xrac
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Everything posted by xrac
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Cash for Clunkers Law
xrac replied to autoguy's topic in Shop Insurance, Certifications, Laws, Legal
Here is some interesting news U.S. manufactured cars are shut out of Japan's clunker plan. Now is that fair or smart or what? http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti...312219960/1117# -
Not much. Our franchisor provides some training. I usually spend 1-2 days in Chicago each year. We always have a nationally know speaker. Sometimes it is good and sometimes otherwise. The best thing about that meeting is the exchange with other owners. I have attend a few classes locally put on by vendors. I try to read as much as I can.
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We are in Southern Indiana but are actually south of Louisville, KY, geographically. Weather has some impact but not major. We have never closed even one day due to weather during the past ten years. We might of had a skeleton crew but we were open. There has only been two times in that period that we had really severe weather. A few years ago 18 inches of snow fell which pretty much paralyzed everything but we still managed to open and the snow completely melted off in about a week. Last year we had a severe ice storm that knocked out huge areas for electrical power. My home (5 miles away) had no electricity for 7 days but it never closed our business. We had power there. The first five years that we were open the only snow removal expense we experienced was three bags of ice melt.
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Sounds like it was fun and sounds like it is a good idea. We are not doing anything so elaborate but we are giving all of our guys an extra day (Saturday) off.
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Here is a candidate that I could believe in Congressional Candidate Lieutenant Colonel Allen West!
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“If you know you have to swallow a frog, swallow it first thing in the morning. If there are two frogs, swallow the big one first.” Mark Twain http://www.productiveflourishing.com/a-fro...anchors-aweigh/
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Most of them get a discount of 10-20% on everything. My franchisor negotiates that out so I have no say in what it is. I just have to live with it. The deepest discount I have seen is 20% and the lowest is 5%. Ofcourse, my situation is different. I turn all invoices into Car-x and they collect the money but my paper work has to be correct. We do GE, MAP, Wheels, LeasePlan, ARI, Donlen, PHH, and some others. If you want this type of work you need to see who has got the most cars locally.
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I have the chance to attend a shop owners class taught by ATI/"Chubby" Frederick. Has anyone been in any of his classes and what is your opinion? Are they worth it? http://www.autotraining.net/about_management.htm
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One does have to watch the discounts. You can get hurt unless you factor in what you are really getting paid. Most of our GE stuff has a 20% discount. This forces us to mark things up more than we normally would and to go off book labor for some things that we usually would not (i.e. battery swap or air filter). If your shop has small mark ups and a low labor rate you will get killed after the discount is taken.
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Laugh!
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We do work for about 12 different fleet management companies. Most of these are negotiated through our franchisor. The paperwork can be a pain but if you stay on top of stuff there isn't a problem. We will take all the fleet management work we can get. An added advantage is that we have also cultivated some of the drivers into customers for their personal cars.
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Welcome to the forum. Thanks for sharing your websites. I like the overall look of http://www.chazoffroad.com/ best. The other site http://www.chazauto.net/ is also good though. If I might offer a suggestion I would have someone proof read the text on the http://www.chazoffroad.com/ site. I noticed some misspelled words and I think the punctuation and spacing could be improved.
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Here is another good article on the subject: http://tirereview.com/Article/68575/packag..._max_value.aspx
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Randy welcome to the forum. The first thing that comes to mind is how are you advertising for your glass business and how can you include the auto repair in with it. Are you able to put any signage on the street such as an A-frame with changeable offers? How about a banners? Come up with an attractive offer to get people to try you. Print up some type of offer and go around to the surrounding businesses and pass them out. You do not say how fast the traffic moves on the highway that you are on. Just keep in mind that people have to have a reason to notice you and to know that you are there.
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How to make electric power windows:
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Free Nobel Peace Prize with oil change offered by Rockwall auto repair: http://therockwallnews.com/2009/1210/featured/nobel
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I really like your website. It loads very fast and it looks really nice!
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I do not have a hard time selling alignments. I take the customer out into the shop and show them what is going on on tire wear. The biggest drawback is customers with older cars and worn front end parts who need hundreds of dollars of work befire we can do an alignment.
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Joe, have you done anything yet. It is absolutely critical that you do some planning now. Do you have a potential buyer in an family members or current employees? You may also wind up with a very valuable asset in this website. Have you done any personal planning? Personally I have a will, an advanced medical directive, a living will, a durable power of attorney, and enough permanent life insurance to protect my wife. This I put in place about four years ago. If I got nothing out of the business she would still be o.k.
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Good to know. From my perspective Hybrid owners have to really be tree huggers trying to save the environment, politically correct, or unrealistic financially. I have done the math and the extra cost and maintenance on the Hybrids does not add up at this time.
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This is very, very important if any of us want to get anything close to true worth out of our businesses. I want to work out a buy sell with my service mananger funded by life insurance. He is 7 years younger than I am. It is absoluetely critical that we have an exit plan and have it funded. The current problem I have is that I have a partner who does not work in the business that I have to deal with first. At 57 I am not as young as I once was.
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You do not say how many names you have in your data base or how many pieces you will mail. That may have quite a bit to do with it. Initially I would probably only go back about 5 years. You can probably find a service that can scrub your data base for duplicate names and invalid addresses.
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That is quite a bit of traffic. I need to build a Facebook page for our business also.
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Joe, why do you say that? Is it because of the technology pf the vehicle, the dependability of the vehicle, the personality of the typical Hybrid owner, all of the above, or something unrelated?
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Does anyone see many hybrids and is anyone working on them? We have only had less then 1/2 dozen in our shop and all only for oil changes. Ofcourse, I live out here in the hinderlands and new technology always reaches us last. For example we do not have an Infinity, Acura, or Land Rover dealer within 100 miles. I am curious as to what other parts of the country are doing as far as service work on hybrids. We know we will eventually have to deal with them.
