Wheelingauto

I agree with Anderson on this one. Shops that are doing 2 Mil are usually well run and have a good grasp on the numbers. To add to Anderson's questions what would you expect to pay for a business the generates 2 mil in gross sales and nets industry benchmark 20% ? Or are you looking for a shop that does 2 mil with almost no net and basing an offer on that and hoping to improve on it. I think if it's the latter it would be near impossible to find common ground. No one who has built sales to that level would agree there is not much value (IMO) but in reality there really is not much value only blue sky.

Since no one has responded I will toss in my $.02. I joined a BNI group about 15 years ago. The group remained as a group for a good 10 years in different forms. As you said, you are the easiest referral in the room because everyone has a car and they all want to be ACTIVE so to refer themselves to you is the cost of an oil change and they can come back saying how wonderful you are (whether they believe it true or not). Having been in business for over 30 years I thought I had my own referral group and would not be able to connect with that many. I ended up making a lot of very good customers and friends. That being said if you are not truly a genuine person (others in the group not you) people will see right through it and will not follow through with being referred or at least not have the built up trust one should have with a genuine referral. Even in a BNI group real referrals are done because someone believes in you. The best way to get this across from the referrer to the referral is in ones own words, not a script. While you need to have somewhat of an elevator speech when you first meet someone in a networking environment, I was always like Hi, I'm Dave, I fix cars. It always got a laugh and people found me approachable. Remember, as the car guy you are just a dumb mechanic anyhow....it's not like you are a real businessman. (perception) What was great was when they got to know me they realized I was one of the better business minds in the group. Good luck with it.

Jeffrey, I understand what you are saying. What you also have to recognize as a shop owner buying right allows proper pricing and proper profitability. While service is what we are all about and what differentiates us COGS is something that NEEDS to be monitored closely and as the owner you need to make sure you are not overpaying which will cause you to unnecessarily price too high. If you wish to use Amsoil and tout it's benefits thats fine. If you can buy it for $50 a gallon from Napa or order it shipped in for $30 a gallon would you care? I hope so! i did not see this as a cheap discussion as much as a COGS discussion. Whether you offer Amsoil or Full Synthetic oil really does not matter. While you have a one man operation and can educate one person at a time others have 10 or 20 man operations that cater to a much larger niche than you do and therefore may not be able to educate on the level you do and/or do not have the faith in the same products you do yet still wish to offer quality products.

Unfortunately I cannot identify with your issues. We are a much larger facility and I do not have the time to shop for specials at various stores. I recently fell out of contract with Valvoline and after reading posts by Anderson Auto and his strategy of inexpensive synthetic oil changes to drive car count, we decided to shop around to see if we could effectively bring down the price of a full synthetic oil change to increase value to our customers and then make the move to "5k service intervals" and then building a service package around them (LOF, rotate, inspection). There is a company out of Missouri called Keltners distribution who sells Dexos approved full synthetic oils for less than $2 per quart by the case. I used to order that in various weights by the pallet. I think minimum order is like $600. They sell a lot of other things that might make it doable for a smaller shop and you can mix and match. Recently we found a local supplier where we can buy dexos approved in bulk at $7.10 per gallon....so we no longer use or offer conventional oils. While we dont advertise cheap full synthetic oil changes we are exclusively using synthetics for only a couple of dollars more than we used to charge for conventional.

Alex, no one is directly soliciting me. Most of the current activity and involvement I see are comments by those who seek clients from this site and what they comment on/about are solicitous (is that a word???) in nature. That rubs me wrong....maybe its just me. is

Problem is this group has all but dried up and gone away except for the industry "gurus" who are...um....selling their wares. I hardly come here anymore and when I do it's just them fighting for any scraps that might be here.

