Jay Huh

7 minutes ago, Joe Marconi said:

I will be at the conference also. I will be giving two presentations: Avoiding and Overcoming Shop Owner Burnout, and The True Cost of Comebacks.  Hope to see everyone there!

 

Joe! I am very looking forward to meeting you in person sir. Great topics btw

9 hours ago, Trealubit said:

You wont regret it. Its worth it. Make sure to bring a copy of RW for mspec to sign!


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LOL. The last issue of R+W is sitting on my desk and he is staring me in the face right now lol. 

16 minutes ago, HarrytheCarGeek said:

Jay, what are your insurance cost over all? You know, workers comp., liability, garage keepers, etc.? And how do you price those costs into your jobs?

Hey Harry, how do you price those items per job? Do I just divide it by the number of RO's for the month?

Right now, I am taking the total amount per RO, minus tax, minus part cost, minus labor cost for tech to get GP. I guess if I am pricing insurance, SA pay, rent, and ads, my GP will be much much much lower.

But I feel like getting people in and doing more cars will make that number better as it is watering down my rent, insurance and SA pay per RO. Currently my car count for this month so far is 244- another record for me. I was consistently around 170ish - 200 last few months

Last March my gross sales were $18k. Right now I am at $54k with $9.9k WIP so hopefully doing $63k if all books out by Friday.

Sharing that because it's been constantly changing, my expenses and such bc I am growing at such exponential rate right now. I have been doing all the books myself but besides the one accounting course and tax evasion course I took in college, I have no experience. But yea any helpful advice I can get to get a more realistic GP per RO, I am all ears and here to learn  

On 3/27/2017 at 6:51 PM, totalautocare said:

If you advertise "low prices" you're asking for those who are loyal to "low prices" and not loyal to you.

He did you a favor giving you this wake up call.

Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk
 

Good read and something I need to remind myself of, saving the PDF, thanks 

On 2/20/2017 at 10:42 AM, mspecperformance said:

 

 

No thanks! I like my privacy

Mspec I already know what you look like now lol. THey got your picture everywhere

I signed up the other day, booked the room and booked the flight. About $1600 in all not including food. Not a lot of cash sitting around but I think this will be money well spent. Looking forward to it for sure, hope to see some of you there in person!

22 hours ago, totalautocare said:

Does anyone have a link to this video?

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I was thinking of buying it but signed up for the 2017 conference instead. I will find the person who taught this lesson and ask him personally to give me the quick rundown lol

4 minutes ago, Jay Huh said:

I get oil from Cambell Oil Co - $1.38/qt synthetic blend 5w30 in a 55gal drum. Wix filter from Napa $1.49 (for like 70% of the filters out there) - Toyota cartridge filters are like $2.79. All my techs except my master tech gets paid $20 flat rate. oil changes pay .3. So really my cost is only like $14.39 for MOST cars. Disposal cost is around $100 for 350 gallons.... minimal

I charge $50 for full synthetic and I get it for $2.68/qt (Cam2 full synthetic)

Brakes: pad slap pays 1 hour, my techs LOVE brakes. Most knock it out within 20min - we grease all the pins and clean bracket etc.

Labor cost: $20

Advance auto parts Gold Ceramic pads: $23.99 (no matter what car - European, Asian etc we get for $23.99.

We did this at $75 for a while and always sold a brake flush with it. If it needed rotors, .6 hr so we charge $45 labor plus cost or rotors.

I thought long and hard before we bumped it up to $95. I wanted to give my guys a raise because before when we were at $75 for pads, brakes paid .7 and they were at $17/hr. I made brakes $95, bumped my guys to $20/hr, and made brake 1hr.

Until recently, everyone I hired pretty much had little to no shop experience and worked under my direct supervision. I hired a 16 yr old kid as help for $8/hr. My second tech he was $9/hr. Then I hired a guy with really good experience and he wanted flat rate so we changed over to flag system like a year ago and never looked back. How I made it this far I have no idea..... I had NO TECH experience when I quit my job as a service advisor at Carmax. I stayed up endless nights learning on YouTube and only did brakes. Bought a CTS with blown engine for $1200 and replaced the engine 3 months after I started working on brakes in my home garage. 

