bantar

Agreed. We'll come back strong. Here's another angle on Corona Virus impact.... I needed to send out an (Westcreek) finance application for a customer's large repair bill today. Tried to do it and found that they are not accepting new applications. Finally read their notes and they are saying two things (my reading in-between the lines): 1) Your credit score today is NOT an indication of your ability to pay. We can no longer reliably judge/predict your creditworthiness. Maybe you were laid off yesterday, etc. and 2) We might soon have a cash flow problem on our already outstanding loans and need to keep a hold of our cash until we understand the impact. I would guess if these guys are pulling back on credit, others might be doing the same. New car loans?

Our March was super strong thru about March 13. Then I noticed about a 20% drop for 2 days. Then on Monday March 16, we dropped 80%. This kept up until Friday, then only down about 20%, then down 90% for 2 days, and on Monday, back to just a 20%-30% drop. We have a local radio show Wheels with Ed Wallace. He always has dealers on and they were discussing their repair business and it was pretty much mirroring what we saw. The drop-off seems to coincide with the Shelter in Place order issued by Dallas County (our local news source), as it was announced many days before taking effect. Our county, north of Dallas, is acting more sanely and issued a "Work Safe" order... aka social distancing. Regardless, auto repair and parts sellers are considered an essential businesses. I was contemplating shutting down Tue (today), Wed and Thur, but given yesterday, I'm open today. Not sure what comes next.

The link is private to you. Can't click on it. Wow, $20 for 40 minutes is terrible. We're $25.50 for 15 minutes. Add extra 5 minutes for failures and an extra 5 minutes if they are first time visitors (and an extra 20 minutes if I'm flapping my gums). Our association is working on trying to get a small fee increase, but it'll be tough. For sure, we meet many people as a result of this program. Some become customers and some are consumers passing thru. For as many as we fail, it's refreshingly surprising that most folks are chill about it. But, it recently garnered me a 1 star review because "we turned his check engine light on" during the inspection. We declined to start the inspection upon seeing it and he left owing no money, yet were graced with a review. As a low end service, we somewhat dislike this offering, but from a marketing perspective, it's a gold mine.

Phew.... Till next year. Our legislature only meets every 2 years, so we get a longer break. How tough is your inspection process and what does it cost?

We're at $130 and on our invoices, I don't print the rate or hours (not required to). We simply quote a labor charge for the job. I have a shop near me with a labor rate of $99, but job for job, his labor charges are same or higher than mine - using additional labor hours. We pad for our persistent negotiators to have room for them "to win". If asked, we share the labor rate. We start with a base diagnostic of $99.95 for the 1st hour. While working on this, we fail to always charge for longer diags. Sometimes it's lost and sometimes we factor it into the rest of the job when building the quote. Even when we're asked the labor rate, we haven't received any negative feedback on it. We build value / trust which helps on approvals. If we don't close a deal, it is usually related to cost-of-job vs value-of-the-car OR cost-of-job vs down-payment on a new car. I get more vitriol for having the audacity to charge for diag. If I get a pure price shopper, I quickly dismiss them saying we won't be the cheapest.

Right on CAR!!! This is the way to do it! The POS industry should be enhancing their core platform rather than abdicating the creation of these features to others. I abhor overlay software systems. When you use a 3rd party software package, they have to store data in a separate database, while at the same time communicate with your POS system. Now you have twice the chances for something to go wrong as either can have a bug that breaks the system. If you terminate the service of an overlay program and keep your POS, the historical data in the other database is now gone. Please note: I'm not critiquing any of these overlay software products. They add value for some shops. I only have one software vendor to contact when I need help and this simplifies my life. Instead, I'm critizing the POS vendors and/or recommending selection of a modern POS system. The system that I use has customizable DVI, but no ability to store pictures. They integrate with a 3rd party overlay system(s), but, IMO, the fees are insane compared to the value provided. Our system makes it really easy to capture needed work and present it to the customer.

