mspecperformance

18% of your total operating costs or your total cost of labor?

$69,000! I hope they have payment plans LOL

I think its still worth going if you have never been exposed to professional shop management education HOWEVER I would be very reluctant if you did not research before committing to any services. Not to say they may not be the right fit for you but don't dive into something with blind faith. My 2c.

Take what i have to say with a grain of salt since I do not and have not been in the transmission shop business. I do believe however the key to charging appropriately is to build value behind your service. It matters not if a customer is spending $50 or $5000 on a repair. The person spending $50 could feel like they've been ripped off whilst the person spending $5000 could feel great about their decision. The value in your service is your workmanship, customer service, after repair follow up, WARRANTY, pick up and drop off, quality of parts used, and anything else you are doing for the customer to go the extra mile. The other component here is that the customer has to know you are doing this for them. Of course you don't want to shove special things you do for them down their throat however subtle ways of making it known. I think this is probably especially important in your husband's field since unlike a general repair shop where you see your customers regularly, once a transmission is fixed you may never see that customer again. Maximizing on the customers that do come through your doors is crucial IMO. As for getting someone to come into your shop to tell you what you are doing wrong that will cost $$$. What you are looking for is a consultant and they don't come cheap. Also you really want to do your research on who you hire for that. There are a lot of companies out there that really don't understand your business and you can quickly run yourself into bankruptcy if you get the wrong advice.

I would suggest you sit down and make a decision on whether or not these big projects will be profitable enough for you to grow and sustain your business. For me and my shop, we looked at what we were doing and saw it for what it was which was a big waste of time. To make big builds profitable, you would have to be charging 10-20k per job for the amount of actual hours you put in let alone the time when the cars sit on your lifts or in your shop taking up valuable space that you are losing money on every second they are there.

I dont know if this means anything but through my research I've read bad reviews about bendpak lifts. I personally have Rotary lifts and I have never ever had a problem with any of my lifts and I havent even "serviced" one in 8 years of ownership. I also have heard mohawk lifts are great too but pricey.

Maybe the problem is those huge jobs that you aren't making money on? This has been a problem for us that we have since tried to correct. Every job we take in now we want to make it profitable which means charging the right amount. If a big engine swap or complicated modifications are eating away tons of time you should charge for it. Being that you have a lot of enthusiast based customers that price shop between other enthusiast/forum shops I know it is easy to bring your pricing down in line with what your customers expect. For my shop if we look at a job we can't make money on we either quote high to cover our end or we send it away. Sending business away has honestly been one of the top changes that have impacted my business in a tremendously positive way.

I am not the OP however my opinion on this and from what I've learned from seasoned vets with great shops is that the original labor guide was built by by Henry Ford to stabilize his costs for warranty work. Labor guides are made for vehicles that are new with no rust, damage or modification issues. They do not account for broken bolts, worn out hardware, customer's stereo systems, choppy modified wiring harnesses etc etc. There are so many variations in labor guides as well. They are what they are, a GUIDE and not a standard every shop should be judged by. Your price quote also includes other factors such as your warranty. There is a reason why many shop management systems allow for labor matrix or some sort of modification to the labor guide percentages. Thats my 2c.

These are the types that tend to ruin my day because I dwell on the negative (character flaw!). Thanks for this post!

I appreciate the reply. I normally have no problem speaking to potential customers on the phone about their car related issues. I normally go through the "may I ask, where or who diagnosed the issue for you?" and so on. The ones that insists on a price and question your method of doing business even before they have met us or any monetary transaction are the ones that irk me. I don't get them too often however I do get them. These are the price shoppers from hell, nothing you tell them will make them differentiate your service from the next guy. Also putting a number next to our service does absolutely nothing to help our cause. We are significantly more expensive than most of the shops around us (not including the dealer of course). Most of the shops in our area are far from being a modern professional service center so without the customer understanding our process we will never be able to sell our services. My original post was geared to the bottom dollar customers that want nothing more than to pay the lowest price and DO NOT want to understand that service and workmanship between 2 shops is completely different. I do generally try to strike up a conversation with most people over the phone however yes it is extremely time consuming and frustrating with the bad ones. After I collect their name/number/year/make/model I will be developing a phone script to explain our process and get the appointment. If after all that stuff (which should take less than 5 minutes) and they still insist on advance pricing that'll be the end of it.

