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I just ordered one. Be sure to autograph it for me.

My favorite parts are where you say, Don't you just love these people who say that when you know they don't have a snow balls chance where it is hot of knowing what to do. Then you write This also means either they don't have enough money for you to fix it or aren't willing to spend enough money for you to fix it. Good job Gonzo!

Joe, you are right but I don't know what I am going to do now to change a thing. Our U.S. representative has announced he will vote for it although the overwhelming majority of his conservative constituents are againts it. It seems that the Democratic Party cares nothing about the will of the people. Who are they elected to represent anyway? This legislation will place a mandate on small business like ours that will only make it harder to survive and be profitable. Do you think they have any idea how hard it is to make any money?

Depending upon how valuable the owner thinks this tech is it could either be termination or a weeks suspension with termination to follow if repeat behaviour is encountered.

We do not promote synthetic oils but we do tend to use Mobile 1 90% of the time when we do a synthetic service. Mobile 1 seems to be the brand in our market that people identify with synthetic. As our business has grown we are now doing more synthetic services than ever.

LOS ANGELES (March 19, 2010) — A California Superior Court jury has ordered tire retailer American Tire Depot to pay $18 million to a Monrovia, Calif., family who lost their 11-year-old son in a rollover accident in 2006 involving a recalled Firestone Radial ATX on a Ford Explorer SUV, according to attorneys for the family. http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1839087/california_tire_dealer_held_liable_for_installing_aged_recalled_tire/index.html The family claimed that the store suggested they use the spare and buy one tire. If the employees at this place suggested running a 12 year old spare they weren't very bright. On the other hand this could have very well been a cash strapped family's decision and they lied about the truth. In either case the family was as much to blame for this decision as anyone but in America today someone else is always to blame. A money hungry lawyer and a sympathetic jury can wipe out a business.

Sounds like a good idea! What does their program cost?

$200,000 Stolen From Shop in Online Banking Scam http://www.tirereview.com/Article/71937/200000_stolen_from_shop_in_online_banking_scam.aspx My thoughts is it must be a big operation. They would never get $200,000 from my accounts cause there has never been that much money there.

I am curious as to who the warranty company is. We have found some of the extended warranty companies great to work for (AUL, GM, and GE come to mind) others are o.k. (Toyota) and some are almost worthless. Sounds like this is one of those companies. We had a company send an adjuster out to look at a fuel pump problem. How is that for worthless???? The customer was without their care for 4 days waiting. That has been my experience is it similar to yours?

Joe, our technicians are our life blood. They work hard and help us be successful. We owe it to them to try to look out for them and be as fair and honest with them as possible.

I would make a great MC to introduce you for your speeches and I also could collect money at the book table!

When business got slow for us during 2009 for a three month stretch instead of laying anyone off we ask the ones that could afford to do it to work a four day week. Myself and my service manager also took a $100 per week pay reduction. Our guys really appreciated the fact that we all shared in the situation. Fortunately it was only a brief time period.

Here is another great article on profitability by our own Joe Marconi: TB Service Zone Newsletter

My guys are paid on a commission with a guaranteed base. We have four different categories that pay different percentages but they are paid the percentage on both parts and labor. My lowest paid guy is guaranteed $400 per week and my highest paid is guaranteed $700 per week. On any given week they can make more but they will never make less. My techs work 44 hours per week most weeks but once per month they only work 40 hours. Paying techs flat rate without some base guarantee is not something I would feel right in doing.

I dislike working on cars for people I know who expect favors. I dislike working on cars for preachers who are always looking for a deals. Joe is correct. The thinking I am your friend, you should give me a deal is not a friends thinking. A friend will think I am going to bring my business to you and you charge me a fair price because I want you to succeed. My guys are always complaining because a friend or family member wants them to do a 4 hour repair on their day off and pay them with a 6 pack of beer.

If you are paying Mark flat rate and you have only booked 56 hours over the last six weeks it means he has only earned $728.00. That is only decent pay for about one week. Is this part of the problem? How can you increase his earnings? Why are your billed hours so low? What labor guide are you using?

