ATLAuto

I just finished the book Blue Ocean Strategy, which I HIGHLY recommend, especially in regards to this thread. It is a business book on every Fortune 500 must-read list I have seen. I know most of us are busy, so I will summarize Blue Ocean Strategy below and how it applies to us: In summary, there are two "oceans" in business marketplaces: The Red Ocean: This is your standard, competitive, dog-eat-dog marketplace where similar businesses are competing based on similar metrics. It is an old, well-established market. Our auto repair sector is a prime example of this. We are competing with each other based the same metrics of who offers the best warranty, who offers the best prices, who treats customers the best at the front counter, etc etc etc. We try to distinguish ourselves in one way or another, but at the end of the day, we are still competing in the same arena. Another good example of this would be the beer industry. There are hundreds of beer brands all competing with one another. It's a well established market with competition around the same metrics ... taste, quality, cost, packaging, marketing, etc etc etc. It is very possible to win in this dog-eat-dog market, but it is not easy. Due to the heavy competition competing in the exact same areas, it is a struggle to become the very best and achieve a high net profit. The Blue Ocean: This is a new marketplace. It is a marketplace with little or even no competition from other companies. It is a marketplace where the first one in gets to define the new metrics. It's a wide-open ocean of possibilities and freedom. A few good examples of Blue Oceans follow: Cirque du Soleil - Look what Cirque du Soleil did with the circus industry. They took an old well-established market (circuses) and turned it on its head. Instead of competing on the old standard metrics of who had the best clowns, the most elephants, the best prices, etc, they shifted their focus to creating an entire new genre of entertainment. Cirque du Soleil brought Broadway to the circus and created an entire new form of entertainment. It is incredible. The best part is ... nobody competes with Circque du Soleil anywhere. They simply dominate the market. If you have not been to one of their shows, go to it. It is an unforgettable experience. Yellow Tail Wines - Yellow Tail noticed that only 30% of Americans drink wine regularly ... the other 70% find wine too complex, confusing, and too complicated to enjoy. Yellow Tail made a decision. They said, "We can compete in the cutthroat world of regular wine drinkers and hope for a small piece of that 30% pie, or we can go over a completely untapped market of non-wine drinkers. The 70%." Therefore, instead of competing on the standard wine metrics price, wine label, wine vintage, etc, Yellow Tail did the opposite. They created a wine that even wine-haters would actually enjoy. They created a simple wine with simple flavors that still gave the illusion of drinking a complex wine. Thus, instead of a cutthroat competition for the 30%, Yellow Tail went into the untapped Blue Ocean of the 70% who don't drink wine and soon became one of the largest wine exporters in the world. Nintendo Wii - Historically, Nintendo competed in Red Ocean against the Playstation and the XBox. Both companies wanted to make the best games, the best graphics, the best price, etc. etc. And, historically, Nintendo did a great job in this battle. However, they realized that they were all competing for the exact same customer base: young males. Young males buy the vast majority of gaming systems. Nintendo, Playstation, and XBox were all competing directly for these young males. Well, what about older folks? And females? Why not market to them too? After looking at this missing demographic, Nintendo entered the Blue Ocean of older and female customers by developing the Wii, a very simple, fun, party-like gaming system that was an instant hit. The real question now is ... what is the Blue Ocean for our industry? What can we offer that NOBODY in our marketplace is offering? Better prices? Nope, someone will always beat us there. Better service? Possibly, but we'll probably get beat there by somebody, somewhere. A better location? Dealer trained techs? Shuttle cars? Wifi in the waiting room? A national brand name? Better marketing? More bays? Quicker oil changes? All have been tried with great success. However, they are rapidly becoming the norm, a Red Ocean. I'm looking for the real game changers to our industry. Is there a Blue Ocean that we can tap into and be the only players in our region?

If you do this right, you could make some decent income. I'm assuming that you will have your own bay with all the detail / washing tools you need. Then, I would develop your base in two ways. 1. Bring all your current customers over with you. 2. Make a deal with the shop to wash every single vehicle that comes in. Not a full detail at all, just something that makes the customer think, "Wow, I just went in for an oil change, and they washed my car too. I'm coming back here." Depending on the shop and the experience that they are trying to create, this can be a big win and help you have a stable flow of "customers." Additionally, I have seen some mobile detailers in our area striking deals with local apartments and big office complexes. They will come by the complex and wash cars in the parking lot. If you can present yourself well to the office managers and close these deals, it looks like there is a lot of money to be made in this area.

Hahahaha, that's hilarious. This topic is going to get very interesting. I can already see the difference between urban and rural, and I can only speak for urban. The average labor rate in our metro is $95/hr. Techs typically earn the following: No ASE's, tire tech: $12/hr No ASE's, diag tech: $16/hr No ASE's, dealer tech: $22/hr All ASE's, master tech, independent: $28 - $40/hr Our area has a median household income around $80k/year. Hope this helps a bit.

Were you featured in a R+W article of some sort? You shop looks very familiar. In regards to changes, I would add your address to the top header bar of each page. Make it clickable, so it opens google maps. I would also add a menu bar button for "photos" to show off your shop and staff. This makes the page a bit more personable. Looks great!!

Wow. That is a powerful, long-distance scanner. I set these up in manufacturing plants during my previous job. They are plug-and-play and trick the computer to think the scanner is a keyboard. They will input the scanned data into whatever field is currently selected. Pretty nice ... I had no idea that they would work at 500+ feet away, though!!

Here is a summary of both: IATN: Great for posting a question and getting quick answers. Not so great for searching for problems that have been solved already. Identifix: Great for searching for already solved issues, with a probability number next to each possible solution. Not so great at looking up a very specific problem that nobody has encountered before. Although, they do offer a help line for this ... I think it's $25 a call.

