Hi-Gear

We can't install customer supplied parts. As the professional, we become liable. There are tons of articles about this subject. Shops have gotten sued after installing customer parts that fail and they lose. We as the professionals are liable for the work we do, parts do not matter. I do not allow in our shop not only for this reason, but because parts & labor are how we profit in order to stay in business. We only use certain brands for certain jobs. We over time have come to find what good brands are and what bad brands to stay away from. Why? Because we are the professional! How many brakes, ball joints, calipers, Mass Air Flow Sensors, etc have we installed in our careers? We know what fails and what doesn't. Stand up, be proud of your profession and let them know exactly why we can't adhere to this practice. We deserve to make a profit and make a living for the work we do. Still haven't even thought about taking my own steak to a restaurant. I feel great to pay others for the services they provide for me that I know nothing about. Home HVAC, not my thing, but I know who to call. Plumber!!! Got a company for that too.

We’re not the cheapest guys in town. There – I said it. But we’re not downright unfair, and we do a good job at offering over the top value to those we hope to serve. In any market or industry, there are three distinct categories of customers, the price conscious, value conscious, and the quality conscious. Sadly, the price conscious folks seem to be the most discussed in forums. We had a young lady come to us 2 years ago for service when she had a breakdown. In addition to the way her concerns were addressed from a technical/mechanical standpoint, she received such over-the-top treatment (I think her initial invoice was about $300), that her review of our company online indicated some key points in our company's mission statement, validating our effort to serve our market in the way we set out from the beginning. This, alone, made us dance joyfully. (I know…picture that, will you…) A month later, she cancelled an oil change appointment...actually, I think she was a "no call, no show". When we called, we found that she had fallen ill with the flu. As she was local, and exactly the kind of customer we knew we wanted to be of service to, my service writer took it upon himself on his lunch to buy her a get well card, some hot soup, and a balloon, and deliver it to her door that afternoon. Total cost? About $10. Weird, I know, but seriously, how awesome do you think SHE felt about it? What happened after that, and over the next 2 years was nothing shy of amazing. She has, without failure, come in EVERY FRIDAY with a plate of fresh, homemade cookies for us to leave out in our lobby for our other customers to share. Every week, for two years and counting! He cookies initially sat next to a well-articulated, printed letter she wrote, expressing her gratitude for “these weird mechanics who always seem to be more interested in the people who come in than the money they are hoping to make.” As it turns out, she had a rotten experience with her last mechanic, and as we’ve all heard the story, vowed she’d never return there. Apparently they just didn’t seem to care about her…they only wanted her money, and over time, it became more and more evident to her & her family. Zig Ziglar (paraphrased) said that you can have everything you’ve ever wanted in life if you’ll just help enough other people get what THEY want. He’s right. We focus on serving the people that come in, not the “almighty dollar”. Focus on the needs of people, and the money will ALWAYS follow, I promise. Focus on the dollars, and you may make a few…but you’re falling short of your potential. By the way, the customer described herein is married, has 3 college aged kids, and an elderly parent living with her. 6 cars. Six. In the last 2 years, we’ve collected almost $12,000 dollars from them for services provided, including 2 engine jobs. And she couldn’t care any less about the coupon in the paper at my competitor offering $10 off an oil change. Just one man’s story.

I would set your labor rate at 3.5x the highest paid tech. So as an example Joe tech makes $20/hr, you should charge $70. I've been using this strategy and it has worked out well. If you are just starting out anticipate what the techs pay will be in 24-36 months and use that figure. You don't want to keep changing your posted labor rate. Parts gross profit margin (ignoring labor) needs to be close to 50% on average. Your chart above is great. Remember profit margin and markup are different. To achieve 50% GPM you would markup your part 100% or cost x 2. I use the labor multiplier because it simplifies things, a tech that earns $20/hr probably costs $30/hr when you figure in all the expenses of not only insurance and taxes but soap, gloves, shop supplies, mistakes that cost you money. Its also important to charge for his/her time. The book might call for 1 hour to do a hub bearing, if he's hammering on it for 2 hours charge 2 hours. It seems simple but I hear owners crying all the time they can't make any money. In the above example say your a nice guy, you charge 1 hour for a bearing and 50% on the part. Its your good customer so you throw him a 10% discount and use a cheap bearing. The part cost you $100, you charge $270 for the job. With the discount you got paid $243. Customer is very pleased. Minus $60 tech cost. Minus $100 for the part. Your shop made $83 on the job, assuming it took 2 hours that's basically an effective rate of $41/hr to pay overhead. If it costs $40/hr to keep the open sign on you made zero for yourself. The bearing fails under warranty 10 months later, customer is shaken up and is angry he paid over $200 and has the same problems. The labor time your not getting back and you also lose 2 additional hours to work on a new job so now it ended up costing you money to do that job. Nice guy 10 months ago is now the bad guy. Let's revisit that same job. You insist on a OEM bearing or equivalent. $200 cost for the part, 2 hours labor. Now the job is $540. You need to present to the customer some valid reasons to justify charging this amount. It still takes the tech 2 hours. You still kept the open sign lit for 2 hours and paid your counter man. You made $280 or $100/hr money you actually keep*. The chance of failure under warranty is greatly reduced. The customer has long forgotten what he paid to get his car fixed because its still fixed. You are the nice guy now, really. * after all expenses you might cut this number in half or worse. Its important to have good percentages, but real money is what pays real bills and earns you a living. Every job needs to be scrutinized to maximize the real dollars earned, don't discount yourself out of business.

