andresauto

I now have 2 shops and buying more. I own the properties. I manage from the outside. I hire great people, I pay the deserving people well and get rid of the rest. There is alot of incompetence in this business that will make your life harder. Burn out in my opinion is typically overwhelm, and overwhelm is incompetence in one or more areas of the business or in life. I'm considered "retired" by many because I spend my days having fun, traveling taking classes and "living the good life". If it's a strong business and is productive it would be in your best interest to fill all aspects of the business with competent people and watch the income flow in and then sit back comfortably and enjoy your life. I pop in the shops once in a while but my numbers are the true indicator of success not my opinions. I cannot ever see selling a money making machine to put a lump sum in the bank and watch it dwindle.

Technet

I'm thinking of offering medical and dental benefits for my employees. Does anyone currently offer them and are there any recommendations?

Property taxes? Does it pass environmental inspections and certified clean? Would a bank mortgage this property or is there something else wrong? Is it a desirable neighborhood? What is the median income of the neighborhood? Or it may actually be a great deal. Due diligence comes to mind. I wouldn't jump on this nor let this opportunity pass without doing my due diligence.

Have you grown in staff size, number of bays, car count, customer base, gross income, net profits? All the above? ONE of the above? Because you can grow in size and debt simultaneously with no financial gain if there's no financial control. You are really going to have to audit your own company. If you're making net profits of 20% or better than there is a discipline/financial mismanagement problem from your financial management team. Might be just you or could be the department in charge of financial planning OR financial planning/management doesn't exist at all and it's all hand to mouth. Is this a business only issue OR business and personal? You have to assess this correctly because if it is only business, and personally you save like a champ than your shop income is not being allocated properly or you are not really making money. If it is a business and personal problem you need a financial plan for your monthly income and expenses. Separated out. Business financial plan. Personal financial plan. You need to create a monthly financial plan and know your cost of existence both business and personally. Then you need to divide that weekly. From a weekly perspective you can see how much you need to make a week to break even and how much is left over. Also you can chart your required daily income. For each monthly financial plan create a breakdown of predictable (expected) income and fixed expenses and planned expenses adding in a minimum 5% savings of your gross profits on the business spreadsheet as a fixed expense and another separate 5% on the personal spreadsheet as a fixed expense. That way your business is saving 5% and you are personally saving 5%. I will assume you are taking a regular paycheck from the business and not just sticking your hand in the cookie jar. If you are not taking a regular paycheck start doing so and stop living off the business or you'll always wonder where the money went or like many guys do, claim they're not making money. So lets get back to SAVINGS: Future you and your company starts charging present you and your company a 5% gross income tax. Deposit the 5% self imposed income/savings tax to unlinked accounts at some credit union somewhere which would be out of the way to get to if your worried about self discipline. From your business this 5% comes from gross profits for the week, from your paycheck this comes from your gross pay for the week. I'm also assuming your income is greater than your expenses. If not, this has to be remedied to save any money at all. If you don't know how to create a financial plan, get a legal pad and create a break down of income and expenses. Make sure you keep personal income and expenses under personal and business income and expenses under business. You are two different entities. You deserve a paycheck. Your business is your child producing for you. Don't short change your child either! Also the reason you use a percentage instead of a fixed dollar amount is because with a percentage you are not defying the law of physics by saying I'm going to save $500.00 a week when it may not be physically possible if you don't have it. But when times are really good the dollar amount saved is higher and when a week or so are not so lucrative, the dollar amount saved is lower. With saving money you are looking for consistent actions done on a weekly basis. You may need to write or sketch this out on paper to really grasp it.

