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What's Your Most Effective Form of Advertising?

Joe Marconi
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tomkatv10 Apprentice

tomkatv10

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First, it begins with branding. I had my logo professionally designed as a unisex logo. It appeals to both men and women. The way we did it was to make the car have curves and although the logo is predominantly black and silver, a touch of blue was splattered in it to soften it.

Then it was about splattering it all over the community. We are on the carts at the local supermarket. We are in the church bulletins. We advertise on the local high school sports channel. Our banner is at most of the major sports fields and we advertise in various elementary school parent promos.

No postcards or mailers, no coupons, no gimmicks. We made ourselves part of the community and the community has responded in kind. I couldn’t take anymore work from coupons if I tried. And a side note, we are surrounded by dealerships, big franchises, and other independents. Giving back to your community will be your best advertising in my opinion. 

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weighit Enthusiast

weighit

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The local auto mechanical repair shop I use now advertises on the local am & fm radio program. He rarely talks about his shop himself, but he does have his customers that are other business owners talk about who they are and why they found and use this shop. They say they are looking for quality, fair pricing and on time repairs, and hearing the actual owners talk about why this shop got theior business is a two fold winner. They both get positive review advertising and since this is not that big a community, between the 4 actual cities maybe 120,000 people chances are you either have been to the person talking or have heard about them.. This little shop is very busy and I have found the same positive response to the shop owner when we go in for service. He told me his thoughts were to let the happy folks tell others why they found him, not him telling you.  Seems to work well here.  

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  • Have you checked out Joe's Latest Blog?

    • Joe Marconi
      Want to End Your Technician Shortage? Focus on Retention!
      By Joe Marconi in Joe's Blog
         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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