mspecperformance

This is not sage advice, just kind of my brain turning. We all do the same stuff to attract people. Ads, craigslist, etc. One idea that I liked was running a contest with your tool guy. Sponsor some sort of free raffle for $250-500 gift certificates in exchange for phone numbers and e-mail addresses of techs. I haven't ran one of these but I would assume this would at least net you a lot of good prospects. Another avenue that us owners have to explore is really hitting the streets and meeting people. Shake lots of hands. Go to places with great customer service reps. This will at least get some people to look you up and/or call. The second part is where its vital to become a salesperson and a master at marketing. I know most of you guys out there are not natural sales people. You lean on the technical side and the people side can get a little muddled. What I mean by sales and marketing is that you have to build an image and reputation that will make good prospects want to come to you. All people are attracted to success and align with organizations that call to them. If your shop has a stellar reputation, great online reviews, great looking website, nice clean facility then you will get calls. The second part (salesperson) is to sell the prospect on who you are, what you are about and why should they come work for you. I am pretty good at this part and I have to tell you, every person I have interviews and sold them on our culture and our organization has been amped to start work immediately.

I may eat my words soon. I may give Mudlick another try however with my own marketing message. Also its for the launch of our possible next location so its a different situation then for our existing location.

Only buying the lease/building or equipment. Thats pretty much how I see almost all the shops around me when I am looking at them for purchase opportunities.

assuming you have an opportunity that you can take advantage of. Sometimes we have to realize we are in the wrong area or our business is not set up properly to actually do business.

"Your neighborhood automotive experts, Pomp's Tire and Service"

How about, "Your neighborhood Pomp's Tire and Service"

The collective nation might be in a small slump however there will always be folks that are looking for our services. We just have to find the magic sauce and find all these golden clients!

I feel that in my market there is very little response from direct mailers other than from the price shoppers or the older generation which are just not used to paying what we charge for our services. My marketing is a weird one. Agreed. Odd thing is that nothing about our mailer was particularly screaming "WE ARE CHEAP" other than our intro offer. With my experience now, oil change offers will ALWAYS bring in the wrong customer. It might be the years of programming from the industry to offer these discounts have created a trigger in the cheap minds of these folks. Either way I will never offer an oil change special again.

Yep. I actually really dislike their company from an ethical standpoint. I have found that they do things that do not agree with my own beliefs. I had the previous account manager give me advice for finding techs... He told me to pose as a customer and go poach techs from other shops. Any discount or offer will bring in the riff raft. Have we gotten some good clients? Yes. Have had to deal with a large majority of time wasting calls and time wasting customers? Absolutely. I have a new mailer with a different company that leverages our quality and reputation with no broad offer. Its not been a month yet but I don't think I've seen much of a response from it yet. I will probably go and send 1-2 more campaigns and see how it goes. If it does nothing I may pause the direct mail campaigns all together. I also tend to see an older crowd with the mailers as well.

Just wanted to share my experience with broad offer direct mailers (Mudlick Mail) in this case. We have struggled mightily when we were using broad offers (oil change specials) to attract customers. Generally they would be more rude than my normal clients for whatever reason. Question every little charge beyond their $49.95 oil change (full synthetic with brand specific certification). Besides that on average they would be some of the cheapest customers that ever come through our door. I just had one of our last direct mailers go out in March and I guess we are getting some late adopters coming in. When presented with the inspection report, this customer flat out said, "I don't want to put any money into this car!" Ok... When our ARO is above $1000, attracting these types of clients just doesn't work. If your business model is to escalate your ARO and work with good clients, broad offers are horrible. Just my .02

This is what i have found to be a problem with "retail sales". Assuming you would close out that sale as a counter sale in Mitchell. What I come to find out that in the reports, counter sales will count against your ARO. I find that to be absolutely retarded considering that you are selling a part or a product and not working on a car. Just a little annoying tidbit.

I have been using Kukui for 2+ years. They have been great and I have seen dramatic results from using them. If anyone needs any further info I would be more than happy to answer questions. PM me.

This is definitely very alarming. I have heard a down turn in April from almost everyone. You guys, my parts suppliers, even my marketing manager from Kukui have mentioned a slow down. We haven't seen that yet, we are still on an upward trend.

those 200 inspections were for sure from your FB campaign? I am wondering how adaptable this is for other services. I don't perform state inspections at my shop nor do I really desire to. I do however like the idea if it will work to pull in other services. Maybe a check engine light check? I don't know. What steps did you take to advertise on FB? There are a few different options. Awesome that you are getting such a great ROI.