I have one of those complicated sites. www.wheelingautocenter.com I think the site has to have your contact info readily available, IT has to list what you do, It has to have a link to reviews, and it has to most importantly build an impression to the consumer. An impression either this is EXACTLY what I am looking for or just the opposite. I think real pictures are an important part of that. All you primary points of action need to be on the first page (appointment by web, phone call, contact info) and it HAS to be mobile friendly. I also think you have to have other pages for those who have questions or who like to do more research. The number of pages is not important but I think you need to have more than they want to go thru. Most will only look at one or two before making a decision but having more to choose from might create a more professional impression. Almost everyone uses the internet in some way to chose, fund or do business. Just sit and think about how you use your phone, computer and pad devices to research, locate, get directions or just find a phone number. To those that think it isnt needed either you are running a (really)small business or nearing retirement age.... IMHO Oh, one last thing. Most update their technology quite often(phones, ipads etc) dont you think there are valid reasons to keeping your website updated??? Spiders, load times?

Complimentary alignment inspection with the purchase of tires... Has so much more value..... Free= Bad word Check=means its free Look= means its free JMHO

HA HA...I did.....didn't work for me. I have read about the type of schedule you run Anderson and other than you, I dont know of anyone who made it work. You have to dramatically increase car count when going from standard 5 day work week to 6 day rotating schedule and as you described, there are other challenges. My EX service manager decided to open full day Saturdays several years back in an effort to grow. Immediately I got notice from one tech who did not want to work Saturdays and that was the catalyst to him changing industries and careers. We added several lube techs and rotated our master/senior techs to one Saturday per month. At the time we had 3 advisors so one would work each Saturday with one senior tech, 2 apprentices and a car washer. It wasn't so bad but we had a lot of turnover with the car washers and apprentices. Also had a drop off of standards so in an effort to keep standards up, I found it much easier to manage 5 day a week all full time people and lose Saturdays. The final decision was when my service manager became my ex SM and I had to cover for his Saturdays...did it for a little while but it got old quick. So we closed again on Saturdays and became a 5 day a week shop again (added more loaners). We continue to grow although I suspect Anderson will outgrow us soon. I am becoming fat and happy.....

More information would be helpful. How is your pricing the problem? When trying to get into fleets, is your first question to the person in charge is are you unhappy with your current vendor? What would you do differently if you had the chance, what is the biggest pain you have when dealing with fleet maintenance? All these are discussion points to which you should have compelling answers/discussion points. If the only thing that is discussed is price and the value of doing things correctly is not part of that equation I would say move on to another fleet.

In addition to Stevens points I would add.... Inspect every vehicle, the more consistent you can be the better. Identify all needs. Estimate all needs, present all needs to customer in order of importance, along with estimates to correct. Watch average ticket grow. To improve results add in Stevens points: Dont market to bottom feeders. Market to value. Treat people well, serve them and consistently deliver. Hire the best you can find and help them be as efficient as possible. Also, get sales training. While you need (IMO) to be genuine knowing the tools and how to use them will assist in closing some of the more difficult sales and close more of the easy ones.

I am assuming you are making a change in the payroll because numbers are off. I agree with MSPec that you probably need to go into this with a good plan B. You state your techs are fat and happy. If that's the case all they will feel when you change the plan is that you are somehow ripping them off. It will not motivate them to do better. IF...they are worth saving....educate them. Pull out whatever you feel you need to to show them the current state of affairs. Where their productivity is, efficiency, gross profit numbers. Show them where is should be and can be. Educate them on what that means to THEM, not only with pay but how working conditions will improve if the business is making what it should. Educate them on what it means to the business (health). They could really be fat and happy! Then set expectations of how things will be going forward. Be prepared to make changes because there will be ones who wont want to change, cant change, or are just the wrong people. They will complain the most and you need to carve them out quickly and publicly...the others will take notice and change...... Just changing a pay plan will not accomplish anything (IMO)

I have a lot of questions about your operation and before I can render an opinion on the pay plan I would need some answers. More importantly, your definition of efficiency is different to how I've been taught. I always believed efficiency is time allotted to actual time doing the work. So, if I am given 2 hours to complete a task and it takes me 2 hours I am 100% efficient. If I take a crap for 30 minutes it is not part of the equation. Other measurements must be take to determine the cause of inefficiency. Productivity is the difference of clock hours vs hours working on cars (accounts for above mentioned potty break). So if you guys are slow and there are not enough cars the tech does not get a bad rep for being inefficient. To better explain, 3 times are needed to be measured and calculated. Time on the clock (40 hours, available) time working on cars (actual) and time given per task (billed, booked, flat rate time). Efficiency is billed divided by actual. A journeyman tech should aim for 135% Productivity is actual divided by available, aim should be for 90% If you find your guys are not efficient you need to determine if they are lazy, ill equipped, untrained or unmotivated. Increasing efficiency via pay can only change unmotivated. If you find your guys are unproductive you need to figure out if there are not enough cars, not enough staff or scheduling needs to be looked at. Again, unmotivated is the only factor that might be modified by pay. If your techs need to unload a truck full of tires they cant be working on cars and thats a factor. How you currently measure does not give me enough data to give an opinion on pay.