Referrals... I have done 0 advertising in the last 7 months. I had to work last Saturday and Sunday to catch up. My other mechanic got 7 hours of overtime last week. We work late just about every single night. We just ordered another lift and oil drain for the shop and I have ads on craigslist for another mechanic. All of this is due to customers who walk out my door with 7-10 of my business cards in their hand. They call us up and say 'Hey, while y'all have my car in the shop, will you put some more of your cards in the cup holder?'

I use Mitchell also. I dont find myself lowering, more often raising the price. If I find my matrix is far below recommended list I will raise the price. It is all about profit per ro/ hour/ day/ week. I used to find myself lowering prices because i thought it was to high or was afraid the customer would balk at the job. Then a wise old shop owner pointed something out to me. If the customer cant afford a $200 repair odds are they cant afford the $175 either. We have to be profitable or we wont be here next month. Just my $2.98 (2 cents with inflation and health care tax)

This might not be popular.... No masks required at our shop, nor are we wearing masks. We see about 40% of our customers coming in with masks and very few (1 per week maybe) ask for us to wear gloves. And many of those with masks will take them off or have them on incorrectly or take them off to talk, but wear them when not talking. Most wait in the waiting room, but we have a handful that are waiting outside. Give it a few more weeks and this will go away as the Texas sun pops out. We do have hand sanitizer on the counter and keep our waiting room clean, even before this virus. We wipe down frequently used surfaces, but, IMO, this is largely a feel-good farce. We can't hide from a virus unless we behave like an operating room and are completely fastidious, wiping everything and changing gloves and masks after everything we touch. (My repair business is mostly drop-off. The waiting room is generally filled with waiters for Quick Lube Services). I've changed my marketing to call out our clean facility. We generally get compliments on cleanliness. Many are changing their marketing and some are opting for a higher-level of cleanliness such as seat covers, surface wipe downs, etc. I'm not seeing much of a call for this. Dealers were advertising this heavy on TV, yet they laid off almost all service staff. It didn't seem to bring the nervous folks forward. I know some shops that are selling a $50 sanitization service. We do our best to respect the wishes and needs of those that grace our doors. When people call in that sound worried, I generally recommend that they put the service off until later. In reality, I would not want to disappoint someone that truly needs or expects a higher level of safety than we can provide. I have noticed that those whom are more concerned will sanitize their cars themselves. They have wipes in the car and will wipe it down to be sure that it was done correctly. In truth, this is likely the best model for true personal safety. We assume that everyone wants social distancing and try to respect their space. I shake hands with those that are comfortable and this is more than you would think. To me, it seems that there 3 types of people: 1) Live Free or Die, 2) Cautious and 3) Scared. Personally, I won't go in a place the makes me wear a mask. (Ask me why I still need a haircut). Ever since the restaurants have reopened for dining in, we've started patronizing them. No longer patronizing take-out only. I fall squarely in the Live Free or Die camp. Luckily, I'm under no local rules that mandate social distancing or other behavior.

My Thoughts on the Coronavirus and Business In my 40 years in business, I have lived through many economic downturns. From the stock market crash of the late 1980’s, the housing bust of 1990’s, the tragic event of 911 and the great recession of 2008. This is different. The fears and the realities of the coronavirus has affected us all. And some areas of the country have been hit harder than others. In all other situations, I fought like hell to make a difference and beat the circumstances. Again, this is different. I am not an alarmist, not a defeatist and I do not get sucked into the sensationalism of the press. Just today, I heard a sports announcer on a talk radio show advise her listeners to stay at home, don’t go to work, don’t go to the movies, don’t go out of the house and isolate yourself from other people. Is this rational? I can’t do that. I am an automotive shop owner. What I do matters to my family and the community. I…WE….need to be there to ensure that the doctors, nurses, police, public officials and everyone else has their transportation ready to perform. Stay home? Us? Is that an option? But again…this is different. This afternoon, I was getting ready to go to Church; 4:00pm Mass, when my wife got an alert that Church as been canceled. Wait; let me say this again real slow…Church… has…. been…canceled. Fear has a way of eating at the fabric of our rational being. I fully understand the reality of what is happening. This virus will take people’s lives. But, do we run away in the face of a threat? Is this who we are? What do we do? Close our businesses for a few weeks? A month or two? How many of us can afford that? We all know the answer to that question. As automotive shop owners, technicians, service advisors and all the other valuable employees of this great profession, we need to take the proper precautions. Do all you can to protect yourself and your family. If you decide to continue to operate your shop during this challenging time, have a meeting with all your employees. Take the proper steps to protect yourself, your employees and your customers. Business may get ugly for some. My company has taken a 40% drop in business the past three weeks, directly contributed to the coronavirus outbreak. I write this to tell you how I feel; not to decide for anyone what to do. I will not force my employees to do anything they feel would put themselves or their families in harm’s way. For me, I intend to fight. I will take care of myself, take care of my family. But there are too many people depending on what I do, and way too may years behind me to hunker down and wait this out. Stay safe, stay healthy. Take this situation serious. But please don’t give up. We will prevail and we will get through this together. We are the hardest working, most resilient, toughest people on the planet. Let’s show the world and this virus who we are!

