mspecperformance

Thanks!

I've never known these cold call jokers to take us off any lists even after requested.

I am not suggesting anyone actually do this! It is however funny that some shops do post this stuff. Its what we would really like to tell those annoying internet guru customers.

What are your prices for your tire protection plan ?

This

Not mine but thought it was funny ass heck!

Digital menu boards are really nice and professional. I don't have enough foot traffic to warrant them however if my car count was high and I had a lot of customers walking in daily I certainly would implement digital menu boards.

Just to add to xrac's comment, starting with classes is a great way to break into training. I can only speak from my experiences but the first classes I partook were with WorldPac. They put on a Service Advisor's Class that last 2-3 days. It was incredibly helpful at the time since I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Elite's one day sales class is awesome as well. If you are lacking in sales skills you really need to check their class out.

Once you get an idea of what it takes to be profitable and to run a shop, I'd also suggest RLO's Guerilla Shop Management 12 week course. Great investment.

This year I am giving away things that have take home value as Bob Cooper likes to call it

One of my techs loves going to the movies so one of his bonuses will be a gift card to the movies. Every time he goes to the movies and use the gift card he'll think, "hey my boss is a pretty good guy"

One of my techs has a new born baby, I'm probably going to give him among other things a Babies R Us gift card. Also he really loves his professional as an auto tech and has a passion for the business. I saw him eyeing a nice jacket from Mac Tools. I may get one of those for him too. Maybe get some of his patches sewn on for him since he likes to walk around with his ASE and shop patch.

Money is a great bonus however its fleeting. Its seen once and its gone whether they use to to buy something or they put it in there bank account they will hardly ever think about it again.

Elon, I am going to private message you. Thanks for sharing.

Here is my constructive criticism and I hope you will take it as such.

If you are in the auto repair business (as an owner) the excuse of "I just can't afford $XXX" is a crutch and its a lie. You are lying to yourself. How do I know this? Because I was lying to myself for years using the same excuse. The real question is can you afford NOT TO. You said your business is steadily growing which is great. In my opinion however if your business is growing but you can't afford $1500 on something you perceived to be a need and a necessity to grow your business something is terribly wrong. Some of us are blessed with mentors who never ask for a dime. Most of us however have to seek professional help that cost $. It is also in my opinion that I'd rather pay to have someone that is professionally accountable in helping me succeed that someone that is treating coaching as a pet project.

Every time I have invested in training I have seen gains. Since September I'd taken the RLO Guerilla Shop Management online course and have signed up with Elite as a coaching client. I've seen a 20-30k increase in sales a month since then. I have always had the philosophy if something costs me a $1 to make $2 then I'm with it. Since I have made the investment in my business and education I've seen far more than a $2 return.

Now I am far from perfect and I have a LONG way to go. These have been my personal experiences so take them for what you will. If you have a passion to succeed and you want to do the right thing then $1500/mo for a little direction is a drop in the bucket.

There are other options in case you didn't explore them. Elite, RLO etc etc.

how many tires do you actually do?

The target Net Profit you want to reach is around 18-20%. GP on Labor and Parts mix should be close to 60%. These are KPIs that are industry standards for a very well run shop. I think the national average though is somewhere around 5% Net or below. For you to draw a net of 200k you should be doing around 1-1.2mil in Gross Sales a year which should be achievable with around 3-4 techs and 1-2 SAs. Maybe less if you are creative.

PJ, messaged you.

We were slow to adopt a real approach to tire sales and just considered them a relatively low profit item that we had to deal with if we want to be our customers' "one stop shop." We can't compete with the clubs and the high-volume tire outlets, so we decided to make the most of our position as sort of the 7-11 of tire sales. We're fast and convenient and we have access to all major brands. We settled on targeting a 34% margin (34% of the retail price is profit) based on a matrix in RO Writer. With the help of our coach, we developed a road hazard policy that goes on each tire sale and is quoted to the customer. Of course, the customer can decline the policy, but many take advantage of it. After a couple of years, we have had very few claims on the policy and when you do have to replace a tire, it's a good will win. We signed an agreement with the biggest local tire distributor and they give us great service on delivery and pricing. Tires are still a small portion of our business, but we feel like we have it under control. Also very important, we NEVER do plugs. We do internal patch-plugs within RMA guidelines. When you tell somebody their tire with 30% tread is going to cost $35 to repair, it's a great time to offer a new pair of tires and alignment.

