weighit

The Irish Bic Lighter Mick and Paddy were fishing on the Irish shoreline when Mick pulled out a cigar. Finding he had No matches, he asked Paddy for a light. 'Ya, sure, I tink I haff a lighter,' Paddy replied and then reaching into his tackle box, he pulled out a Bic lighter 10 inches long. 'My God, man!' exclaimed Mick, taking the huge Bic lighter in his hands. 'Where'd yew git dat monster?' 'Well,' replied Paddy, 'I got it from my Genie.' 'You haff a fecking Genie?' Mick asked. 'Ya, sure. It's right here in my tackle box,' says Paddy. 'Could I see him?' Paddy opens his tackle box and sure enough, out pops the Genie. Addressing the Genie, Mick says, 'Hey dere! I'm a good pal of your master. Will you grant me one wish?' 'Yes, I will,' says the Genie. So Mick asks the Genie for a million bucks. The Genie disappears back into the tackle box leaving Mick sitting there waiting for his million bucks. Shortly, the Irish sky darkens and is filled with the sound of a million ducks flying directly overhead. Over the roar of the one million ducks Mick yells at Paddy, 'What the hell? I asked for a million bucks, not a million ducks!' Paddy answers, 'Ya, I forgot to tell yew dat da Genie is hard of hearing. Do yew really tink I asked for a 10 inch Bic?'

I used to be on the Board of directors of a small credit union while I owned a shop. The credit union had too much money and needed a way to find new borrowing customers. We ended up doing exactly what is being discussed here, we approached small business that could use our services, loans. The shop customer in need of money to fix a big repair in that shop could contact us and come in for a loan. We had staff that could evaluate the persons credit history and within 1 hour approve or deny the loan. It helped the credit union gain customers and helped the shops we had signed up as approved shops. Over the years we did this, I suspect we loaned many thousands of dollars and also gain many new customers we never would have got. That credit union was taken over by a big credit union and I lost my seat on the board, so have no idea if it is still doing anything like that or not. It would cost zero to the shop to have this system in place with a local close by credit union. Might be worth a try.

The last shop I owned I would give a weeks average pay to each employee 2 weeks before Christmas as the bonus. This included overtime, actual weekly pay divided by 52 equaled their bonus. If we had a great year I explained through their hard work, attention to detail, looking out for the waste and not having any damage, they got a Bonus on the bonus and got 2 weeks average pay. It did not happen every year, but many. The years it didn't happen they all knew why, someone screwed up and it cost everyone. It helped me as they as a group wanted to keep eyes on anyone that might cause them to loose the added bonus. It came out of the net from the company profits, but I figured it kept turnover to a minimum, I hated to train new people. They made more money with me than any of the competition and actually made it easy for me when I needed to add personnel. Explaining the pay and the bonus program let them know how we paid up front and what they could expect. Worked for me. I had 6 employees and that shop 10 years when i sold it. My oldest employee had 9.7 years with me, and the newest hire full time had 6.5 years. The 2 part time employees were the ones that changed out every so often over those years, not the full time guys. This pay was on top of their vacation pay that was based on 40 hours base pay per week.

I no longer have my hand book, but I do know not having one cost me a bunch when I fired an employee for stealing from my company. He fought the firing with the unemployment people and I fought it saying stealing was a fire-able offence. At the meeting in the Unemployment office the very first question the lady asked me was what does the handbook say? What handbook I asked, we don't have one. She said well how do you expect the employee to know what your rules were if you never had him read your hand book of rules? I said common sense should factor in here somewhere and where I come from stealing is looked upon as a crime if not at least a reason to loose your job. She said I agree in theory, but here we work with facts, no hand book, no rules therefore no reason to fire, YOU LOOSE!! The man collects on your unemployment for some 34 weeks!! or until he gets a job....what an eye opening experience. I immediately went back to the shop and researched handbooks, and started writing ours. Line one was is is not OK to hit, stab or shoot the boss, or any other employee or customer! Might as well make it a rule so if it ever happened I could fire his azz legally. Also has the sexual harassment clause in there, how much time you can be missing or late, phone usage and clothing styles or sizes. If I thought it was something that was going to bother/hamper or cause discord in my shop, it was in the handbook. Yelling, swearing or other types of loud conversation that could be heard by others was in there too. When a new hire came in, I gave them time to read the book, there was two pages in the back that said they read the book, had any questions about the book answered, and were signing both pages stating such. One stayed in the book, one got removed and into the guys file. I also had a meeting with all the existing employees and explained exactly why the new rule book was being started, answered all the normal questions and also had them sign it. Never again paid any more unemployment to anyone fired. Now with the age of computers it is so much easier to research, as this all took place in 2003 and i was in the library for a couple of hours hunting how to do this, but I can't see anyone in business now not having a handbook for the employees.

In my last lease for a vacant building that was empty for well over a year I proposed a 3 year lease at a per month rate, but I would give first, last and 1 month security at the signing, but I wanted 1 month free, the 3dr month I was in the building. This gave me a slight break in the outgoing funds on a start up business. It was to be a triple net lease and I wanted 2, 5 year options to continue at the end of the first 3 years. Since it was empty, I felt I had some bargaining power and if I had to I would forgo the free month, but he gave it to me to just get someone in the building. I had a 6,000 sq ft warehouse type building with other smaller shops on either side of me and I paid $1800 per month plus taxes and any upgrades I did to the building. Second lease we went to $2,200 and third lease went to $2,500. I ended up trying hard to buy the entire building but never got him to let it go.