Hi Mark, Texas was under the gun to cancel our inspection program and before doing so, they commissioned UT to perform a study. Their results are public. We had on state representative in particular, who was pushing to get rid of it, living in my district, and we voted him out. Still had more. There were a total of 5 bills in this legislative session that were killed by our lobbying group. I can provide a bit of data that might let you see how Texas handled it and provide contact information of our lobbying group. Hope this helps. Some background on our Safety inspections. We are not that tough. Brakes, tires, lugnuts if visible, wipers, lights, horns, power steering, 1 mirror and exhaust leaks. No inspection of front windshield unless it is really bad. No disassembly is allowed, which implies no racking of cars, which means that we won't generally spot and eliminate rust bucket cars. So, braking test, then visual inspections of all other systems while on the ground. Tires are 2/32" (we've only heard rumors of snow elsewhere). Brakes must stop the car and no obvious safety issue noted. Much discretion allowed to the inspector, so if something is bad, it can be called out and the car blocked from passing. It could be over-ridden by a regional State Inspector Supervisor if protested, but they tend to do the right thing. All of this is done for a whopping $7. If you live in a SMOG county, then $18.50 more to get an ODB readout and a gas cap leak check. Annual cost here $25.50. News link: Study Results: And you may already know our lobbying group: Texas Vehicle Inspection Association 6101 Long Prairie Rd Ste. 744-240 Flower Mound, 75028 --brian

Protractor.

Integrated ordering within your POS is the way to go. Check availability and pricing online. Get online ordering rebates. When we order online, my PO is automatically filled out for me, so that when I receive the parts, there's no additional typing to do. If I have to pick up the phone to order, we have to manually type the description, part numbers, pricing, core, etc in. Very error prone. Frankly, I order less from WorldPac because of it's poor integration with my POS. It takes longer to use WorldPac, so it is shunned. Now, it is technically integrated, but it pops up their SpeedDial interface. I make my selections and they are sent back to the POS, and ordered online from the POS, but this is clunky. Moral of the story: Best Integration, with the parts that I NEED, gets the most business. However, NEED trumps speed. I rarely price-shop even though I can as I take a more relationship-based approach with my suppliers.

When I said: I intended to say.... I've not tried "doing nothing", so I have no way to compare "nothing" with what I'm doing. I believe that doing nothing would be bad and therefore don't have plans to test it.

As a consumer, this is a non-starter for me. As a business owner, I would not be charging my customers 3.5%, but would absorb this cost as we do today. Now, my credit card costs have just risen. I don't see this as a positive.

I have 4 main campaigns going and some other things. One hits 45K homes every 3 weeks, one hits about 10K homes every 5 weeks (overlaps), one is direct mail to people that have never visited my shop and then other reminder marketing. What I did was to align myself with a small business marketing company that specializes in automotive. I get lower pricing thru him than I would going direct to the mailing companies because of his total volume. Actually, the direct mail and the reminder marketing are done thru two other companies that specialize in those types of marketing. I track all of these very carefully to monitor success rate. In spite of that, frankly, I couldn't tell you for sure that it works versus doing nothing, but I do believe it helps get the word out that we exist, which IMO is my biggest barrier being relatively new. I'm still doing it and have no plans to stop. I'd be happy to share contacts if useful. This is costing me about $2500 monthly. They say that you need to be seen 7 times with advertising to be "known". I had significant heart-burn deciding to do this and didn't want to do what I'm doing. I'm mailing much wider than I want to because of how the postal / advertiser routes are structured. If I want to mail across the street, I have to accept that whole area. Kind of frustrating, but I'm hitting my target areas.

Well, I'm not having a problem today. I see a post box there now and I expect that it would work. I didn't see one previously, but I can't promise that I wasn't blind on that day. Indeed this was a response to that article and belongs there.

Hey, thank you for the guidance. We did try to remove it with fingernails, but this blemish was under the clear coat it seemed. Body shop told him it needed to be repainted. I told him that it wasn't our doing and was subsurface. He left (back in April), was a reasonable guy all things considered, and I've not seen him back nor heard from him. Hopefully this is over at this point. Just yesterday, we received a threat to call the police for damage to a car while in my care. We reviewed the security camera footage and I had video of her driving away with no damage. She did have real damage - a glancing blow to the rear bumper... just not by us. Explained this to her, gently and calmly and I think this one is done too, but video is archived just in case. And a few weeks ago, one of my guys "stole" some paper plates out of a car. These plates were on a different car later that day on the tollway and photographed. After some digging, he called me back and said that the last digit was garbled and he was charged by accident... we didn't take the plates. Again, he was really just giving me a heads up of possible shenanigans, but it's nerve wracking. On the flip side, if we had been responsible, I would want to know about it. Sadly, I can keep going.

