Jay Huh

where can i get this mitch s seminars and 20 groups? I have 1 guy I talk to often and consider a mentor, I worked for him as an advisor years ago and he's still in business. All his methods are unconventional but somehow works. I've managed a national chain for a year before (NTB) but other than that little to no experience

ok where and how did you guys learn this?

efl?

Sweet, thanks

Thanks guys, that is helpful for sure. My margins have been hovering at 50%. I just signed on a master tech- I promised him $25/hr and my shop rate is $75. I promised him $28/hr in 2 months when I raise the shop rate to $80. My other 2 techs will be paid $20. That $28 is more than 30%, you guys think it's ok?

Thanks! Yea that def makes sense on the fluids and I reflected that on my matrix. Also I bumped everything down bc I did some test quotes and prices were insanely high. Even with me understanding shop costs, I would have a hard time buying as a customer. I changed it to 1.7 for $5-150 and 1.5 for 150 and up.

Because of the way I started my business, I have never really marked up my parts much, if at all. Right now I am just doing a flat 40% mark up (multiplying by 1.4). It used to be at 1.3 a few months ago. I blow everyone out the water with prices though. Because of that, my margins are low- always hovering around 50%. I want to get it consistently 60% and higher. I am thinking about implementing a parts matrix I saw on R+W. Using their numbers, I think my customers will have sticker shock! But I just changed my system over. Looks like they want me to mark up over 300% for lower cost items but for the most part marking up 225% range (multiply by 2.25). Huge difference. In the past, I've been careful to not charge more than what the auto part store charged in store retail. Thoughts on parts markup? Should I continue with implementing the parts matrix?

Very very true. Had to get rid of my best tech at the time because he was bringing everyone else down. I was afraid to do it but ended up never regretting up. Shop production went up after!

Maybe we should take a trip to Texas

I have 2 mechanic shops now and I want to implement body work bc the second location has a perfect area for painting. I have no experience with auto body but I hear that the margins are much better. Anyone have any advice on doing body work? What equipment I need and how to price things out. Do you guys think auto body work is worth it?

If you are weak on diag, you need to hire someone that can. They're expensive but worth it. I just signed on a master tech and super excited. I have pretty good ability to diagnose but I just opened a second shop so I hired a master tech for the location I was at. It's a great peace of mind having someone that can do EVERYTHING.

I made my own to save money using Wordpress. It's been working well. Carmedixnc.com There's people that would make one for $500 but it wouldn't have all the elements I would want. Having a video at the top helps a lot IMO

I don't provide a minimum and my techs make under 40hours but they're content. They don't want to go back to hourly, I've asked before. If it's slow, we are in a shopping center so they go hangout at Taco Bell or a sweepstakes place next door lol. I've provided a minimum to one guy in the past. He's the first guy I hired as flat rate and he just wanted a $500/week guarantee. Yea he hit that every week so no big deal

Google adwords work best for me. When I first started, it was soley Craigslist. It's good if you are the cheapest shop in town but you're actually competing against mobile mechanics so craigslist is out. I've tried magazine ads (Clipper Magazine) - $700 for half of a page and then another month for a third. I only got like 3 customers.... but one of them ended up doing front and rear pads and rotors. Came back 3 months later for a oil change and oil cooler seal replacement. It was a BMW 5 series so I guess it was ok. Yelp, omg, these people would not stop calling and would not leave me alone. So finally I relented because they said they can make a video and I wanted a video for my business. Yea the video sucked so I redid the voiceover and just used the footage and made my own. I p[y $425 a month on Yelp. Not really tracking ROI Best is Google Adwords. I spend anywhere between $500-$1000 month. Constantly get calls from google customers and they are also the best customers

Awesome! Thanks! Didn't know these were available. Read through a lot of those forms and they are really helpful

10,000 sq/ft shop and just yourself??? That's huge. you are going to need hired help, even if it's just a teenager to give you an extra hand for $8/hr. Get the right software. I strongly recommend Identifix, saves you a lot of time diagnosing. Very important since you're the only tech

I used to do hourly as well. The really good thing about this is the comebacks. It was easy for warranty work etc bc they are hourly. I could even help friends and family as well and sometimes do charitable work bc it costs me the same regardless. I used to buy broken down cars off of craigslist (bad engines etc) and have them replace it and sell it. The flip side to that is... when it's slow or no business, it's tough. Little to no motivation to work on harder things like timing chains or head gaskets. Not enough incentive to look over the car. I was doing something very similar too, $4 per billed hour additional on top of hourly pay... in the end they didn't like it. I do $20 flat rate now and give them a bonus when they hit 40 hours. They like it and I don't care what they do when it's slow. A truck came in the other day for regular maintenance, my tech sold him about 8 hours of additional needed work/maintenance (initially came in for front shocks and spark plugs). It went from like a $300 ticket to a $1300 ticket. Good luck having your hourly guys do that. The reason I changed over was because I put out an ad for a tech while I was doing hourly. The tech was good and he refused to sign on unless it was flat rate, so I changed it overnight. No regrets since

You're in Raleigh??? Which shop? I too am in Raleigh. I like your advice too thanks

I definitely understand where you're coming from. I started from my own home garage and had a scissor lift. Sure I made profit but it was measly. I moved into a shared building and I had 3 lifts (2 2 posts and 1 4 post) but only had 2 bay doors so really I could only do 2 cars at a time unless the one on the 4 post was a big job. At that location, I too only had one other tech and I did all the diag. Never lost money but didn't really make any either..... maybe like $2k a month? I took a big chance and signed a 63 mo lease and paying $4035/mo and got a 6 bay shop. Now I have 5 employees and making money. If you're going to expand, EXPAND. Your husband is lucky to have you support him. I can't see how you're making money with only 1 lift. If you are having too much work then you have to hire and you have to move in order to fulfill it. It's getting the customers that is the tough part. Every so often you get a car that you lose out on. Broken bolt or wrong diag... whatever the reason, if you only have 1 lift then you aren't making money from other cars. We have jobs that we lose out on all the time but I have 4 other guys that are making money

