mspecperformance

That is a low hourly rate. Your tech pay ideally should be 30% of your total labor sales max. That would equal to a $80/hourly. Then you need to factor in room for everything else built into his pay including benefits, insurance, comebacks, etc.

What is 34 hr billed with minimum of $938 a week mean? Hourly rate of $34 and a minimum of $938 weekly pay even if hours arent met?

What were you paying him and what is your labor rate?

Hi Bob, I think some of what you are saying is right but I think you are approaching it with the wrong mindset. I can relate to being in a market where no one else is operating their business properly. Many shops in my area do not, hell I think most of them still hand write tickets and don't have a shop management system and I'm in NYC! 2 important metrics as you already know is Car Count and ARO. If you have a high car count, your ARO doesn't have to be super high to make gross dollars. The problem with that model is you have to ensure you are keeping your car count high and your shop work flow on point to move all those cars. It can cause more undue stress. The other model is a low car count and higher ARO. You are generally less stressed however your inspection, estimating and sales process has to be PRO and you have to have a high value driven model. You will only be attracting the top clientele in your area which will reduce your car count but give you the opportunity to work with better clients. Maybe look into a 20 group instead of a coaching program. The costs are generally less and its more peer learning with a facilitator.

Life is so much easier if you have a nice beautiful high traffic location! I wish I could do zero advertising!!!

I am charging 45 but I am probably going to jump that to $75. I don't ever charge it to my customers and its mostly a formality for insurance companies and for purposes to place a lien on a vehicle.

Just my deducting from the info you provided I think you are working on too many cars with not enough profit. You have the car count which is a great problem to have. Lets play with some numbers and say you are doing 1.5 a year (1 mil to 1.5 is a huge gap btw I'd love to know exactly what your gross is), and lets say you are seeing 75% of your database a year which is 3,750 cars. Lets multiply that by a factor of 2 and say you see each of your customers at least 2x a year (you might even be seeing them 3x a year) which would effectively make your car count jump to 7500 cars yearly. 1.5 mil divided by 7500 cars would give you an ARO of $200. Just by that number you know you are working way to hard. Also you have to know what kind of average gross profit you are making off of every car and then what are you netting at the end of the year. With that in mind I would suggest you really look at your numbers and find help with interpreting them. You can find out a lot like how to trim your car count down and only retain the good clients. Increase your ARO so you are working smarter and not harder. Also analyze your numbers so you know how to stay profitable. The best thing to do is to educate yourself on how to run a more effective shop. This generally means spending some coin on good help.

That would be lovely but I dont think there are enough shop owners to partake.

If the bank owns the car, they will be coming for it. They cannot repo the car without paying you. Make sure you are documenting all the storage charges. Also a mechanic's lien shouldn't cost you more that $300 if you go through a lien guy but state laws vary.

ATI has a 30 month reconstruction program (they call it something like that). I am assuming they put together this program from their experience with many shops and taken the biggest successes and the common failures they have seen. The issue I have with this is that every business and every person is different. I don't care what anyone says, what works for 100,000 people still might not work for you in your situation/market/demographic etc. As I understand it ATi has been accused of being "cookie cutter". They have also helped a lot of shops and shop owners out there so to each his own. In regards to Elite, I am a client with them. I have nothing but GREAT things to say about them. If anyone has any particular questions you can always msg me.

I was going to make a my own thread about this but Joe hit the nail on the head! This was such a professionally ran event and I can't say enough great things about it. The break out sessions were informative and the vendors were not overly pushy and actually had a lot of great conversations with them! I think the most valuable part was the networking opportunities. The R&W crew knew exactly what they were doing when they put together the agenda and they left a lot of time to interact with fellow shop owners. Its so great to meet people in this industry and it also makes me proud to be apart of it.

So you want to kick your customer's asses off your property lol I wish I could do the same!

if we can't legally hold a customer's vehicle then the lengths I will go is to document everything that we see in writing and in pictures maybe even videos. Walk the customer through the vehicle and explain to him in our professional opinion it is unfit for the road. At the end of the day I can't help ignorance if there is just blatant disregard to the information that is coming your way. Its really commendable that you went that far Joe and that's why you're an amazing person! I personally won't go that far, im in the jungle.

Don't ruin your biz for 1 idiot.

I would argue that is not a repeatable experience you can always provide. What if the pads didn't fit and you have her brakes apart? What if she started complaining of squealing? What is her car decided to not brake as well? What if she got into an accident and cited a braking problem?

Some pointers from my experience. Take it or leave it. Inspections are the life blood of your business. If your techs are taking too long to perform inspections look and see what they are getting hung up on. I am a Bolt On power user and I will tell you that the digital inspection will not make the process any faster if you are using it to its full effectiveness. You will be snapping pictures, many time multiples of a certain area and also typing is a lot slower than writing. Even dictating to the tablet can take time in the editing process. What it will do for you is help you increase ARO if you have a sales system behind your inspections. Think about it this way... if your Techs take 1 hr to perform an inspection but it gives you $2000 worth of work on average to sell and you can close $1000 average ($1000) ARO then that is an hour well spent wouldn't you agree?

Moz is good for NAP congruency. Caveat you have to keep paying them or else all your listings they have changed for you will revert. Its a nominal cost though, something like $100 a year.

I think you mean target system? camera systems are horrible in terms of efficiency and productivity. You have to mount the clamp and then mount the camera. Target system you just mount the target to the wheel.

If you have any questions about Elite you can contact me. I am a current coaching client with Elite and they have been nothing but stellar in my book.

how many hours does he normally flag?

In my experience you pay for what you get. Seminar style classes are good but do not leave lasting results. You need behavioral changes which requires a course. Generally these are not cheap. You are looking at huge possible increases in sales and productivity even if a course costs you thousands of dollars you will make it back in ROI 1000%

I would avoid cash prizes. You are essentially buying referrals and reviews which on the surface may sound nice but you are incentivizing clients not because they like you and would have given you a referral otherwise. I would be a bit more creative and maybe get some of the other businesses in your community involved. For instance go to a nice local restaurant and work out a deal with them where you purchase $100 gift card for 50-75% with the explanation that you are going to co promote their business. Great idea though, I like it.

get really good at vetting and firing customers. I do it all the time, life is better for it.

Check your state laws. You may have to break out parts and labor on your invoices.

Had a customer that comes to us for some oil changes and some service. Lifetime over last 24 months was about $1300. Found out he was taking our recommendations and going elsewhere to get the repairs done. We have turned off his contact opt ins and will politely decline to book him for further appointments. You might think I'm petty or maybe even a little crazy but in my eyes it ceased being a synergistic relationship when you are now using us for only oil changes or a second/third option. Its a waste of my tech's time and my service advisor when we have a lot of other great clients to serve. Bye Felicia!