Some of the large business campuses here have concierge services for: 1) Car Washes, 2) Gasoline Fillups. I think they might even offer oil changes. With as many broke people that I meet daily, I'm surprised that these services are a hit. But it probably explains some of the broke problems. Some of my less well-off employees don't think twice about ordering takeout from DoorDash or the like. So, there is a market for convenience. I also meet DIY-ers that would DIY, but their apartment won't let them do it onsite. Now, how do you reach your customer base? Who knows that you exist? I would expect that you will meet even broker people on Craigslist that I usually meet. If you can sign on with a business that will do concierge, that would be good as they advertise internally to their tenants. I would guess that the drive time between jobs and the back and forth to the parts store will kill any efficiency that you might have. And what if the part won't be here until tomorrow? Florida isn't much cooler than Texas and I would not want to be working out in the elements. This sounds like a tough way to start. But, there are folks doing (trying) it. Good luck.

@CAR_AutoReports created an article about ADAS, but I can't reply there. It was a good article. Thank you. Starting a new topic to discuss this in more detail since it won't let me respond there. I've started asking around to see if the Mobile Diagnostics guys are adding ADAS to their mobile services and so far, I've found no one, but also haven't looked very hard either. At a minimum, we all need to be able to recognize when ADAS is impacted and know whether to proceed with a service or not, if we are unequipped to tackle the next step. I do have a few questions / observations / : With the complexity of these procedures, does anyone have a feel for how the dealers are pricing / handling ADAS reprograms? In looking at this as a service offering, assuming one has room, I wonder about the following: What prices would the market bear for such services? You mention that you are getting paid for documentation. Sounds like the ADAS services are time and materials charging. Your car didn't program in the typical 45 minute drive cycle, so you are charged extra. I think I remember reading about some complex procedures that were in the 10 hour range? Any comment on typical job sizes? Lastly on charging, I can see people throwing fits on such "frivolity" (anything you don't fully understand must not be important). "If it's that much, time to get rid of the car!!!!" Looks like this could be a single specialty shop offering - B2B only. Are there generic tool kits that work with multiple car lines or is it one tool kit per line? Any idea of the types of such kits and their costs? You mentioned $20K toolkit. If access to OE Information is mandatory this may also impact which car lines are selected (as one may not want many subscriptions, even if temporary) Can we perform an ADAS impactful repair, but then sublet to the dealer for the ADAS reprogram (or other local shop)? Is this a good strategy or not? As of today, I've seen a number of cars with these systems, but have not performed any services which would impact them.

Hey, you and me both. That's why I shared. I was being overcharged and possibly lied to ("we can probably lower your rates as you build more volume"). Frankly, it's difficult to read those statements. I'm just starting to better understand them. The layout that I presented above is a good way to compare apples to apples. Maybe have your bank help you create your fee structure and then you can compare. Be aware that your mix of debit vs credit card vs reward card vs fleet card will really change up the Interchange fees. So, I could be 1.5% with mostly debit and you can be 2.0% with mostly AMEX and we can have the same fee structure. This table is just looking at fees, knowing that interchange is the same for all of us. My CC mix for 2019 YTD is: Debit Count: 39.9% CC Count: 54.0% Cash Count: 6.1% Debit Volume: 35.7% CC Volume: 60.5% Cash Volume: 3.8% All Fees for 2019 YTD: 1.8% (up from 1.7% for last year)

My old processor was First Data. This new one is Capital Bankcard as an agent to Paysafe. Most of these processors appear to be "little guys" reselling for the big guys and they do markups & fees to make their money. I had to sign a PaySafe Mechant Services agreement. I just signed up this week, so we'll see if they live up to their promises. They claim that I can trust them because we have no term contract and the cancellation fee is $0. Last month I was about 1.8% in fees and if I was at the new fee structure, about 1.5%. These percentages are Interchange and Fees. I paid $180 for the keypad and they are loaning me an FD-130 terminal. My existing keypad cannot be reused due to encryption. So, I now have 2 FD-130's and 1 remote keypad. Next, I have to pay the $495 cancellation fee to First Data. As an addendum to my first post: The annual PCI audit fee is $149 (so this one went up)

