mspecperformance

Out of curiosity...do you respond to Yelp reviews?

Yes we do. We currently have 55 reviews and an overall 5 star rating. We don't respond to all reviews but certainly respond to the negative ones (I think we only have 2 total).

Shoot me a PM or you can e-mail me your biz plan at [email protected] I am more than happy to look it over but also take my advise or any comments I have with a grain of salt!

Lesson learned. You have to be prepared for customers who do this. They don't have a concept on how business works. Just simply tell them politely that you don't disclose invoices to clients. If they ask why not, you tell them that is not something any business would disclose.

I am so glad I don't talk to any customers anymore LOL.

The lack of response to this seems to reflect the priority shops are putting in this.

 

We're looking for an a resource that will make it better than Mitchell. Tires plus and valvoline have pop ups on they're software. ..

 

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Instead of relying on software or technology, I have begun training my sales staff to go through a process in checking every vehicle for needed maintenance based on mileage, history, and condition of the system from our inspection process. We have seen an uptick in maintenance and I believe we will be hitting it hard for 2016.

What are you trying to accomplish? Are you looking for someone to sort through and match

the invoices with the billing from the vendor?

 

Or are you looking for someone to produce a P&L every month? Or something else entirely?

If you have an accountant that does your year-end work, he or she will usually have a system

they prefer be used, in order for them to get an accurate picture of what happened each month,

in your business.

 

For example, do they prefer you use QuickBooks? Or some other system of recording the

day to day information?

 

I've seen book keepers that had their own system that wasn't really accurate. Therefore, even

though the book keeper didn't cost much in salary... it cost tons of hourly fees on the accountant's

end, in order to clean up the "mistakes" that were made by that person, in QuickBooks.

My question is under the assumption data and numbers will be recorded accurately and in congruence with your accountants method.

Really I was just wondering what you guys are paying out there.

For those of you guys whom use a outside book keeper that is not you, your wife, your mom etc what do you pay? How often do they do your books? What qualifications did you look for? Did you set up how you want everything accounted or did you rely on them to choose their methods.

you are not getting a quality website for $140 a month. Thats my 2c

As always and in anything we sell if we are going to position ourselves by value instead of price then we have to sell exactly that, our value. We have to sell benefits and what makes us different than a chain store or the other shops that are positioning themselves on a price basis. Once you are effectively doing this you will find your job becoming much easier. If you are constantly getting the price shopping customer your demographic or marketing could be completely off.

A more direct answer to your question is we do not play the commodity game with practically any of our services. Many shops I see do however. This would include set prices on shock/strut installs.

First I would ask, how are you billing out the jobs? Are you billing out the correct amount of time ? What labor guide are you using? Do you overlap your labor a lot?

I have no empathy for anyone who chooses to buy used tires. Not the customers we deal with and I happily send them down the river to deal with the used peddlers.

I haven't had happen to us yet but I can kind of understand where you are coming from. They have grown as a company and it is more likely to get intercepted by a receptionist than a higher up in the company and this might delay the help you need. Just my observation, I still use their product with great results.

How can I research this? Sounds excellent.

 

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It is hard to shift through the marketing info because a company will not tell you "Our machine takes 15 minutes to set up" or "Our machine is really not conducive for productivity." I made a $47k mistake because of bullshit marketing from these companies. This is the truth of the matter from the horse's mouth... Any camera system is going to under perform vs a targeting system. The 2 companies that sell productive targeting systems are Hunter and John Bean. Both companies also sell camera system on their low end. The design flaw is inherent in ANY camera system. Reason being is because the mounts have to be attached to each wheel and the camera has to then be attached. They also all have to be leveled before you can move on with your alignment. All those extra steps eat away at time. Stick to the higher end systems. If you want a system that will be fast and productive I would highly recommend the Hunter Hawk Eye Elite. Even though it is one of the most expensive systems on the market it will do the job whilst you will be wasting your time fiddling around with a lesser system. I can't comment on John Bean as I have never used one however they are similar technology. John Bean's machine does look slightly more cumbersome to use due to Hunter having a much better design with their targets. The difference in how fast a car can be set up on the aligner and broken down is still on a matter of 2-5 minutes more on a John Bean from what I can tell.

If you do some simple calculations let say it takes a Hunter system 5 minutes to attach and break down (It takes us 1-2 minutes I have timed it). A Camera system to set up and break down takes upwards of 15 minutes. Lets say 10 minutes for arguments sake. If you are trying to average 2 alignments a day, that is a 10 minute savings daily. On a week basis that would 50 minutes you are saving and so on and so forth.

Even another thing to think about is what if you have to rack the car and set up the aligner if the alignment is off or the customer complains about the alignment? There goes another 15 minutes of lost time.