Isn't it fantastic when someone who knows little to nothing about our industry decides that shops are "cheating" our customers? And these software guys should be the ones who decide what a fair price is? I know for a fact that many auto repair shops undervalue their work and the owners barely scrape by. Are these companies who want to decide what I'm going to charge going to use starving shop owners as their data point for the "correct" price? I'm going to keep running a good business that's profitable enough to stick around to honor our warranty, and I'll let people like Vladimir run other shops out of business.

Guts and brains is what it takes for us to succeed. A lot of us owners lack the guts to charge what we need to charge to really succeed.

Slowly getting back at it. Very sore and low energy... but getting better every day. Thanx for all your caring thoughts. U guys are the best. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

One thing I often repeat over and over again is this; "Back in the 1980's, there were three things that made repair shops successful; General Motors, Ford and Chrysler." Those cars broke down a lot, and there was an endless supply of cars that required a lot of profitable work. Well, those days are gone. Cars today are build better, last longer (thankfully), and have ever-increasing service intervals. Consumers are also conditioned to think that their cars don't need maintenance. It wasn't that long ago when your customers were coming to you 4 to 5 times a year for service. Now, you are lucky to see those customer twice a year for their routine LOF service. The point here? You must take a proactive approach and promote preventive maintenance. You must inform your customers of their next service and any other future service recommendation or repair. You must do all you can to get your customer to return to you. Which means providing the absolute best customer service with quality repairs. Even the term "repair shop" needs to redefined. Be proactive and you'll be successful!

The debate to add a supply charge or not also has to take into account your local and state laws. But, regardless of that, every shop needs to account for those supplies and other expenses that too often go under the radar, and adds up over time. Every shop owner needs to know those costs, and add it to their overall breakeven number. Also, any small items, hardware, etc. must be paid for by the customer.

I'm ready to see more positive posts on this forum, so I'm starting with one tonight! On Wednesday, a lady called and said she had a blowout and wanted her car towed in. Once the 2006 Buick Lucerne got to the shop we found that it needed a new tire. We had sold a set of 4 tires to her in July 2016 with road hazard warranty. So she's getting a free tire now on the house. Along with the tire purchase in July we also performed $1400 in repairs and service. So on Wednesday my technician jacked it up on the floor and installed the new tire. Then he told me he was putting the car on his lift to do an inspection. The car had been well maintained, but while doing his inspection he found that it needed repairs. It had a timing cover coolant leak, oil pan leak, rt. rear caliper leak, cracked serpentine belt, needed an oil service, and a couple of other things. I called her and told her that the tire needed replacing. She asked if it was warrantied, and I replied that I had good news....she had purchased warranty coverage and I was replacing it free. She loved that. Then I told her that we performed a safety inspection and told her of our findings. I didn't wait for her to ask "HOW MUCH?" I immediately told her that I could get started on the work the same day and it would be $2150. She then asked if I had something she could drive, and I told her I would provide her with a loaner car and could have her car ready by Friday. She asked if I could put the work on a credit card, so I said "SURE!!" Just come on by and pick up my Altima to drive while your Buick is in the shop. She got a ride and came by about thirty minutes later. Today she picked up her Buick and handed me her credit card. She was one happy lady, thanked me for finding what her car needed, and left smiling. Ladies and Gentlemen, I call that a VICTORY in MY LIFE!!! We need these victories daily in our businesses. Do you know any shops around your town that would have replaced her tire, done no inspection, eaten the cost of the tire, and would have been in a bitchy mood after eating it?? So remember, Be an Optimist, Be Positive, Be Excited, Service Cars Properly, Make Money, and Achieve a Victory in Your Life!! Thank you for listening, Hi-Gear

We have a regional chain store that often offer $99 brakes. We often place our sidewalk sign out and it reads... We Fix $99 Brake Jobs!

