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Mike, I would be grateful if you were to reach out and give us some tips on how to use it properly. Thank you!

I don't really know how to turn it in to a strength but I'll definitely try my best, hah.

Mspec, Thank you, it's nice to hear that other people have been in this position. I'm extremely young, so I know I have a LOT to learn. I've been keeping up with the "Books" thread going on right now and it's been great! I've definitely grown a lot in sales but still have a long ways to go. As far as a sales adviser goes, I would love that and think that he/she would help tremendously. I get way too emotionally tied up in the business and have a hard time keeping it away from my personal life.

Harry, I'm going to run that as my new goal sheet for my employees. Thank you! As far as the demographics go, I have 2 that I focus on: 1. College students (our town has 56,000 population, then an additional 35,000students (roughly) come in every year to one of ou 2 universities.) 2. The local customers - single family homes, own the home, 55,000 median income, etc... And thank you, I've been trying to focus on getting those things worked on. That being said: I'm not sure why but every week is a roller coaster in terms of numbers for us. Meaning, for the week of 11/22 - 11/28: our average RO was $161.07 with a GP of 56%. Last week it was an ARO of $345.97 with a GP of 64%. This week our averago RO is about $280 so far.

Andre, here is a top 20 of things that I'm doing wrong. The first 5 are what I think need to be worked on first, and then the rest are in no specific order, just in the order of how I thought of them. And there's definitely more, but here is at least that. 1. Not charging for diagnosis properly. 2. Do not do inspections on every vehicle. 3. Am inconsistent with the sales process. 4. Sometimes I do not follow the parts margins because I think "I wouldn't pay that much for that filter (or whatever)" 5. Work in the business and not on the business. 6. I like to avoid conflict - including when employees do not meet expectations. 7. Too afraid to network for customers, or call prospects. 8. Try to be all things to all people - take things very personally when it is business. (for example, a bad review) 9. I sometimes work on things that are not helping the business (like mopping floors) when I know I have other things I could be doing. 10. I am not consistent with follow up calls a few days after the repair is completed. 11. When we do the inspections, sometimes I do not present all of the information to the customer, especially if I don't THINK they will buy it. 12. I am inconsistent with my monthly marketing campaigns. 13. Keeping employees motivated to produce the proper amount of hours/employee efficiency. (both techs are paid hourly) 14. Do not track KPI's consistently. 15. Inconsistent with my processes. 16. Not being a good leader, meaning, allowing certain things that are not beneficial to the business. 17. Asking tool guys and parts vendors how other shops are doing when we're slow so that I can feel better if we are slow. 18. Listening to family on how to run the business. 19. Not keeping techs accountable for training. 20. Get too busy to focus on customer service. Again, thank you all for all of your help.

mmotley, Thank you for the explanation. That's definitely something I need to do. As far as the numbers go, I know most of them off hand, but not all. Thank you!

First of all, thank you everyone so much for all of the replies. I read carefully through each one and will now try my best to reply to each one. @ncautoshop: I try my best to show each customer their inspection, but I will say that quite often I fail to show them or even do the inspection. That's mainly why I hired my oil change guy. @stowintegrity: Thank you for those, I will say that I do track a couple of those but only like 3 or so from that list. I have goals set for the business but get too caught up with things that do matter to keep accurate track of them. @Harrythecargeek: I did some calculations - and according to them, my monthly expenses are $9,722.42 including labor. Using your formula, that amounts to $56.52/hr to keep open. @mspecperformance: My gross sales for this year is going to be about $181,042.90. (We opened in March of 2013.) Last year, we did a total of 118,xxx. So there's definitely some growth. That being said, this year we're doing about $15,086/month. The numbers I posted were for the month of November, which was a little slower. @andresauto: Thank you for your suggestion, I'll get that list posted here by the end of the day. @mmotley: What do you mean by getting a spreadsheet combined with my bank statement? And I just hired my oil change guy to do small stuff and mainly for the digital inspections. My main tech is 62 and though he's decently quick, he doesn't get along too well with technology. @alfredauto: Like I mentioned earlier, my expenses are $9,722.42/month including labor. That leaves me with about 9%. And that's a great idea with trimming the expenses, thank you! @Harrythecargeek: I recently started to use a parts matrix. It starts from 70% margin and goes to 35%. Again, thank you all for all of your responses. I really appreciate them all.

