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Alex

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Blog Entries posted by Alex

  1. Alex
    This content is syndicated from Interstate's Blog at https://www.interstatebatteries.com/shop-goals/main
    Remember your first day in the garage? Right. Nobody takes the new kid seriously. Not the guys in the garage, and definitely not customers. Time and experience builds trust. But you’re running a shop, juggling the daily routine, and managing a mechanic apprenticeship is challenging—especially when so few applicants are coming in. 

    How does a newbie get old school cred in your shop? 

    School your customers. Nobody took Audra Fordin seriously. Despite her skills as a 4th generation mechanic, all they saw was female. Several times Audra had to stand there and smile while customers asked to speak to a “real mechanic.” No mechanic apprenticeship could prepare her for that. So she learned to work twice as hard as her male peers to earn trust by stepping out of the bay and teaching customers more about their car, the problem she was fixing, and car care. 

    Stand up for the newbie. Ralph Parente started working in the shop the same year he could legally drive a car. Nobody took the 16-year old seriously he says—despite growing up in his father’s auto shop. Many times his Dad had to step in convince customers to trust Ralph, who, decades later, now runs that family-owned shop: Soundview Service Center in Mamaroneck, New York. 

    Give it time. Fresh out of tech school, Charles Sanville said he still didn’t know how to fix cars when he showed up at his first dealership gig. Good management and great mentors stepped in early and taught him the rest. Now, Sanville answers some of the toughest questions about Volkswagen auto repair and shares what he knows in tutorials on YouTube. Speaking from the newbie perspective with some old school cred, Sanville said shop owners need to learn to trust the techs they hire to get the job done—even if they need a little extra help along the way. 

     
    Build the Best Shop on the Block
    Three mechanics. Two generations. One awesome garage. We brought together the best new- and old-school mechanics to talk about how to build the auto repair shop on the block, and how to keep it running. From dying dipsticks, dealing with customers and the best car diagnostic tools, get their best tips and info to inspire your own shop goals.


  2. Alex
    This content is syndicated from https://www.interstatebatteries.com/blog/episode-2-training-new-mechanics
    When it comes to new techs, shop owners need to rethink the process of becoming a mechanic, every step of the way.
     
    It hurts your heart. Literally. You see new mechanics coming in, and they’re so charged up to finally get a chance to do what they love: work on cars. But slowly, over time, that enthusiasm fades. In this episode, our new and old-school mechanics talk shop about how becoming a mechanic means never losing your love for the work. 

    Rethink every step.It starts with building a cool shop and pairing new techs with the best mentors, says Charles Sanville, mechanic and video blogger, Humble Mechanic. The certified Volkswagen technician started out in a dealership and watched the most enthusiastic mechanics lose heart. Good mentorship saved him. 

    Manage conflict. If you have a new tech starting in your garage, team meetings can quiet conflicts that might be happening under the radar, says Audra Fordin, a fourth-generation mechanic and the founder of Women Auto Know. Chances are, the problem isn’t an isolated one, and the team needs an open, honest conversation about it. 

    Your best mentor isn’t always your best tech. Pairing up the right mentor with the right new tech means passing on the love and passion for the craft, says Ralph Parente, who started working in an auto shop at 16 years old. But that doesn’t always mean your best mechanic. Stay opened-minded about which seasoned techs in your shop can be the best mentors. 

     

  3. Alex
    It's been a while since I made a blog entry so I've decided that I am going to start to add entries around using AutoShopOwner and things that may be of interest. For this entry, I'd like to showcase our Activity tab in the main menu and try to describe how you can use it and some of our other views to bring up the content that you want to see vs viewing everything. Today we have a few ways of seeings what's new from your last visit and content in general.
     
    UNREAD CONTENT
    You can click the Unread Content  link towards the top right and that'll give you all your "unread" content since your last visit. It's also available under Activity Streams (next section). Some people love this feature on forums and it's handy for frequent visitors, but can be a very long list if you haven't been here in a while.
     

     
    At any given time you can "Mark site read" and it'll show everything as being read.
     

     
    You can even mark topics and full forums as read (stops topic titles from being bold because bold means unread)
     

     
    ACTIVITY STREAMS
    Click on the Activity section from the main menu and you'll see a link for All Activity, My Activity Streams, and Search. This is where you can really tailor your view of content that you want to see. Start with one of our default streams or give a shot at creating your own stream to show only what YOU want to see!
     

     
    FLUID FORUM VIEW
    If creating your own Activity Stream isn't for you and you like to just go to the main page of the forum and see what's going on, then Fluid View may be for you. You can toggle between Fluid and Traditional views easily by clicking on the layout button. You can also customize which forums will show topics by clicking on the "Showing topics from all forums" link.
     

     
    Hopefully this explains some of the ways we have available for our members to get to the content they want to see and stay updated. If all else fails, just use the search box at the top of the page!
     
  4. Alex
    As a member of AutoShopOwner, you can manage the types of notifications that we provide you for when things happen here, either via email or when you login and view your notifications list (the bell icon). For instance, when you start a new topic in a forum or reply to an existing topic, you are automatically subscribed to receive a notification when new content is posted. That can happen by email or not, depends on how you want to receive it. 
    To get to your notifications management section, first go to Account Settings

     
    Then go to Notification Settings

     
    There you will see some your current preference settings for overall delivery method, follow preference, browser notifications, etc.

     
    Scroll down and you'll see individual notification settings where you can pick and choose how you are notified. For email, an email is sent every time that action takes place based on your delivery method above. For Notification List, every time an action takes place, it will be listed in your notifications panel under the little bell icon.

     
    One more setting we have is for our weekly newsletter, which includes a list of topics and activity from the week. You can opt in and out from your account settings as well.

     
    If you haven't taken a look at your settings yet, we encourage you to check it out. 😃









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