My master tech now makes $25/hr with a promise of bumping him up to $28 (happening soon) with $50 bonus at 40 hours. He hit mid 50's this past week with a $1450 paycheck. He does oil changes but I leave oil changes to my other 3 guys at that shop, but whenever this guy does one, he does the most amazing inspections. He has highlighters with 4 different colors and highlights them for my advisors. He had a $3000 ticket last week and customer came in for a 120,000 tune up (toyota Tundra)- and that was after he declined $1000 of the work to come back next time.

I am opening multiple locations because this formula works. I advertise cheap brakes and people come and they buy. When it was just me and that kid, we had the most outstanding customer service. We got people out quick and we both worked on their cars. Full brakes pads and rotors we got people out in like 45min from check in to check out. It's definitely not like that anymore. I had 129 perfect 5 star reviews before I got a bad one. Anyway I am getting off topic lol
 

O yea, I forgot to answer the question of paying my guys extra for inspections. I don't but they do it anyway. We used to not do inspections until recently. They only really pointed out safety concerns if they saw it.

It's after I joined this forum that I highly "encouraged" this process. But really, I am thankful for the master tech I hired because he sees the big picture and leads by example. Other guys sees the thorough job he is doing and the return he is getting so they follow suit

13 minutes ago, mspecperformance said:

Hi Jay, 

I mean completely no disrespect and I just wanted to lay that out there because text can be misconstrued... 

When you mention your break even point for an oil change is 19.99 it kind of gets alarm bells going off in my head. Are you calculating your costs correctly? What is the oil costing? What is the filter costing you? How about the technician? Are you calculating their labor cost properly? Are you giving them additional pay/time (if you pay flat) for the inspection portion? Do you have just a lube guy do all your oil changes? Even if I were to offer a 19.99 oil change, my costs including my tech even with the crappiest oil would probably somewhere around $30-40 I am assuming. 

I am just asking because it has been an absolute mystery to me how you are making enough money to open several locations in such a short period of time with such a low labor rate and charging such low prices on for instance: brakes. I have done the numbers several times and it is nearly impossible for me to figure out how you are profitable unless certain assumptions such as you are paying a low salary to your employees (low payroll) and you are keep an insanely high car count with a decent ARO. I want to know your secret lol. If its cool send me a PM with your gross sale and net profit. I am genuinely curious. 

I get oil from Cambell Oil Co - $1.38/qt synthetic blend 5w30 in a 55gal drum. Wix filter from Napa $1.49 (for like 70% of the filters out there) - Toyota cartridge filters are like $2.79. All my techs except my master tech gets paid $20 flat rate. oil changes pay .3. So really my cost is only like $14.39 for MOST cars. Disposal cost is around $100 for 350 gallons.... minimal

I charge $50 for full synthetic and I get it for $2.68/qt (Cam2 full synthetic)

Brakes: pad slap pays 1 hour, my techs LOVE brakes. Most knock it out within 20min - we grease all the pins and clean bracket etc.

Labor cost: $20

Advance auto parts Gold Ceramic pads: $23.99 (no matter what car - European, Asian etc we get for $23.99.

We did this at $75 for a while and always sold a brake flush with it. If it needed rotors, .6 hr so we charge $45 labor plus cost or rotors.

I thought long and hard before we bumped it up to $95. I wanted to give my guys a raise because before when we were at $75 for pads, brakes paid .7 and they were at $17/hr. I made brakes $95, bumped my guys to $20/hr, and made brake 1hr.

