mccannable

Example: Previous paying customer brings car in for Ac not working. We diagnosis as compressor and give a fair price. Cust says "yea, I already new it was the compressor, that's what the last shop said. I can't afford it". Our response is "what can you afford?" Cust says "I don't have any money I am just going to sell it." I can't fault someone for having no money but why bother. These senerios have become the norm. It hard to start a job same day as they always need their car(most likely stalling). I know for me personally I want my car fixed ASAP not next week so when I have taken it in the past to shops I want to pick it up done. Another issue is parts stores. We have had a lot of issues with parts not fitting or missing parts that it "includes". Now this is not killing our business but added too the rest it wears a little heavier than it should. /rant

We have a very high no show rate. Not actually 90% but up there. Hard sales are not apart of who we are. While we arnt afraid to assume the sale we are not a quick lube that pushes hard. Prices, we are in the lower side of average for a legit shop. We have so many cars towed in then towed to the customers house. I even bought one to fix and sell myself. It's just frustrating right now. And again i know we are a very new business.

We send cards to all our customers asking them to share the experiences like hotels do. But yelp keeps removing their reviews.. We have 15 5 star reviews on facebook and that seems to be where everyone congregates.

We focus a lot on fleets. We have visited about 30 businesses to sell our service. We have about 3 or 4 that bring their vehicles. They have been easy to work with and have had some very profitable jobs. Our only issue is getting more. Seems most small businesses also have other small business friends, and a lot of those are auto repair. But go get some accounts just don't make it your only income.

How long did you use them? Seems like marketing can be hit or mis. I just bought 2 5000 drops. My last direct mail campaign looked far worse and I got 4 to 1 return. That was a smaller run and that return was one customer over a month. They are cheaper than vista print.

I have been looking into this but some of the cost if these city events are huge. We are a small town too.

6 bays, 1 lead tech, 1.9 cars a day avg $340 a ticket this month. Avg is high due to a few big dollar sales. We opened end of January. Our ytd avg is around $220.

Free trial is over. Only used about $100 of the budget with confirms my question the amount of use of yelp on my area. Both of my legitimate reviews have fallen off over the past two weeks. I was going to continue the advertising but seeing this they won't get a dollar from me and I, on a personal, level will be discontinuing use of yelp. None of the 50 "leads" generated even a call.

Joe, there are no Ruth's Chris steakhouse nearby. Thanks for the advise.

I started watching mudlick mails webinars and one thing that stuck a cord with me. The "highly successful" owner that owns many stores and sells millions a year preaches car count and sales, not per ticket or gross profit. He claims "where they get their oil changed is where they will get their brakes done in six months" * This seems to be a strongly held idea on this forum about those being bad customers. I am not trying to start a battle and I know he is trying to sell me their services but I thought it was worth a discussion.

I agree with the value vs price argument fully, we are still seeking other methods including direct mailers, but its hard to argue the need for cash flow for a young business. We need just a few more thousand a month in sales to get to my goal. If these budget mailer can help me reach that goal then I have achieved step one. Its going to take a bit of time for us to win over some of the european market and once we hit some milestones their our business model with shift. I am considering some targeted direct mailers as well. Its a size-able cost and we are looking into a few companies to target BMW and Merc owners. Our one direct mail campaign to non specific model makes with a run of 1000 netted one customer. Now that has been our best customer with 4 visits between his two cars and over $2000 in sales. In the short run gross profit is just that. By bank account does not discriminate of how that money is earned. We make a very healthy margin on our sales even with a discount.

And about the retirees being loyal, we have targeted that as our biggest area of focus to to earn our chance at winning their business for life.

Joe I agree with that statement and one day we would love to be there. But for driving sales we need the now not later. At discounted rates we still turn a good gross profit. We live in an economically repressed area that has two major demographics. Low income locals and med to high income retirees. These retirees love coupons and can be surprising loyal. We have a very close percentage of sales and I believe our model has the best chance at retaining customers. If that means discounting a bit at the beginning to fill the dead space I'm ok with that. I would say the majority of local small business that are successful have an entitlement attitude that is inward focused. We are the exact opposite and it shows throughout every interaction. The environment we have created at the shop is very unique.

I called 2 local business that advertised and the one that picked up(blinds and shutters) said they get lots of results. It's really cheap so I'm going to go for it.

I was approached when we first opened by a sales person for this company but passed. I am considering it again. It's a direct mail package to "high income" homes of 50k income. They have zones all at 10k and you can pick the zone(s). I beeline it was in the $200 range per run and tbeh do them monthly. I am considering running 2 zones as it is considerably cheaper than direct mail with downside of lower percentage of viewership. Around .02 each there could be some serious upsides.

Our tech had a fender bender in our lot with a customers car. We are paying for the bumper repaint out of pocket and forgave the tech. How does your shop handle this. Also, it is the nicest car we have had yet...650i and had backup sensors.

Jeff, Google Sumter county. You are far from a hillbilly.

We lost an 03 7 series valve cover job to a hillbilly backyard mechanic. That one was a bit strange. I know the cars can be had for cheap but still.

Ha. It's free in hopes I don't cancel and they start billing. I'm on top of it though. Hopefully the return is worth the cost. I doubt there is enough usage in the area but if I get one to two sales a month it will pay for itself.

I have read that as well. It's a month free and if drives sales I don't mind continuing.

Just got a promo for $250 yelp advertising credit and no contract. When we first set up our account on yelp I got a hard sale for a $450/m min with a 12 month contract. The $250 guarantees local (15 mile) clicks on your ad for people searching for your keywords. Anyone have any luck? its free for the first month so I am running with it.

Just went through this and it was not easy to find a good mechanic let alone worry about anything else. We are on tech number 4 in 3 months. Number 3 was great but got into a bad motorcycle accident and may never be a tech again. Our current tech is possibly one of the smartest guys in Florida and it took us a few months to win him over. Be confident and sell your passion. The first guy will be more like a partner but you have to decide how much you let him in on your business. We provide a positive low stress atmosphere with no drama. We promote positive reinforcement style coaching and this has resulted well for us. side note, our first guy that we interviewed we had to sell hard because we did not even have the lease ironed out.

It's our shop car not a customers. If we charged labor it would be better to scrap the car. It's a clean car that has records and is very good condition. We are just using it as and errand runner to save my patents classic Mercedes from the miles. Unfortunately we cannot rebuild due to a cracked block.

another thing, Used engines are much more expensive than i thought. $650 for one that knocks and $1000 is the cheapest we can find.

Thats where the conflicting info is coming from multiple salvage yards. car-parts.com says 96-98