I get the daily calls of wanting me to switch CC processors and with MUCH (misplaced) confidence, I refused to have a discussion with any of these guys, because I already had great rates. Then, I had a persistent one call me back and ask why I didn't want to talk. She said enough right things that I let the salesman come visit me. My rates were and supposedly were going to get better over time as I built up history. Original Quote: Credit Card Rate - 0.05% + Interchange (AMEX 0.055%) Debit Card Rate - 0.05% + Interchange Credit Transaction fee - 0.05 cents per transaction Debit Transaction Fee - 0.05 cents per transaction PCI Compliance-$9.95/monthly Chargeback fee-$10.00 (VISA, MC, Discover) $30.00 (AMEX) Paper Statement-$5.95 monthly (online statements free) The other guy comes in and tells me that my current processor increased my rates and added numerous junk fees. The rate raised to 0.25% for most cards and .75% for AMEX and now have a $34.95 platform fee and numerous other fees. At this point, I stand to save $250/month minimum by switching CC vendors. I did confirm that on day 1, my bills had way fewer fees. The bills also stated that they were raising rates along the way, so they were disclosed and allowed by contract. I'm halfway thru a 3 year contract with a $495 cancellation fee. This is what I'm paying now with the same processor: Credit Card Rate - 0.25% + Interchange (AMEX 0.75%) Debit Card Rate - 0.05% + Interchange Credit Transaction fee - 0.05 cents per transaction Debit Transaction Fee - 0.05 cents per transaction PCI Compliance-$9.95/monthly Annual PCI Audit Fee - $99 Chargeback fee-$10.00 (VISA, MC, Discover) $30.00 (AMEX) Paper Statement-$5.95 monthly (online statements free) New Junk Fees - $41 To be clear, the interchange fees don't change on either deal. We are only dealing with CC processor markup fees and junk fees. The 0.05% is a markup fee over interchange. The new deal is: Credit Card Rate - 0.05% + Interchange (all cards including AMEX) Debit Card Rate - 0.00% + Interchange Credit Transaction fee - 0.05 cents per transaction Debit Transaction Fee - 0.05 cents per transaction PCI Compliance - $0 (with a successful audit and $9.95/month penalty without one) Annual PCI audit fee - ?? Chargeback fees - $25.00 (VISA, MC, Discover, AMEX) - refundable if you win Monthly Charge - $10.00 As best I can tell, it looks legitimate. I'll be carefully reading the new contract tomorrow. So, the real question is whether or not I'm switching from one liar to another liar? This second one is telling me that my contract will have the rates guaranteed and locked in. If I see the right things in writing, I'll be switching. Will recoup my cancellation / startup costs in 3 months. I guess the moral is get an annual checkup from a competitor. Supposedly these rates are available as a result of being low-risk from my transaction history (or it's just marketing-speak). I don't know. My original deal was reasonable, but it isn't any longer. My plans were to wait for the 3 year contract to end before shopping around.

Well, this is a car count question. Opening the doors does not mean car count is there to feed multiple technicians. You might have significant pent up demand because of your great reputation or you might not have any demand. The only certainty you have in front of you is uncertainty. So, I'd start by managing that. You have to be fully staffed for all hours / days. That's the minimum. Start there, then ramp up. Startups should have a focus on managing cash flow. You'll never have to worry about the cash drain getting clogged, they only ever wear wider! My approach is to wait for the pain to be there consistently before hiring relief. Some pain is handled by hustling a bit more and some is handled with overtime and of course, some pain is handled with an upgrade (hiring a better replacement). Hire techs 2 weeks before opening for training? I'd hire them the day you open and use the idle time of wondering where all of the broken cars are to train them.... unless you have that pent up demand, then you hire them day before. I doubt they need training... they need to setup their work area, scout out the bathroom and coffee pot, then they need cars and work orders. I have 21,000 cars drive by my shop daily and another 45,000 on the cross street and I'm very visible. Yet 20,990 / 44,990 daily haven't visited me yet. It takes a while for folks to "know" that you are there. Everyday it gets a little better. For my business, the startup period seems to be about 3 years to achieve "tribal knowledge" that you exist and with continued growth thru year 5, then it starts leveling off. (I'm friends with quite a few other owners that have been thru it and are guiding me and know some that have newer businesses than mine). With any advertising, you need to be noticed shortly after the customer develops a need. Until then, you're just another business on the roadside. The Car Wash next to me is a startup as well and he's mentally struggling with the typical initial low car counts. It's a very stressful climb. I've personally moved from Stressed to Anxious, seeking the ever magical Relaxed state. I have a competitor that opened up and was *way* overstaffed. Their car counts are abysmal right now. I'm not sure how the extra staff benefited the business, but maybe it did. They are in the process of opening 30 shops in our area. Only one shop out of 5 that I know about is somewhat performing. (And two of my guys quit to go work "for corporate" and they are both wanting to return. Buyer's remorse. I take that as a sign that I'm too nice and need to grow - probably meaner).

