FabVinny

Can i pick your brains a little?Do you ever wish you weren't a one man show? What gives you the biggest headache that is caused by being on your own? is there anything that you might be able to share with another on man setup in your area, like accounts, etc? If you previously worked in a dealership or with others, what do you miss? Thanks for your comments

Harry, Thank you very much for the tip about scheduling phone calls. This turned out to be the thing that broke the "I'm not changing a thing" ice 😁 it has worked so well that I now have an opening to start working on your other suggestions. I'm working my way through all the posts on the forum to see if there is anything else I can use! Really appreciate you sharing your insight!

Thanks for the quick reply. In my paying job I have done some work with lean manufacturing so I appreciate it when you point out the "simple" things. it's often the simple things that are done wrong or inefficient. The phone is something I had noticed. Most calls are for customer making appointments, Parts houses looking for orders or even customer looking to see if their car is ready. so I'm looking at maybe an online enquiry form. Give the vehicle details, required work if known and which day preference. Also looking at just picking a preferred parts house and emailing the vehicle details and parts required. Trying to convince my friend to let all calls go to the answering machine :-) The accident was caused when he lifted a car that was already on a lift. axle stands were under the car but not correctly placed. Phone rang so he answered it, went back to work on the car without putting the axle stands in fully so the trolly jack was supporting the car. Jack slipped, car came down but luckily got caught on one axle stand. Minor injuries sustained but was very lucky escape.

Everyone I have spoken to said they were too busy to figure out if there was a better way to do things. Most have come from dealerships and have continued to work they way the used to do when doing side work

Hi, a friend of mine was working as a one man garage until a recent workplace accident. I had been trying to help to organise the shop better so he wasn't dealing with constant interruptions (with little success). The accident was caused by trying to do too much at once resulting in working on a car in an unsafe manner. I've talked to a number of one man garages recently and it seems they all struggle in a similar fashion. So, my question is this.... How best to run a one man business. There seems to be little interest in joining forces with another one man setup. So, how/when to make appointments, schedule work, order parts, get paid etc I'm looking at Google docs to see if there's any way to put an appointment calender into action. Not even sure what are the real problems faced by a one man shop...Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks

Hi Joe, I'm was hoping to get some ideas on how to improve things so my friend would see that there's a more efficient way of working. I'm familiar with the parts business so that's what I see first. I'm sure there's a lot that I don't see. My friend says he's too busy just getting work done to stop and analyse things, and he thinks forums are a waste of time (no offence intended!) I've set up an email address for him and each car now gets a leaflet telling them they can book their car in by sending an email rather than phoning. Early days but it seems to be working. There's been a reduction in interruptions for simple appointments since. Another thing we've done is to schedule maintenance services for specific days. Cars are in, done and out fast with an appointment date set for the next service showing on the invoice. I'm doing all the organising at the moment but hopefully my friend will eventually see the benefits and work with me on this, or pay a consultation fee! ;-)

Thanks. The motor factors (parts stores) have online catalogues that can use vrm - vehicle registration number - to identify the correct vehicle but it's only used by them at the counter. No customer has remote access as far as I know. I can phone them and they look it up for me. some of the distributors have on line catalogues but they don't supply direct to trade. Broadband Internet access is bad here in a lot of areas so think that might be why access is low

Hi, I'm a former parts advisor not a shop owner but looking for some advice. My local repair shop is a friends one man setup. I told him I'd ask here for any suggestions on improving things. We have a lot like this in ireland. The local parts shops don't (As a rule) have online ordering. I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions on how best to run a one man repair shop. I can see a lot of time spent on parts ordering and general interruptions. Any suggestions on how to organise work flow etc appreciated. Anyone sharing the cost of services etc among a few owners? Hope this rambling makes sense! Thanks Vinny