mspecperformance

I have only rotary lifts in my shop, oldest one being around 8 years old. I would also look into greg smith equipment if you short of cash. They seem pretty good for the money.

KMS, do you do any forum marketing in markets you target? I only ask because I'm a forum owner (for an old Mitsubishi platform) and I know performance shops tend to do pretty well when they target forums.

 

If you have any questions on the best ways to market in forums, feel free to ask. I have a pretty unique perspective on that obviously, having watched shops do it right and do it wrong over the past 15 years of managing forums. Social media marketing has cast a shadow over forums recently but there is still plenty of opportunity for using forums to generate business, grow your audience, and improve branding.

Garage40,

My experience with forums is that you can get a lot of exposure especially if you get several fan boys to endorse your business. I have found however that most of the fanfare you get from forums can go south pretty quickly. Forum goers are VERY opinionated and even more so that people who just post reviews. They have no problem breaking you down in a heartbeat if they feel slighted. That alone is not the main problem IMO but rather because forum members generally are DIYers and are very very quick to call out shops on being "rip offs" aka charging too much money. There will always be a guy in his garage, a dealer tech that works on the weekends, or a start up shop that undercuts everyone to be competitive. Basically I find that it attracts the wrong type of customer. Do you attract lurkers that are normal people looking to make an informed decision on a shop? Absolutely. I just don't know if its worth the headache of dealing with the rest of the bunch.

I have personally avoided forums for a long long time, any tips otherwise?

loaded technician costs. You don't add other employee pay if thats what your question is.

yes, Kukui handles my website, seo, call tracking, and CRM. There is an e-mail that goes out after service that asks for a review. It gets generated to the website. If a 5 star review is given, the customer is then asked to share it on google+ or yelp. To be honest these people generally don't take the extra step but I am formulating a strategy and process in which to get more reviews by asking them after they give me a 5 star for my website. I haven't implemented that yet as I am bogged down with other things but I think I will be putting into practice soon. Hopefully I will have great results.

If anyone has any questions about Kukui feel free to message me. I have to say they are one of the best companies I have ever worked with and they make me a lot of money

Thanks, I do it all myself right now and run the shop as a manager and the only service advisor lol. That is all changing within the next few months where I will be transitioning more of my time toward marketing efforts as we grow.

I would say that both reviews, actually any reviews help. We hear feedback from yelp reviews, google+ reviews as well as our website which is managed by kukui that has a lot of internal reviews on it (I think up to 180 5 star reviews now?). I would say the boost in yelp reviews has really helped us gain confidence with new customers. I will still go as far to say that in todays world its rare that it is 1 marketing/reputation effort that causes a prospective customer to call or buy. I truly believe there has to be a complete effort all around. My goal is to be on a persons mind and for them to be able to see great things about our shop any which way they search. In fact this exactly how I am when I am looking to choose a service.

As for Facebook, we do not boost our posts. We have tried that in the past and the only posts I will potentially boost is if I am running a campaign for a new hire. I don't particularly think it is a good method of marketing UNLESS you have a very broad offer (like a $69.99 4 wheel alignment or something comparatively ridiculous). At that point you may get a good amount of responses however you also may be left with a lot of the wrong type of customers.

I would suggest looking into purchasing a built machine by someone. Sure you can do it all yourself and order the right connectors from the dealer however all the time you are wasting getting the thing to work is costing you tons of $$

Increase in Gross sales means nothing if you don't have a handle on net profits. Look at what your Gross Profit is and also what your expenses are after cost of goods (Tech Labor and Parts). If your Gross Profit is hovering in the 60% range then you are doing well in charging appropriately for labor and parts margins. Are your expenses going up exponentially?

Great post and oddly enough a lot of what I have been feeling for the last 2 weeks. Very intensely even.

I am currently working on this subject as well. We get a lot of older cars at the shop as well as plenty of new ones. My techs came from a European shop and to me it is amazing to see them breeze through repairs on a 750 Bmw but struggle on an 87 Cutlass. I am contemplating hourly plus percentage because while my guys work 45+ hours a week sometimes they only turn in 13 hours. And this is with a constant flow of cars. The old stuff is killing them.

The possible problem is that you are not charging appropriately for the work that is being performed. Just my 2c because I've been there.

This is amazing, I have classes local to me. I have 3 techs chomping at the bit to go through training and 1 hard ass that feel he needs nothing.

In today's age I rely on the fact that most of my customers find me through some sort of marketing avenue that comes with qualifications (review sites, website, SEO, word of mouth). They already know the work we perform and if the reason why they won't choose us is because we are a bit higher with our Oil Service prices then I am most likely better off without them as a customer. My tune would probably be completely different if I was on a main road/street and banked on a much higher car count.

I am moving into flat rate for all my techs however to ease into the process I have given guaranteed hours per week to all of them which matches their current salary. I think I will certainly start to see more productivity and efficiency out of this however with a high guarantee I am sure there will be lazy days/weeks.