A true engineer is a creator that turns concepts into realities. In engineering you must consider fit, function, strengths, weak points, tenacity, points of reinforcement, duty cycle, failure rates, etc.. Back when, when I trained at Grumman amongst some of the best engineers in the world we were taught on worst case scenarios highest possible failure rates, previous mistakes and misfortunes as well as successful actions and procedures, standard operating basis, policies, etc.. Now, I'm writing this to be informative and NOT as an attack! First, it is just as easy to be successful in a business as it is a to fail at business. It's the actions that create success and the standard operating procedures you DO on a daily basis that will dictate the direction of your business. It is the intelligence you implement in the business that matters more than the car count that will create perpetual success. AS a mechanical engineer you should and must understand the laws of mechanical function. Opening and running a business is like buying and driving a car, you have to know what car to buy(size you need and what you can afford), maintenance costs (operating costs), when to start the car and shut it off (operating hours) because sitting there idly just wastes time and money, what kind of fuel to use(promotion and marketing to fuel your business), hitting the accelerator(creating SALES) income will get you where you want to be in life at a faster or slower rate, keeping it tuned up (right people for the job(parts for the car), when to apply the brakes(stopping the ineffective actions , employees, and bad habits of the business), parking the car (holidays), detailing the car(addressing imperfections), selling the car at right time (either to upgrade or knowing when to cut your losses). There are mechanical points inbetween but I think you get the idea. Perseverance and resilience will be the ultimate test through bad times. Ethics level will be the make or break factor towards happiness and expansion. Here's the reality check - Opening your own repair shop WILL NOT SAVE YOU ANY TIME since it will be another entity that requires YOUR SUPPORT. It will do the exact opposite. If your business purpose is to SAVE TIME AND MONEY you need to re-evaluate. Ownership and MANAGEMENT is not a time saving activity, it is another responsibility for continuous action. Management being defined as directing the actions and functions of an activity and directing people toward a specific target for accomplishment of tasks and goals. Add in your new rent, your insurances, your labor costs, income taxes, property taxes, trash bill, workers comp., equipment maintenance, new tools and equipment, repair software, billing software, training materials, office supplies, promotion and marketing, accountant costs and responsibilities on this new venture. Starting up a shop to save time and money sounds ludicrous.The rent alone will cost you $30,000. a year. Now if you said that your vehicle maintenance costs are $100,000. dollars a year then maybe a consideration can be made for that purpose after doing the math. What sounds really crazy to me would be telling your customers that you don't have time to work on their cars because you're too busy working on your own fleet in a 2 bay shop and having the fixed monthly operating costs. That would be like telling your limo customers you can't drive them to the airport because your to busy driving your family around in the limousines. The limo company and the auto repair shop are two different entities and the purpose of a business is to create income. I haven't met anyone who became wealthy clipping coupons and/or looking for the best deal. But I am blessed to to know those wealthy individuals who create alot of money every day by creating valuable products and experiences for their customers. I can't remember anyone one of them whining or complaining that they have been ripped off by crooks, instead they focus on creating more wealth daily. In my opinion if you want to pursue this venture and you want to make money you will need at least a six bay shop. Four fully functional bays for your customer base and two bays for your limousine work. Those two bays will cost you less money as a six bay shop than as a two bay shop and you can still produce income out of four bays. Also depending where your limousines are currently stored, I would look to consolidate by keeping everything at one location.

Lol, thanks. We did meet. I liked that event. No matter what event or class I take I always learn something. I signed up for both ATI and Management Success. I invest alot in training and education. Both ATI and Management Success both cost a pretty penny but it's what I made of the education that was the real difference. If I made no changes in my business operations, both schools would have been just another bill to pay and a total waste of time and money. Both companies have you keep numerical graphs to see whether you are making gains or dropping the ball somewhere. I can complain and find faults in everything I've ever attended or spent money on but I'd also have to look at the improvements I've made. I expanded to an 8 bay shop from a one bay shop and have offers made on 3 local shops for sale in the area that I'd like to buy. I have spent over $100,000. on education and training in management and have out produced the previous years income consistently. Point being every action I've taken has a reaction including the action of no action. But the ongoing result is improvement and greater income. Both schools have changed my life in different ways,on a simple level with ATI I set the labor rate to be more profitable and eliminated my greatest liability customers which was mostly wholesale work. With Management Success I set the shop up administratively and with the proper personnel to function without my daily attendance. In the last three weeks I have worked one complete day as a fill in mechanic. I could have made improvements faster if I followed the programs more stringently. I don't want people to get the wrong idea by the previous statement that was made that it was the worst event you ever attended. That's at the same level of someone insulting your shop but they never did business with you, they just came in for an estimate and didn't like you. As a client of both companies, both are what you make of them. But most importantly an individual and his/her company are a creation and reflection of their personal knowledge, control and responsibility for themselves and that company. The best investment I've made to date is toward my own personal knowledge and how to handle my money making machine.

