Jay Huh

4 minutes ago, AndersonAuto said:

How much would it be worth or how much would I pay??

The knowledge would be worth somewhere around a cool million. How much would I pay? Obviously nothing because it took me 12 years to actually hire a coach of any kind. When I finally pulled the trigger, I paid $2000 a month on a 2 year contract. Spendy for sure, but I made a lot more than I paid. 

What kind of coach? Life coach? Automotive coach where he's owned his own shop? $2k is a bit steep but depending on how involved he is in your business he could be really cheap 

1 minute ago, xrac said:

There stock, pricing and warranty is excellent.  Radiaitor and heater core quality has been o.k.  They are now selling fuel pumps and that quality may be iffy. 

Interesting that they are selling fuel pumps. Do you know what brand?

13 minutes ago, xrac said:

Does anyone on here do business with 1-800-Radiator? 

I've used them a few times. Super super cheap pricing. Half of what Napa was with radiators. They have radiators in stock where Napa and every other parts store would have to special order. We only use them once in a blue moon, too inconvenient to order and iffy on the quality.

I have used their ac compressor kits for price but we are a Napa car care center and rather have Napa warranty our labor in case compressor goes out.

Drinking helps haha. After reading all your replies tonight, it's a lot of wisdom I wish I had and it's apparent that you've been in this business for a long time. I'm relatively new in this business so my advice is mute but I sincerely hope all the best for you my friend. From the quality and honesty your business exhibits through the reflections of your posts, your customers will stick with you. 

20 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

I have had decent luck with advance. They give me an across the board pricing of $34.99 for platinum pads. I have had some fitment issues and had to grind some imperfections off the ears that slide into the caliper bracket. 

Radiators, condensers, compressors i get from Cold Air Distributors. They carry name brands and blow the prices out of the water.  Worldpac is good but deliveries take a bit. 

I do wiper stocking through advance and carry a rack of cheapo basic wipers (Kleenview) and they are actually decent. I also stock a rack of beam blades (Xtraclear) and they are fine for the price. Many times customers go for the better but some buy the cheapos and i normally dont lose the sale. 

Their oil filters are supposedly made by Mann Hummel and are fairly cheap. 

Get the commercial sales manager out to your garage and have a chat and tell him what you want and ask what he can do for you. 

Lol yes the Kleenviews. $1.99, I have sold a couple of those.

1 hour ago, alfredauto said:

We try to think why we haven't seen someone in a while. What did we do wrong? If they deserved firing I forget about them. If they fired me I'll call and try and make things ok. Mostly I try to be more subtle. We are in a small town. if joe smith comes in every 3 months for something and it's been 4 months I'll usually ask someone who knows him about him. Oh hi Mrs. Anderson how's mr smith doing. That's usually enough to get him outta the Walmart quick lane and onto my lift. 

Nice! That is one thing we havne't done well at: calling customers that we havent seen. I think customers will appreciate a phone call every once in a while. Either that or be extremely annoyed lol. hopefully its the former

26 minutes ago, alfredauto said:

Go big or go home. If you have the gut for it why not? I don't have the ability to relax with 20 or 30 people waiting on a paycheck. 

Thanks! Exactly what I needed to hear. My plan is to work hard, full speed ahead for the next 10 years. I need to take over the Raleigh Durham area

3 minutes ago, ScottSpec said:

I wanted to add that adding loaner cars has dropped the stress level in my shop dramatically. Both for our customers and the employees. It's hard to measure the effect on the bottom line so far, but I know more work is being purchased because of them and the shop is more efficient.

Yes I thought of that as well. I have a head gasket job going on at my shop and customer is in a rental. Stressful knowing that

7 minutes ago, autorepairuniversity said:

This is interesting stuff. I'm new to this group (pretty exited to have found it). Ive owned an auto repair shop for almost 6 years. I have 5 bays. This past year we grossed approx 500k, however barely made a profit this year when all said and done. Kind of frustrating because were ALWAYS buisy and working our butts off. I am considering expanding to get a few more bays. However, there is also another great location (Building) for sale near me. I have thought about adding another location, then wonder if ive lost my mind!!!. Im pretty young, so I don't mind upping the ante so to speak, if it would be a good long term move. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
 

Hey! Welcome to the forums. I am pretty new myself but I have grown considerably since joining and getting help from these seasoned professionals.