Those definitely sound like red flags however something to keep in mind is what kind of environment and culture are you bringing this new technician into? Some people are self starters and highly self motivated. They can also keep that motivation up in the face of a bad environment. Most people are not and things can wear on them over time. These things might not even be your fault. I have been on both ends of the spectrum. I've had a technician that had a great work ethic and highly self motivated however after 2+ years he became the opposite. I also have a newer technician that has been with me for about 8 months now. He has had many many positions at various different shops. Some shops he was only employed for 2 weeks before deciding to leave. Since hiring him he has become one of my best technicians and at least up to this point has a high motivation level. The difference between the two scenarios for me was the first tech was brought into a unhealthy environment. At the time for lack of better words I didn't have my shit together. First impressions go both ways. Even though we had started making improvements, the damage was already done. My newer tech on the other had came into a shop environment and culture that was much more conducive to team work and ethics. I think that has made all the difference. I guess the point I am trying to make is as much as you are analyzing this tech you should also analyze your shop situation if you are providing all the necessary things a new tech would need to thrive.

CMillet86 AND Bockauto,

 

Thank you for the input. 1-2 alignments a day would make it worth it for me to go with the alignment lift over the stands in our current situation. If you don't mind sharing, what car count do you guys have? (If you don't want to share exact numbers as I did, feel free to give a % of total car count or something along those lines.)

 

Hunter rep is giving me some numbers of their expectations of what could be done. Obviously the sale is up to us. I'm interested in the "real world" numbers of what others are doing so that I can make an educated plan.

 

 

 

Also - Is anyone checking alignments on services or normal inspections for free?

 

I haven't done much with the quickcheck feature yet, working on that. I have low car counts currently, it's taken an uptick the last couple months. I don't currently have a car coming in each day.

Think of alignment checks the same as vehicle inspections. You perform a vehicle inspection on EVERY car that comes through your door to up sell services. You can't upsell services if your customer's (and you) don't know that they are needed! Alignment quick checks perform the same function. This will be the advantage or detriment of the alignment system you are running as well as the type of lift you have. Alignment quick checks need to be exactly that, QUICK. If you have a cumbersome system you will not be able to effectively perform a check on every car. You will also shy away from actually performing them since it will be a chore rather than a method for you to make money.

On my Bosch camera system it took me 15 minutes to set up and an additional 10 minutes to break down the heads. That also included racking up the car. That was entirely too much time to perform an alignment quick check. On my Hunter HawkEye Elite it takes me 2 minutes tops and we can perform quickchecks on the ground without having to have the car on the rack.

It all depends on how you want to sell alignments but quickchecks are a powerful tool and I highly recommend you utilize them in some fashion.

Depending on how you categorize your jobs and parts you should be able to extrapolate the information from your management software. I just revamped our categorization for the coming year to better illustrate our true maintenance sales (minus oil changes). Currently we are operating around 5-6% of our total gross which is extremely low. I am putting together goals and a big goal of ours is to increase maintenance. Right now I have a goal of 20% of our total gross for next year which comes to around $300k.

mspecperformance,

 

I really want to look at it from a numbers stand point but I keep feeling like it is more of a "guess" than anything else. We only sublet about 3 a month, it is time consuming, and when looking at the labor cost of 2 trips with 2 people we really don't make anything on them. Due to the fact it isn't profitable, we turn away another 3 a month on average. We typically only sell them when doing steering work or replacing tires on a vehicle that has obvious alignment issues. Since we are only selling them when absolutely necessary, I have no idea of how many to expect to be performing.

 

I do plan to schedule yearly alignments and I love the idea of the different priced services. We also just started doing digital inspections so finding the sales opportunities shouldn't be an issue. And to be completely honest, I personally feel that we are doing our clients a disservice by not selling more than we currently do.

 

Being there are no parts involved (typically) it seems to be less profitable than most repair/maintenance work. This is probably my biggest hesitation to an alignment lift over a 2 post lift. At the same time, we will be doing alignments and we will be doing as many as possible so I want to make them as efficient as possible. As with almost anything else, I guess I can't have it all!

 

 

Thanks again for the advice

I'm still new to the alignment game, just got the machine and stands operational within the last couple weeks. I make it a effort to make sure that the bay where everything is stays as open as it can so I can do alignments when needed. I'm not doing alot currently, but I've done about 1 a day since I've gotten everything operational.

My learning curve was harsh. We were using a bosch alignment machine at first which cost me 20k. Pure junk. Alignments took a loooooong time to complete, many times were incorrect due to a garbage machine and the lift was in an awkward location. This really stunted my growth in regards to effectively sell alignments. To many alignments profitable with a low car count you really have to have a perfect storm of a STRONG sales strategy and sales team, good equipment (we have a hunter hawkeye elite now), easy access, and good technicians performing alignments.

With a low car count you really have to push alignments hard. In my personal experience I could not see being profitable and turning out quality work without having all those things in place.

You should also look at it from a numbers stand point. If you are seeing approx 25 cars a week that is approx 100 cars a month give or take. How many alignments are you currently outsourcing? How much time is spent on sending the car out? What kind of profit are you seeing from it? how much do you charge the customer? What percentage of your work is suspension/steering related?