You need a good Service Writer who customers like and can communicate with easily and freely. That schedules appointments, follows up with appointments, and calls customers for after repair quality assurance , makes future recommendations, and has no cosiderations on presenting high dollar amounts. I had the same issue of ups and downs in numbers till I hired a good Service Writer that stabilized the front. You'll know a service writer is good when there is an increase in appointments and profits. I had some real losers that made the shop tank, so it really makes a difference. You do not want just another body in place that leaches income from the business. I had one guy who only had to stand in the shop and phones would stop ringing. Not kidding!! I'd send him home early phones would ring. I'd give him the day off and business would pick up. On his last day before he was fired, the shop made $43.45. The morning I fired him the shop made $10,000. by the end of the day with no sales that he created. This may seem bazaar but I've experienced it time and time again in the last 20 years I've been at the shop. As for labor rate, in 2009 my labor rate was $95.00 an hour. 2010 $115.00 per hour. 2015 $125.00 per hour. Every year our net profits have gone up since 2009 from the initial labor rate increase. The car count is important but the net profits are the key indicator year after year if a decision to change your operating basis was correct. I had a one bay shop in 2009 and now have an 8 bay shop in 2015. As far as losing customers I have lost many along the way, the lowest price seekers are probably the first to go. It bothered me at first because I wanted to be the customers go to guy for automotive work. I've also lost customers who wanted to see me stay small, strange at that may seem, there are those people who want to see you operate small time. I've lost those who wanted to play the victim, they tell you everything you did wrong to them and how it's all your fault there cars are not running right. With every loss there's a gain and sometimes that gain will be your sanity. As many business owners I'm in business to do a great job AND MAKE A PROFIT! So if that means less cars for more profit, day after day, year after year, I'm still headed in in the right direction. You must know your numbers in business and not worry about a situation of lower car count if there is an increase in net income. As a shop gets more organized administratively and adds technicians the car count and income will increase. It's much easier to increase car count with lower prices but only the most vanity driven shop owner would like it to look more busy to the public out there and make less money. I've been there.

Any recommendations are greatly appreciated. Obviously, like most shop owners I don't want to spend money unnecessary. But at the same time I have no problem spending alot of money for alot of production. Value is more important than dollar amounts spent for me.

What are you guys doing for your promotion and marketing? I went from a one inside bay with one lift and one outside lift shop to a 8 bay shop with 5 lifts. I want to maximize my capacity. I do not do any promotion nor marketing at this point. It's time to start.

Wow, that's much better than my First Data tier plan. Hopefully the Flagship Merchants interchange plus plan will save the company some cash. Is that a tiered pricing plan or interchange plus?

I pay First Data $1000. per $35000. in sales. I recently signed up and received a Flagship terminal since the terminals will need to be replaced by summer time for the new credit cards with the microchip that are out now. I have not set it up yet. I will today though. Anyone have any comparables? Meaning cost per thousand.

The rewards of doing the work is far greater than the penalties.

I like the Bolt On Technology for Mitchell for a few reasons, and though I'm new to it, it helps tremendously with saving time. First, I can put in license plate number and state so VIN comes up automatically. Secondly, it has different multi-point inspections so if your doing a State inspection you can create a specific standard list in sequence that any mechanic can follow and take pictures which can be emailed along with an estimate to a customer. You can also use any of the generic multi-point inspections it includes to find necessary repairs that can be sold. Thirdly, if you are using the MobileManager you can enter license plate number or scan VIN, enter new customer information, go into Mitchell 1 and attach parts and labor and send off to customer through email or text and get a approval to move forward with no phone calls or reservation in having verbal communication with unfriendly customers. It is so seamless that I wonder why I didn't have enough sense to realize this was possible sooner with modern technology. More of a money saver point, I can attach pictures of the car to the estimate or order so I don't have to pay claims for previous bodily damage that was there when the car came in but the customer didn't realize. Bottom line: It's easy to use, it saves time from running out with pen and pad to write VIN, plate, mileage, color, etc. The scans and pics are never wrong. It puts the data automatically into your mitchell one or shopkeypro, etc.

I would definitely go flush mount, it's another way to differentiate your business and it attracts a more niche market in my experience.

I've used Hunter equipment trouble free for 20 years. Any machine will need routine maintenance, updates and calibrations. There service has been the best in the industry compared to other companies for equipment we have. But the greatest benefit has been the marketing, when customers have problems that are hard to solve it seems that they find the best equipment first to solve the problem and then the shop that has that equipment. Your shop will be listed in the Hunter registry and when customers are looking for local shops to solve their problem your shop will pop up. I have a Hawkeye aligner and road force balancer from Hunter. The alignment machine is so good that it can take a Newby through sequential steps of how to do a job in what sequence, with what tools, and what alignment parts needed. That is great! Add in the marketing aspect and you are doing phenomenal. In contrast I have a non-Hunter tire machine that I feel is superior to the Hunter tire machine I had and though it's better it does not drive business to my door like Hunter does.