I figured I would share this and I don't believe it is covered enough in the shop owners circles and thats about leadership qualities and what it takes to lead. In my shop I am trying to change the culture where all of my guys buy in. I preach team work and education. We invest a lot into our people and I am sure you guys do as well. Recently one of my Service Advisers just graduated Elite's Master Course which is a 6 month intensive service adviser / writer's course. The transformation I have seen from my guy is nothing short of amazing. It has been a group effort from management down to the technician in increasing our sales, adjusting our work flow policies and implementing all the crazy ideas I have. In passing his final exam I promised my service adviser I would take him out to an expensive steak dinner. After thinking long and hard about it I decided I was not doing the right thing. The other employees may see this as favoritism and as a "reward" which is not the intention of passing his course. Instead I made a decision to invite my whole staff to a dinner on us. In the invitation I took the time to acknowledge everyone for the good work they have been doing and that the reason why I wanted to invite everyone was not as a reward but as a celebration. We are a team and our successes and failures are shared as a group. I emphasis that everything they achieve in their professional and personal lives that make a positive impact are important to me and important to our company. Does it cost us money to invest in our team? Absolutely, this dinner alone is going to around $1000. Will it pay dividends in the future, for sure. It also feels really good to do for others. I believe acknowledgement, appreciation and team building is sorely lacking in our industry. One of my goals is to make our company the best place to work in the industry. Take care of your employees and your employees will take care of your customers. I am grateful for the amazing people I work with and I hope its an attitude that everyone strives to share.

Ok, I am back. Like I was saying, Do not expect anyone to help your vision if they don't understand it, or if you don't communicate it. Set realistic expectations, there are only 24 hours in a day, don't overextend yourself or your resources beyond their capabilities. Comprehend that there are bad people out there, bad as in malicious, predatory, evil, don't put up with them, avoid them if you can. There are also toxic people, just like you would not let a thief into your home, do not let toxic people's ideas and attitures pollute your mind, or steal your dreams and ambitions. Do not spend time on idle thoughts, grudges, or ill desires, they will harm you. Commit to your cause, and do not look back. You are a leader, you must lead, those that will follow you - need you to lead. Know that knowledge is potential, it needs action, to make things happen. On the other hand, action without knowledge is dangerous action. In sum, choose to be successful, think successful, act successful. Your attitude is the engine that powers the outcome of your actions, knowlege is the potential, action is the consequence of your thoughs. I hope these words help to alleviate your burn-out. -Harry

The biggest business problem is that on the small business level of automotive repair and the auto body industry there are too many criminal enterprises and transactions. They can be recognized easily by "pay me cash and I'll save you the tax." Also by paying employees off the books. Quoting dealer parts and selling cheap aftermarket parts instead. Selling not needed or untimely repairs, etc. Claiming to have installed parts but didn't, etc. Misdiagnosis seems to be big in the automotive repair area too. So on and so forth. The reason this industry is so suppressed financially and distrusted is because there are too many unethical shops, unethical employees and unethical transactions creating unethical customers. I'm willing to bet that if we went to 10 shops in an area, 7 out of 10 would have these unethical practices if not more. How do you build trust or get a customer or employee to trust you when your blatantly waving a pirate flag stating I'm willing to break the laws of the land and I'm doing it so you can save the tax? I'm willing to get arrested, go to jail, pay tremendous penalties, and this sacrifice is all for you the customer. It would take a jackass on both sides of this transaction to believe this fairytale to be the case. Selfishness has created criminality. If the shop owner is afraid he/she can't eat his piece of bread because he has to pay more taxes when he shows more money, or pay employees more money off the books to save money, then that shop owner is losing his game as shop owner and trying to win by cheating instead. So let's stop lying to ourselves about what has been created in our industry. To many people believe the automotive repair industry is a racket. So to reiterate, the biggest business challenge is playing in a slanted game with an unfair playing field. Picture this, you are playing a game of monopoly with family and friends. You think you're good or should be good. You realize though no matter how good you are or should be doing, you are losing. The guy next to you has more money and/or properties and you wonder how. You catch a glimpse at the right moment and you see his slight of hand towards the cash box. You say, "This person is a thief". "This game is a joke." And that is what your customer says and thinks as well when you give them a glimpse of your criminality. From that point on he/she thinks that everyone in this game is a thief or has the potential of being a thief and the whole game is distrusted and goes to hell. The customer you created, who is now criminal also for partaking in these unscrupulous activities of save the tax goes shop to shop looking to save the tax, get the deal, or take advantage of a losing and unsuspecting shop owner. So the lack of consistency and standardization in the automotive industry is a problem I see. Automotive repair shops should play by a consistent, predictable, and scrupulous set of rules that customers can trust. Cheaters don't have that, they have fear based systems and pricing. Through that fear they resort to unscrupulous activities. Through unscrupulous activities they create distrust in an area, activity or industry. That area, activity or industry then gets suppressed financially or oppressed by the government. It then appears to become less lucrative. But that is only the case for those who don't know how to play the game right. In order to win in life you need to have self-confidence and self-respect. When you have self-respect and self-confidence you have power. People believe in you and people trust you to do the right thing and are willing to pay you to do the right thing. We get paid very well and handsomely at my shop. We attract many high end clients. I have never marketed to any of these people. They have been referred by other high caliber individuals. I am proud of this. I bought my first shop and cleaned up the previous owners BS and criminality, business doubled the first year and then doubled the second year from the first years numbers. I did that through ethical practices. I bought the next shop over and did the same thing. Both of these places were dumps from the get go. I am buying another shop a few blocks away that has been sold twice in the last few years. How am I doing it? Ethical practices. Self-confidence. Self-respect. Ethical environment - people, places, things. So my solution is: Have some self-respect and do the right things. Take survival actions. You will feel strong. Have the self-confidence to believe in yourself. That you can make it in an honest manner and do it and keep on keeping on with honesty and integrity. Create an ethical environment that you can trust in and people around you can trust in. This is how you make it in life and in business. Try it for a week, the worst thing that can happen is you feel better about yourself and like a more able human being.