My method for selling alignments and undercarriage work differs from most. Since you specialize in only a few brands this might work for you as well. We also work with a lower car count than most. Our alignments start at 179.99. Since we work on German makes this is more understandable but the idea is you want to and can charge a premium. It boils down to how you are selling the service. If you can effectively build value in your alignment which is DIFFERENT than the guys down the road then your conversion percentage will increase. You will also recommend alignments and tire balancing if any undercarriage service is performed. Also it should be a focus on your vehicle inspections and test drives. All of them. You may also want to create a after sales system for "maintenance alignments". This is a great way to book a client's next appoint. Say for instance your regular alignment charge is $150. The client has come in and gotten some struts, control arms and alignment performed. During delivery you mention your maintenance alignment program. You explain your vehicle can come out of alignment over time due to various reasons such as poor roads, changing seasons, road debris etc. We recommend that we check your alignment yearly and make any adjustments necessary. Our regular alignment cost is $150 however for our maintenance alignment clients we only charge $79.99. Book them for that appointment even if they really dont even know their schedule. When you are 2 weeks out from that date, give them a call and see if they can still make that appointment or if you have to reschedule them.

These are ideas and advice. There are many ways you can play it but the goal is that you have some sort of sales system behind it. Alignment lifts and aligners are very expensive and you need to a return on your investment.

In my experience if you have equipment that is not easy to use then you most likely will shy away from using it. I never used stands however we did have our scissor alignment rack not in the best location. We hardly used our alignment machine because of the inconvenience. Once we rearranged our lifts then we started performing more alignments. Just some things to think about.

I think I'll be going.

This will be the first one they are organizing so there is no feedback to be had LOL

You bring up excellent points, and I agree. The key thing is to understand your business model. In your case, it would be financial suicide to bring in "Oil Change" waits. Also, for you the Oil Service is the way the way to go.

 

On the other hand, there are many successful general repair shops that have dedicated oil service bays. They use those bays to bring in additional cars for Oil changes in the hope that they can create new customers and up-sell work to the other production bays.

 

There also needs to be a balance. Too many oil change waits can kill a business. The mindset of a wait customer is get it in, get it out, and on to the next task of the day.

 

If we as an industry can only sell more Oil Services, we would all be in a better place.

 

Great post!

Thanks Joe!

Nailing down a system that works and implementing it consistently is what is needed. Trying to find a balance is tough. I really do hate turning people away as I start to think the value of their potential future business. I also have very little confidence in other shops around me so I do not think they are better served going somewhere else especially for a "quick oil change". With that being said it is crucial to have the proper presentation to potential oil service clients that will educate the value in better technicians, better oil and filters, and a complimentary inspection.

For the past 18 months I have noticed that the overwhelming advice for shop owners is to get the customer in ASAP. If they want an oil change NOW you accommodate them. I have been using this method for the past year and for the most part it has been a miss for me and I will explain...

In my shop we work on a high ARO and smaller car count. We are also mostly appointment based. This has worked well for us because we can spend quality time on an inspection and repairs to provide the best service. The thing we do best that has generated high dollars is our ability to properly inspect and sell the inspection list which many times can be thousands of dollars in additional work. What has been a problem for us is the waiter oil changes and the people that want NOW NOW NOW. Generally these are people who want nothing more than an oil change. They want to wait around for their oil change and have little time to spend if additional work is necessary. The probability of that customer leaving and coming back to get the estimate work done is rather low. The highest percentage we have for selling work is absolutely when customer drop off their vehicles and can authorize work from the comfort of their home or work. The NOW customer and the waiter oil change become more of a waste of time than an opportunity. Have we generated some good clients from the now customers? Yes. The percentage however is low compared to all the NOW and waiter customers we serve.

What I am working on now is explaining our value for every possible NOW customer and oil change. We explain to them we provide an oil SERVICE and don't perform oil changes. We explain and sell the value of our inspection, people, and culture. We do the best we can to convey why we are very different from any other shop and why they are making the right choice in bringing their vehicle to us. If after all this is explained and the customer is still insistent on NOW and waiting then we say NO and we are better off for it.

Our business model may be slightly different than yours but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Have you found trouble with selling to NOW and waiter customers?

If you are going to take the advice of industry coaches, you should start looking into hiring a quality full time tech (if you can afford it) and take yourself out of that position so you can work on the business. This may cause you to take the role of the front end person for a while but thats where you'll be able to make the most difference to the bottomline and grow the business. Eventually you can hire more techs and a service advisor and not have to write service anymore.

Hey guys, I am putting together my numbers and sales goals and projections for 2016. Traditionally what has been your percentage of maintenance services from total gross sales? Where do you want it to be?

Just tell him you can't safely recreate the problem and it would be unlawful for you to try. Recommend him to find someone to roadforce balance his wheels and be done with him.