What we did to start was to hire one, and have a 2nd one ready to come aboard when the business was there. We pushed it out until the time was right. It helped that I had general labor available to assist the technician with mundane tasks vs leaving him to fend for himself. Further, he worked overtime and was paid Flag or Wall Time whichever is greater. It is not fair to expect your (hopefully) best technician to lose money (with no flag hours) while you build car count. Your pay structure may be different on day 1 than it is once you have a busy shop. You have to weather the storm as the startup process is a major money-losing period of time. Good luck!

EOL of Windows 7 means that you won't be getting any further updates from the Microsoft. This should only impact you on security, meaning that you device is subject to being hacked as new loopholes are found on Windows 7. I don't know this platform, but likely it is just a hardened tablet computer with a custom keypad (buttons) maybe. If your system gets hacked, Snapon should be able to wipe it clean and reinstall. You'll be down, but not dead. In a closed environment (i.e. this is not a generic PC with other applications running), then SnapOn can likely work around any (non-security) issues that occur over time. There is an advantage to SnapOn having a frozen version of the OS. Every Windows update introduces new bugs that sometimes affects SnapOn. With no more OS updates coming, it actually removes a pain point for them. IMO, I would not worry about this. SnapOn is an application developer. They depend on the OS, but they are not needing W10 features if they are staying put. If Windows 7 ever becomes a hindrance to SnapOn, they can always bite the bullet and move on. It's easily solved with time and money (and knowing SnapOn, they extract said money from you). (Source: My previous career was Software Development including Embedded Systems (custom hardware). Of course, this is all conjecture, but it should be on point). Let me drive the point home. My lovely Opus / ESP inspection machines are running Windows XP. We have interesting problems such as the floppy disk getting full, requiring a maintenance call to resolve. It only uses printers that have a physical Centronics Parallel Port connection on them. I'd be happy with an upgrade that let me run a USB printer at least, but that's not coming. These guys do 100's of transactions monthly and are getting the job done. They are attached to the network, so they suffer the same security measures that you would with an old version of Windows 7.

Definitely agree on using a payroll service. I've used ADP from day 1 and have missed their deadlines for getting direct deposit to go thru twice! To be clear, everyone was paid on time, but not thru direct deposit. It would be double the nightmare if I had to do both recover from issuing a manual payroll and then dealing with the tax side. I've also paid ex-employees instead of current employees with names that are very close (Kevin This and Kevin That) thru carelessness on my part. Then you have to reverse the direct deposit and reissue the payroll and of course, using manual checks. ADP has a manual paycheck calculator, so I just fill it in and tell them that I did it manually and they handle the rest. The first time you mess up, you have to figure this out while under duress. Stress is compounded!

Interesting trivia.... Canada has laws that mandate cloud data ownership back to you. USA does not, so you are left to what your contract says - this applies to both ownership and privacy. Many companies will adopt user-friendly data policies and some prey on those that don't read the fine print. In general, the minute someone else owns my data, it's a no-go for me. Further, (wearing my software development hat), I'm especially opposed to two different software systems both having data and "working together", such as overlay programs that change work-flow. Since I know not to trust computers, in addition to the backups being done by my software provider, I archive all of my data monthly in clear text (not DB backups). They are responsible for the daily backups. I also have a safety net. One challenge with the cloud is that you can't run over, kick the server out of spite, then reboot it and bring it back online. You are dependent on the cloud provider to do the needful. It can be trying when you are down. You will want to ask about their support and response times. (IMO, this is why you want to pay for your software. You need tech support to be available all of the time. I'm not saying anything about CAR as I don't know them. At some point, it would be reasonable for them to charge for technical support and you would be wise to want to pay for it).