Alas, Joe - what a doozy of a post to throw out on a Friday! I couldn't agree more about not giving prices over the phone. The only pricing my staff is allowed to give over the phone is that which is represented by any of our advertised, "most cars" pricing, such as oil changes, fluid exchange services,basic A/C service, etc. As a matter of fact, I've proven time and again that if a price-shopper calls us on the phone asking for a price for repair service, giving them the price over the phone is a near-guarantee that we won't win the job, and earn their business. On the other hand, handling price shoppers according to our process DOES, in fact, increase our car count, new customer count, and increases our sales exponentially over caving and thinking we're somehow doing them a service by yielding to their ridiculous request. Again...a dentist doesn't quote prices. A doctor doesn't quote prices, (and they even make you pay for the, ahem, testing...EVEN if you buy the medicine they later prescribe), nor does any other professional person...unless its a packaged, "Most Cases" type service. The first thing we need to do is make sure that the person we're talking to falls into the category of "Price-Shopper". This is NOT just anyone that happens to be asking for a price. The basic premise I fall back on when training an advisor is that they need to educate our customers just enough to give them the ability to make an informed decision about the nature of the recommended services their vehicle needs. You can't do that over the phone. One of the simpleset, most powerful ways we accomplish this is by injecting the following into the conversation: "Mr. Smith, I understand why you're calling, and believe me...no one knows better how costly some repairs can be than we do, but I can tell you what the single most expensive part is that you'll EVER put on your car, and I'll always be correct. Since he apparently wants to talk about prices, I inform him that the most expensive part you'll ever put on your car is the part that you absolutely don't NEED. With that in mind, I explain to him that the process we have in place is intended to protect him from ever having work done that doesn't target his primary concern. (As a side note, by the way, this is a BEAUTIFUL place to tell your garden-variety price shopper all about Repairpal.) I like the previous comment regarding our value proposition. (Ok, those are MY words) Are you the low-price leader in your marketplace? If you are, then throw prices at everyone that calls. Most of us are not. I take the time to practice selling them on why they should come to us, and let us "throw our hat into the ring" with all the rest of our competitors who apparently have no problem giving a price on the phone. There's ALWAYS an angle, and no matter what they say, our advisors are trained to give the answer that results in one thing, and one thing only: GET THE CAR TO THE SHOP. Price shoppers who have been rightfully convinced that it is truy in their best interest to allow us the privilege of offering a free "quick-peek" inspection (If you're inclined to offer that), have come in with sometimes as many as 7 or 8 other estimates jotted down on a piece of paper, only to gleefully give us permission to service their car, sometimes at a final price that was 10 or 20% more than their best "phone estimate" Why? Because we're able to show them how much we truly care about getting the job done, getting it done right, not wasting their time, and the 50 other reasons that all build VALUE into the proposition of allowing us to work with them in achieving their vehicle repair/maintenance endgame scenario. Heck...it's become standard practice to tell people that in the end, if they take us up on our offer to give them a free inspection & the estimate of their asking, that if they like what we have to say, then GREAT. If not, we always tell them they are authorized to ball up the estimate, and throw it back at us, and we can all still be friends. We are in the business of meeting people and making friends...and you can't do that as effectively on the phone, only. The hardcore, meanie-head, sometimes crazy sounding automatons that just keep repeating, "But I need a price. I need a price." Those guys? They represent a VERY small minority of the market, (I've read them to be as low as only 11% of the universe of prospects) and you'd be smarter to LET them be mad at you and go elsewhere so they can give your competitors a hard time, cut corners, and beat them up on every last little thing, wasting their time, while YOU focus on the customers that are more interested in keeping their cars maintained, and those who appreciate a professional, capable, honest mechanic. What's the very best thing that can happen? They finally come in because you caved, and told them it will be $125? If so, you better not try to charge them for a gasket that is also necessary, or worse yet, tell them their widget wasn't the problem all along...either way, those kinds of people will always want to make someone ELSE responsbile for the troubles they have on their vehicle, and conveniently forget that it was all in response to the campaign they launched to squeeze the last nickel out of someone over the phone. Nah. I'm ok if they go somewhere else. I just make sure to plant the seed (politely) that if it doesn't happen to work out for them wherever they end up ,that I'll be happy to give them that inspection on their first visit, andmke absolutely certain we'll work as hard as we have to in making sure we meet or exceed their expectations. Just one man's blissful avoidance of people who'd rather argue over $5 than have the doctor give them a real assessment.

