tomkatv10

With the amount of cars that are dropped off every morning (most at the same time, mind you), it would create a serious backlog at the front counter if I implemented that. Plus, with the amount my service advisors have to do now in a day, they’d probably quit if I added another job to their list. And, we have a lot of after hours drop offs to consider. I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer to this question. It all comes down to how your shop processes are set. We’ve talked about this in team meetings and the techs would rather make those checks themselves, anyway.

We’re only off on the holiday. Open on Friday. We are always closed on Saturday and Sunday. You have to know your employees and what makes them tick. My techs want to work. Service advisors feel the same. If I closed Friday, they’d have my head. They would rather have the Friday open to make more money for Christmas. Again, know your employees, that’s the key.

Two years, I’m out. Some of the employees are forming a corporation in 2023 to buy the business in 2024. I’ve been in it for 28 years and at the 30th year, I will walk away. I will stay on, though, for about 6 months in a consulting role. After that, my plan is to consult younger shop owners to help them grow their businesses. I have been approached by a coaching company already, but they don’t fit my style so I’ll be looking around for the best fit. As for the real estate side, I own several residential rentals and have had no desire to own commercial real estate in the state of NJ. Leasing has always been the best option for me.

Unless there is a real need to change, don’t! It is seriously disruptive to change management software you and your team have been using for years. I have looked at others and they basically do the same thing just in prettier packages. The new programs were all developed under the free money system where venture capital was running rampant. Now, free money has tightened and you can see their innovations have slowed also. I tried one of them on a trial basis and the whole relearn was just not worth it. In fact, and I’ve seen this with others, it was lacking in some reports I use for my weekly KPI’s. I use old school Mitchell. Is it pretty? Heck no, but it gets the job done. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what counts?

My competition is the grocery store, the cable bill, phone bill, college tuition and anything else that splits up my customers income pie. I don’t pay any attention to other shops or what they are doing. I’ve always told my employees, keep doing what we do right and fix the wrongs, everything else around us is white noise.

Yes, I was starting to plan that out when Covid hit so it was tabled, but it’s back in play for 2023 planning. I am in a town with a lot of cars and a decent amount of auto repair facilities. We are probably the number one or two independent in regards to volume and revenue and growing steadily, but growth has been bottlenecked due to amount of bays and parking. There are no more facilities zoned for repair in the immediate area. When I moved here, my plan was to conquer this town one car at a time. Only way to get into the other shop’s territories to get those cars is to drive to them. So mobile will be part of the expansion into those territories. We be selective about what we do and what we drive back to the shop. It’s really just about expansion without another brick and mortar

The consumer drives the market. People need their cars. So the shop has to be open at least five days a week. We are not open weekends, so the crew gets those two days to spend with family and friends. My crew likes to work. Most of them don’t take their full vacations or PTO. They would rather take the buyout at the end of the year. I think you need to know your people, your culture and most importantly your finances before making that type of decision.

First, it begins with branding. I had my logo professionally designed as a unisex logo. It appeals to both men and women. The way we did it was to make the car have curves and although the logo is predominantly black and silver, a touch of blue was splattered in it to soften it. Then it was about splattering it all over the community. We are on the carts at the local supermarket. We are in the church bulletins. We advertise on the local high school sports channel. Our banner is at most of the major sports fields and we advertise in various elementary school parent promos. No postcards or mailers, no coupons, no gimmicks. We made ourselves part of the community and the community has responded in kind. I couldn’t take anymore work from coupons if I tried. And a side note, we are surrounded by dealerships, big franchises, and other independents. Giving back to your community will be your best advertising in my opinion.

Our sales definitely increased. The techs love it because it helps them book hours. We use bolt-on which integrates directly within Mitchell1. All techs have tablets and only see vehicles assigned to them. They clearly explain there findings and take pics to show the customer. Bolt-on is pricey, not going to lie, but the integration to the POS is worth it to me. You have to find one that fits your shop and what you’re trying to accomplish with it. All I can say is this, so many customers have complimented us in its use and it has been mentioned in a lot of our reviews. Two feedbacks I have gotten, they love the health check of the vehicle and the transparency of the shop. We have gotten new customers because of it.

Always respect your insight, Joe, but this one I disagree with. We always send the report first. We alert the customer they will be getting it and we’ll follow up within 30 minutes or they can call us. DVI’s got my shop to it’s first million revenue and we haven’t looked back. Our customers love the report and are referring other customers because of it. My advisors have enough to do in the course of the day. This makes their job so much easier. And it sells the work by itself. That way my advisors can be advisors and not sales people.

This post is getting us a decent amount of cars. Obviously the price is right, but this has been shared 42 times and over 10k have seen it. We've gotten a lot of five star reviews from it including one from the township fire department. NAPA is providing the oil and filter. I’m providing the labor. We haven’t tried to sell anything else on the customers car, just informed them. About 50% got other work done and the others have said they’ll definitely be back

Well.... I’m actually in the process of creating a mobile division for my shop. I’m only in the planning stages, but I hope to launch a beta project by end of year. I figure one tech, one truck to start. It will complement my bay business. I look at it this way, convenience is becoming the norm for people and working on their car at their location is about as convenient as you can get. I can’t build anymore bays and my location is the best in town so I’m not moving. Bottom line, if I want to keep growing and I can’t bring anymore to me with my bays and lot size then I‘m going to go to them. If anyone else has tried this I’d like to hear from them

That’s the exact formula I’m looking at, but worry about the high labor dollars too. I like to be a disrupter, but I don’t want to disrupt myself out of business. Do we charge $29 for brake pads and $250 to install them? Does the consumer adapt to that and say they have great parts prices but their labor is ridiculous? Has anyone tried this approach?

When I mentioned this exact thing on a Facebook auto shop owners group, I was basically ganged up on by an angry mob fueled by one idiot shop owner who said I was a you tube mechanic newbie idiot. His words, not mine. Actually I’ve had a successful shop for over twenty years, but have always been forward thinking. As long as dinosaurs such as that shop owner exist in this industry we’ll never move forward. Face it, parts margins are shrinking and it’s time to adapt. I’ve been looking at ways now to get more labor out of the job and not worry so much about the parts. Any ideas would be welcome as I’m just starting to experiment with this.