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Sweet Tea A woman goes to the doctor, beaten black and blue. Doctor: "What happened?" Woman: "Doctor, I don't know what to do. Every time my husband comes home drunk he beats me to a pulp." Doctor: "I have a real good medicine for that. When your husband comes home drunk, just take a glass of sweet tea and start gargling with it. Just gargle and gargle." Two weeks later the woman comes back to the doctor looking fresh and reborn. Woman: "Doctor, that was a brilliant idea! Every time my husband came home drunk, I gargled with sweet tea. I gargled and gargled, and nothing happened!" Doctor: "You see how keeping your mouth shut helps?"

We tried the "free diagnoistics" and couldn't make it profitable. Most of the free diagnoistic stuff (think Auto Zone) results in selling people things they don't actually need and we have problems with that. I have also saw the places who offer free diagnostics some very large estimates and we have problems selling more repairs then people may actually need. Thus we have comromised by doing a discounted diagnostic which is about 50% of what we should charge but it is our compromise solution. It keeps people coming in the doors and we recoup some of our costs.

I think some of the bait and switch advertising or the low ball price with up sell is more prevelant in larger markets and with the chain operations. In this market one of the major tire chains is constantly running an $18.99 oil change. We are friendly with the local store and this promotion is a killer for them. They aren't crooked to take advantage of it and are constantly swamped with nothing but cheap oil changes on poorly maintained vehicles. I think some of this is old school thinking (like the high pressure door to door salesman of yesteryear).

BBQ RULES We are about to enter the BBQ season. Therefore it is important to refresh your memory on the etiquette of this sublime outdoor cooking activity . When a man volunteers to do the BBQ the following chain of events are put into motion: Routine... (1) The woman buys the food. (2) The woman makes the salad, prepares the vegetables, and makes dessert. (3) The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along with the necessary cooking utensils and sauces, and takes it to the man who is lounging beside the grill - beer in hand. (4) The woman remains outside the compulsory three meter exclusion zone where the exuberance of testosterone and other manly bonding activities can take place without the interference of the woman. Here comes the important part: (5) THE MAN PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL. More routine... (6) The woman goes inside to organize the plates and cutlery. (7) The woman comes out to tell the man that the meat is looking great. He thanks her and asks if she will bring another beer while he flips the meat Important again: (8) THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WOMAN. More routine... (9) The woman prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins, sauces, and brings them to the table. (10) After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes. And most important of all: (11) Everyone PRAISES the MAN and THANKS HIM for his cooking efforts. (12) The man asks the woman how she enjoyed ' her night off ' and, upon seeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that there's just no pleasing some women.

Alex, you are the man. Thanks for the information and advice and thank you for the hard work on this forum. I like it better since the updates.

Here is a follow up on this situation.

Do these shops understand what their fixed costs truly are? Some shops do not charge enough because they are working out of buildings that are paid for and their labor rates, low parts mark up, "free diagnosis" is subsidized by not figuring the true market value of the property or the return they should expect from that investment. The costs of real estate, the cost of equipment, the cost of training, the cost of adequate help, i.e. is very high. We started a shop from scratch: bought the land, built the building, purchased the equipment, stocked inventory, hired help, placed yellow pages ads before we opened, paid franchise fees, etc. etc. That experience is a true eye opener as to the costs associated with this business. If we do good work we should be proud of what we do and charge enough for an adequate return on our investments.

I am pleased that the Colts are in the Super Bowl and New Orleans. I was rooting for Favre and he should have been there but NO fans have suffered for a long time so I am happy for them. My greatest joy is that there are no Steelers, Patriots, or Cowboys. No offense to anyone who roots for those teams but those are teams that I am not fond of.

Alex, you have been a busy guy. What did you do stay up all night Saturday evening and Sunday morning? Good job!

Joe, I am sorry that your Jets lost but I am glad the Colts won (I am in Indiana after all). The Jets played well but Manning was just too much in the end. My prediction now is the Colts will win the Super Bowl. The Vikings should have won but how can you with 5 turn overs.

Your website is definitely nice and entertaining but you don't seem to promote your business?

