4 hours ago, xrac said:

I am working hard at earning one of these. 

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

On 7/8/2016 at 0:12 PM, CMillet86 said:

I absolutely do not want to stay a single man shop. But in my current location I only have 2 bays. But the building is paid for, so moving entails another cost etc. I want to add on, but I've been trying to keep the shop updated with equipment. Purchased a new alignment machine, new tire machines etc, trying to stay as up to date as I can on Scanners and software. I've made a huge jump this year, as of right now I'm equal to last year sales for the whole year basically, but it's still not enough, if I maintain I'll do $150k as a one man shop, I'd like to do 200-225k.

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

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You wouldn't think that farm equipment would turn into a battlefield for right-to-repair laws, but in 2017, anything is possible.

American farmers are increasingly turning to hacked firmware in order to repair their John Deere tractors, Motherboard reports. The reason they're doing so is because John Deere has a license agreement wherein only Deere dealers and "authorized" shops can perform work on tractors.

That may seem fine at a glance -- John Deere built the tractor, so it knows the best way to fix it, right? That's just one part of it, though. According to the farmers Vice talked to, John Deere charges out the wazoo for its work, and technicians might not arrive to a broken tractor with sufficient haste, which can affect a farmer's bottom line in a big way.

Right to repair is an issue that extends far beyond farm equipment. John Deere t, Deere's license agreement specific forbids farmers from suing for "crop loss, lost profits, loss of goodwill, loss of use of equipment ... arising from the performance or non-performance of any aspect of the software."

Thus, farmers are turning to shady online forums where hackers are peddling cracked versions of John Deere software that bypasses required authorization, allowing farmers to once again work on their own tractors.

 

In order to combat this issue, farmers have been quick to endorse right-to-repair legislation, which would force manufacturers to make it so that independent repair shops and consumers have access to the tools required to work on a vehicle, whether it's a tractor or a phone or a car.

These issues aren't limited to farm equipment, either. Right to repair has been a hot topic in the automotive industry, especially as computers play an ever-increasing role. For the longest time, tinkering with a car's software was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. ...

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

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Groupon’s pitch is brilliant: a merchant pays nothing up front and has no responsibility for crafting or delivering an offer. The company takes care of all that work and actually pays the merchant after the promotion is deployed. The catch is how much Groupon takes from the merchant. Groupon board member Ted Leonsis loves to say that his company helps small businesses use their margin as “currency” to buy promotions from Groupon. What he generally avoids explaining is that 100% of the gross margin is wiped out by the offer and another approximately 25% goes to Groupon for its fee.

 

The classic Groupon deal requires a discount of 50%, after which the merchant and Groupon basically split the revenue (after the merchant pays the credit card fees and waits around for its check). This arrangement ultimately gives merchants about 23 cents for each dollar after discount and fees. If the merchant starts out with a 50% gross margin that means it loses 25% for each voucher redeemed. While 75% off seems like something many merchants do a few times each year it’s important to understand that most daily deal users are service businesses. When a retailer offers 75% off it is generally blowing out a portion of remaining inventory. For example, in April, you can buy winter coats at 75% off because the retailer has already sold 90% of them at a reasonable margin - and the business would rather have the money to invest in swimsuits. (Read More: What’s the Deal with Groupon’s Stock?: Greenberg)

A service business does not have these opportunities. We estimate that for every 100 Groupons a restaurant sells it will lose almost $1,200, while the average day spa loses about $2,250 on Groupon deals. If the deal goes “well” and sells 500 Groupons, the spa would lose about $11,250 while Groupon puts the same amount in the bank.

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. 

10 hours ago, Jay Huh said:

were you able to find someone local?

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.

7 minutes ago, autorepairuniversity said:

Great advice, its so nice to be able to talk to other shop owners, other than your neighbors (which are competion). Where I struggle, is that I know I could find more ways to charge more per job. But in the end it either feels like im charging a fair rate, or im charging too much. Example, if I charge $200 for a brake job, I feel like its a fair price. Say I were to mark up parts more and add more shop supplies, now Im charging $250 for the same job. I feel like that would be considered too high for my particular city / area. I can't think of any practical ways too save much more $. Any more advice. Again thank you!

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
 

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.

2 hours ago, AndersonAuto said:

I let a tech go that was a consistent 65 hour a week producer. That certainly hurt.

But.... 

He threw temper tantrums. The other techs hated working with him. His diagnostics sucked. He always had an excuse for why his diag was wrong, or why it wasn't his fault.

The shop is better without him.

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!

On 3/11/2017 at 10:13 PM, xrac said:

Are we talking about Robo calls or what? What would you say? 

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".

7 minutes ago, xrac said:

If you own the property in a valuable retail area like we do it is easier. 

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.

No one here will tell you they are sitting 1mm cash account, that's like saying look at me and sue me. mmotley is correct:

Quote

I think it's probably a slow, methodical, well thought out plan that you have to continue working at. 

I have morning conference calls, managers dial in at 7:30AM, objectives are run through and picked through if something is not working. On Thursdays at 2PM we have a one hour conference and issues are discussed.

I can look at the dashboard at anytime and see what the shops sales are and what is being work on that should be listed on the "work in progress". By 9:PM I can see all the daily numbers from the day's performance.

The point, information is good, but you have to have the guts to call out people that do not perform. A bad manager will poison your shop and destroy its ability to be profitable. Also, give them enough time to give you feedback that is based on facts and evidence, not on anecdotes.

On 3/5/2017 at 8:45 AM, Jay Huh said:

Ad works tho! Made me look up his shop online. Judging from the pics, he's BUSY!

Kudos on his marketing savvy!