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Our business was awful in January and February. The last two weeks we have been swamp but Alfred I am with you. I too expect everyone will stop spending money and going out very soon.

Everything went crazy on Friday. Schools are closed, all meetings of any size canceled. I am sure we will see a decline this week due to the craziness. My wife and I are staying in. She is high risk due to age, past chemo, and a weakened heart. Fortunately so far Indiana only has 12 confirmed cases and nothing close to our area.

Business here has not been affected but I suspect we will start to see things change starting this week.

What advertising did you use?

Joe to this point we have only saw about 2 vehicles where we could have used one of these units.

Raise your prices and eliminate the bottom 20%. Work less make the same amount of money is one thought on how to move forward. Maybe your labor rate is way too low?

Here is a little insight from a franchise owner who was never involved in auto repair before purchasing and opening a new business. Location, location, location is the most critical factor. The number of cars passing the location is not as critical as do they have a reason to stop where you are at. CarX looks for locations in a destination location i.e. retail center. Recently a Meinke opened in a high traffic area with a very nice building in our city. They only lasted about a year. All that was near them on either side is industrial type properties. Thousands of cars were passing by but no one was stopping. It was outside of their travel pattern. It was only a pass through corridor. I new they were doomed the minute they opened in that location. Be sure there is reasons for people to stop where you are at beside s you. If it is just you it will take an established following or huge advertising dollars and you may still not succeed. The other advice is do not underestimate how difficult it is to hire qualified help. I have been in business twenty years and went through a time this spring where I thought I might have to close for lack of help. I survived by overpaying and hiring a couple of problem techs that I survived with until I got very lucky and hired better people. When you talk about working on your own stuff you sound like every guy I interview looking for a job. Most of them are woefully under skilled and way too confident. The learning curve is very steep if you come into this business from the outside. I have survived but it hasn't been an easy journey.

In a town of 120,000 I started with a working manager and two technicians plus myself. I had another body I could bring in when needed. For us that was about right. People are so hard to find these days I would start with at least two. One or both may not work out then what. The question may not be how many you hire but how many you can find. If you have the techs you can go out and beat bushes and find work.

Joe, I know where there is one for sale in Indiana. The current help situation is making it too difficult. At almost 67 years old I did not intend to be working 63 hours plus per week.

Just and update about my daughter and her husband. Four years into their church plant and they are still surviving. They have just moved into a new facility in Woodstock, Georgia and looks like they may now have a rising tide.

Great article Joe! While it is a different issue we just had an experience of dealing with Car Shield. They were a complete waste of time. Denied claim and then reopened and had us do a tear down at customers expense and then denied it again. I do not think they ever pay a claim to anybody.

My problem with BG has always been the price if the products. They seem to be too high for us to make decent money in selling the service.

Joe what does a three part fuel treatment kit cost you?

Joe, we are all in this thing together. A good perception of our industry is good for us all and everyone knows there is way to much negative perception. As much as possible I try to maintain a friendly competition attitude with the shops around me. I make it a point to never diss another shop. That sort of thing makes us all look bad. For example this week we had a Toyota Pickup towed in that had lost the oil filter. The quick lube about two blocks away had put the wrong oil filter on it a few days before. The filter it lost was a Penzzoil PZ-37 but the correct filter should have been a PZ-38. Fortunately this owner heard the pop, saw the oil light come on, and shut the vehicle down. He didn't drive more than 200 yards. No harm, no foul except for a new filter, new oil, the tow, a little mess, and a whole lot of inconvenience. It appeared someone grab the wrong filter one slot off on the shelf. Was it a careless mistake? Absolutely! Could it have ended in disaster? Absolutely! Could it have happened to me and I would have been on the other end of the stick? Certainly! With that in mind I told the owner it just looked like an honest mistake that could have happened to us. He went to the quick lube and they reimbursed him his costs, gave him a free oil change, and asked him to monitor the engine. Don't know if he will use the oild change? However, I think everthing is fine. If I was the manager at the quick lube I would be very grateful that his competitor up the street did not bad mouth them to the high heavens making a bad situation much worse. If I was the manger of the quick lube I would pay it back again the next time I am on the other end of the equation. We can all benefit and learn from each other.

Good story Joe! You are spot on.

There was a Mobile Fleet Service business started up here with the golfer Brian Tennyson as an investor. It lasted about 7 years but eventually went belly up. The service trucks they had were about $80,000 per truck counted the truck and equipment. One of the problems with the Mobile is finding reliable help who doesn't milk the clock. They can waste so much time driving for parts and loafing that it ain't funny. Pep Boy locally cannot keep enough help to service the stuff coming into them. They send a lot of stuff to us.

We do not pay for any yellow pages advertising. We paid listing up until last year. It is no longer of any real value. No one under the age of 70 uses it any more. I throw them in the trash when they are delivered. In the last year I have only been asked by a customer 1-2 times that I can remember if I had a phone book.

Well I’ll be!👍

Would you believe that we removed this from a tire this week. The wrench end was inside the tire and the broke end was sticking out.

Gonzo I hired one of those clowns. He was sent packing after 3 days. What a joke.

I think Interstate Batteries have had quality issues. Don't know if they still do but they did when we were stocking them. The biggest problem locally was the Interstate Dealer did not take care of warranty issues and the prorates were outrageous. I had to eat batteries that were bad that they said were good and that we tested with their tester. I also had customers get mad at our shop because the Interstate prorates were calculated on Interstate list which was an outrageous price that no one sold for. Often I could sell a new battery cheaper than the prorate. I love selling NAPA batteries. They let me do what I need to do. Warranties are a breeze.

A young guy from North Carolina moves to Florida and goes to a big "everything under one roof" department store looking for a job. The Manager says, "Do you have any sales experience?" The kid says "Yeah. I was a vacuum salesman back in North Carolina." Well, the boss was unsure, but he liked the kid and figured he'd give him a shot, so he gave him the job. "You start tomorrow. I'll come down after we close and see how you did." His first day on the job was rough, but he got through it. After the store was locked up, the boss came down to the sales floor. "How many customers bought something from you today?" The kid frowns and looks at the floor and mutters, "One". The boss says "Just one?!!? Our sales people average sales to 20 to 30 customers a day. That will have to change, and soon, if you'd like to continue your employment here. We have very strict standards for our sales force here in Florida. One sale a day might have been acceptable in North Carolina, but you're not in the mountains anymore, son." The kid took his beating, but continued to look at his shoes, so the boss felt kinda bad for chewing him out on his first day. He asked (semi-sarcastically), "So, how much was your one sale for?"The kid looks up at his boss and says "$101,237.65". The boss, astonished, says $101,237.65?!? What the heck did you sell?" The kid says, "Well, first, I sold him some new fish hooks. Then I sold him a new fishing rod to go with his new hooks. Then I asked him where he was going fishing and he said down the coast, so I told him he was going to need a boat, so we went down to the boat department and I sold him a twin engine Chris Craft. Then he said he didn't think his Honda Civic would pull it, so I took him down to the automotive department and sold him that 4x4 Expedition." The boss said "A guy came in here to buy a fish hook and you sold him a boat and a TRUCK!?" The kid said "No, the guy came in here to buy tampons for his wife, and I said, 'Dude, your weekend's shot, you should go fishing ! ► l

Gonzo, we put a fuel pump in a car and about a month latter it was towed back in for what they said was the same problem. It was a long tow that cost about $150 which was billed to our shop. Guess what, nothing wrong with the fuel pump. It was out of gas. They paid the tow bill and we didn’t charge anything for looking at it. 🤪

So what are your plans now?