I just opened my second location and I thought I was nuts as well- been in business for 2 years. In the works of opening a third, suppose to hear back from the landlord tomorrow. Risky but you only live once. Hope all works out! I'd say go for it

55 minutes ago, alfredauto said:

the millionaire next door is a good read. The guys you see in new sports cars with rolexes usually are credit rich but are probably worth very little. I know guys with multi million dollar dealerships who put water in the ketchup bottle to get the last bit out. 

Yes! THis is so true! I read that Sam Walton drove a old pick up truck at the time of being name the richest man in the US

2 minutes ago, ScottSpec said:

I buy the cars from customers. We all get those customers from time to time that want to sell their clean well maintained car because they are tired of it or it needs work and they don't want to repair it. One needed an engine, one had a cracked oil pan, one was purchased from a widow. On average I probably have 2-2500 in each car.  And if it doesn't work out, I could probably get twice that for them now. So it's hard to classify that as an expense. 

For operation expenses I am currently allocating $300 per month per car until I can see what the actual expenses are. $100 for insurance and $200 for gas, registration, and maintenance I don't think I have even come close to the $200 per month. But I'm going to keep using that figure for now. I'm sure some repairs or tires will be needed at some point.

I only buy cars that I know customers will be comfortable in. They have to be clean inside and out. The first loaner I got is  a 1999 Volvo S70 with about 70000 miles on it. The car is spotless. Most customers don't realize how old it is and can't believe the low miles.

The down side to having nice loaners is that I continually get harassed to sell them. 

The cars are registered to my shop. I have a 1,000,000 liability policy + 1,000,000 liability policy on each car, and a 1,000,000 umbrella policy. For a total of 3,000,000 in coverage.

The are shops that do the create another company to own the loaners thinking this gives them some protection from liability, but I think that is a bit of a fantasy. 

 

 

Thank you for the detailed response. I will save this for the future when I seriously consider having loaners as part of my business

7 minutes ago, Saab1961 said:

Thanks, Where did you get the motor oil box racks, to hold the oil boxes?

Call Matt with Campbell Oil Company 9109643012 - free when I order oil from them

1 minute ago, torquedwrench said:

Thanks once again Jay. Do you use the Identifix SMS or do you just use the repair module. I think one is called Direct hit and one is Direct shop.

 

I just use Idnetifix and not the Direct hit shop. For SMS I use shopboss.com- best sms out there in my opinion and low cost too

2 hours ago, ScottSpec said:

So far the loaners have worked out beyond my best expectations.  Just about every customer who uses one really appreciates it.  Most bring the cars back with at least as much gas as it left with.  One customer lives a mile away from the shop but still stopped at the gas station to fill the tank that was full when she got the car.  Having them takes so much stress out of the equation.  We don't have to rush to get cars done when they have a loaner.  Customer's buy more repairs because it is more convenient for them.  Several new customers said they would not have come to us if we did not have the loaners.  

It might see odd, but the biggest challenge has been turning the cars around.  When it gets dropped off, we like to do a quick check to make sure it is full of gas and ready to go for the next customer.  It only takes a few minutes, but the busier we are, the quicker the cars are going in and out and when you are busy, you don't want to pull employees off other tasks to check over the loaners.

  

     

Did you buy the cars to serve as loaner vehicles or were they abandoned vehicles that you picked up? License plate wise, are they registered under business name?

THe idea of loaner vehicles would take my business to the next level. I can see a lot of benefits of having them but the cost associated with it would be astronomical 

1 hour ago, ScottSpec said:

My customer's get a follow up email ~3 days after they are in.  4 months later they start receiving email reminders.  They will continue to receive them every 2 months for 3 years unless they come in or tell me to stop.  Having said that, this yields very little return.  There was a post on this site a while back that talked about how studies showed that reminders in the automotive repair business are not effective anymore.  This has been my experience as well.  We do get a few responses but not many.  At times I send out several hundred and it is not uncommon to get no response.  

