ajnealey

I get my 55 gallon drums from Petroleum Services Company. Coastal Syn. Blend comes to about $1.90 a quart. Sunoco 0W-20 Full Syn. comes to about $3.43 a quart. Looks like I could be saving some more. Those prices include shipping by the way. Are you guys purchasing in bulk larger than 55 gallons? AJ

Hey folks, One of our best customers will be moving to the Phoenix, AZ area. When she was putting together a Pros and Cons list about moving, our shop and relationship actually made the Con list (meaning that losing a trusted technician was a big factor into NOT moving away). I feel it's my due diligence to try and connect her with another trusted shop in the Phoenix area and thought about coming on here to look for one. We're all on this forum for a reason, to improve ourselves, discover best practices and make our businesses better. I feel this forum would be a great place to find a shop similar to ours...extremely trustworthy and transparent. Let me know if you might be a good candidate. I have all service records for her '04 Jeep Grand Cherokee and '08 BMW Z4. Thanks for your time!

Everything stow integrity mentioned is spot on. I will also mention that they do post weekly blog posts from other automotive news sites on your Facebook page as well at least once a week. Very interesting articles that help drive people to your site. The "Dashboard" that they give you is very cool and allows you to perform a deep dive on all data to really see how your customers are responding to the e-mails/texts. I'm a big fan. I was using Demandforce before and I thought they were bombarding the customers with texts/e-mails and robo calls for appointments and reminders. Mitchell's way of reminding customers isn't overwhelming. The only thing that I wished was available is being able to have full control of the e-mail templates to design them to match our overall design of our website/logo. Maybe that functionality will come in the future. Having an agent to just "handle" all seasonal/promotional blasts with specials to customers is easy and painless. We can usually get a response and an e-mail drafted within one business day. Costs are cheaper than what Demandforce was per month as well. AJ

Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Training? Bringing this topic back up. Anybody have any feedback on hybrid/electric vehicle training? I'm seeing more and more fully electric vehicles coming out at the auto shows this winter. They are not going away. I want to start making moves now so I'm ready. Thoughts? AJ

From reading the symptoms, I'm thinking this could be caused by a wheel bearing "knock back" issue. Shake down the front end for any excessive play. Also, Toyota had a TSB for certain model year Tundra's where the brake pedal would intermittently sink to the floor. The remedy was making sure the proper shims were installed on the brake pads. AJ

I just purchased a Dymo printer to also start printing key tags with Bolt On. During training, a suggestion was made to also use the key tag printer to label parts as they come in for RO's. Really good idea. Get ours key tag printer this week. We use the Zebra printer for OC stickers. AJ

One man band here as well! Took the Guerrilla Shop Management course from RLO a year ago and that was the best first step I've made yet! Started charging a fair amount on labor and parts. Starting running it more like a business. I pay myself 30% of labor sales per month. Implemented a bunch of new strategies and processes to increase productivity and efficiency. Hired my first employee (my wife) as a service advisory in July. Put her through a SA course to get caught up. She has been awesome at the front counter. I have now bumped up my productivity numbers and can raise car count. Bottom line, we are on pace to DOUBLE our gross revenue from last year. Very exciting times. We have been looking further ahead and are actually in the process of purchasing a piece of commercial property here in Edgewater to expand into a 4 bay operation. Hoping to close first quarter of next year if all goes well with the environmental inspection. We've brought on private investors who believe in us and our vision and are eager to hop on board as we take our business to the next level. We went to AAPEX earlier this year, took every shop management course we could take to fill our noggins with knowledge. Implementing even more tools and strategies to grow even more. We now have a business coach with RLO. This is so worth it as it will minimize our mistakes as we make this next big step. Bottom line, if you have the drive/vision/determination...you can do this. I may work on cars 10 hours a day, but an additional 6 hours is generally spent before and after the days work to work ON the business. That's how you grow! Read books! I've been reading Dale Carnegie, Michael Gerber, Tom Peters...all great authors on leadership and small business. Stay in the industry! Go to trade shows, read all the industry trade magazines like R+W, Motor, etc. Keep tabs on this forum! We've built a business plan and put together 2 year projections. The numbers look very exciting. During this whole roller coaster I have never really felt overwhelmed or stressed. This is what I want! We have a purpose, and that purpose drives us to succeed. Don't even think about taking that next step unless YOU have that purpose or mission. I'm tired of owning a job. The time and money spent now will pay dividends as we will be able to enjoy life later down the road. All the best, AJ

Yea, freezing temps might be tough. John Pearson, I haven't tested it for that long to know how long it can crank an engine over. So for a no start vehicle that needs repeated turning over, it's hard to say. AJ

I have a JNC blue unit as well. But I also have two of the super small lithium ion battery jump packs. They seriously work and fit in your back pocket! They have been able to jump start a V8 gasser with no issues. Seriously cool. Something like this:

Huh, just tried it on mine and came up. I'd like to see if others are having trouble viewing it? We use the service due to the fact that they are mobile optimized. Let me know if you have troubles viewing it - http://www.nealeyauto.com Thanks! AJ

We use Motologic, Identifix and just signed up for ProDemand. The Motologic is really nice. Genuine OE service data. It isn't reformatted at all. Their wiring diagrams are also really slick. And it's affordable. But I might drop it. Just signed up for Mitchell1 Team Works with Manager SE and ProDemand due to the fact that they are all integrated. I'll work with ProDemand for a bit to get used to it and may drop Motologic in the future. Identifix is a no brainer, couldn't live without it. Also really like iATN. AJ

I use sitebuilder.com, $77 prepaid for one full year. The templates you can use to choose from are sweet and really easy to use. I buy all my domain names from go-daddy. I own almost 40 names that are all forwarded to our site. It's still under development here: http://www.nealeyauto.com AJ

Great thread!!!

What PAPShop said, I plan on joining a local BNI group as well. Auto repair shops are barely represented and would be a huge networking opportunity. AJ

SMMotors, Thanks for the feedback. Currently at $550 ARO and 53% overall GP on tickets. I also neglected to mention that we would be working out of a 5 bay shop and there is a second building that we would be leasing out until we max out capacity of the first building. With our business plan in place, the wife would be the SA, I'd also have a GS tech and a more experienced technician to start. I'd also have a CSR at the front counter/office. I'd run day to day business activities and transition out of the shop. AJ

Hey Folks, My wife and I currently run a 1 bay operation. We are looking to expand into a larger facility. We are currently hitting 60-70 cars per month. Running the numbers to operate a 5 bay facility that we're looking to purchase. We should be doubling our car count to stay profitable. Here is my marketing strategy to accomplish this, I would love your feed back as well: -Ribbon cutting event, grand opening party, live music, food, beverages, give aways, have other vendors come out to support event, etc -Direct mail campaign - MudLick mail? ValPak? (Thoughts) -Google pay per click advertising -Signage - it would be on a major road in community Looking for the best bang for the buck opportunities to get up and running and then explore other marketing ideas for the future. Thanks for your input! AJ

Hey Folks! I have been furiously busy behind the scenes trying to take our one bay operation to the next level. We are in the running to purchase a piece of commercial property and expand to a 4 bay operation to start. To make the banks happy, they want to see sales projections for the next 2 years. I've spent a good amount of time putting these projections together, but I would love some feed back from the community. I just want to make sure that I'm not missing anything. I'm not saying "show me your books" but if you have some basic percentage figures that I can work with based on gross revenue, that would be great. I'm just trying to cover my bases and make sure I'm not forgetting anything before we make the plunge. But if you are willing to show me your books, that would be awesome! Of course, confidentially. I'm curious what other 4 bay auto repair shop expenses look like. Feel free to PM me and we can exchange e-mails. Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! AJ

I participated in the survey. They actually have some great info here without even purchasing it: http://www.ratchetandwrench.com/RatchetWrench/September-2015/Shop-Performance-Survey/?utm_expid=98373964-14.BJVdXqfMTi-aXDnz3YdBRQ.0&utm_referrer=http://www.ratchetandwrench.com/RatchetWrench/September-2015/&utm_source=KnowledgeMarketing&utm_medium=RW%20-%20Newsletter%20Emails&utm_term=RW%20-%20RW%20Insider&utm_content=RW_TheRWInsider_20150909&utm_campaign=Tracking%20KPIs&eid=207795471&bid=1172326 I too am curious if I'd gain anything else from the packet. I might take the plunge, it's not a whole lot of money. AJ

AutoVitals here. I like it for the most part, but seems to be a very rough and "buggy" software. Since it's just my wife and I, we just use the Electronic Inspection System (EIS). Customers love it! The transparency of your inspection sells itself, worth every penny. After implementing digital inspections, my ARO went from $380 to $560. Very happy to say the least, but I'm always open to better applications. We'll be at AAPEX to check some out later this year. AJ

Very valuable info here, thanks stowintegrity! Greatly appreciated! AJ

Great replies, thank you all! I'll look into the TireRack preferred installer. Could be a great option. Thanks again, AJ

I offer tire services as a convenience. I mark up my tires 10%-20% plus mounting/balancing. I tend to have a handful of customers that insist of supplying their own tires from Tire Rack/Discount Tire/etc. How do you guys tend to handle this? I'm a shop that does not work with customer supplied parts. What about customer supplied tires? Thanks for your responses! AJ

Just curious if others have had success with follow up e-mails/texts? Just asking as it seems like it would be a good stop gap until we can be more efficient to implement physical phone calls. Thanks! AJ