Until recently, everyone I hired pretty much had little to no shop experience and worked under my direct supervision. I hired a 16 yr old kid as help for $8/hr. My second tech he was $9/hr. Then I hired a guy with really good experience and he wanted flat rate so we changed over to flag system like a year ago and never looked back. How I made it this far I have no idea..... I had NO TECH experience when I quit my job as a service advisor at Carmax. I stayed up endless nights learning on YouTube and only did brakes. Bought a CTS with blown engine for $1200 and replaced the engine 3 months after I started working on brakes in my home garage. 

My master tech now makes $25/hr with a promise of bumping him up to $28 (happening soon) with $50 bonus at 40 hours. He hit mid 50's this past week with a $1450 paycheck. He does oil changes but I leave oil changes to my other 3 guys at that shop, but whenever this guy does one, he does the most amazing inspections. He has highlighters with 4 different colors and highlights them for my advisors. He had a $3000 ticket last week and customer came in for a 120,000 tune up (toyota Tundra)- and that was after he declined $1000 of the work to come back next time.

I am opening multiple locations because this formula works. I advertise cheap brakes and people come and they buy. When it was just me and that kid, we had the most outstanding customer service. We got people out quick and we both worked on their cars. Full brakes pads and rotors we got people out in like 45min from check in to check out. It's definitely not like that anymore. I had 129 perfect 5 star reviews before I got a bad one. Anyway I am getting off topic lol
 

This was definitely an interesting read.

I am the newest one here with only about 2 years of experience of owning a business and a lot of that was being mobile so I don't have a lot of wisdom to offer and I know I could be totally wrong...

I honestly think it can go both ways. I remember when I used to work at Merchant's Tire/NTB, they were putting out $9.99 oil changes.... what a nightmare. So many people coming JUST for that and it was so busy that we were getting angry customers and didn't even get to do a thorough inspection and even if we did, we couldn't do the work we were so slammed with oil changes. That is the extreme....

When I opened my second location, it was dead first 2 weeks so I did $19.99 oil changes. I figure with the cost of oil, filter, labor and disposal, it is my break even price. I could either not make money and have no chance of making money, or not make money with a CHANCE of making money. 

Now would I keep doing the cheap oil changes? I have decided not to.

In my honest opinion, cheap oil changes are worth it if you have a really strong service advisor, a really meticulous tech and it's not busy (or in Andersonauto's case, 1000000 bays, very impressed by the shop btw!)

If my car count wasn't already what it is in my Durham location, I would continue to advertise $25 oil changes. I advertised $25 synthetic blend with a courtesy 22 point inspection and up to a 5min consultation for FIRST TIME customers so that we can get to know them and their vehicles. This actually worked out well but wanted to spend my adwords budget on brakes instead.

You guys probably disagree with this too.... but I've built my business not on cheap oil changes but CHEAP BRAKES! When I first started out mobile, I advertised $25 pad install! Then when I had a shop, I advertised $60 brake job INCLUDING ceramic pads. Then it got bumped up to $75, now it is $95.

Believe it or not, I still got a couple $25 pad install customers that stuck with me.... did a heater core and intake manifold for him at our current shop price- it was over $1000. It's a hit or miss, but if they like you, they will stick with you. I got a wheel bearing job in my shop right now, another customer from my mobile days. $800 for both rear bearings on a Mountaineer. He told me straight up that he was impressed by the way I worked on his car in the parking lot of Advance Auto (he had broken studs while I did the $25 brakes and was impressed by my battery powered cutting wheel and sparks flying everywhere and using a ball joint press to press in the studs lol)

It's almost impossible to stay cheap tho, I just raised my shop rate to $80 yesterday from $75. 

Maybe we can use cheap oil changes to get NEW customers and new only and show them such great and awesome service that they will come back no matter what. That way they can't take advantage of you but also get a chance to experience your shop

I'm sorry for your loss! LOL

Yea with Groupon, you have to price things REALLY cheap, they expect half price AND THEN they only give you half of that. I was tempted to do Groupon as well.....