The one thing I do not do with my reminders that might make them more effective is to offer a discount, incentive, or something of value.  I have always tried to get customers to see us as professional just like their doctors, dentist, lawyer, and accountant.  None of mine send me coupons, so it seems counterproductive for us to so.  I don't like the discounting game, don't want to be in the race to the bottom, and don't want to attract the discount shoppers.  I will continue to send out the reminders because there is no cost involved, it keeps us in contact with customers and on their minds, and it does yield an appointment from time to time,  But I would never see it as an effective way to recover lost customers.

Scott  

 

      

I like your view of the discounts and I agree. I sent out an email blast to every single customer for a steeply discounted oil change to get people into my new location. I got several appointment within a few hours but the ones that came were interested only in the oil change which is a loss for us.

 Nice, that's not too far from me. Love the look of your shop btw

8 minutes ago, torquedwrench said:

Thank you so much for the Reply Jay. Amazon is definitely on the list for repairs scheduled a couple days out, as much as I'm not a huge fan of corporate big box stores it's really hard to beat their prices and Prime shipping. As far as Oreilly's goes, I've been waiting for an email back about my account approval for over a week, I'll probably just burn some gas on Monday and go visit one of the stores and see if I can figure anything out.

 That one is actually on my list, I need to call the rep back tomorrow as I forgot until you mentioned it. My eyes and brains are all buggy from talking to sales reps for all the programs I've wanted to try. Would be nice if they'd just put pricing on the sites so a person would know if it's even in the budget or if they're wasting time by contacting, probably have almost 100 hours already listening to pitches from these company's that I come to find out is way beyond our means at the moment.

 

I'm glad you said this, it's actually how we were planning on running it, unless the customer is stuck in the parking lot at work and is willing to pay extra for us to get same day parts as it would involve one of us making a good long trip (If we could even get them)

One other question, do you happen to know a way to search multiple parts stores at once? I know it's a feature of some of the more expensive SMS's but I was wondering if anyone had any other resources as this would cut down on order time tremendously for us since we have different parts stores to the north and south but both quite far away.

You can haggle Identifix down to $139/mo. I think it's $189 otherwise.

When your account rep for Oreilly sets you up- it will have an online portion where you login and order parts. It'll tell you if they have part in stock or is in the district. We have Advance Auto, Oreilly and Napa up at all times to look up parts that way. My SMS has an integrated feature that looks up all the parts at once but I just do it this way

Just now, ScottSpec said:

We have several websites.  Maybe a bit of an identity crisis.

 http://www.scottsautospec.com/ 

http://www.autorepairrockville.com/ 

http://volvorepairrockvillemd.com/

http://bmwrepairrockville.com/

Scott

O wow. so many lol. 

How does the loaner car work out? Is it a headache? I'm sure customers try and bring it back without gas. I'd like to offer loaners cars one day but the cost of it is daunting

11 minutes ago, ScottSpec said:

I put license plate frames on all my customer's cars (with their permission) years ago.  I am not aware of any new customer coming in as a result.  I imagine bumper stickers would stand out more, but not sure how much.  We have 5 loaner cars with very obvious advertising for our shop and the fact that we have free loaner cars across the top of the rear glass.  They have all been on the road since last August.  We have not had a single customer come in because of that; and I have to believe seeing free loaner car is more of a motivator that just our info on a bumper sticker.  

Scott  

Nvm, I saw it on your profile. Vovlos! nice! I like the website too. Where did you get the license plate frames made and cost?

7 minutes ago, ScottSpec said:

I put license plate frames on all my customer's cars (with their permission) years ago.  I am not aware of any new customer coming in as a result.  I imagine bumper stickers would stand out more, but not sure how much.  We have 5 loaner cars with very obvious advertising for our shop and the fact that we have free loaner cars across the top of the rear glass.  They have all been on the road since last August.  We have not had a single customer come in because of that; and I have to believe seeing free loaner car is more of a motivator that just our info on a bumper sticker.  