Great story! Congratulations on getting it published. I have met more then one of "my mechanic" who is a complete idiot but whom a customer trusts implictly. It was dumb of this guy to send the customer to you and then for him to question what you had done. In my book if you had been shaving the repair it would have made him look bad for recommending you.

I dislike lose leaders and super low discounts. It attracts a bottom basement type customer and the shops that use it usally do a bait and switch, hard upsell type approach. I like to do what you do which is offer a value package. We do however, use a competitive brake promotion that is low enough to attract interest but not too low to not be profitable. We use it to attract new customers. We feel that the majority will keep returning once they have dealt with us.

We do very much tha same as Joe. I think you have to.

You are absolutely correct as to how the customer often has the wrong part. When the consumer goes into AutoZone on a weekday evening or weekend they do not realize that the manager isn't there or any commercial sales account people. There is a $7.00-$8.00 person behind the counter that doesn't know anymore about cars than they do. The combination of the consumer not knowing even basic information about their car (is it a 3.0, 3.3, or 3.8 6-cylinder) with a counterperson who is not knowledge results in the wrong part at least 40% of the time. Often I get someone wanting me to install their $50 water pump on a $400 timing belt/water pump job or their $40 heater core on a $600 heater core job. I always tell them that we do not installed customer supplied parts and that who ever did this job they should let them supply the part so they can have a warranty on the whole job. Some get it and some don't. Here is someone with a liftetime warranty on a $50 part and no warranty for the several hundred dollars of labor. The general public also doesn't get the fact that our shops buy parts at a discount to what they pay. Recently I quoted a fuel pump job at around $600 parts and labor. From the guy's wife I found out that he eventually changed the fuel pump himself but wound up telling her he didn't really think he saved anything. I found out that he paid more than $125 more than we would have paid for the fuel pump and it took him a whole day to get it done. At least he wasn't the guy who paid to have his fuel pump installed only to find out the problem was not the fuel pump but the fuel pump regulator. A job that should have cost less than $300 parts, labor, and diagnosis wound up costing him over $850 because he was trying to save a buck.

Here are sales ideas that may be worth reading: Sales Ideas...

Twest6792, welcome to the forum. Yes, Joe, we would all be more interested in how you track or manage productivity.

Baptist Cowboy A cowboy, who just moved to Wyoming from Texas , walks into a bar and orders three mugs of Bud. He sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn. When he finishes them, he comes back to the bar and orders three more. The bartender approaches and tells the cowboy, 'You know, a mug goes flat after I draw it. It would taste better if you bought one at a time.' The cowboy replies, 'Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in Arizona , the other is in Colorado . When we all left our home in Texas , we promised that we'd drink this way to remember the days when we drank together. So I'm drinking one beer for each of my brothers and one for myself.' The bartender admits that this is a nice custom, and leaves it there. The cowboy becomes a regular in the bar, and always drinks the same way. He orders three mugs and drinks them in turn. One day, he comes in and only orders two mugs. All the regulars take notice and fall silent. When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bartender says, 'I don't want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your loss.' The cowboy looks quite puzzled for a moment, then a light dawns in his eyes and he laughs. 'Oh, no, everybody's just fine,' he explains, 'It's just that my wife and I joined the Baptist Church and I had to quit drinking…' 'Hasn't affected my brothers though.'

We bend over backwards to take care of our customers and have almost no situations where this occurs now, but the few times I have had situations in the past where an unreasonable customer said they were going to call the BBB I almost wanted to laugh because I know what a total waste of their time it is.

Wow you guys have opened up a lot of subjects for discussion. If my writing isn't too good it is because I am bouncing down I-24 south of Nashville. Concerning the BBB I think they are a scam. They pressure businesses to join so they can collect the dues and then they do nothing. The consumer seems to think that BBB has some power or governmental type clout. They don't do anything. They are a joke. Even if a business is real shady it is hard to get any scoop on them from the BBB. They don't report it they don't want to get sued. They just want to collect the dues. Concerning the really cheap shop. They will not be able to retain help and they will have to use cheap parts. Short cuts and poor quality work will be their norm. They will fight with customers over warranty work becuase they can't afford to do otherwise. They will not be around for long but long enough to damage all of the more responsible businesses. I saw this type of thing in the environmental consulting/contracting business I was in before.