You guys will do well. It looks like you already have pretty much everything covered. I started my shop with no capital and we turned out fine. If you are into programming cars, you should get a dyno! Way down the line though. We don't have a lot of shops that program/tune here so you'll do well if you can. Look for lifts on craigslist. I got a 2 post for $1000 and set it up myself. Very helpful when I first started and was short on cash. Smoke machine..... I'd put it on the bottom of the list. Good to have but it was like 3 months before I even used mine. We use it like once every month and we stay busy Air compressor- our shop was formerly rented out by Cottman Transmission so we have a really nice compressor but I went a while without one. I had a small $150 compressor from Harbor Freight and that's all I needed. All my impacts are electric. The Milwaukee 2763 has 1100 ft lb nut busting torque and I'll put my electric impact against any air impact any day. Go electric. Only air tools I use is the air hammer (Harbor freight comrpessor will be fine) and of course putting air in tires... TPMS tool- yea Autel 601 is good but I wouldn't prioritize it Mitchell is good but check out Shopboss. It is cloud based, it's amazing. $99/mo- does more than Mitchell. Also make sure you get Identifix- really helpful in diagnosing problems Brake lathe- I bet we do more brakes than any shop of our size. People advertise cheap oil changes, we advertise cheap brakes. We never use our lathe. We sell them new rotors or just install the pads. Factory service manual even says only machine if surface is scoured. With cheap material these days, they warp once it gets too thin. With our prices, our customers are happy to replace them. Stocking filters would be hard in my opinion. I'd just order. Stock wipers and batteries. Shopboss keeps track of technician booked hours. Use Identifix and Chilton labor time- it beats Mitchell. Alldata and Mitchell sometimes screw you over. We actually have Mitchell Prodemand as well and always compare labor times. We use the highest one. Sometimes there's more than 1.5hr difference!! Motor time is the worst. Always. I don't provide benefits so can't help you there but the Aflac lady visits once a month. Employee handbook is good to have- you'd probably write a better one than me since you worked at a dealer I use Nationwide for my insurance. No trouble so far and cheaper than you'd think. They do garage liability along with general. I only pay like $115/mo... Get an alignment machine!!!! That is a money maker. Dont worry about all the other stuff like the brake lathe or tpms. Sell alignments. Do suspension work, sell alignment. Tie rods, alignment. Do alignment, camber off, sell struts. Gregsmithequipment sells the Atlas alignments. They are cheap, like $8000 cheap. They sell alignment stands where you can align cars with a 2 post instead of 4 post lift. I have a 4 post though but I bought the stands as well. Used the Atlas alignment machine for over a year and no problems. Hunter machines are like $78k.... You don't want advice from me for hourly rate- Diag charge we start at .5 hr- harder stuff (compression test, smoke test, head gasket test) 1hr. We don't discount diag. We make sure we let our customers know correctly diagnosing a problem is the hardest part. I do my own accounting with Excel spreadsheets and I do payroll with Intuit Payroll (online software). Paying taxes and sales tax will be your biggest headache. I do that all myself too.... No one showed me how, just did it. Look online and you'll see what forms to fill out and most stuff you can submit online. My first time, I even called the IRS agency lol, surprisingly helpful. Don't be afraid and just do it. When negotiating rent, the biggest thing is make sure you ask for the first 3 months FREE. That will give you time to set up and maximize your chances for survival. Start with Craigslist ads but once you get enough money saved up, advertise on Google and drop craigslist. Customers are worlds different.

Ok well just want to give everyone an update. So I submitted an offer to the owner of the building. Sometimes I think I am crazy. I don't think I'm ready but I am never satisfied and get bored easy. The thought of opening a new location excites me from getting new equipment and office supplies, getting signs made and announcing yet another step forward for my business. I've been sprinting non-stop it seems like from when I quit my job suddenly one day and started working out of my home garage 2 years ago. Every step of the way I've had second thoughts but went ahead with it anyway. I hope it'll work out this time too, that is if they accept my offer.... if they don't then it's an easy decision for me. One thing I've learned along the way is that you can't be afraid to fail. Failure is a part of life, but at least I won't have regrets. O yea, that 5 bay building was pretty crappy when I saw it but they also own a larger 6 bay building which is much nicer (but more expensive). Made an offer on the 6 bay

Thanks, Ok yea I thought I saw you guys on R+W or Shop Owner. That's awesome though, look forward to seeing it!

Thanks for all the replies. Been thinking a lot about this, this is off topic but who made your website? Also, was your shop featured on a shop magazine few months ago?

We use 55 gal drum for 5w30 synthetic blend. For our full synthetic oils, we use bag in the box (0w20, 5w30 and multi vehicle atf). Our distributor gave us a rack with 6 pitchers when we changed to them and we love it. Previously, we didn't have a rack and it was an absolute pain to use. Rack is free as long as we continue to order from them which we plan on doing. They sell us Cam2 oil which has been great and also only about $2.68/qt for full synthetic. Bag in the box is the best space wise (we also have limited space). 55 gal drum of synthetic blend is good bc we can put that in most vehicles and pay about $1.38/qt

Good to know I'm not the only one!!