Well, I finally have a day off, so I now have time to respond to your inquiry. I've been working 7 days a week since we opened 1.5 years ago. Now, truth be told, I don't need to be there everyday, but I'm building the business and more importantly, relationships... which is an in-person exercise. In general, I feel good about our progress. I'm on a first name basis with quite a few repeat customers. Note, my business is a combo quick lube and repair, so I see customers way more often than repair alone. I've shunned the typical QL mentality of shoddy repair work by having unqualified laborers attempt repair. We have very talented technicians on the repair side. QL is a convenience / local business, while repair is a trust / destination business. In other words, one would not drive miles out of the way for convenience, but would for quality / trustworthy repair. The QL part came up quick and it is a feeder for repair, but the repair is a sloooowww grind, climbing monthly. My techs are on Flat Rate or Wall Time, whichever is higher (in other words, they are paid whether or not we are making money. I'm in an investment period. It is my job to get clients in the door. Their pay should not be less on account of my lack of cars). On marketing.... While I'm very visible on a street with 21,000 cars driving by daily (and 45,000 on the cross street), my biggest problem is getting people to KNOW that I'm there. They come in daily and ask if I just opened? I purchased a lot in a shopping center to be anchored by a small Walmart Neighborhood Market store, and as of today, they've not even started and may never build. This was a big hit to my visibility plans. My driveway is the driveway to the grocery store. I send out ads to 45,000 households every 3 weeks, among other things, and still it takes time to build. On personal morale... I'll tell you that the most depressing moments of starting is when things are slow. You have such little direct control of "making it happen". You can only focus on doing your best while waiting for the seeds to sprout and eventually a crop to ripen. I can deal with the stress of struggling to keep up when things are busy, but the stress of being idle is rough. On admin work... For the 1st 3-5 months after opening, I would pick up a piece of paper and not know what to do with it, then the next 3 months, I would at least know where to start, but doing was still a struggle. I started with the mentality that I would deal with the complex issues when they appeared much later. Much to my chagrin, the all appeared almost immediately. Some were so bad, that it took me many weeks to formulate a solution. About 1 year in, there are only a few gotchas that still cause me struggles. You definitely need a CPA that knows the business to get you setup and organized. Accounting mistakes just get worse and harder when ignored. On Employees... don't hire them. They will just cause you trouble. Well, partially kidding. You need them, but choose wisely. I have some great guys, but have had my share of challenges. On Cash Flow... This is a business killer. A startup is a cash-sump. It goes fast. You have to make investments and spend cash to make money, yet you can't buy everything you need right away. I'm still managing cash closely and starting to spend on nice-to-haves slowly. My business still needs to grow another 40% to crawl out of the risk danger zone. On calamity... I've had cars set on fire in my lot (employee cars). I've had employees drive a customer car into the building. I've had an employee break her nose and need a $40,000 surgery (thank goodness for worker's comp insurance). I've had equipment break down while under warranty and also, the day after the warranty expired. On most holiday's, my burglar alarm goes off and thus I go in (it went off just a few hours ago). I've had employees get thrown in jail. Employees end up in the hospital. Employees cause me bad reviews and ex-employees give me 1 star reviews (and thankfully employees earning us good reviews too). I've missed payroll deadlines twice. Since most employees like being paid, the stress of doing this manually and figuring out how to do the accounting has made me very sensitive to these deadlines. One month ago, we were hit by a huge hail storm that wiped out every car in the area not under cover. The next day all of the cars disappeared, either totaled, or in the body shop. Our car count dropped immediately. We are just now starting to recover from this. So, in summary, I'm both doing well (operations and sales) and poorly (sales vs expectations). I'm starting to see a good growth on repair and measured growth on the QL. In spite of it all, I'm enjoying the business and continuing to fight for success. A startup is very hard... anchored by a need to build up enough clientele to pay the bills and then eventually a profit. Because I'm clinically insane, I'm enjoying this. 🙂