Hands On

I am starting to sell tires. I picked up a new changer and balancer. I have valve stems, weights, patches and glues, lube and a scuffer for the rims. We have 4 lifts total, two techs. I am looking for any advice anyone has to give. Right now my biggest questions are how much to mark up and how can i offer road hazard. Right now I am using US Auto Force as a supplier for my tires. The prices seem very good, but they do not offer a tire protection program that I am aware of. For pricing I would like to be at or a little above the dicount big boys like Big O and dicount tires. I dont want to get slammed with non stop tire work, but I also dont want to appear to be price gouging and start pissing off customers. Also are there any special laws to folow. Do I need to log the serials in the computer? Does anyone use Alldata and is there a special set up in it for tires? Thanks in advance guys, let me know if I am failing to ask the important questions.

I just started with mechanicsnet. So far it seems pretty much the same features as demandforce, at $100 less per month, and no contract. There was a $500 set up fee so that they could design my cookie cutter website which took some data entry person all of 25 minutes I am sure, but that is par for the course I think ( what are some of the start up fees you guys see with the other programs) I will say that having some kind of customer contact program should be a high priority. When I was with demandforce I could see the results each time I sent out a newsletter, and quite a few customers relied on the program to tell them when to come in. I have not been with mechanics net long enough to know if it is working yet.

Only cons, if you consider financial assistance a pro then your getting your financing the wrong way. If you see the partner as a pro because he is going to be an employee? he is not an employee, he is a second business owner. One thing that might help is if you described exactly how this partnership is going to function. Are you both mechaincs? Are you both going to be present and working. How much do you both expect to pull out from the business, and how long do you both think it will take to make that money. Are you both depending on this business to pay both of your bills? What do you envision the pro's to be?

ya I mean just like a treaty right, those always make everything better at that point. The point is at some time there is going to be a conflict and you cant just pull out a peice of paper and expect both parties to go " oh yeah, silly me, i forgot about that" and the problem magcally goes away. And to say that there will not be any problems is to play ignorant. Some of the best marriges end in divorce. Now I am not wishing the worse for you, but by preparing for the worse, we can usually end up surviving it. It is just that a partnership is in my opinion already starting out in a pretty bad spot and there is not a long fall to the worse that can happen.

I see a lot of people here are using mitchell, I have been using alldata. I am paying about 250-260 per month for my repair info and the elite version of the management program which has the parts matrix ability. What are you folks paying for mitchell?

We use digital pictures as a selling tool all the time. I have sold 100% of the estimates I took pictures of.

We use mechanicsnet now instead of demandforce. Same program, $100 less per month, and mechanicsnet is not selling your database like demandforce is.

I would find a good agent and start there. I would also seperate the two businesses completly, different names, books, licenses ect, and get each it's own insurance. That way you will know for sure if both businesses are making you money or if you should let one go to focus on the other.

Yeah my first shop was a partner ship, Never again. Find a silent investor instead.

Oh yeah, off topic, but related to posts in this topic. I used facebook to sell a car today. Posted the car and boosted the post for $20. The post got shared and the buyr is on his way down.

I guess I am not going to renew this year either. They wanted $560 for the year. I told them I would offer $250. She said it doesnt work that way, its based on how many employes you have. I told her I had one employee. She offered $390. I will be respectfully Declining.

I do what carbtech does. I also pay my techs salary so i dont have to worry about them rushing. I also market appropriately so i dont get price shopping calls. I always offer to look at the car for free but insist on seeing it before giving a price. I have a 95% closure rate and cover diag time with a better profit margin and high average ro and high jobs written per ro. Customers never feel like they payed for nothing and i can focus more on educating about maintaining and the repairs and spend less time trying to teach them why a charge is written as diag instead of just adding .5 to an hour across the ro as .1 or .2 per job. I am not lying to the customers any more then you are when you sell a $0.49 light bulb for $3.49. If some one ever asks why the extra time (has not happened yet) I explain that we torque everything. Which we do. Or that we needed extra time for research or any other number of legitimate reasons. People that do not like to pay for diag will not notice they are if you can hide the extra charges without being too agressive about it. Free code checks and free tire pressure checks should be thought of in the same way and your missing out on a very loyal customer base if your not doing both. I just had an argument with a local dealer because the customer wants to bring the car here and the girl at the counter would not tell me what code it had without getting $100. Really? You know autozone will right? Customers arent that stupid any more. Marketing.. if your using discount coupons to get new customers your asking for price shoppers. If your putting out coupons then getting mad at price shoppers your really throwing all of that marketing money away. A coupon as a business owner says i am Willing to do some discount work to gain volume. If you do not want people calling for a price stop the coupons and focus on your reviews. If you do get a referral and they need a price give it to them. If you earn that refferals business it will usually fan out again when they say they found you cause so and so referred them. If you turn away that referenced person or blow them off when they call for a price, they will instead tell the person that referred them that you were rude and you could lose both as customers.