I opened a do it yourself paint shop with a paint booth and really wanted to expand to a do it yourself body shop but never got that far along. The building I was in never had a space I could rent to expand and I needed the body shop and paint shop next to each other. The fellow that tried to open a do it yourself service center failed miserably. Rather than he being there he hired some low life individuals with bad attitudes to run the place and it closed in a year.

I used to go to Sam's club type of store and buy those round tubs of Twizzlers red licorice in individual clear wraps and put my company logo on the outside of the box. I think there was something like 100 or 150 in a package and when I dropped that tub off at various places I wanted to advertise with, with a stack of my business cards they knew who brought it in. About once a month I would make the rounds with the tubs and it got to be that the places I would stop in to looked forward to my visit. I also used to keep a open tub on the customer write up desk and most everyone that came in would grab some of those Twizzlers. It was a reasonable cost advertisement that folks remembered. A tub to the NAPA store might get you a lot more work than a thousand dollars of radio advertisement.

Happened to be in a small town in Texas a couple of years ago and needed a oil change for the PT Cruiser I had. Pulled in and checked in and noticed their sign they did rotation and balancing too. Said sign me up, I was really impressed with the speed and while the oil was done on one rack and the tire work on another, it was very fast. In talking with the owner I asked how the added service was working? He said to me it has been a real money maker and turned his 'dead' flat stall into real money. He said he cross trained the employees and gave them some spiff money for any tire work sold. One stop shop for me and I was happy.

I looked at the tool salesmen as a bother too for a long time. They stopped my techs from working when they were out in the truck spending money. Then I figured out how I could gain from their contacts and used them as I needed them. Give it a try.

The people that know all these tech are the tool salesman, Snap-On, Cornwell, type guys. Also the fastener salesman are in every shop and get to know who is good. Paint supply salesman, Napa drivers and tow truck drivers & oil delivery drivers. Some of these guys see a lot of tecks and know who is good and who is trouble. Sometimes they know a tech is being mis- handled, held back, or just plain not happy for some reason. If you talk with these people and let them know your looking for the best and if they know anyone they would recommend you sure would appreciate it. I guess the term network fits this method of hunting. But to get a good employee, you need to be better than where he was in either pay, work environment, benefits or advancement possibilities. Something needs to motivate them to move. I've found someone, we talked twice, i made a offer and then they used my offer to get more from where they were working, they won and I had to start over hunting.

When I had my business across the drive from a auto repair shop I was asked to donate for the cause. They were having a free auto safety check for single parents from two or three, maybe more? churches in the area. These were different denomination and not for any one church religion. The pastors, or clergy had to sign the letter that gave some kind of proof that these were indeed needy individuals from that church. They also got donations from the various church goers and auto parts stores, and other businesses in the area so they had a small pile of money to fix the cars as needed. They were amazed at the conditions of some of these cars, you had to wonder how they even ran, or stopped or moved with the worn,failed or broken parts on them. I recall about 50 cars going through on a Saturday and the money in the kitty was spent to fix these cars. Some got a tire or tires, some got shocks, brakes,wiper blades, tune ups, heater fixed, fan belts replaced, leaking hoses replaced and anything to make them safe and then the church groups washed them when done. Sometimes it looked like the windows had never been cleaned in years. Each person that got their car worked on or looked at got a receipt of what was done and who had contributed. Each church got a letter saying like a break down of what amount of cars got what, not naming any person who got the work. It might say 50 cars were seen, 27 got wiper blades, 14 got 1 tire, 4 got 3 tires, 1 got 4 tires and so on. Besides making the crew feel pretty good bout doing something for people that really needed help, the shop was rewarded in many new customers from the various churches from folks that wanted to thank them for doing what they did.. It was a win win deal. As I understand since I no longer have my shop and moved away that the fellow who started this has died and I don't know if it has continued or not.

A $17,000 line of credit is all relative, I opened with 100 grand in the bank and all equipment paid for on my opening day, and there were times I felt I was under capitalized, but if you keep track of all the numbers, incoming and outgoing and work smart, you will win. Working for yourself is so rewarding and when you win, makes you feel like you accomplished something. Good luck

As bad as this may seem, I was the guy that stole most all techs from other shops whenever I needed one. I asked around, found out who was good, where they worked and tried as best I could to check them out. Then made contact, had a talk about what they were doing, how I could help them advance and earn more money. Money in most cases motivates people, not in every case, but it is a major factor. I made sure my techs were the highest paid around, and if they ever left me, they knew that it would be a dramatic drop in their pay. It worked for me and them, the last shop I owned was for 11 years and the newest tech had 5 years, the oldest had 10.5 years with me. Shortly after I sold the new owner felt the guys were paid too much and either chopped their rate or messed with the pay and they all left. Within 2 years the place was closed, all because the new owner messed with what worked and the reason he bought my place...

Way back when I opened my first place I was weighing the pricing difference between a high visibility building and one 3 blocks off that same street for 1/2 the price. I asked people I thought were smarter than me and was told by 2 of them, if your good, priced right, nice to deal with and do as you say your going to do, people will find you no matter where you are. The other two guys said go for the exposure and by accident you will make money because of the exposure. I went with the cheaper place, did exactly as I was told, excellent work, clean offices and waiting room and the shop was like an operating room, and priced my self higher than the other guys. It worked, so to me location is not necessarily going to be a deterrent.