MINI4U

We have for the last 7+ years gave out a $100.00 bonus for Christmas to all our employees. It never changed because our revenue never changed. This year we got a new service writer and he knows how to sell. Not only have we made over $200,000 more than the last 7+ years (in 9 months!) but also shop moral is way up so the techs are producing better. We definitely want to go up on our bonus any recommendations? Currently the service writer gets a bonus on sales monthly and he techs get extra pay for production.

We have access to all of the website online, we pay the online server who we chose ourself-not sure if that is what you are referring too?

Someone that can do it and no contract strings etc.

Thanks ours failed and the original company that designed our site is no longer in business. Anyone have someone they are happy with that made their site mobile friendly?

We do not although we could look at the Google Analytics. We do not pay anything.

Thanks that is good to know! What if you decide after a time you do not want to use them? Is the website still yours or do you have to pay for it?

Agreed the websites do not have enough content for me.

Here in our state environmental inspections are required just to refinance! If you get serious about the property make sure they have an inspection done to make sure you don't get into anything ugly. Even though they removed the pumps there may be issues you need to know about.

I made the mistake of paying a very large sum to an online company that lists jobs and resumes for automotive jobs all over the country. Did not get a thing out of it.

http://www.botzonsauto.com

This website took two years to get the "marketing" company get it right

We used SBA and they were great. They helped us write out a business plan and supported us in getting established. It did take a couple years because the shop we wanted to buy did not show much profit (the guy was taking a lot of cash sales and pocketing it) and a lot of banks wanted us to have a huge wad to put down.

We did not have a ton of money saved but we had good credit, not a lot of debt (no car payments. credit cards payed off monthly etc). Finally our SBA guy suggested another bank to try by then (2 yrs) we had given up on the shop we wanted to buy and were looking at leasing a place. The banker took the time to get to know us and said we would be better off buying than leasing. She made it happen with an extra 30k to keep us afloat as we started to get established.

Long story short we still have the 30k in savings and we own the shop. We did find out that we needed some business classes after a couple years to get more profit into the shop.

Thanks 5 star.

We use DemandForce and the one of the biggest benefits I am seeing is that all our good reviews show up when we are Googled.

We had a poor review on yelp and had no idea the guy was unhappy. He was from out of town stopped in and felt we did not do something right. Had we known we would have done anything to make him happy. Since it was our ONLY review we asked our happy customers to leave reviews. The filtered them all out except one. We thought that was a load of crap. They were true customers leaving truthful reviews. So we hate yelp.

Me too!

Sounds like his service writer is doing two jobs so it does not seem unreasonable to me.

So do you have an office person or does he do that as well as service write? We have a front office person so our writer wrote up estimates, ordered parts and answered the phone when the front office person was busy on the other line or cashing out a customer.

Our last guy was not as good at sales as I feel he could have been so he ended up making about 50k. The guy we want to hire says he currently makes a little more than that but is payed hourly with some kind of bonus system which made me wonder what other shops do.

What are you paying?

That is interesting. When we were interviewing one of the dealer service writers said it was 100% commission. We had done previously salary of $3735. per month with a bonus calculated when we went over 50k in sales for the month.

Our "online" advertising is a good website that comes up in searches for our city. Between that and the good online reviews it has paid for itself many times over.

We are in the process of getting a new service writer and wondering what other shops pay.

I looked up the average pay and median was $42k up to max $69K. We are a small shop with 2 techs and don't want to start out too high.

Look up interchange plus plans from first data or I payment. Most of these ads that offer .69% or free machines usually are more expensive. They fail to explain the interchange costs. They get away with it because your monthly bill is low - the one that you see. The discount that comes off after each transaction via interchange rates and markup are not so easy to see unless you study your statement.

I am not sure what you mean by the monthly bill being low- the one you see. We see our monthly charges so how are they hiding other charges?

We use our bank for credit card processing and they are not too bad. I tried a couple other places after falling for sales pitches over the years and it was a disaster so I have been reluctant to move away from the bank.

I know it "should" be less expensive to use a company outside of the bank. Got a flyer from The Automotive Payment Club promising:

Special APC pricing

No monthly PCI Fees

0 annual fee

No contract term

0 monthly junk fees

Free Credit card machine

Zero upfront/Start up cost

Anyone use these guys or have a company that they are happy with?

We are shopping around for business insurance. Anyone have any they recommend or NOT recommend?

Thanks