mspecperformance

I'm at the point where when people give me tells to not take them as a customer including but not limited to, "I'm not looking to spend a lot of money" , "I could do it myself" , "My regular mechanic is busy" etc we have a system to politely fire them or not ever take them in. The headache of a crappy customer is never worth the money that you can potentially make off of them. There are too many people in this world and nearby your shop for you to settle for bottom feeders. Remember you are here to provide a unique and top notch service for a specific clientele for whoever your target customer is. Anyone that doesn't fit that mold you can't help them and it will hurt you far more if you try.

Give him a day or two and call him. I would make sure he is in the right state of mind before the conversation. If he is not and he continues to be irate you need to put your foot down and tell him you are here to help him but you don't deserve to be disrespected. Explain the situation to him about what the agreement was from the beginning. 6 month warranty, used part. Hopefully you didn't push him to use a used part but even if you did he got 16 months out a used part. Also explain to him that the dealership are not fortune tellers, they can't tell you what condition the rear axle was in 16 months ago. They are throwing you under the bus and you need to make that known. Lastly about price, that is completely subjective. You have no idea what the dealership charges but the majority of services you are going to be less expensive. Explain that your intent was not to snake him into any service and its not your job to price shop for him. Sorry your in this situation. Learn from these mistakes and if I were you I'd fire this guy as a customer immediately. Nothing good comes out of someone who can't show mutual respect. If he were my customer he would be taken care of and politely fired. I believe you should go the extra 10 miles for your clients always however once they prove not to be a client they need to go.

HOLY CRAP! Thanks for sharing, time to back my stuff up!

I would bet there are some small changes you could make to really sky rocket your business.

It certainly is not for everyone however if costs are prohibitive, you have to ask yourself what is your goal? Where do you see your future at? What is the future of your shop? Do you plan on staying a 1 man operation? Are you telling yourself "once I make enough money I can start..."? I absolutely make no money off referral or any of that type of stuff. This is honest advice, it's worth your time to just reach out and have a conversation with a coaching company. You may be wasting years of waiting until you think your financially ready for the help you need with your business. I was there for years. I need tons of help and the only education I got was from the school of hard knocks. If I could mentor my younger self I would be flying right now. This is the best piece of advice I can give anyone, getting the right help is invaluable. Nothing is not affordable unless you were doomed to start with. You'll make your money back when your business grows. The road block is in your mind, we are our worst enemy. Speak to any of them, but give yourself that much of a push.

We don't do a high volume of tires but we have a Bosch tire machine and balancer. It is there top of the line stuff. It has held up decently well for us. I would not get a Bosch aligner though. If you are interested I actually have an extra set of Bosch tire equipment brand new. Its a long story, if your interested I can explain over the phone. I am looking to sell them at a great price since they are taking space up in my shop currently. e-mail me at [email protected] if you are interested.

Hey guys, just wanted to report my great experience at the Creating a Buzz class put on by WorldPac. The instructor is Bogi Lateiner of 180 Degree Automotive and the All Girls Garage on the Velocity Channel. You may remember her from her AMAZING waiting/lobby area that doubles as an art gallery. Really awesome if you haven't seen it just google 180 Degree Automotive. Anyway the short of it is the class is GREAT for those of you whom are always asking about marketing tips and what to do. Its also a good primer for a lot of the older owners that feel they don't have a connection with the millennial generation. There is a lot of really really good information in this class. I personally got a lot out of it and even for those whom have been exposed to a lot of this material its great to be exposed to it again. You probably haven't implemented everything you wanted to from other training classes or good ideas you've heard. This is like a shot of adrenaline to get your butt into gear to actually get some of those marketing initiatives started! Bogi is a great instructor and you can certainly tell her passion for the industry. Definitely aligns with my WHY (you'll learn about that in the class). I highly recommend this class. I have no affiliation to WorldPac but I figured you guys would get a lot of value from it.

maybe a digital sign if you can fit it in somewhere.

I generate thousands of dollars from yelp. It definitely depends on your demographic and you have to have a strategy behind it. It works amazing for me.

I would avoid price bidding like the plague.