23 minutes ago, xrac said:

Without this forum I would not know people like Simon, Jay, Jeff, Gonzo, Alec, Joe, Al, Spencer, etc., etc.,  Although we haven't meant in person I feel like you are all friends, compadres, and allies. 

Yea! It really does. I hope I get to meet you all someday

Well.... I haven't been on ASO long but many many many many MANY changes have been made to my business since then and it's been largely due to the good advice I got on this forum. But most importantly, my stress level has decreased GREATLY.

My ARO has gone up, hired a master tech, opened a second location, signed the lease to the third location and opening next month. O yea I also got a tow truck since then as well. it's been about 3.5 months since I've joined. Implemented everything I read on here with my team. The strut sales post was very helpful and one of the first posts that has changed my shop. Thanks ASO

3 hours ago, HarrytheCarGeek said:

Yesterday was the first day of Spring. Tax return money is now on the street, your marketing should be paying off handsomely!

You should have your Spring special out there already, make a list and call those customers that need your services. Don't be shy, this is the time to prepare for Winter(Slow sales season). 

Keep in mind, you are trying to avoid the seesaw of feast or famine, keep your guys busy and well paid, use this time to pack the cash for the slow time of the year.

Definitely! Thanks for the reminder, those winter months were TOUGH

Guys, thank you so much for your invaluable input. I am new in this game and I have a lot to learn. I am lucky to be surrounded by so many successful people.

This post has really opened my eyes and being only 31, I have not thought about a will, but I think I will definitely have to make some plans for my wife and newborn baby boy. 

I would very much like to own my own land and building and completely agree that is where the money is and that is one of my goals.

The reason for expanding quickly is this: I want to capture the market. I live in the Triangle - it's called the Triangle because Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill are the 3 major cities and make a triangle. (Duke, NC State, and UNC)

I feel like the way to make money is to spend money and I am sacrificing for long-term goals. I have put 90% of what I make back into the business. With 3 locations covering the Triangle (my locations will make a Triangle with with 20-25 mile average between the 3), I am wanting 1 out of 4 people living in this area to recognize my name and my logo. I read a book today and love this quote: Don't be competitive in your market, DOMINATE your market.

As to the question how I am finding good people, luck has some to do with it. I have had bad employees that I have had to let go but all in all I think of my guys as family. Having a ASE master tech on staff really helps, not only that but he is a generous one and has a great attitude. Helps everyone he can and all my guys get along well (they all go out to lunch, meet outside work, etc)

I'm signing the lease tomorrow and excited about this location, there are like 7-10 dealerships within 1 mile location. Carmax is down the street- I used to work for them, always swamped and I know they will need help. Our Durham location just got RepairPal certified and they outsource work to RepairPal shops. We'll see how it goes

Marksas, congrats on the new shop. I'd love to be able to build my own 8 bay shop one day. I know you've put in a lot of hard work and it's paying off as successful people are not successful by luck.

As an update to the original post, I heard back from the broker for the third location. I didn't hear from them in a while so I thought it was going to fall through but we came to terms and I should be signing the lease sometime next week. 

To recap, not much more than 2 years ago, I quit my job as a service advisor and advertised on Craigslist and worked out of my garage, HOA stopped that and I went mobile, then rented 2 bays, moved to my own 6 bay shop, and then opened my second location last month.....

It almost seems like the logical thing to do is not open a third shop now but opportunities don't come too frequently in life, especially automotive spaces in this area. 

I have been reading A LOT of books lately and one thing that really hit me is what Henry Ford said. Something in the lines of successful people are quick to decide and slow to change their mind. 

Anyway I am committed and for me failure is not an option.

13 hours ago, HarrytheCarGeek said:

What has worked for me has been to reach out to people that I have seen or read something positive about.

 

Likewise, that's how I came across this site.

were you able to find someone local?

Just read Joe's column on this months R+W. First of all, if you guys don't have a subscription to this, subscribe! So many good tips on there.

