HarrytheCarGeek

BTW, I would have fired that "customer' sooner, think of all the lift time and material you invested in a losing relationship.

AndersonAuto, please don't take this the wrong way. "I REALLY HATE THE CHEAP OIL CHANGE GIMICK." In my opinion, giving out a cheap synthetic oil change like you are doing gives our industry a bad image. Why? Again, in my opinion, because it distorts the consumers' perception of what it cost to do business. One of the reasons that fancy car manufacturers strive to have you use a machine to reset the maintenance interval is because it gives the impression that you need a qualified technician to reset the little light. Think about the biggest industries that thrive in people's ignorance: lawyers, insurance, and finance. Please do not take this personally, as I understand you have to do what is best for you. But in my opinion, you are hurting yourself and others by doing cheap oil changes.

I am there with ya, but careful you don't get lost, I suddenly came across what those Southern folks are doing with their trucks. NSFW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlFSBE0gi_I

Doing a quarter of a million to half a million as a one man shop is doable, but you have to have your support systems in place with good reliable vendors. The core problem being you have to choose how to maximize the return on your time. Are you better at doing the repair work or the sales work? If you think that your best is doing the repair work, then find a choose an excellent sales support team. For example, I was able to figure out that troubleshooting was my forte, but had to learn to keep my mouth shut during the sales process. I hired an older gentleman that taught to sell the job and maximize my profit. But as you can see, from the moment I hired him I stopped being a one man shop...

Scottspec, great write up. Thanks for sharing it, it shows how much intellectual work one has to do to work with GroupOn and still have uncertain results. To me, it is just not worth the hassle for the investmet of my time alone, much less my other resources.

Old simple transactions don't seem to be so simple anymore... What's next? Will you need to be a lawyer to buy or lease anything?

Great story, Gonzo. Thank you for sharing it. My eldest boy put me through the paces that when other parents showed up, I could have said been there, done that. Oh, and that lucky guess? We seem to get luckier the more crazy customer we have. lol.

Farmers are hacking their tractors so they can actually fix them https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/farmers-using-hacked-firmware-to-bypass-john-deeres-software-stranglehold/?hl=1&noRedirect=1

It was an utter failure for me, took some losses and the class of customer was not ideal to say the least. We could not find a price point on any service that would have made it worth the hassle to acquire the customer through them. It was more cost effective for us to rent a billboard at $1,800.00 a month for six months. Here is one link that can explain better how pricing may work for you: http://www.cnbc.com/id/49092709

Autoshopowner.com has helped me by showing me that there are others going through the same thing I have gone through or going through in the auto repair industry. Running your own shop or enterprise can be a very lonely experience, as people of our caliber tend to be very busy and therefore isolated from other people like us. I am happy there is a place like this where one can share experiences and use the site as a sounding board.

Yesterday was the first day of Spring. Tax return money is now on the street, your marketing should be paying off handsomely! You should have your Spring special out there already, make a list and call those customers that need your services. Don't be shy, this is the time to prepare for Winter(Slow sales season). Keep in mind, you are trying to avoid the seesaw of feast or famine, keep your guys busy and well paid, use this time to pack the cash for the slow time of the year.

Jay, as much as possible try to understand well what Marksas and bantar have shared with all, this is the essence of acquiring wealth in this business.

Jay, yes, I am part of my local Junto group. The problem is that as most of us have gotten older we don't attennd as when we were younger. The irony being that the more successful you become, the more isolated you end up.

What has worked for me has been to reach out to people that I have seen or read something positive about. Likewise, that's how I came across this site.

Currently we receive $5.14 per photo inspection, after doing our numbers we have decided to increase our photo inspection charge to over $15. I have drawn many good customer from there, but the number of photo inspections we are doing now does not cover the costs and benefits of the clerk.

The cure to your problem is to visit other shops and size up their operations. I have found some really crappy shops in the dumps that were charging premium prices, it was there that one of their customers told me that "it is expensive being poor". Found that yes, indeed, the poor pay much higher prices.

Good for you. I had a yes man that didn't seem the part, he would mirror my attitude and tell me what I wanted to hear, I thought that he was a damn good employee. Until one day, one of my slackers but extremely loyal guys said to my face, "Boss, he is nothing at all like he shows you he is", needless to say I was baffled. Numbers weren't the best at his shop but they would barely meet my minimum goals. After installing a new security system and auditing the tapes, I found out that he knew what were my acceptable numbers, he was stealing from me by using a parallel copy of the POS program. After finding several recordings of him abusing the techs and bragging about how he knew better how to run the shops I called him in, I made him pay me back what I could find he stole from me and got rid of him. Very painful experience.

Who is selling them, I could use several of those to hand out!

xrac, Yes, outbound calling. I am sure I can hire someone to write up the script on some Spring offer.

Our business is a thanksless job, in over 25 years I have probably received two or three calls from different customers to tell me thank you for fixing their car. If anything, and you receive a call after the customer picks up the car is for them to tell you that you didn't fix the car. You know the dreaded feeling... The only way I have found to stay positive has been to fully understand what I am doing in this business, and reading old books. Read Socrates through Plato's dialogues and other's writings, and it will give you insight as to how ignorant people can be.

A customer that is a Realtor mentioned to me that he is having success using a program called https://calltools.com/ for outbound call marketing. I was thinking about doing something like this for this Spring season, has anyone here used an outbound call system of marketing? I have a list of over 80,000 customers and I was thinking it would be a good time to see what results it may bring.

I learned a hard lesson long ago, that if they are really in a hurry and they balk at my preliminary charge for diagnostics they won't be good customers. Thanks for the "reminder".

There's this 80 year old guy, driving down the main drag of Las Vegas at 3 AM. He gets pulled over by the cops. Cop asks, "where you goin?" Man answers "I'm going to a lecture on alcoholism and how it ruins your life and health and relationships". Cop asks "Who's giving this lecture at 3 AM?" Guy answers. "My wife".

And that is the single key in becoming wealthy in this line of business, control the property, set an objective net return; find a hungry, reliable candidate with integrity that want to own his own business, train him and help him achieve his dream, and there you have another egg for your retirement nest.