Just throwing a stone in lake to see what ripples. I did some searching and didn't find to much information. I am also intrigued about the idea due to several owner's continuing to contact me over the years after I have moved on, moved to another shop, moved to another state, etc.
Just a preface... been in the automotive industry for roughly 13.5 years. Started young, fixed own cars, modified own cars, worked on neighbors cars, cousin's, friends, you name it. Began to be the "go-to" for everyone and everyone in my community, school, baseball team, etc until I went to college. I began searching in college and founded an explosive automotive car club at a highly accredited university, graduated with a major in business in 2008 (the recession people...) and found a difficult time finding jobs in my metropolitan area. After a few months and scratching my head thinking about how I couldn't pay student loans by just doing sidework in my backyard, I sold cars at a local dealership nearby. A year and a half later, I transitioned into the service department. That is when I found my hidden talent of reasoning, negotiating, persuading a customer into spending money on their 198X bucket, that the repair was 4 times the value of the car. It was then I began to learn the value into servicing your vehicle, how to be attentive and listen to your customers, learn the trigger points and motives that persuaded a customer into a sale and continued to refined those traits I had acquired. I was even a consultant for a short period of time for automotive repair shops and learned even greater value into how to drive customer sales and keep them coming back. I ran several shops across the city, from the mom and pops to the high volume gas stations to the full blown performance shops and certified AAA approved and NAPA approved auto shops. Every shop had their quirks and each shop was different in each and every way. But I adapted. I never had issues finding success at each of these shops and each experience was more satisfying in the end than anticipated. I moved one from certain shops due to low wages, long hours, extra long commutes, and my quest to fulfill the roll of a husband. My wife wanted to take up acting as a full blown career so I find myself in LA, just running another shop, making the owner tons of money and trying to figure out my next move in life.
So I have to ask you this question. If you had a certified ASE C1 service writer that was willing to cover for you, from open to close for your small business, that you trusted to straight up pick the ball up and run with it, has extremely valuable knowledge of a technician yet is capable of selling a coloring book to blind man, is it something that you as an owner would be interested in for a right price for someone to keep your business open, fluidly moving for a week to two weeks, and be confident that this person would not just screw everything up?
This isn't a "I will fix all of your problems in your shop" kind of ordeal. I just really understand how automotive repair works and have been in so many different situations and have been bored for quite some time now that I am looking for different opportunities to establish a career in not running my own fixed location but remotely helping your location when the help is needed. Now if you think I will come on board to dissect your business because you think I can help you run your business better? I absolutely can but that is not what I am looking for. I am interested in coming in as a "friend" to help out and run your shop privately so you can take that dream vacation to Maui and not have to sweat about the shop and what to do with your employees or that appointment for the coolant leak for Mrs. Robinson's cadillac after you replaced her water pump last week. I need a full 411 lowdown about the shop. It will involve some lengthy forms to fill out about liability and 1099 contractual employment and the fact that I will be an official representative of the business for that week or so. But it may give you the breath of fresh air that you have been looking for. I have done it for my previous bosses a few times and I plan on continuing to help him out when I have the time and am in a position to help. I still got contacted after being 3000 miles away and I am the first go-to guy in this situation because I am reliable, willing, and right man for the job. Some of you think I am crazy but I am certain that there is someone out there is desperately figuring out a way to take a few weeks off without having to close the shop and suffer a major loss in business.
What are your thoughts?
contact:
[email protected]
The following words are NOT foreign to me: Mitchell, Alldata, Shopkey, quickbooks, RO Writer, Reynolds, RepairPal, AAA, ASE Certified, warranty claims, write it right