Anyway... I had a similar experience- friends and family have thought I was crazy every step of the way in my business and everytime I expanded. I am grateful for this forum bc I am surrounded by the right people going through similar experiences but how have you guys found the right people in your everyday life? Do you guys have someone like-minded that you share lunch/life with? I am lucky to have ONE person in the area but would like to have a group and maybe even a local mentor of some sort. 

On 3/13/2017 at 8:47 AM, HarrytheCarGeek said:

Our business is a thanksless job, in over 25 years I have probably received two or three calls from different customers to tell me thank you for fixing their car. If anything, and you receive a call after the customer picks up the car is for them to tell you that you didn't fix the car. You know the dreaded feeling...

The only way I have found to stay positive has been to fully understand what I am doing in this business, and reading old books. Read Socrates through Plato's dialogues and other's writings, and it will give you insight as to how ignorant people can be.

Thankless job indeed. I once had a customer bring me a bag of custom M&M's with personalized messages thanking me by name. That definitely made my day. I have also received gift cards and cash - I do have some amazing customers but all in all no one is happy to come to a repair shop

16 hours ago, AndersonAuto said:

Automotive coach. Good guys that own (still own) a very successful shop. They helped a lot with getting the sales and gross profit side in order. They helped me get a lot of things fixed, but I feel they neglected the expense side more than they should. They came on site, interviewed all the employees, went through all my processes etc. After that it was strictly over the phone and reporting numbers to them.

They were worth the money, and I'm still friends with them. Knowing what I know now, I probably could have got more bang for the buck, but it was the right fit for me at the time.

Nice, I see that you are in Kansas. A little far but definitely sounds like it was worth the cost

2 hours ago, meowpox said:

Yeah I've been really digging Shop Boss' demo and the 99/mo is affordable, given that it comes with all those features. We only have 4 techs and it seems like it would meet our shop's needs. Couple questions for you since you've used it for a couple years now:

1. What QB do you use with it? Is the QB integration pretty seamless? I currently use QB desktop version but want to switch to Online version. I'm guessing since Shop Boss is web-based, using the QB online should be pretty effortless, am I right? Does it sync automatically or do I have to do something to upload the data?
2. Have you had to use their customer service? How is it?
3. Did you switch from one program to Shop Boss? If so, what was it? We're currently using Winworks and I dont see anything about importing data? 

Thanks!

1. Sorry I actually don't use QB so I dont know but I see the button at the top so I know the have the integration

2. Their customer service is excellent. I had an emergency on a Sunday where site was not allowing me to look up tech hours. They fixed it within an hour. Contacted them multiple times through the years and they always answer back. I needed custom hours for appointments and they coded that too

3. Luckily I started with Shop Boss so I am not sure how you would get all your customer data- I know it worked the other way around. Mitchell was trying to get me to switch and they said they can import all data from Shopboss for $500 so it should be possible

1 minute ago, HarrytheCarGeek said:

Good for you.

I had a yes man that didn't seem the part, he would mirror my attitude and tell me what I wanted to hear, I thought that he was a damn good employee. Until one day, one of my slackers but extremely loyal guys said to my face, "Boss, he is nothing at all like he shows you he is", needless to say I was baffled. Numbers weren't the best at his shop but they would barely meet my minimum goals. After installing a new security system and auditing the tapes, I found out that he knew what were my acceptable numbers, he was stealing from me by using a parallel copy of the POS program. After finding several recordings of him abusing the techs and bragging about how he knew better how to run the shops I called him in, I made him pay me back what I could find he stole from me and got rid of him.

Very painful experience.

Geez! Sorry to hear that. That's got to be a stab in the back feeling. I have 1 of my 8 cameras pointed straight at the cash register/computer monitor. Havent checked the feed in a while.... hoping I won't have too.

Who wants to make a bet? Loser has to wear this at work for a week!

Whaaaat?????? hahahhahaha 😂 I need to get one of those lol. I'm sharing this on my company instagram page lol