I am just trying to make sense of the numbers. If you are running a $300 campaign a week and have a 2 to 1 return you should be seeing $600 for your ROI correct? if your ARO on these vehicle is around $350 then you are seeing 1.7 cars per week? or are you seeing 35-50 cars per week for an ARO of $350? That would mean for $300 you are seeing a minimum of $12,220 per week which is a hell of an ROI!

Harry, do you mean 35-50 new leads per week?

Thanks Harry, can you elaborate on what ads on social media have worked for you?

Lets assume you are opening a brand new shop. You are not moving shops so you don't have a customer base to start with. To get off the ground running, what are some key marketing pieces, campaigns or elements you would implement (or have implemented). I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas!

yup we charge diag and inspection fees. We used to be more lax in the past but we have since implemented a very profitable diagnostic flow chart. I'd still rather not take in a customer that is going to jump around to other shops or perform work themselves as its still a waste of time overall.

Hi Vince, I can relate you in some fashion. I have not inherited a shop business however I did start my shop about 10 years ago when I was 20-21 and have been through the wringer a few times. Take my opinion with a grain of salt because I have never had to deal with a generational gap with my team. All my guys are around my age. I do recognize however a universal truth. You have to have the RIGHT people working in your business regardless of age or proficiency level. Attitude and Aptitude are paramount. What is seems like is you have some uncooperative people you are working with. If I were you I would make the best attempt to try to turn them around. Really do your best. If it just doesn't happen then you need to find someone to get rid of them or move past them. Thankfully I do not have that problem with a person in a management/ownership role however I do have a running issue with one of my team members whom is a tech. He has been with me almost since the beginning however he has absolutely the wrong attitude. I have tried many times over to change this person but to no avail. I know the right move is to get him off the bus however I am finding it difficult but at least I know what path needs to be taken!

I think your best bet if you are not particularly good with numbers or very organized yourself is to seek help. Look for a good accountant that is familiar with qb. You need to have them set up your chart of accounts and show you how to do the data entry. This may cost you some money up front (even a couple thousand dollars) but if you are paying them good money make sure they are setting things up and training you how to work the program in its entirety. I would also highly suggest you find a good mentor or coach. There are plenty of great consulting companies out there. I personally recommend Elite. I use them and they have been instrumental in my transformation. If you want more details about them you can PM me. A good coach will give you the best advice from their own mistakes and what works for the top shops. They will also guide you learning how to calculate and understand your Key Performance Indicators. These are vitally importantly for you to understand like the back of your hand and you track on a daily basis. I strongly suggest you seek the proper guidance even if you have to pay for it. I didn't for years and it cost me time. If I would have known what I known now in my first years I would be a millionaire sitting on a beach in fiji drinking fruity drinks. You are in the early stages, kick ass now!

I grit my teeth every time I have to turn someone away but we are doing it and at a record number. Still making money. Doesn't mean I am not anxious about it though!

It depends on how much of your customer base emphasizes speed of service and also how far your suppliers are. If you have a shop with a high car count and people are tapping their watches waiting for their cars then stocking tires may be something you want to look into. You have to make sure you can turn over the tires in a relatively quick amount of time. Like totalautocare, my shop has a low car count and most of my clients drop their cars off (or we force them too in a nice way). We also have tire suppliers in close proximity.

I was just curious if this irked any of you guys. We don't have this happen often however when it does it gets me really annoyed. Not so much that they "cheated" on us but our "competition" if you can call them that in our area is generally sub par. The customers know they are sub par but price and sometimes convenience is a concern. We generally find all the mistakes and it goes over the customer's head. I suppose they don't want to look like morons for making a bad mistake. What I find scary is we are turning people away at a record pace. Lots of phone callers we are disqualifying and also a lot of customers that are becoming less and less our profile client. The odd part is as we are doing this our profits are rising every month. I find this very off and quiet frankly alarming. We are getting super picky about who are dealing with and we are still winning. I am just not sure if this is sustainable LOL

I'd like to see a fun discussion on what you guys do and how you feel after you had recommended repairs and services on a customer's vehicle and they leave without performing them at your shop. 6 months later they come back for something and you realize (or they tell you) they had YOUR previous recommendations performed else where. The situation isn't that the other shop messed anything up, they just decided due to price or convenience they wanted to go somewhere else. How do you guys feel? How do you treat the customer? Just curious to see what you guys do and how you feel.