I get all kinds of annoying phone calls all day long so maybe I am just a little bit extra agitated over this one particular phone call. Phone shopper calls up asks for our labor rate up front then asks about a particular repair (front window regulator 99 audi a4). Reluctantly I look up a price and give it to him. Of course next question is, "why so much" and "how much is the labor". I tell him the labor cost and he again asks, "whats your labor rate." I try to circumvent the question and explain to him that is the service price we charge. Phone shopper is relentless and keeps asking labor time labor time labor time. I finally cave because I am actually get fed up with the phone conversation and tell him its based off of 1.8 hours. Then his next question is, "Does it really take that long?". Asked about 3x even. Then he asks "how much to just close up the window and close the door." Told him we dont do that and we hung up. Long story short there is no winning with these people. Some phone shoppers you can steer with asking questions like "May I ask where you got it diagnosed?" and go through the myriad of leading questions to get them to bring the car in for an inspection/diag HOWEVER there are just some (a lot) of people that only want one thing (PRICE AND ARE YOU THE CHEAPEST???). For my own sanity I think I will just have a no estimates over the phone policy. Regular menu price items such as oil changes and the like I will give out prices still. Anyone else not give estimates over the phone? How do you handle a customer constantly asking labor rate and labor times? If I had Service Advisors (and when I do!) I will probably have them take a more proactive approach to trying to convert phone shoppers but for my own sanity I think I am just going to tell them sorry no estimates. I think I do a decent job at SA however I have a low tolerance for BS. Love to hear some thoughts and funny stories to pick my day up!

Best thing to do is to not print your part numbers and not print labor rates on your invoices. The customer brought you their vehicle and you diagnosed/inspected and gave them an estimate. If you have built value into your estimate and the customer agrees to your price there is nothing more that needs to be said. By adding your labor rate and part numbers it opens the door for them to do further research after the repair and possibly get sour over seeing significantly lower prices. The fact of the matter is a part is a part and a labor rate is just a number. What they are buying from us is our expertise and our guarantee. It is in my humble opinion you should be able to put any price on that you want and as long as price is disclosed and agreed upon there shouldn't be any issues.

Hi Dave, what percentage of your business is performance or full builds? What percentage is maintenance and repair?

I am curious as to how you would have more/better access to Autel than the OP or his tool distributor. If the OP is being truthful this is a black eye against Autel's customer service. I personally have a DS708 we use sparingly. I have never had an issue and was looking forward to potentially adding another spare scanner to the collection at some point.

I take a look at some other shops in my area and they have a lot of fancy toys to play with and their facebook pages would tell you they are doing SUPER well. Being in this business and understanding how hard it is to make industry KPIs, Gross Profit Margins, Net Profit Margins while trying to keep up with employee benefits, insurance, tax etc I cannot imagine they are anywhere near the target numbers a successful shop should be hitting. I've tried LOL

I was about to get to that. Yeah that has been my experience as well. We have since moved on from the Performance world and focus mostly on the service and repair side.

From your shop name I am assuming you are geared towards performance work? Forum/enthuisiast business?

I'm struggling to understand why you are making no money and working 55-65 hours weekly? What is your labor rate? Daily/Monthly car count? Average Repair Order? Is your problem truly car count or is it you are not selling enough labor hours per car? Is your rent insanely high? high amount of debt?

Charging full value for your work is also another piece of the puzzle. What shop management software do you use and what labor guide?

Hate to hear about this stuff because I've been down that road and still on it. Any education you can get about the business of running a shop is VALUABLE. I know there are a few on this forum that are ATI clients and have had great success. I have not been to their 1 day classes but I have heard they are pretty good especially if you have not had any of this type of information at all. From my experience I've taken WorldPac 1-3 day classes and for the money they are great. I am also currently in RLO training's Guerilla Shop Management course which is a 12 week web based class setting that meets 2 days a week for 2 hours at each class. This is really great for the cost of the class. Lots of great info and they provide you with a course binder which had tons of info. I would say the biggest problem with any class is how much you are motivated to implement new things to change your business. That's why I've also chosen to become an Elite Management client. Just started with them so I don't have too much to advise on however I will say everyone in their organization has been 110% AWESOME. I haven't felt this good handing over my money to a company since... ever LOL. I could go on and on as to why I chose to work with Elite over ATI, Management Success, RLO etc but I don't want to sound salesy. Good luck and if you have any questions feel free to PM. I am in no way an expert and I am still learning myself just to be clear

If your technicians are as good as you say they are and also you are selling a lot of work maybe the problem is you are not selling the work at its full value. You could easily bump your numbers up by selling the proper time on each job and also selling your diagnostic time for proper value. Something I learned recently that I am still working on.

better for us I suppose.

what type of problems?

I'd really love to have the new hawkeye sys with rack and in ground but I can't justify the costs at this time. One can still dream though lol

That is an ugly contraption !