Thanks, been doing this 30 years now. Started out as a 2200 sq ft 5 bay shop and moved into the rest of the building 16 years ago. While there are many successful shops represented here I would say for large shops Anderson and I are similar (we've gotten to similar sizes and numbers <mine are better haha>) but got there on completely different roads when it comes to marketing. Anderson has become very successful going the route of the oil change special but his route is offering incredible value (really cheap synthetic oil change and inspection) which will cause some of the real deadbeats to seek service elsewhere (think $12.95 lofs). You can read about his success in many forums here. Me....I was a little more idealistic in my approach. I don't have a menu price for anything. People do not come to me for price and I don't want them to. While we don't charge much (about $35) for a basic oil change we do not advertise price or specials anywhere anytime I dont care how slow it might be. The times I have done it many years ago I regretted every time. People find me because they are tired of being sold something they don't need, incompetence, or just plain poor service. So, we offer value through our service without the special. Different routes. While there were many times in the early years I was fearful because business was slow, I've never managed the business from fear of being broke. I have always taken the route of doing things (IMO) the right way and the money will follow. It have worked out well for me. As a businessman (who is getting older, wiser and less idealistic) I can see the route Anderson has taken could be appealing to gain quicker car count (ouch). Now, all that being said. You need to figure out what sets you apart from all this new (and old)competition. I will bet every time that service, expertise and convenience will win, and price is not part of the picture. Probably some of the best advice I can give from my experience is let the top 20% of you customers dictate who you are and what you do. Focus on that and not what the bottom 20% of your customer base tells you. We have a tendency to focus on the pain and try to minimize it but in reality you cant fix miserable people with miserable cars and wallets. You can increase the pleasure of great customers which will keep work fun.

Ok, I looked up bowing Rock NC....you cant find techs because you're in the middle of nowhere...BUT You have a 5 week backlog!!!!!! Charge more.....if the shops that charged 45-55 were worth anything you would not have 5 weeks of backlog.

4 things I'll respond to. A top tech should be making 80k plus per year easily. If a tech isnt willing fire them. If they aren't capable train them and/or pay them accordingly. If they aren't capable I would question the title "Technician" Raise your billable rate, techs should make 30% of labor billed. The only reason you have parking lot full and people who are willing to wait 5 weeks for service is YOUR TOO CHEAP or you are the ONLY choice. People do not wait 5 weeks for car service where I am from. If I run more than 3-4 days behind we lose opportunities. I am not picking on you or putting you down. I am trying to help. The last line about 5 weeks is your key. You need to charge more period.

This is where our industry is so screwed up! FLAT RATE!!! All the industry guru's who want to put techs on flat rate because they cant teach and we cant learn how to properly motivate our technicians. Asking for a guarantee of 46k per year to show up is not out of line (for a journeyman) and if you cant afford to guarantee a quality tech that you need more help than a tech can give you. Offering $30-$40 a hour flat rate is great. IF you have the work, IF a tech gets truly paid for all they do..they will make a great living. I don't know of many who would turn down an actual dollar rate per hour and still give you an honest days effort if properly motivated. Everyone talks about how they offer good money. What isn't really discussed is how many techs are underpaid because their owner/advisor does not charge properly, gives stuff away or just plain expects someone to work for free. Discussions on this board about we pay our techs .2 for an oil change.....there is not a single person here who could pull a car in, give it a decent visual inspection, set air pressure in tires, adjust fluids, change oil and filter and back the car out in 12 minutes. Ain't happening and should not be an expectation. However there are techs getting .2 flat rate to do this with the caveat that what they find they will get to do if sold. OH YEAH...and car count. It should not be a techs concern if you can provide enough quality car count. Somewhere somehow as owners we've been taught if we're not getting paid they shouldn't either......that's a bunch of BS. IMO. We need to learn how to properly charge for our services, charge for all of our services and pay our people better than living wages based on the skills they have. There should be no journeyman plumber who makes more than their tech counterpart. (i'm not picking on plumbers).

