HarrytheCarGeek

I have been using postcardmania.com for the past 18 months.

Phenomenal write up! Thank you!

I use DemandForce to remind my customers. In my RO software I list the recommended service, if the customer declines, I just mark it as declined, then it's pushed to DemandForce to remind the customer via email at a later date. usually a month out. In my case, it's important to stay on top of my ppl telling them to capture email addresses.

Make a plan, and use metrics to pay off your debt. At least that's what has helped me in the past.

I think you may be right, although I am still in love with the missus and don't forsee changing her anytime soon, unless she has different plans....

I haven't had anyone imply I was incompetent in a long time. You made me laugh, thanks for that. I notice you didn't mentioned your age, but nevertheless, good for you and your success. As for me burned out, I meant, this industry does not hold the wonderment it had for me as when I started. Anyhow, thanks for your opinion.

As the title says, I will be turning 50 in the next few years, and I am now in doubt that I want to stay in this business. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy running the business and helping ppl. But I feel burn out. I have a few properties and other things that will help me "retire", but I have not seen anything that fires me up into the next stage in life. Anyone else have experienced anything like it?

49.95 Per day or fraction thereof at our yard, 19.95 extra per day for indoor storage. Also Admin fees, plus clean up fees for oil spill and debris.

I KNOW exactly what you mean, hahaha! Srsly, though, I thought I was becoming bi-polar. Then after I discovered a pattern that consisten marketing help me cope with it. Thanks for the post, you made my day.

Don't worry about not knowing about cars to run the office, most of what you need to know and do has to do with dealing with people. Smile and welcome the customers, have him do the diagnostics and troubleshooting and give you a list of stuff that he may need to make the repairs, the you can call the vendors and requests them to fax you the quote for the things you will need, from there you can quote out the jobs to the customers. The important thing is for you to be in the shop to learn and be happy helping out.

Sounds like your husband is an excellent tech, but has not had business training. If you guys have a chance, step out of the shop and go visit your competition, that should help to open your eyes to what you could be charging. If your husband is really as caring as you say, he really has no competition and may be leaving a lot of money on the table to his detriment.

Been burned too many times by the reman guys, I have honed my skills to sell the oem part and at least make a 35% margin. Live and learn, redoing work for free is no fun, and chasing dollars from vendors is neither.

Take this chance for you to work on your marketing, you will be busy once the children return back to school.

Great article, very true indeed. I have found that a consistent advertising strategy helps keeps the work steady. Plus fear always sells...

Take everything you hear with a grain of salt. Not to be a cynic, but I don't believe what anyone says until I have given some analytic thought to their words. Keep in mind: There are only 24 hours in the day, and 7 days per week, etc. Bigger is not always better or more profitable. You have to find the sweet spot to everything, and that takes work and experience. Guys that claim they are running those kind of numbers are usually full of bunk, those that really do tend to be humble and keep their mouth shut for fear of giving the keys to the kingdom away. Plan your work and work your plan, that way you can avoid the sew saw of randomness. Plan for a full schedule but prepare to run at 50%. Once you master that, plan for 200% and see if you can keep up at 100% of your facility output, you will find out that you cannot since there are always glitches, be it parts, staffing, or personal problems. But the make it a main point, always try to have fun, even though some customers out there are very abusive. As for numbers, here are some, 1 master tech, 1 R& I tech, 1 lube/tire, 1 manager and 1 service writer, 1 bookkeeper/secretary and 1 owner, revenues of $1.2 Mil, 6 bays, 3500'sq. ft. running at 96% with 6 days operating 56 hours a week.

That has to be a prank.

This is where your business savvy comes in, you should not feel insecure about your customer consulting the mechanics. I learned long ago that if I pay well and take care of my mechanics, they will not be taking side jobs and will instead concentrate in enjoying their time off. Mechanics that are irregular and prefer to take side jobs than concentrate with their work within the shop you certainly do not need.

Are you trying to get some insurance company to pick up the risk for a lift failure? I don't see why you need a certified lift inspector is you are not transferring risk. I have paid $150 to have each of the lifts serviced, hydraulic fluid changed, and inspected when it was required from a franchise contract.

You know, this is an excellent topic I would like to see discussed. KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER. This is phrase used by the banks, and if you are thinking about taking payments, it would behoove you to know your customer. I have taken payments in the past, and have been burned, but in all honesty after careful review, my instinct had warned me I would get burned. I also have taken payments from people than needed their cars for work, and they paid on time without a glitch. As a rule of thumb, I had taken half the amount for the job and the rest in payments.

Hello Joe, how did the tech you hired worked out? Any update? Thanks in advance.

That's a red flag, if they are selling a successful business they should not have an issue with staying an annual quarter. If they do, that tells you that maybe there are other issues they are in a hurry to exit the business. If they are in a hurry to sell for undisclosed reasons, you may want to reflect that in your purchasing price. I would not pay a premium on a business that the old owners would not like to stick around a bit. In a particular case as that, I would write off the business goodwill and just purchase the lease/real property and other tangible assets. My two bits.

I worked for a company that went on a buying spree to grow their business. One of the "secrets" to a successful buyout transition was never to announce in our marketing that we were the new owners. We told customers that the old owners were taking long deserved vacations. Other than the legal announcements to vendors credit dept. we would keep the transition a very low profile as not to disturb people's sense of trust in the business. We placed our counter people shadowing the old owners for two to three months, thus giving people the sense of familiarity with the new counter people. As to the mechanics, we evaluated the mechanic's work history and performance. As much as possible we didn't change their work habits if they were productive and efficient, when we found deficiencies we would write an operating procedures manual and then trained them to adhere to it. Those that were not a good fit for the business were let go. I did about 70 stores this way in over 10 years. Very successful way of buying businesses.

There is a watershed event in every shop owner's life when he stops taking crap from crappy customers and begins prospering and making nice profits from his labors. Mine happened about 3 months into owning the business.

Restoration shops are a whole different breed that caters to a very select type of customer. This type of work is more about the personalities you cater to than the work itself. I have a close friend of mine that does very well, and it is making money hand over fist in this bad economy dealing with very wealthy people. His customer are very demanding and overbearing, they don't need their cars or boats or yachts. And some of them are scum bags that try to get over on him with legal technicalities. But those that pay on time, rock his world.

http://www.orgbusiness.com/repairshopcalendar.html We use repairshopcalendar. It is somewhat very simple, yet it does the job quite well for us.