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Five Tips for the Busy Season

The busiest season for most auto repair businesses is the winter.  When your auto repair business has defined highs and lows, capitalize on those highs by working a strategy during the lows.  Here are five tips to help you prepare for the busy season when business is slow.

The slow period is not a time to panic or take a break.  Business will pick up and you can be ready with a few simple preparations.  As an auto repair shop owner, seeing the big picture is a constant struggle.  But, we must continually work on our perception to see into the future.  Without the benefit of a crystal ball, use the five tips below.

1.  Beef up your mailing lists.  The heart of any business is its customers.  Be sure that your website has a place for visitors to leave their information so that you can communicate with them.  Let customers know when you add new features to your website and your storefront.

2.  Develop an email campaign.  Most people who are linked to the Internet have an email account.  If they are like me, they probably receive a ton of junk mail also.  But, they do check the titles of all the mail to see exactly what it is.  Use that to your advantage and create directed emails with catchy titles to peak their interest.  Don’t send too many — just enough to keep your name in their memory so that they think of you when the busy season rolls around.

3.  Find new clients.  We always put out feelers when we are starting our business to create a customer base.  Once we have something to start with, we forget that this is still a useful way to bring more clients in.  Were there potential clients who didn’t come on board initially?  Sending cards to these potential clients lets them know you are still interested in having them on board.

4. Networking, networking, and more networking.  There is never a time that networking is not in fashion.  You never know who you might meet.  Maybe your auto repair shop could benefit from a partnership with a new supplier or wholesaler who is willing to dropship products for you.  Setting the wheels in motion when business is not so demanding puts you in the position for the big payday when the business picks up.

5. Learn a new skill.  Business is about meeting the demands of the customers.  A customer who can get all the services they need from one provider won’t want to deal with one who only offers one service.  Increase your services and more clients will come.

What are you doing in the slower periods?  Preparing now for the future will pay off handsomely.  Let the ideas flow and lead you into new directions.



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  • Have you checked out Joe's Latest Blog?

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      Want to End Your Technician Shortage? Focus on Retention!
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         5 comments
      I recently spoke with a friend of mine who owns a large general repair shop in the Midwest. His father founded the business in 1975. He was telling me that although he’s busy, he’s also very frustrated. When I probed him more about his frustrations, he said that it’s hard to find qualified technicians. My friend employs four technicians and is looking to hire two more. I then asked him, “How long does a technician last working for you.” He looked puzzled and replied, “I never really thought about that, but I can tell that except for one tech, most technicians don’t last working for me longer than a few years.”
      Judging from personal experience as a shop owner and from what I know about the auto repair industry, I can tell you that other than a few exceptions, the turnover rate for technicians in our industry is too high. This makes me think, do we have a technician shortage or a retention problem? Have we done the best we can over the decades to provide great pay plans, benefits packages, great work environments, and the right culture to ensure that the techs we have stay with us?
      Finding and hiring qualified automotive technicians is not a new phenomenon. This problem has been around for as long as I can remember. While we do need to attract people to our industry and provide the necessary training and mentorship, we also need to focus on retention. Having a revolving door and needing to hire techs every few years or so costs your company money. Big money! And that revolving door may be a sign of an even bigger issue: poor leadership, and poor employee management skills.
      Here’s one more thing to consider, for the most part, technicians don’t leave one job to start a new career, they leave one shop as a technician to become a technician at another shop. The reasons why they leave can be debated, but there is one fact that we cannot deny, people don’t quit the company they work for, they usually leave because of the boss or manager they work for.
      Put yourselves in the shoes of your employees. Do you have a workplace that communicates, “We appreciate you and want you to stay!”

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