jfuhrmad

A few things: 1) You May know how to fix cars but you will have some learning when it comes to sales and business. That’s ok, but recognize that and grow your skills in those areas. 2) You need to be cool with sending price shoppers to other shops. That’s the symptom of a trouble customer. 3) It might help to have a few word tracks. When questioned about parts prices I’d say “you can buy a steak at Walmart for $10 or a steak at a steakhouse for $40. This is the steakhouse.” Most people understand that and you’ll be surprised at how many people will chuckle and give you the work. 4) Inspect every car and do not break down the prices for each repair when talking to the customer. Simply tell them the work that needs to be done and then say “looks like it’s gonna run about $3200 for everything, I can start on it today should I get the parts coming?” if they can do it, cut the job down to the safety items for them and repeat the process with the smaller job. It’s nuts, but it works. I learned that from a guy on here 10 years ago. That’s the fastest way to fix your profit problem along with a strong parts matrix like mentioned above.

Go ask a body shop. They’ve been “approved” for years. I’m pretty sure it isn’t a good deal in the long run.

Based on what I was seeing here I took the gamble and raised mine $30. Nobody has complained. I just tell them how much the job costs to do and they say yes or no. We are in a wealthier area so that may be a contributing factor, but it's working out well so far.

Hells yeah!

Anybody seeing shortages? I haven't been able to get hose clamps for 2 months now. Today I tried to order 0w20 and 2 vendors were out and said it would take 4-6 weeks to get. 2 weeks ago I tried to order rotors for an F150 and there wasn't a single vendor that had a set of 2. I had to special order them from a warehouse in Texas. Seems like some areas are seeing this before others. Maybe we should keep a list of what's happening so we can get early warning on it.

I went up $5 2 months ago. I’m higher than the chains right now. Nobody blinks. I’m going up another $5 this fall and another $5 in late winter. I like doing it slowly. The Euro shop right by me is $8 ahead of me and all the dealers are $40 higher than I am.

We’ve trained our drivers to put the parts on the parts shelf and take the paperwork to the front counter. If they don’t, we call the vendor and ask when the part will get there and tell them we don’t have it. Then we install the part in the meantime and return the extra part. It doesn’t take long for the drivers and store managers to catch on.

Hi bantar, is this still available?

So, were the 40% and the 45% calculated the same way? I like how bantar does it where he compares actual car count to what is expected.

Wow! So you guys are actually down more than a week ago when you were 40% down (compared to 45% last week). People in NY must be much more reluctant to head out.

How far are you guys down? The only visibility I have so to bantar and dfrisby and my vendors. So it looks like Minnesota (still with stay-at-home in place and Texas (just prior to removing stay-at-home) were only down 15-20%. Please provide your numbers and any other numbers from “around the country” with more specific info so we can keep an eye on what’s happening. Thanks!

How far are you guys down? The only visibility I have so to bantar and dfrisby and my vendors. So it looks like Minnesota (still with stay-at-home in place and Texas (just prior to removing stay-at-home) were only down 15-20%. Please provide your numbers and any other numbers from “around the country” with more specific info so we can keep an eye on what’s happening. Thanks!

Wow! That’s great to hear. I’m down about 20%...but the Oreillys store in m town (not by my shop) was only down 15% last week for his professional sales. He said it’s really come back nicely. So we have Minnesota and Texas that are 80-85% of normal. Anyone else want to report? Is the rest of the country coming back too?

Nice. It seems we are seeing a trend. I went ahead and dumped some dough into marketing last week because it seems like it’s picking up. It’s good to see confirmation of that. I know we had one day last week where the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Still down, but picking up a bit.

Thanks dfrisby. Good to hear northern MN is picking up too. We are 4 for 4 on shops that saw an uptick last week. Anyone else seeing this? It appears to be happening across the country. I still think we need a few other to chime in before we run with the results as being a trend.