I'll be looking into boosting my tire sales in the new year. Thanks for the post.

1.5 mil. yeah I wouldn't be either lol

Just a story on Unifirst, they gave me a great price, signed contracts with them, took measurements, waited 6 weeks got a call saying they couldnt offer the same deal they had previously so they had just wasted 6 months of my time. They got put in my blacklist of companies I hope go bankrupt.

There should be a separation between your job in the shop and also as the owner. If you are acting as the manager or service advisor or technician you should be paid a salary or whatever based on your job. Whether you deserve more or less than what you would be paying another person to fill the position is another story however you should pay yourself a fair wage. This may or may not make you the highest paid person in your shop. If you have a rock star SA or Tech and they are pumping out work making the shop money then they should be compensated accordingly. Now the when the dust settles you are the owner and can now reap the benefits of whatever net profits your business makes. For instance you could be taking a salary of say 60k/year for being the manager and you have a SA or Tech making 80k however if your shop is making 200k in net profit (would be awesome right?) thats yours to play with so to speak.

On going training I provide unless you are talking about tech school loans.

Tire sales are the most profitable work, per hour, that you can do in your shop. Using your figure of $30 markup, plus $14.95 plus a shop charge of $5 - $10 you end up with about $50 per tire profit. When you sell 4 tires, you make $200 gross profit per hour(assuming it take about 1 hour to install 4 tires).

Assuming a labor rate of $100 with an additional $100 part sale(at 50% gross profit) you make $150 in gross profit on repairs in 1 hour.

We can look further at what you costs for labor are for a tire tech vs an "A" or "B" level tech, the additional sales that you get with tires(Alignments, ball joints, tie rods, brakes, etc), the fact that a tire customer will be back for rotations, alignment checks etc, but I think this shows that tire sales are very profitable.

Great post, the way you calculated the numbers definitely makes sense however as most of our repairs go most of the time when we are putting in an hour worth of work we are normally charging well over that 1 hour. For example a booked job is 2.5 hours but my tech completes the work in 1 hour. I understand what you are saying in terms of GP percentages per job however I am speaking in terms of actual Time where we can squeeze out more work in 1 hour than it is worth dealing with tires. I struggle to find the $ motivation in pushing tire sales. We also have an issue where a lot of our vehicles need a lot of work and a set of tires becomes lost in the middle or last of the priorities. I will look at the numbers again and see what it would take to make tire sales more profitable.

Just curious if anyone makes their employees pay for their uniforms (pass along the cost of uniforms to your employees). Thought never really occured to me but a customer had mentioned his company makes him pay for his uniforms (works for a sewer plumbing company). $15 a week he pays.

Any customer that comes in for service we give out a $25 Restaurant.com Bosch Service branded Gift Card. First year doing it. Yielded some positive results so far.

If a customer comes in with an already diagnosed issue, we try to hard to get them to see the value in having the diagnoses confirmed. But if they insist, we make sure they understand that they are purchasing parts and labor not a repair. We make no guarantees, and we usually end up making more money since there original diagnoses is incorrect quite often.

 

Scott

I do the same however i can see how this can backfire. In my area at the very least (I am sure you see the same but maybe to a lesser degree) I find that people here are irrational. No matter what you tell them, they can be driven by emotion. They can agree to the repair and now it doesn't fix their problem. They are upset and in a negative mood that is now associated with your shop. Sure you can make an extra buck now for added work/diag however you potentially have a customer whom will not bring their car back due to the negative feelings towards paying 2x. Although I am with you on what you are doing since I do the same I also cringe when it doesn't work out for the customer because I am always thinking about how to make my customer songbirds for my business.