Anderson did you a favor by looking on Google Maps. I suspect if you do expand people will be encouraged to park in front of the glass shop, or on the edge of the front parking lot to access the new office. Wont take long before someones bitching because you have too many cars are up front or there's no more parking. Look at my lot, we have like 8 spots up front and we handle like 24 cars per day. We are constantly shuttling cars in front and in back https://www.google.com/maps/@42.1248906,-87.9506014,194m/data=!3m1!1e3

In your vision, how will this move improve the business other than visibility and waiting room? How will the business grow? What are the projected numbers and how will you afford the increase in rent and people? How well is the business doing now? Like Anderson, I once rented 2200 sq ft. I expanded into 12.5k sq feet overnight and was able to survive the growth but it was not easy. It also dramatically changed my role in the business.

5% was the benchmark used for both RL Oconnor and elites 20 groups. Our rent is less than 5% of sales (currently 110k annually)but we also are triple net and in Crook county Illinois where property taxes support the finest crooks there are (currently 60k per year). Overall we are at 6.8% and paying average rental rates for our area. I own the building as well.

According to the benchmarks I follow rent should be 5% of sales. If I were to add it to current rent and then benchmark it would it equal more than 5%? If so how much more do you have to do in sales to account for the increase in rent. Will the visibility bring in that much more business? The space sounds like it will not produce but maybe give the ability to produce more out of the current space? Will it give you better image not based on visibility but perception when a new customer walks in? All of these things should be considered. -also- You currently are a tenant in this complex and I suspect in good standing. I would attempt to negotiate a better rate (possibly giving longer terms) and using that to my advantage. You've proven to pay rent and be a responsible tenant, the landlord should prefer to rent to you and give that more consideration than someone off the street. Good luck!

I'd be curious about what your expectations are. What is it you want out of starting your own business? You stated making money for yourself rather than someone else. Have you written a business plan? Have you defined sales expectations? Net profit expectations? Most everyone here has not done this so it's easy for me to stand here and question you. If I had it to do over again I would define my expectations. You said your willing to work 70-80 hours a week.,,,,,,,for what? Think about it. Owning your own business is not about how hard you want to work but about working smarter. Matthew likes to talk about how important car count it....well...car count is great to have but if your not making money on those cars they are useless. How do you plan on charging? Do you know how to properly price out auto repair or do you charge what the guy down the street charges? Have you thought about the time it will take for administrative duties? Do you enjoy administrative duties?

Two pretzels were walking down the street........ one was assaulted

I feel there are many arguments of why IMO this is a poor long term solution. I am in the big city so unlike smaller markets where each has his niche here if given a chance, there are a lot who will take your lunch and eat it without care. 1) I wholeheartedly agree with you to be honest and up front with customers. What happens when you send customer to dealer? Does the customer come in and request reflash? If so, what happens if it does not solve problem? Does the dealer want to diag the problem first? Is the customer prepared to pay again? Or do you not charge diag time since you cant solve problem? Let's say dealer does diag, comes up with different outcome and it fixes the car, how does that reflect on your company? My first solution is to sub it to the dealer. Never send a customer to another for service, they might just find that the service is better and never return. If you think the only reason they come to you is cheaper you have little to offer on that alone. If you desire to discuss this further the second part is the technology side as well. To what level is the technical capability? HOw will it keep up if you dont learn to do what is becoming more and more run of the mill?

They sell A LOT OF TIRES. it is a different business model that the repair model that sells tires. I am sure the kick backs they get are much deeper then ours. In addition to that they have such a narrow niche, they can have advantages we dont such as house brands made by the same manufacturers we represent. As far as "off shore" tires they have to cater to the whole market, you got to have a bottom to help bottom feeders