Results from My Car Care Event

We held our Car Care Event yesterday, April 14th and it was a hit. It was the first time we did in in grand fashion. We promoted it through the local newspapers and TV, mailed and emailed about 10,000 flyers to the community; we grill hot dogs, made fresh popcorn all day long, and had the local radio station doing a live remote. We did a few dozen car care inspections, mostly new people. The local Cub Scouts came by, which was really nice. The kids had a blast looking around an eating hot dogs and popcorn. We also set up display tables with worn belts, hoses, dirty cabin filters and air filters. CARQUEST and BG Products also set up tables to show their products, which I am very grateful for.
All in all it was a great day. If you are looking for a way to promote your shop in your community, you should consider an event like this.

Joe, it sounds like it was a smash success. Here are some questions:

1)Did you do it while still working on cars during shop hours?
2)How many people did it take to do the extra stuff? Did you use technicians or bring in other people to cook hotdogs, popcorn, etc.
3)What hours did you put it on?
4)Did you do it indoors or outside?
5)Did you get the cars onto a lift or just inspect from the floor or ground?
6)Do you have an estimate of the total cost?

Joe, it sounds like it was a smash success. Here are some questions:

1)Did you do it while still working on cars during shop hours?
2)How many people did it take to do the extra stuff? Did you use technicians or bring in other people to cook hotdogs, popcorn, etc.
3)What hours did you put it on?
4)Did you do it indoors or outside?
5)Did you get the cars onto a lift or just inspect from the floor or ground?
6)Do you have an estimate of the total cost?

1) Yes, we have two buildings, a seven bay shop and a four bay shop, we kept the 7 bay shop open for business and we had the table set ups in the 4 bay building, along with the food, drinks and pop corn.

2) It took the entire staff to pull it off, I assigned duties to key people: Clean up on Friday night, set up on Sat morning, Food person, my office manager organized the food and getting the food, my foreman was in charge of traffic control, two techs were assigned to the car care lane (we rented a 16x16 tent for the actual car care inspection), two service writers took care of the workflow, 4 techs worked in the 7 bay shop working on regular service work and repair work, I took care of the car care lane and jumped around saying hello to everyone, we a hired a photographer to take photos and video, CARQUEST had 2 reps to help and BG had one Rep.

3) The event hours were from 9-3pm, the radio station was there from 10-noon

4) Car Care Lane outside in the tent, all talbes and demos inside the 4 bay shop

5) All car care inspections were done according to the car care inspection list: underhood, fluids, lights, horn, battery, belts hoses, tires, tire pressure....no undercar

6) Without extra payroll, about $3,000

Great info Joe. I thought about doing one of those this month but had way too much going on to pull it off. Thinking about doing one of these events in Oct.

Great info Joe. I thought about doing one of those this month but had way too much going on to pull it off. Thinking about doing one of these events in Oct.

You know, I was thinking, why do we have to do these in April or October? I think of a shop wants to hold an event, do when they can. I was even thinking about doing one as a fund raiser for a local charity, to get the entire community involved.

Sounds like everyone had a great time.

You know, I was thinking, why do we have to do these in April or October? I think of a shop wants to hold an event, do when they can. I was even thinking about doing one as a fund raiser for a local charity, to get the entire community involved.