Besides me and I don't work as a tech more of the service advisor, there are 2 techs. One oil change tech (paid hourly) and one regular tech. (also paid hourly) I understand it's hard to gauge from a forum, but maybe I can get some ideas of what to change or implement.

Hey all! So I've been too embarrassed to ask this question before hand but I'm so tired I don't even care anymore. I've been keeping records as best as I can lately, as far as quickbooks and Mitchell and everything. On paper, everything looks good. By that I mean: - ARO is growing: - up from about $180 earlier in the year to about $230 last month and growing steadily. - My GP% is hovering at 57-62% - Car Count is slowly climbing - at 55 last month (we're a smaller shop) But the problem is, there is hardly any money left from week to week. I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I try my best not to spend money unnecessarily, mortgage is not very high, expenses are a bit more than they should be, but is that all that's sucking the money? And I know this question most likely cannot be answered like this, but maybe you guys can point me in the right direction. Feel free to ask any questions. Thank you in advance!

We have monthly mailers that we mail out to all of our current customers. It definitely helps but some months it's not enough either. That being said, I think the reason for that is, at least in my case, is because I'm not too consistent with sending out the monthly mailers. A lot of people really do like them and if I were to do it consistently every month, I think it would be a much better response. However, I have never lost money sending them out. Meaning, they always at least bring someone in who will pay for the whole campaign.

I went to a local pawn shop, purchased a Samsung 42" smart TV for $250 and ended up doing it on my own for free. In my opinion it's the most cost effective and easiest way.

The main reason -I'm not excited with the SEO that my current company provides. The first few months it was great, but after a few months he stopped trying, wouldn't really keep the site updated. I also found out that most of my website is identical to other websites he had made, so there's not really that much unique content on it. And of course, I want the phone to ring because of the website.

Just bumping this up here. Seeing if anyone here uses Auto Shop Solutions as a website provider. Or if anyone can give me more information on KUKUI, since they are very similar.

Evening everyone! I was wondering if anyone here uses Auto Shop Solutions as their website provider. Their sites look fantastic, but I want to make sure it's a worthwhile investment before taking that large of a plunge. If anyone here has any information, I would be grateful! Here is their link: http://autoshopsolutions.com/website-design/ Thanks in advance. Have a great day!

Quick Answer: They are crucial and well worth it. Long Answer: Websites are vital in this day and age. However, just having one is not enough. I used to think, "I'm paying $50 / month (I used to have motorev too), for this website. Why would I do that if I can make my own for $150 / year?" Now, don't get me wrong, if you love SEO, building your own site, keeping up with it weekly, if not daily and have all of that time on you hands then by all means go for it. I don't. That being said, a website is USELESS if it doesn't do anything for you. You have to treat your website as a marketing piece. You have to know that your website is working for you. My problem with motorev was that I didn't know what it was doing for me. How do you know how many calls your website is bringing in? Out of those calls, how many people came in? What did they bring in terms of revenue? A website, you have to track just like any other marketing piece. Right now I'm paying about $190 / month for my website. But I have a tracking number on it, I know how many calls I get from it, how many of those come in, and that my INVESTMENT is well worth it, so I have no issues paying that much.

Mike, Thank you for chiming in. I appreciate your input. I went ahead and signed up with Lighthouse, we'll see how it goes.

That's definitely not what they quoted for me, because I sure can't do $2,000 / month. Just for their sake I don't want to quote prices, but it was definitely much much cheaper than that. I'm a small shop as well, but this is definitely affordable for me.

I understand it is expensive, however I'm paying for Mitchell CRM and Bolt On. If I use Lighthouse I will save about $150 / month, so for me it's definitely worthwhile.

