NEW from NE

[DannyFSA]

Hello ladies and gentlemen of the AutoShopOwner community. I am new to this forum but have almost 8 years of professional automotive industry knowledge and know-how. Although new to this forum and progressing toward the ownership of my shop (started the bank process last week) I look forward to flipping though this forum and hopefully making some great friends in the community and learning what I can. I come from Fixed Operations management and have received a couple of accolades from manufacturers (foreign and domestic)  and publications. I wont post any public information on this forum until the day I leave my current employment for fear of being terminated by them. This next comment is not to sound cocky or over confident in myself or my ability but I know that they would fear that I would take my pick of their techs, advisors, and a large customer base and for that terminate me at their earliest convenience.  added note, if you work for a dealership now I will show you how to put over $100,000 on your gross profit annually without cutting pay or expenses. Not here to advertise that just want to help the world around me. 

First questions I would have for anyone:

lease or purchase a building?

Stand alone or row (contiguous)?

DMS or invoicing software used?

Labor rate (understand that location is a major factor)?

Mitchell or Alldata?

Bays per Tech? (mechanical)

Square footage of shop area?

average parts markup in your store?

average gross per tech? (1mo)

with a wife and two Kids would you leave a good job to chase your dream?

What is your google star ranking?

How many customer/cars a day?

Hours of operation? 

do you do SEM / SEO? 

what type of marketing do you do? 

any other advise? 

 

Thank you all, not sure if anyone will play 20 questions but I am really curious of what everyone's opinions. My goal and probably everyones goal is to walk into day 1 with a clear understanding of what needs to happen over the first couple of months to make things happen. If anyone has any questions for me I would be happy to answer them. I understand that I am as novice to the independent world as I could possibly be, I do however know dealership fixed operations very well and am only perusing this as it has been a dream of mine and I need to take this leap of faith to fulfill my personal goals in life. 

 

Cheers, good on ya, and lets rock this thing! 

[Alex]

Welcome to AutoShopOwner! Bumping this topic for you...😉

[JustTheBest]

Welcome DannyFSA! Great to meet you! You did the "20 questions" thing, so I'll do my best. How's that? 

1)with a wife and two Kids would you leave a good job to chase your dream?
That's a difficult one - and really - only you can answer. The one thing that I can assure you is that you've got to have some BALANCE. Just like good music - it's good because of the "breaks" in between. 

2) What is your google star ranking?
What's yours? Ha! That's one thing you MUST work on - get more (as many) customer review as you can.

3) do you do SEM / SEO?
Another tuff question. In so many cases, shop owners I work with don't (typically) have a lot of success with actively marketing (like Google Adwords) Seems the cost is just so hard to recover. But the good news is you can do it without these high costs if you can figure out how to Stand out in Your Market - well, without wearing a chicken suit, right?

4) any other advise? 
Lots! Start with being sure you maintain your BIGGEST ASSET - Your Customer List. Without customers - you've got NOTHING! They are your biggest asset. Then join me on YouTube where I share tips, tricks and hacks to grow your car count, income and profits!

Hope this helps!
Matthew Lee
"The Car Count Fixer"