What a wonderful discussion thread! I've had flat rate technicians, and hourly, and I agree with the consensus that there really is no "one size fits all". I have, however, come up with a promising program that I think encourages the positive aspects of both types of plans, and avoids many of the negative aspects. The bulk of out technical staff is paid hourly, but as alfredauto stated, my guys don't get sent home early, and in the rarest of occasions when there's truly nothing to do, I'm happy to let one or more of them take off, and I'll pay them for the day regardless. (The guys DO love to fish on occasion, and it feels like playing hooky when they dont have to run straight home for dinner, lol) So I decided that what flat rate guys like the most is that the harder they work, the more they bill, the more they make. What the hourly guys like the most is what they feel is a "steady" paycheck, and earnings they can count on. What I like the most is when I can run the appropriate reports, and see that I can generously pay my staff according to their productivity, and of course, what my customers love the most is that we have very little turnover, they get to know the same faces, & expertise thats cared for their cars on a regular basis for years. So how to make everyone happy? (Or so it seems?) I pay my technical staff hourly, at an agreed aupon rate, with the promise of 40 hours each week. In addition to the hourly rate, they earn a billable time bonus weekly, based on the hours they turn. Basically, its the best of all worlds. They have a living wage they can accept, and since they're hourly, no one is offended if I ask them to pick up a broom when it's their turn, or shuttle a customer to work. On the other hand, since their hourly rate doesn't get them "the whole way" toward being excited about their earnings, I make the top 20% or so of my payroll costs associated with who's billing out the time. The more you turn, the more you earn. One of the benefits to this approach is that I can scale/negotiate the hourly rate based on experience or skill level, and give hourly rates when it's appropriate to do so. Furthermore, I can give generous billable time bonuses on top of their hourly pay that expresses the sense of urgency in being efficient & meeting deadlines for our customers. The affectionate term for this at our shop is, "He who bills...eats." So an experienced technician with multiple ASE certifications may earn $16-$19 per hour in a promised 40 hour work week, but also know that he or she will earn $6-$8 for every billed hour on their sheets for the first 25 hours in a week, and $10 - $12 for every billed hour after that. At the bottom of my example is a guy making $16 per hour, or $640 per week hourly, plus $6 for each of the first 25 hours, and $10 for each of the rest that they bill out. Someone working a 40 hour work week who bills 45 hours in this example would earn a total of $990 in gross wages for the week. From my perspective, it's the same as having paid $25 per hour for the 40 hour week, but I didn't have to do that unless he/she billed 45 hours. When WE make money, my staff makes money. The risk I take is when my staff has little/nothing to wrench. And hey, when things slow down, as they sometimes do, everyone is on the same team, and pitches in, helping whereever they're needed. I love the team atmosphere it produces. Just one man's opinion.

Let’s face it, as business owners we run a marathon all year long. Our day as no start, no middle and sometimes, no end. We do what we have to do. It’s our life, our job, and to a degree, it defines who we are. But, in spite of all that, we need to take a breather from time to time. So set aside time this holiday season and put down the tools, put away the laptop and focus on the things that really matter. Take this time of the year and spend it with the family, with friends and set aside time for you too. Do something different. It will do you a world of good. Trust me; the business is not going anywhere. The truth is the time you take away from the business will recharge your batteries. You’ll be in better shape to move forward. Make the best of this holiday season!

DON'T DO IT! They are SCAMMERS! http://autorepairpayment.com/ Reasons: They have yet to provide a signed copy of our Merchant Agreement. Sales Rep was In, Out, GONE! Our first bad taste was when they falsified our PCI Compliance/Certificate using a false email address "for our convenience". We knowe this only because we went to do our PCI Compliance as Required and found it had already been done. They tried to tell us we did it. I asked for the email address. It was BOGUS, just like the certificate they then emailed to us. They CLAIM there are NO Annual Fees, NO Monthly PCI Compliance Fees, and Regulatory Compliance Fees are WAIVED, yet they almost immediately charged us $129 for "Past Year PCI Compliance" when we were not a customer in any past year. They Respectfully Refuse To Refund this fee. They offered a Welcome Gift of a $100 Home Depot Gift Card. Read the fine print on that. We hit $10k on 7/2. No card has been forthcoming. They CLAIM there are No Fees for Discover Card transactions for a Year. Lied on that one too. They CLAIM No Junk Fees. I don't know what Junk Fees are, but they charge fees for everything under the sun with no explanation at all. ALL Junk! They will FEE you to Death! Cumulative Average Cost per Transaction is currently at 3.79%, when you include ALL their Fees vs. Total Reported Sales. They charged us for the 1st 2 transactions they Required us to complete to activate the system and the Discover Card Free program. They charge $5 a month for a paper statement. Nothing is online, except their alleged "PCI Compliance Training and Certification". They charge a Batch Fee of $0.30 Daily for processing transactions. I can go on and on, but I think 10 reasons is a good start.

