How Do You Balance the Thanksgiving holiday and Your Auto Repair Businesss?
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By Joe Marconi in Joe's BlogTypically, when productivity suffers, the shop owner or manager directs their attention to the technicians. Are they doing all they can do to maintain high billable hours? Are they as efficient as they can be? Is there time being wasted throughout the technician’s day?
All these reasons factor into production problems, but before we point fingers at the technicians, let’s consider a few other factors.
Are estimates being written properly? Are labor testing and inspections being billed out correctly? Are you charging enough for testing and inspecting, especially for highly specialized electrical, on-board computer issues, and other complex drivability work? Is there a clear workflow process everyone follows that details every step from the write-up to vehicle delivery? Do you track comebacks, and is that affecting production? Is the shop layout not conducive to high production? For example, is it unorganized, where shop tools, technical information, and equipment are not easily accessible to every technician? Are you charging the correct labor rate and allowing for variables such as rust, vehicle age, and the fact that most labor guides are wrong? Also, is there effective communication between the tech and the service advisor to ensure that extra labor time is accounted for and billed to the customer? These are a few of the top reasons for low productivity problems. There are others, but the main point is to look at the entire operation. Productivity is a team effort. Blaming the techs or other staff members does not get to the root cause in most cases.
Maintaining adequate production levels is the responsibility of management to create the processes that will lead to high production while holding everyone accountable.
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By bantar
By Hunt Demarest. I heard about this guy, but only vaguely. He was on my eventual to-listen-to list, but it hadn't bubbled up. Who wants to listen to an accounting podcast???? Well, the timing was right and I saw a new Podcast entitled "Accounting for Internal and Warranty Work". I listened and was pleasantly surprised. First, a shout-out to Hunt. He's not boring. This is very important as I normally listen to these while commuting. I don't want to fall asleep while driving! He's likeable, and he covers his subjects quite well After listening to this podcast, I immediately revamped my Warranty Work accounting method. I know knew WHY it was important to follow his process for dealing with warranty work. Previously, we just ate the costs and didn't document them religiously. I spent the time to fix up all of 2022 with some correcting journal entries.
His CPA firm focuses on auto-shops. It seems that he is crowd-sourcing his topics by asking for topics or creating topics from frequently asked questions. There was a podcast on advertising. How much should you spend? Is zero enough? Is 100K monthly enough? There was another on Tax Tips and common questions, such as "Can I pay for my goomah with business funds?" (OK, not really, but you get the picture). Where are the legal boundaries with taxes? What qualifies and what doesn't? Is accelerated depreciation best?
TLDR: Great podcast. Not boring, in spite of being accounting. Auto Shop focused. I recommend that you listen.
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By carmcapriotto
This week Hunt talks about incentivizing key employees with profit sharing and how to hold them accountable for the overall company and its profits.
How to motivate key employees to think like owners Pros and cons of giving key employees minority ownership What are alternative options for incentivization? Caveats for expansion and/or quick growth
The Show is sponsored by:
Shop-Ware on the web at getshopware.com
NAPA Auto Care Repair Shop of Tomorrow at https://repairshopoftomorrow.com
Hunt Demarest, CPA
Paar Melis and Associates – Accountants Specializing in Automotive Repair
Visit us Online : www.paarmelis.com
Email Hunt: [email protected]
Get a copy of my Book : Download Here
Click to go to the Podcast on Remarkable Results Radio
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By carmcapriotto
Talking Points
Kathleen Long: One of the hardest working women in auto car. A woman of action and impact. She’s a big believer in the value of mentoring. Has a glass-break alarming laugh RepairPal is setting/ limiting what prices I can charge to my customers with their estimator. I don’t need RepairPal because I already have plenty of business and I get great marketing for free through word of mouth. Online customers like the ones that come through RepairPal are just annoying price shoppers. I have a relationship with my local CarMax store, so I don’t need RepairPal’s help. Many consumers haven’t heard of RepairPal so they cannot really help me to increase my car count.
Kathleen Bio:
Kathleen Long, Chief Revenue Officer
Kathleen has built and developed award-winning marketing, sales, success, support and operations teams, centered on principles of authenticity, hard work and empathy. As Chief Revenue Officer at RepairPal, Kathleen leads all partner and consumer initiatives; including business development & strategy, operations, marketing, and IT. Kathleen is absolutely insistent on making a difference for people and businesses, by connecting them with disruptive, useful technologies, aided by humans who are given space to be themselves at work. Kathleen helped transition a startup through a successful acquisition exit, created revenue and monetization streams that supported another startup going public and grew her career from a chair in a call center employee to a seat at the executive table in 10 years (happily mentoring others to do the same). Kathleen is proud to stand for ethical principles, and to be a female executive in a male-dominated industry and is Women in Auto Care's Woman of Excellence, presented annually to a woman who has provided recent outstanding contributions to the auto care industry while demonstrating role model behaviors, leadership and commitment to the advancement of women. She has been described by some as the literal voice of the company and has a laugh that once set off glass break alarms in a conference room.
Kathleen holds a degree in General Studies and Philosophy from the University of Nevada, Reno.
How To Get In Touch
Group - Auto Repair Marketing Mastermind
Website - shopmarketingpros.com
Facebook - facebook.com/shopmarketingpros
Get the Book - shopmarketingpros.com/book
Instagram - @shopmarketingpros
Questions/Ideas - [email protected]
Thanks to our partner, RepairPal. Visit the Web HERE
Click to go to the Podcast on Remarkable Results Radio
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By Joe Marconi
Let's face it, no one or no entity will help us with the Tech shortage. The truth is, this is not new. This shortage has been created largely from decades of steering young people to college, and not the trades. I believe we need to get involved with apprenticeship programs. Below is an article in Motor Magazine.
Your thoughts? Comments?
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