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you and your husband need to specifically define who does what job, in relation to the two of you running the shop. It can be very difficult to have a husband/wife team, because any disagreement between the 2 of you changes the "feel" of the entire business. I would suggest that the two of you get away from the shop, and determine who will do what job. Communication is key, and my wife has learned to present things to me in a particular way to keep me from getting defensive. Though she is not involved in the day to day operations any more, she still is my #1 counselor and idea filter. Staying married is tough, but staying married while running a business is even tougher. But it is worth it! Hope this helps.

Thank you for your input. Yes, it is very tough thing to do do. We are working on it. That is the problem he gets offensive when I try to present an idea or when I suggest a way to do things different. I recently spoke with him about communicating things to each other. Hopefully he will stay committed in everything he said. I want the business to succeed. As for him as long as he is working on cars he is a happy camper.

"Damage Control" lol I like that term.

I was gone for 3 weeks. I left in the middle of a disagreement we had about the way the shop needs to be ran. This is my first week back and I must say that I shouldn't have never left.

I don't have a problem defining my self as a boss. I can take control of a situation and I can be stern to my employees. (3) The thing is that I'm not allowed to. Why is beyond me.

I have noticed that my husband is not that all stern. His employees tend to stop working when he does, and at times pick up conversations with our customers. To me they need to leave that up to us. I'm not allowed to tell them otherwise. That is my husband job since he is over the shop. I'm more time in the office. I still pay attention to things that go on at the shop and Im not always happy. This causes alot of tension in between us.

Yesterday my husband stop working for about 20 minutes and one by one his employees stop along with him. I believe it was my husbands job as a boss to tell them to go back to work and keep working. He never did and instead let them go back on their own when HE (husband) started back to working. UNACCEPTABLE in my eyes.

I think that he wont let me make decisions or be verbally stern with them for fear of his employees not respecting him or probably because Im a woman!

What do you guys think?

I want something done about this. He is not good in taking in criticism especially if is coming from me.

How can I approach this situation without him being mad or offended. He sees that this is a problem due to lack of productivity but Im not quite sure he knows how to take initiative to solve it.

I never though about this subject.

Great article!!

I'm from Mexico myself didn't live there long enough to notice the mechanics and their shops. I'm from Matamoros, Tamaulipas closed to the border with Texas. What I did notice is that most mechanic shops sell cars. Maybe that's how they make most of their money.

Good to have you back!!

Welcome to ASO and good luck in your business!!

We have been open for about a year. (Nov 22 would be our 1st year in business) We started with nothing. We had enough savings to lease the facility and that's about it. The thing that helps us was that my husband is a great tech and he had all his tools already.

Don't give up and learn, learn learn.

I have been on ASO for about a couple of weeks and I'm learning so much thanks to all of you that have some great advice. I'm still learning and I know that I have way more to learn about the business.

My husband is the tech. I work inside the office and take care, of almost everything except working on cars. (not yet)

We have had our disagreements because I want to do it one way and he wants to do it another way. It has impacted our relationship quite a bit. I hope that you guys have a lot of communication involved and you both agree on things concerning the business. We are getting better at communicating but we still need a lot of work.

Good Luck and keep in touch.

Zulma

I charge whatever I can charge regarding any particular job, that includes the time to diagnose the vehicle.

 

As much as I can, I do not bill by the hour but by the job.

 

I had customers tell me if the job took less than the specified time if I would cut the bill, that's why I do not quote hours but flat rates for the particular jobs.

 

Yes, there are drawbacks if there are hidden/occult damages but you must leave yourself room for that eventuality by advising the customer that it may happen.

 

Do not be afraid to charge for your work, if you do good work at a fair price your customer will keep coming back to you.

 

Also, keep in mind the socio-economic level of your customer, and do not worry catering to those that drive Lexuses that don't even have a budget to maintain a bicycle.

How can we have flat rates for a specific job if the prices range according to vehicle?

This is one of my greatest pet peeves.

 

The biggest gripe I hear is that there is no money in troubleshooting. I disagree.

 

It is how you sell the job and how you train your techs that determine how you present and sell diagnostic work.

 

I have two types of diagnostics specials one for $45.00 and the other for $125.00

 

I purchased and trained my diagnostics techs to use the Picoscope for fast and efficient troubleshooting. http://www.picotech.com/

 

With the scope and experience and access to Mitchell schematics your techs can find issues within an hour. If it is an intermittent problem that you are going to have to chase send it away to someone that likes to spend their time doing that kind of work, since you will not be making any money if that is not your specialty.

 

As much as you can, always tack on an additional 1/2 hour to every ticket that you can sell. This will cover for your customer service hours that you can't bill for. So if the service guide tells you 1 hour, sell the job for 1.5 hours.

 

From experience, 95% of diagnostic problems we face in my shop are cabling related, either the wires are corroded, cut or chaffing somewhere.

 

As regarding my diag specials, we read the codes for free, if they want a basic written report is $45, if they want a complete diagnostic report is $125. I sell a lot of $45 reports.

Can you explain a little more about diagnostic reports? Written report vs. diagnostic report?

Thank you

We also offer a towing service. We don't ask for money upfront but we do inform the customer upfront that there would be a towing charge. We add the towing fee in the final invoice.

My question is should we type up a form for the customer to sign giving us permission to towed their vehicle and that we are not responsible for any damage while is being towed to our shop. We don't have any insurance on this service in case something was to happen to the vehicle while it being towed.

What do you guys suggest.

Wow!! The shops that have sign up for the site must really be hurting for business.

I also agree with most of you guys!

I refuse to compete with other shops for any business.

Great idea!!! Awesome feature.