Absolutely not. I've had guys sheepishly ask in the past, but they are given the standard response, "If I'm paying my taxes, YOU are going to pay yours!"

First, let me say that I think EVs are here to stay, but just as a hammer isn't the only tool in your tool box, neither will EV's be alone. Adoption Barriers: Amongst the many single family homes here are some super sized apartment complexes... lots of them. Living in an apartment severely dampens the convenience of having a personal plug for your EV. You will have to hook up, charge and leave so that the next person can arrive for charging. If all spots are full, you must wait for one to free up. Most apartments do not have EV chargers and if they added one, it would need to be a profit center as apartments are experts at expense reduction. There are some apartments here with garages, so that helps. I think this inconvenience will continue to be an impediment to adoption. How many of us have been so late for a meeting that we can't spare the few minutes to pump gas into our tank? Imagine forgetting to charge and needing one now. Another factor is the vitrol that I hear about EV's from everyday customers. It's surprisingly loud. Then, you have your EX-Tesla drivers with not so great stories of their adventure. Contrast that with Prius drivers and those guys are generally happy and keep their cars quite a long while. IMO, I think the manufacturers with the most ICE engines remaining will mop up the majority of the new car sales. I think the CEOs are building for a perceived market vs an actual one. Hype always precedes adoption. But, hey, I'm not a visionary. Personally, I have no desire roasting in a spontaneous Lithium fire, so it's never in my future. I'd be open to other alternatives (fuel cell, propane, alkaline batteries, etc) if it made sense and was peppy. Profitability: I would say that the majority of the Tesla drivers that I see at our shop (for State Inspections) are cheapskates. They think that they've solved the maintenance and gas mileage conundrum. Add to that, a very small set of early adopters (not cheap folks). I also see their cheapness in their driving habits. They have a super-accelerator-machine, but pushing on the pedal uses their precious battery, so I zoom past all but 1-in-a-1000. These guys aren't using their brakes much. I see more tire wear from alignment issues than driving wear. (For reasons noted here are currently refusing Tesla alignments... we've only done 1). Most of the Teslas are low mileage vehicles. The highest I've seen is 70.3K miles on a used 2016 Tesla S. 93% < 40K miles in all. I bring this up, because I think it foretells the types of customers that you are likely attracting.

I am not talking about walking and working in the bays or on the service counter. I am referring to walking through the back room, the inventory shelves, the closet areas and all the nooks and crannies. The other day, I did my monthly walk through and looked behind the tire balancer to find box after box of overstocked wheel weights. Hidden out of sight, but not hidden on my statement. I quickly gathered the overstock and called the vendor. My process is that all stock inventory items must be authorized by the manager. The manager has his stocking level sheets and will make sure we do not overstock any item. When I asked the vendor how this stock got past the manager, his reply was, “The manager was not there that day.” So, I responded, “And no longer are you.” The point is that we need to keep track of inventory and have systems in place to check all costs that can go under the radar. I like to trust my vendors, but as President Reagan once said, “Trust, but verify.”

Don't know if anyone has heard yet, but Gonzo's wife posted that he is out of surgery and in the icu.. The surgery was a little more involved than first thought but the outcome was outstanding.. He still has a breathing tube in but apparently is Good old Gonzo interacting and joking the best he can with his hands LOL.. So now it is just all best wishes for a speedy recovery ! He will be in the icu for two days then in the heart hospital for another 3-4 days

My shop is similar to yours. Although this Spring we figured out how to jam a 4th lift in a 1500 foot space with 3 doors. It makes a huge difference when we are packed. Do it if you can. As far as charging for diagnostics. Absolutely. We sell time in this industry so you have to. Just don't call it a diagnostic. I have a bunch of canned "Inspections" that I charge a fixed amount for. For example, a fan inspection is $100. A pressure test is $100. An alternator test is $50. I try to separate them from time as much as possible. It's just a flat fee for the test. It works great. For tough runnability or electrical I have a flat $100 charge and then we call the customer and to go time based billing on the customer's authorization. For scheduling, here's what we do: 2 techs - 1 General Tech, 1 Lube Tech. We use Mitchell1 so the scheduler has a column for each tech. We schedule oil changes in 1 hour slots so we can do up to 9 oil changes per day. Sometimes we do! It doesn't take 1 hour but then we have time for rotations, show and tell with the customer, batteries, belts, wipers etc... and we can get it done for a waiting customer before the next oil change starts. Then we have the Lube Tech service other minor work (brakes, alternators, belts, tires etc...) between oil changes so he basically can have 2 jobs going on simultaneously all day. Master tech has 2 bays so he can swing back and forth between 2 jobs if he's waiting for parts or authorization. (side note, we are growing so we see patches of full capacity but it isn't like this all the time...yet) So, when this is working with an average tech and a lazy lube tech we've averaged 7.8 cars per day for stretches of 60 days or more. Sometimes it doesn't even feel busy. Now I have a much faster master tech so as we spool up this Summer I expect this to work even better. In fact, at 7-8 cars per day my service writer becomes the bottle neck. (we've actually serviced 18 cars in a day using this method...not recommended, but it worked on the shop side, just not the office). My service writer can't talk to customers fast enough or order parts fast enough to keep up. So we end up short circuiting the oil change inspection process because he can't write and sell all the work we find while he's answering phones and ordering parts for the bigger jobs. I just wanted to add that 6 cars/day is relative to how many hours per car you are selling. We haven't been great in that respect so if you are 2.5-3 hrs per car you might be at max with 6-7 cars/day. In that case you might need a bigger space before you pursue a full blown oil change marketing program. As for me if done right I seems I could service up to 12 vehicles per day without short circuiting my sales process. That being said, we are trying to improve our sales process right now so this might all change when we succeed. In that case we will add staff or reduce car count to make it happen. I'll cross that bridge when we get to it though. Hope that helps.