Hey all, I was wondering if anyone on here knows anything about / has Lighthouse 360. From what I can gather, It's basically a CRM program combined with Bolt-On's Pro Pack. (if someone from Bolt-On would chime in, I'm sure they would have more information.) I have Mitchell CRM and Bolt On Products, but what they offer is something of a Mitchell CRM competitor program bundled with Bolt On's pro pack. I was just wondering if anyone here had heard of or used their services and has maybe some more information. Thank you!

Hey all! I'm not sure how well versed any of you are in SEO but I have an interesting(?) question. I know (or at least back when I researched SEO a few years ago) one thing that search engines look for is a consistent NAP (name, address, and phone number) for your business. Back when I had just my listings and website all of my phone numbers matched up over the web. And we were in the top 3 in the organic listings and map listings when searching for "auto repair harrisonburg va." However now, we have a tracking number on our website, a different tracking number for yelp, a different tracking number for our CRM "Adversite," and so on and so forth. With that, I've also noticed that our organic and map listing has been falling (we're down to like 6th or 7th now.) I understand some of this may be because my competition is stepping up their SEO efforts. So my question is this, would all of these different tracking numbers cause my SEO ranking to fall since the phone numbers that I have on these various sites are different from the ones that are listed on my Google and other search site listings? Thank you. Have a phenomenal day!

Not trying to jack this thread, but I was wondering what you guys do if someone asks for a ballpark figure. I don't quote prices over the phone at all, except for oil change range. So when they ask for a price I'll let them know that it could be one of many things and so we never know what exactly it is until we see it, etc... However, lately a few people has been asking me for "ballpark figures." Like, "but if it is an alternator (or anything else that autozone said it could be), what is a ballpark figure?" I'm not really sure how to answer that. Any help would be appreciated.

And I agree with Xrac on the Wi-Fi comment. People enjoy having Netflix and Hulu on the TV but they most of the time would rather sign on to the Wi-Fi.

Xrac, I get the cookie batter that is pre-mixed and pre-sized I guess you could say. Meaning, all you need to do is heat up the little oven to 350 and bake them for 12 minutes and they're done and they give off an amazing smell. It takes me all of 3 minutes, if that, not counting the baking time. Also, thank you mspec, people love seeing their name on that board. Harrisonburg is a major college town, meaning about 28,000 college students here in a 55,000 population town. So college students provide a very large chunk of business. They love the cookies and tell all of their friends about the shop that has cookies. I also have some signs around the waiting room that college students also love (I'm 23, and my wife goes to one of the major universities here in town, so I guess I tend to think kind of like how they would think) Such as the sign on the shop door with the velociraptor. It states "This is a velociraptor-free work place. It has proudly been 12 days (written on a sticky note) since the last velociraptor incident. It may seem stupid to some, but I've received a lot of laughs, compliments and even pictures of the sign from both students and other people.

Here is a picture of my reception / waiting area. I know it's a bit more colorful than some people like but I get a lot of compliments from customers saying that they like it. The TV in the corner and behind my head are smart TV's. The one that is in the corner, I provide customers with my Netflix and Hulu accounts if they would like. However I typically have Top Gear playing on it and they can change it if they like. The TV behind my head I use as a slideshow. It has customer reviews, jokes, basic information, and a bit more. I have fresh ground coffee for customers, along with a fridge (the cabinet looking thing next to the coffee maker) stocked with water, sodas and creamer. The little oven there I use to bake fresh cookies everyday. Also have a white board with the names of customers that I know are coming in throughout the day. As far as where I got the chairs and tables. We have a used office furniture store here. Decent prices on everything. Let me know if you have any questions.

I use a large white board that I use for daily/weekly goals. I keep track for the week on the white board but also fill out a weekly sheet so that I have a hard copy to look at later. I think it would be a good idea for scheduling as well as long as you keep a hard copy or picture of it. (I like to pull up previous weeks and see how they look, etc.)