We are only human and being unbiased and objective is a lot easier when your own emotions arent involved.

Euro Spec Kendall? I've never heard. Do they actually have manufacturer's spec approval?

I charge $30 on all oil changes and pay my guys .3 hrs for every oil change. Filter and Oil are added on top of my labor. I don't make a ton off oil changes at all. You are a VAG specialist and for your own integrity keep using the proper oil. That is what you will make your mark on, being a honest specialist.

How about the guys who tell you how good they are and then when you ask if they have a resume they look at you sideways LOL

I would suggest against the HF blaster. We perform carbon blasting regularly and the pressure pot type of blasters work 10x better than the Rigged up HF version. This has been my experience and perform several blasting jobs monthly so take it for what you will.

Yes, I know these owners. In 2002, this auto repair shop did a brake pad job and charged my father $500, my uncle bargained with him to help my father and showed old receipts stating he got the job done for $350, so owner reduced it to $400. In 2003, my father had a Subaru, and he had to tow it to this shop called Quality auto repair in Iselin NJ. They gave him an estimate of $1800 to fix some gears, convinced my father to sell it to him and so he did. The owner/manager still is driving that car. Every time I see him driving that car, I feel the pain realizing what happened; especially that time when my father didn't have a job. These folks have now become a chain, owning 4-5 shops within 10 years from one shop.

 

Anyway, they will do what crooks do, I will offer a genuine service based on what I find it should be right. ON top of that, I have some client base and my own cars to repair also.

~Dave

 

 

Dave,

No offense at all but I don't believe that the examples you have given to show that these shops are "crooks."

I am a little confused as to what you mean by your example. Did your father authorize a $500 brake job and then your uncle negotiated after the fact? You could look at it the opposite manner and say the shop owner decided to make a customer happy and give you a reduced price. Whatever the job cost and authorized at is completely fair as long as the customer agrees to the charges and the work is done as stated. All estimates will vary from shop to shop, your uncle's argument in my honest opinion is invalid. For the record I don't believe in negotiating prices and absolutely never after a job has been authorized.

In regards to second example, do you have proof that the job did require the repairs that your father was quoted for? If it did then I don't see how the shop owner did anything wrong unless you can prove that your father was coerced into selling his car.

The only reason why I am playing devil's advocate is that if you are trying to open up a business under a consumer's perspective that does not understand service will vary in price and quality from one shop to another then you will most definitely not understand how to operate a repair shop as a business. I had made the same mistake a long time ago and everything you are saying is almost exactly the same experience I had before I opened up my business. It took me a lot of years to see the light.

I know one has to charge around $80-90/hour to be profitable, I am not against making any profit. A good service will cost higher and I am all for quality service as I myself provide A1 quality service in my limousine operation. What I am against is, taking a full advantage of senior citizens, veterans, and technically unaware people.

 

For example :: $450 for brake repair ( they would claim they changed brakes, calipers, and hoses where they changed only brakes )

$780 for radiator flush that was not needed

$600 for radiator fan assembly (some times only a fuse is needed )

$650 for ac repair ( They would claim they changed compressor, where they put 2 cans of Freon in it )

$350 for trans oil change.

 

You will be surprised the horror that I have seen. Generally, within the same ethnicity one would assume some trust is there; its usually the opposite here.

 

Many of my family members have paid this amount several times, back then I was not aware of the cost and parts. Many people are still paying this price.

What you have listed out is flat out thievery. Do you know this for absolute truth?

If a shop sells a brake job (pads rotors sensor and flush) for $5000 and the customer agrees I see nothing wrong with that as long as all the work that was listed out was actually performed. If they sell a brake job for $50 and don't perform all the services that were promised then that would be "ripping people off".

Hi Dave,

I wouldn't be so quick to call the repair shops "rip offs." You may want to do some research in what you would actually have to charge for your services to keep your shop open. What these shops are probably not providing is enough "value" for the price of their services. Either that or you do not have enough perceived value for what they are providing you.

I would be very weary on starting an auto repair business based on "everyone else is a rip off." This will lead you to charge less than your competitors because you think this will give you the market share you want where in fact you should be charging what it cost for you to do business.

I'm excited to be training a Service Advisor. Hopefully I can get him trained well enough that i can go away for a few days without a phone call!

ARE YOU SERIOUS? Wow. Sad thing is this psycho is probably persistent enough to find a shop owner desperate enough!

I have a factory BMW media blaster for BMW/MINI with specific attachments. Whatever u get make sure it is a pressurized media blaster. The cheap ones from harbor freight or wherever DO NOT WORK. This will be an investment in tooling and media so you have to charge accordingly!

The instability and dishonesty in selling used cars has turned me away. I don't think I would ever directly get into unless I was shielded by a corp and let someone else be the face and mouthpiece for that biz.

I kick some serious as a service writer (lol) but I would love to have a firewall!!!!