Ouch! That sounds like a sticky situation. Does the customer know the car is at another shop? Was the customer informed of all the charges and whom was working on the car at all times? Do you have written consent or any consent that can be verified (signature, e-mail acknowledgment).

Just wanted to share another great experience I had over the weekend in San Diego with Elite. I have absolutely nothing but GREAT things to say about Elite and the people involved with their wonderful company. All the coaches are top notch human beings and really live what they preach which is never to put money ahead of people. Most of their coaches are retired or run extremely successful shops and certainly don't need the money. One particular coach was introducing his clients to the group and he had tears in his eyes talking about how proud he was of his clients and all that they have achieved. Truly remarkable to be around such a great group. To be completely transparent and to qualify my statement, I am an Elite Client so I drink the kool aid They have also helped me see a 200% increase in my business from 2014 - 2016. If anyone is on the fence between what coaching company they should work with, really take a good look at Elite. You won't be disappointed.

Parts prices can always change. We use a matrix and 1 labor guide and my SAs do not judiciously quote random prices. If parts prices are always changing then no matter what matrix you are using you will have varying prices. If we get down to giving out estimates, our estimates are saved so anyone can refer back to the original price quotes that were given.

This won't be a problem if you are limiting phone quotes (we hardly give out any pricing over the phone) and having a SMS that will allow you to record estimates/revisions for clients. We save all estimates in a revisions tab via Mitchell1 which is helpful so whomever is the service advisor they can refer to the price that was offered. This creates consistency across the board. You should probably also have a 30-60 day policy on estimates since you will be changing pricing, parts pricing will change over time.

I'd be more worried about your overall margins you are getting for parts. Sometimes you can't help being parts heavy or parts lean. A healthy margin is what you can control.

The quality of average person entering the trade is rather low. God bless these kids really. Nothing personal against them but their aptitude and attitude is so piss poor. I do feel there are gems out there and I will find them however for the vast majority of the shop owners, they will never meet this kids. I think this is partially due to not presenting the right marketing image as well as having a system in place to cultivate talent. I'll tell you how my experiences go once I find some all stars

I believe the industry will continue to find hiring and staffing to be an issue. Also proper training for all jobs within the business. Electric vehicles will be coming down the pipeline. I believe training on these vehicles as well as finding profit centers with those cars (all fuel and emissions related work will be eliminated) may be a problem in the future.

Synchrony or CFNA provide private label financing/credit with 6-12 months interest free. They have to apply just like a credit card. We offer both and its definitely helped for those customers that need it.

It is much easier to track when you can close out when it is paid. This however causes a bit of a discrepancy in what your true productivity and efficiency number are unless you track with 2 sets of numbers. I personally close out when the job is completed to pay my guys. This also allows me to track accurately what my true numbers are week to week so if I have to review last years numbers they are accurately displaying what we were doing for that week. Draw back is if you are not careful with your cash flow you will have outstanding money waiting to be collected.

In regards to how to pay your employees. I would most certainly pay your techs what they would get paid on a normal job. If you are on flat rate, pay them appropriately. For service advisors it depends on your pay structure. Assuming it is commission based or part commission based you have to be careful. If its slow then you shouldn't have issue not paying them extra since it is not skin off their backs. If it is busy though, they stand to lose money since there are paying jobs waiting for the techs to work on. Paying jobs = money for Service Advisors. I would file the loaner work however you do to minimize your tax liability however pay your employees fairly. It will benefit you in the long run to take care of your people.

I am concerned mainly about liability. My shop is in NYC aka lawsuit capital of the world.

+1. I've always heard the suggestion and researched a bunch about programs and implementation. Seems like a goldmine if you can get it going but consistency, implementation and marketing seem daunting.

How do you have your loan cars set up? Do you have a separate Company for the rentals? Do you have it insured under your shop biz corp?

I hear the same crying from everyone. Business is slow for them etc etc. I don't see any shops going out of business necessarily. Well not enough to be alarmed. Many times they close shop but a building gets built where their shop was so assuming they just cashed out on the NYC real estate game.

I would love my competition closing down. I don't think any have though lol