If our community here at AutoShopOwner has helped you in your business or in another way, please share with a post in this topic. There is nothing better than word of mouth and testimonials, some of which I'd like to post on our main page (coming soon). 🙂

I have 7 tow trucks available. Brian has 4, Jimmy has 2, and Jerry has 1. 3 telephone #'s....7 trucks. Zero expense until I call one of them, but then it's Zero expense, also, because the customer pays for the tow and I mark it up and make money. Forget about buying a tow truck and concentrate on your ARO, GP %, profitability, customer retention and acquisition, and putting lots of money in the bank. Hi-Gear

Very polite and elegant way of putting it. I call em leeches. Of course, they all have an excuse why life, the man, or whoever, keeps holding them down. When both parties attacked Trump, I knew he was the right guy.

You know, if I were younger, I would whole heartily agree with you. But now that I am older, and as a businessman, I am aware that our whole economic system is political. That's why they used to called the subject "political economy". See Adam Smith "Wealth of Nations." "Political" has not been left out of the subject theme by accident but by purposeful design to avoid addressing the subject by its true nature. The Political class do not want the majority of small business people getting involved into politics because it would muddle the interest of the large multinational patrons. So, by all means let's talk about politics in the context as to how it affects our economic well being, how regulation and tax policy affects all of us and who we can support to help us butter our own bread.

We do code reads for free. Diagnosis costs $90. "What's the code?" "P0430" "what's it need?" "Diagnosis".

This is my favorite!

Don't sell junk. I sell about 60 - 100 cars a year, it helps pay the bills. If anyone tells you selling cars isn't a full time job they are dreaming. I put my service customers first, you really have to be careful because the used cars can suck up all your time. I recommend coming up with a plan of attack, and stick to it. If you sell junk you will end up fixing junk for junk clients. I try to mix it up, I have some low end cars and keep a couple higher priced models. The $2500-$8000 price range works for me. Less than $2500 doesn't leave room for repairs, over $8000 and its too close to the big dealers with their financing bs I can't compete with. You need to know your market, in my area pickup trucks and 6-7 passenger SUV's sell instantly. Minivans are hit and miss. I happen to collect w210 Mercedes so I always have a couple for sale, but they are a niche car. If I inadvertently buy junk I wholesale it. win lose or draw it disappears asap. Pros: you can make some real money and you always have extra cars to drive. Auctions are fun. It keeps the mechanics busy. A full lot generates more business. Instant cash infusion when one sells. Cons: time consuming, you can lose $$$$ easily, you can ruin your reputation FAST If you sell junk. Paperwork can be tedious. Full lot means nowhere to park. Many new friends will want to borrow your dealer plates. Less profit than expected. Last thing, once you get your dealer license the state will make sure your paperwork is in order. Most used car dealers are assumed to be liars, cheats, and scum bags and the state knows it. Do it right. Don't sell junk. If you have questions feel free to ask.

From my experience, there are very few DIY'rs that can really do what we do. You cannot be a weekend warrior and expect to be at the same level that someone who does it everyday, commits to on-going training and is surrounded by a team of other techs, with the right tools and information. BUT, the one phrase that I cannot stand from a DIY'rr is when they say, "I do all my own work". That's when I have a little fun. I reply with, "Oh, really. What type of alignment machine do you have in your garage, and what brand tire changer to do have, and what make tire balancer do you own". They usually mumble a few words and leave.

I like to think of myself as a mechanic and technician. If my power steering pump leaks I find the leak and replace the pump (technician) or I take it out, replace the seal, bearing, and emery the shaft (mechanic). Mechanics fix broken mechanical things. There aren't many mechanics left in the world today, they all went broke. All that's left are the techs that learned its faster and easier to change parts that they know are the problem. Not to be confused with shotgunner who sprays parts under the hood and hopes one hits. :-)