On the subject of direct mail I will mention the article by Bob Cerullo in The January edition of Motor Magazine. He mentions a recent start up direct mail company started by an automotive guy for automotive mailers. Might be worth checking out. It is called Mudlick Mail Company. Has anyone looked at what they offer or used them? I am going to check them out. MOTOR Magazine Article | MOTOR Information Systems

My initial impression is that I like the new look, visually appealing.

"The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall." Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 B.C.

We hold our business operation as a LLC but we own our real estate as an Scorp. If I only had one corporation it would be as an Scorp. My understanding is there advantages to the Scorp when it comes to benefits and taxation on profits.

Of those 15 customers what kind of work drew them into your shop? Has it been profitable? Where are you at in CA?

Welcome to the forum. I looked at your website and it is nice. I don't know what you have done or are doing but here is one idea I thought of. Consider direct mail to owners whose vehciles are prime targets for your services. We see alot of Chrysler products and some Fords with frequent transmission issues. Maybe you mail to registered Chrsyler owners with vehicles between the years of 2000-2006 within a 5 mile radius of your shop. You may be able to find a direct mail company that can give you a list of registered vehicle owners in that demongraphic. Do an attractive mailing to those owners. If you mail to 500 owners with vehicles in the correct range certainly there will be at least 5% of them having problems at this time. If you pick up 2-3 repairs it will probably pay for the mailing. If you do good work with good service then it will create word of mouth for future work. Just some thoughts!

In our area of 200,000 the only place that has nitrogen that we are aware of is Honda. Our biggest tire dealer (13 stores) does not. That does not sound highly profitable?

I thought you would enjoy the story. Yes, we get our share of characters too but we have whittled it down from what it once was. Cheap oil changes bring all of the bottom feeders with junk cars out. Yes! I did support him in this decision. This guy just had the look and feel that he wasn't worth the hassle. My Service Manager got a chuckle out of what you wrote and I am inviting him to join the forum. He will be an owner in the future if I have anything to do with it.

That would be nice!

Joe, we had an experience this week that you will find interesting. We had a man (60ish) stop in with a problem on his Explorer. The blower motor blowed constantly and would not shutoff unless the vechicle was turned off. My service manager spent a good 10-15 minutes looking at the vehicle, discussing the problem with him, and booked him an appointment for two days later. He came in and our diagnosis was a bad blower controller. There are many similar fixes reported on Identifix. When my service manager began talking to the customer the first thing the customer did was dispute the diagnostic charge telling him that it was $1.00 more than he had told. My service manager than outlined the problem and the needed repair which with parts, labor, and diagnosis was about $170.00 and asked the customer if he wanted to fix it. The customer immediately began to say well let's talk about this and are your sure and going back through all his symptoms. There was somethings you could read into the man's tone and demeanor: that he was affluent, he didn't like to spend money, he didn't trust us, he thought the repair was too much, and he thought he only needed something like a fuse. Whatever it was my Army Ranger Service Manager didn't like it. My service manager immediately made the decision that this guy would be more trouble than he was worth and that we would wind up spending a lot more time with him then we would ever be paid for. My service manager said to the man that if this is the case I think that your should take it to Ford. I am not charging anything for today and have a good day. The man offer to pay the diagnosis but my service manager declined and sent the man on his way. What do you think? As a footnote I will say that my service manager is very good with people, very patient as a general rule, and very informed in describing repairs. He is a ASE Master Tech. At the time we had a shop full of cars and people.

I received a coupon for $100 of Google adword advertising. Has anyone used any of Goggle's paid advertising and is it cost effective in your opinion? https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogi...ne%26ugl%3Dtrue

When people voted for the current administration they voted for a grab bag. Nobody knew what was in the bag especially because he was the media's golden boy and they keep everything quiet. When they voted the discontent voters hoped for a nice prize instead they got booby trapped. Almost like bait and switch advertising in our business. Now they are reacting with open eyes. Obama campaigned in Virginia, New Jersey, and now Massachusetts unsuccessfully. His campaigning for Democrats in the fall will be about as welcome as Bush was campaigning for Republicans at the end of his term.

I agree with you on the Cowboys and I like the Titans as well. I would hate to be the Chargers Place Kicker.

How did you accomodate the extra cars when you had just your six bay facility? We have seven bays!