It should be noted that Identifix started decades ago as a dial-in number on a charge-per-call basis. Then, they slowly moved over to the online arena, using their years of compiled phone call database as a launchpad. They still offer the phone service; I have never used it. Techs have always needed more than what's in their own personal brains. Even the best, most highly capable techs will still be caught saying, "Hold on, let me call my buddy ... he works at the VW dealership" or "Let's call my friend that runs that tranny shop down the road." Those phone calls are an informal version of what Identifix has made a business doing. Does this dumb down the techs? Maybe. However, I would much rather my tech be "dumb" and get a weird wire short solved in ten minutes over an "intelligent" tech that spent four hours chasing wiring diagrams and relays. When your tech is able to do both, you have an all star.

Excellent write-up ... please keep this great information coming!!

Your book is great, Gonzo ... I just bought it before our vacation last week and was rolling on the floor laughing during the flight down to MX !!

Well said. We've been quoting around for medical for our shop ... every agent I have spoken with has said the same thing, "2014 is going to be a year of big changes to our industry. We do not know what the changes will be, and congress really doesn't either. We don't even know if the changes will actually be implemented. But we are expecting something." So much for clarity.

I did not find much of substance on these sites to help understand the varying qualities of the oils. The blogs certainly shed light onto what the oil certifications actually mean, but they do not shed light on the question, "If two oils have the same certs, and one costs 40% more, please tell me why." Agree 100%, Jeff. That is my reason for posting this topic in the first place. Hopefully, we'll get some solid answers in here. I would rather not get into the distributor name, but they are a major player in our area, carrying a number of different brands. The oil is available in a number of ways from cases to drums to pumped off the truck. The prices I stated above were from the truck. Looking forward to hearing some more feedback on this one.

We are looking to start stocking bulk oil at our shop. After meeting with our oil supplier, I came away with the following pricing options for our basic non-synthetics. Castrol - $9/gal Gulf - $7/gal PuraLube - $6.50/gal (generic, house brand) Naturally, I was curious why the prices varied so much for similar oils. The supplier replied that since all the non-synthetic oils met the API/OEM/DEXOS specs, they were essentially the same oil in different containers. The only "real" difference is the name and the marketing. Of which, Castrol has the best marketing, signs, banners, etc. (this is all quoting the supplier) Personally, I have never had a customer ask what brand of oil we were planning on using. Rather, they just wanted to know if their warranty was still valid and when they would need their next change. That's it. In my mind, that does not warrant the premium for a brand name oil. Am I unique in this? What are you guys keeping in bulk, and are you sold on the brand names?

Great work on the low lease rate! Sorry we jumped to conclusions early on. If you are going to put any "lessee improvements" into the building, I would recommend stating it up front and asking for the lessors to place either a no-sale time period in the contract (ie 3-5 years) or a right of first refusal should they decide to sell. You do not want to spend a lot of money installing lighting, signage, oil collection, etc. on site on the vague hope that the building does not sell for awhile. It needs to be in writing that they either cannot sell the building for a period of time or you get first dibs when they do decide to sell it. Your town is fairly small (assuming Leesburg here) at 15k residents, so word-of-mouth typically means more than in a larger city where location reigns king. With that said, your location and price sound like a great deal!!

I asked myself the same thing. However, read further down, and Joe explains it. They don't sell generic diagnostic time; rather, they sell diagnostic tests, like a charge for a leakdown test or a compression test (see below). With that said, I am very interested in hearing this elaborated upon myself.

. Agreed. For the price you are renting at ($10k/mo), you could buy a building for $1.8M and cover the mortgage. That much cash will get you a brand new 12 bay garage, fully equipped with latest everything, on a very busy road in a major city. Only lease if you absolutely have to.

Well said. A couple from our small group in church just traded in their two used cars for a brand new sedan and SUV right off the lot. They had very little logic behind the decision that didn't boil down to, "we were tired off looking poor and wanted pretty cars." They make $60k combined which does not go very far in Atlanta.

Great article, Frank. I opened this expecting a joke, and it turned out to be excellent advice.

That's odd. Portland is a Craigslist ground zero with everyone in the city using it. Not sure about your area. I will send you our ad via PM.

My mistake. I opened it initially on the iPad, which hid the video. Good stuff. Looks similar to most other top-level management software suites. How does cost compare?

I'm going to take you up on that. We will plug my VW TDI into it and see how it fairs. I'll PM you when I'm down there next.

Could you link to the video referenced? I do not see any option for this without registering for a demo.

I will be surprised to see anyone SELLING their tires. Every shop near us pays $1-2 for removal. I just google "waste tire haulers Woodstock, NY" and found a bunch of operations to call. Also found this interesting list of everyone who got caught burning tires in your area....... http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/8792.html

I highly doubt you will find Any techs on LinkedIn. It's a white collar networking site, not a blue collar site. Our best results have come from the #1 blue collar site of all time, Craigslist. Seriously. Techs are on this site wheeling and dealing all the time. They are bound to look for a change of jobs on there sometime, when they are already on it every break they get. We have posted a job 3x @ $25 each in the skilled trade section. We are in a very urban area, so our post gets buried fast, but not before we get 10-15 applicants. 2-3 of them are typically solid Master Techs with L1. At that point it's just determining their attitude, which we have a different system for.

Well said.

I've been hearing the same thing ... It just seems too good to be true and cannot fathom why someone would buy a $10k Snap On over the Autel. Besides the lack of a scope, do you see any other features missing? Will take a look at the TPMS. Didn't know they made one.