KMS

The problem with those sites I have found is that we have only had a handful of customers come from them in 11 years, which means they are not doing anything to advertise for us. Not only that most of them advertise for dealerships also. I haven't had any success with those sites, and from the membership letter we received from godocauto.com it sounds like they know what they are doing? It gave us a list of things to do to help with SEO. It is cheaper and specified by Make. This website, from what I see, is only for independent shops.

We joined. I was impressed with their website, Facebook page, and Google Plus Page. It is a fairly new company, and looks fairly simple to use as a customer. We only work on two Makes of vehicles so it only cost us $19.95 plus tax for the first 3 months. I thought it was worth a try. It definitely looks to have some potential. What do you think?

What about this site www.godocauto.com ?

I used to. You can make a lot of money doing this as long as their are good body cheap cars in your area. Always use used parts for big ticket items, and don't try to hit a homerun on each vehicle. You want to buy cheap, fix cheap, and sell quick. You want to do volume and I recommend not selling them at your shop. Good luck.

 

I have been told repeatedly that the customer base is 3-5 miles of your location.

It does depend on your location though. Most of our customer base comes from 10-20 miles away.

Ya from the sounds of it the previous guy didn't really have a good vision for the business. He started selling cars and then was not super into the mechanic side and I have heard he simply didn't want to show up sometimes. I guess the only thing I was worried about was the landlord saying that location could only handle a $50-60/hr labor rate because our business plan is built around roughly $80/hr.

I would be too worried about the other business. There could have been multiple contributing factors for why it failed. You will have to test your labor rate anyway. You also can't only base your business on price alone. People will pay more for great customer service.

I have been doing a lot of research on how to not have to spend thousands of dollars in advertising each year. An acquaintance of mine showed me this new website. www.godocauto.com Its is suppose to work though back-linking, SEO, Google, Bing, Yahoo. Please let me know what you think. I am very interested, and it is very cheap.

From my experience, as long as the shop you are looking at is in a decent area. Middle-class minimum, and the retail areas around it are clean, the higher end customers will come. We are in a area where about 2% of our customers are within 15min of our shop. You will have to advertise a lot to get the customers you prefer. Most of our customers come from higher-end areas even though we have no amenities around. It can be done, but it will take a lot of cash and patience.

We only use factory converters now. In the past we had nothing but problems with aftermarket and OEM converters.

I would like my pay plan in close ratio without too much deviation from my overall profit. Basically a close to set % of profit. I an trying to see what everyone else does. I do not like the idea of straight salary. Either 100% commission or small guarantee + incentive.

If you don't mind me asking what is your yearly total sales average? (Example: Total Sales - $1,000,000, pay SA 5% of total sales = $50k/yr)

What can you afford? A great service advisor will cost. It is worth it to pay them a little more upfront, so they aren't pushy and pissing off your customers. The SA is the face and voice of your shop. He/She will either make your business prosper or drive it into the ground.

They are way to many shops out there worrying about how to profit correctly. Just charge what you need to charge. You will be higher, lower, and equal to other shops. My rule of thumb is find a profit margin you are most comfortable with. Try not to piss customers off though. My goal is 60%. Some jobs are more and some are less. Just play around with it and see what is working best for you.

Welcome aboard! Don't be afraid to ask questions. Someone here will have the answer for you.

I agree with that. Always ask if a customer understands the estimate and/or repairs completely. This helps everything go smoothy.

Negative comments will always leave out what the customer did wrong of course.

Of course they do. This is why all the reviews need a response.

You always have to take the good with the bad when it comes to reviews. How else do you work on your flaws? There is a such thing as good criticism. Yes, some reviews can be absolutely ridiculous. Always comment on all of them if possible. Customers will be amazed to get a thank you. They will appreciate it greatly.

I don't care for partners. I would get a good service advisor and a top tier tech. I would give the technician a weekly 40 hour guarantee to start with, and an incentive over 40 flat rate hours. A good service advisor can run the front counter while you get a feel to how this type of business flows. You will need start-up capital banked to keep your head above water until you get a customer base. Good luck.

KMS, keep us posted on the results. I think it will be a winner. I like the strategy of previous recommendations because those seeds are planted, and the discount just starts them thinking about those items all over again.

Got three back already with an ARO of approx. $720.00. So far, so good!

Word of mouth works best, but I do like the tool guy idea. Have him keep an ear out for you. Techs are always looking for better shops.

That is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. You can charge whatever I want. You think the bottle of water you buy at the store really costs them $1.00 and they sell it to you for $2.00? I bet it costs them around $0.05, maybe! Almost every business owner would be in jail.

We have been seeing that around here a lot lately. It's time for the infrastructure to start crumbling. Job security when it comes to the automotive business. We are called the Orange Barrel State.

Better learn to deal with it. Hopefully, the law enforcement officers will know how to deal with this. I don't this you will have anything to worry about. When it comes to the smell, better get use to it. A lot of people are going to be jumping on that band-wagon.

We went though Customer Link.

We just put together an email blast to all off our existing customers. It basically says they get 10% off all previously recommended repairs, and 5% off all other repairs, but only in conjunction with previously recommended repairs. We'll see how this works.

We have been putting the best two of for tyres on the rear of the vehicle for a while now. Our research has shown this to be correct. I would print out some literature to educate the public. It doesn't matter what other shops do. Stand your ground and educate.