Scott  

Wow! You have quite an operation! Do you have a website? I'd like to check out your business if you don't mind that is

On 3/11/2017 at 11:07 AM, mspecperformance said:

meowpox,

 

From my experience none of the cloud based SMS are as complete as some of the bigger players such as RO Writer and Mitchell. Sad because both RO Writer and Mitchell have gaping holes as well. I believe Omnique seemed to be the most complete out of all the ones I have looked at. None have convinced me to convert and I desperately want a cloud based SMS. 

Name a feature on Mitchell and RO Writer and I'll let you know if Shopboss has it or not. Here is what I do with Shopboss- I manage RO's from home, employees clock in and clock out, keep track of technician hours, VIN scan with iPad and uploads automatically, send email quotes, 5 day 60 day 90 day automatic followup email, keeps track of GP, cores, writer stats, etc, it sends text message to customers and they can approve work on their phone, integrated scheduler- my "schedule appointment" on my website is from shopboss and loads directly into shopboss, there is a chat feature where I can chat with any one of my 9 employees at 2 different locations, each employee has their own login, integrated parts ordering, QB integration. I mean it's just too much list out. Im not affiliated with them but I should be with all the referals I've given them lol

On 3/10/2017 at 7:57 PM, meowpox said:

Business is booming and we need to become paperless, web-based, w/QB integration. Any ideas on programs? Would love any and all input!

• Omnique: I hear a lot of good things about it but looks like you need to pay for their most expensive package $400/mo to get QB integration. 
• Shop Boss: looks really affordable with the features that it comes with ($99/mo comes with QB int). This is my favorite one so far. Does anyone use this? 
• Any others?

I've been using shopboss since 2014. Best decision ever. price has gone up but I dont mind. Seriously go with shopboss and dont look back

i like the new like feature where it shows you liked the post.

2 hours ago, xrac said:

Is his name Joe?  I have a guy who sounds a lot like that without the deaths. His name is Joe. 

He's a Matt lol

That is the reality today. It's an instant gratification world out there with gigabit internet speeds (which I am on right now). The auto industry is starting to take that trend too, I see "Take 5 Oil Change" franchise stores popping up on every corner. 5 Min oil change... really? I think customer pulls in and doesn't even get out of the vehicle.

For those who have owned your shop for a while, you guys still have your old customers. For people like me, 90% of my customers are new (only been in business 2 years). On top of that, my shop is in the Raleigh Triangle Park (RTP) where companies like Cisco, IBM and SAS are headquartered. Busy people with busy lives expecting fast service.

I try and get people in and out as quick as possible but I learned the hard way that it really hurts me, my techs and my business when I take orders from the customer. The last few months my ARO doubled as I have been more focused on taking time and doing more thorough inspections. All I can do is promise the customer that I'll do my absolute best and give them my best. We won't make every customer happy but I'll sure as hell try.

Unfortunate reality is that the customer is king- I didn't realize this before but if you have 1 unhappy customer that leaves....

Let's say average customer comes in twice a year and spends $229 (this months average RO so far). Average customer will refer 2 friends. With having 1 unhappy customer- that's potentially $6,870 loss in 5 years. This is why I focus so hard on customer service. I am really unhappy with my 4.9 star rating on google with 85 reviews because I have 2 1 stars on there. And don't even get me started on my 4.5 rating on Yelp, that is abysmal. I have went to customers houses to try and get those ratings changed and showed them customer service you wouldn't believe.

I think we have to find the solution to objections in this day and age. If they don't have time to wait for a water pump- set an appointment and have them drop it off or shuttle them home. I strongly encourage my customers to drop off for any ticket that's 3 hours or above. We get oil changes and scheduled brake jobs in right away. Unfortunately where I live, there's too much competition and every customer counts. Myself and the rest of my team have to be willing to go the extra mile to retain all our customers and wow new ones