weighit

I just tried to get on your web site, got the message "This web page not availible" that is not a good sign.

The meeting with my insurance agent when i had my shop was like an hour long. He asked me 100 questions, he wanted to know everything about the business, the sales, the highest amount of vehicles that may be in the shop at the worst possible time. He wanted to make sure should that once in a life time event happen, I was covered and not left hanging exposed. Overall I had the final say on what and how much, but he started out letting me know where we could, should and should not cut coverages. He gave me the blue print as it were that I then could compare with other insurance companies. For 12 years he was my guy, but I checked his prices every year, just in case as I like everyone else didn't want to be giving money away needlessly. It is so much easier to compare when everyone has the exact same coverages to bid on.

I ran the body damage department in Detroit for Avis Rent-A-Car when I was younger. We had many new cars with less than 3,000 miles rented for the weekends at some really low week-end special rates. They would be returned with bald tires and rusty wheels, batteries switched out with some wrong size and radios replaced. A few came in with a different windshield that was replaced with a cracked/broken one. One even came in with a different color front seat! Folks would rent the car, take it home and switch out the parts they needed with the same older car they must have owned and return the car. We never once went after anyone, as the policy was how do you prove who did what. Since I had a budget to keep it effected ME as my pay was based on staying within budget. These costs were not something that were factored into the normal costs of keeping a new car on the road.

To gain attention I used to park a bare metal car that we stripped out by the road to show what we did at that shop. We removed paint and rust with low pressure blasting. When I had a body shop we parked the wrecks by the street to show what we fixed. When I ran a service shop we parked cars out by the street with the hoods up. All of these little visual things gave folks driving by a view of what we were doing behind the fence. Adding a banner of what you want to say will add to the visual of a car or truck in some state of repair of non repair.You need folks to notice you or your shop and get an understanding of what you do. Very low cost for all of these things. Most of the time a banner removed daily will not require some city permit as it is not a permanent sign if it is hung on a car/truck. Just a thought

I have a friend that is a part time teacher in the auto shop class at the college level. Problem is the students are not from the college but from the other schools that are making the bad students attend the auto shop class as opposed to tossing them from the school. Kind of a less punishment thing I guess. He said it is so frustrating trying to teach kids that don't want to be there, have no desire to learn and are just filling a seat till they are 'allowed' to graduate and leave. They are disrespectful, damage things and are making it difficult for the 1 or 2 students that actually want to be there. He said he concentrates on giving the 1 or 2 that want to learn 110% effort to let them be the best possible the rest oh well. The high schools in the area have closed down the auto shop class to save money, or cut costs and find it cheaper to farm the students out to the other school he happens to be working at. I guess things are changing and not for the better.

If any of you shop owners have excess space where an RV motor home can fit, your missing the boat on all that work. Many of the owners are thinking they only can go to a RV place for any service. There are more gas powered units than diesel and if your so inclined, these owners need service. If your anywhere close to an RV park, stop in and meet the owner or manager and let them know your able to help service anyone needing your help. The labor rates are higher than what most of you are charging for auto repairs and I found the units easy to work on. Yes they do take room, but the rv owner normally would want the rig fixed as soon as possible and will pick them up as soon as called that the work is done. I traveled 8 years in my rig living full time in it and met a LOT of unhappy folks that were dealing with the RV only service places. If you read any of the RV related forums finding a reliable, honest and qualified service place ranks as the top complaint. The places that are rated high in the service side are always busy and have a big following of customers. Just a thought to increase sales and profits. Might be worth looking into.

So true, I was hired into a dealership as the Service Mgr and had a wiz kid tech, really was an all around great mechanic, just a terrible person. Threw tools, swore, unhappy at most of what life tossed his way. He would come in and the whole mood of the shop would turn glum. I tried the normal things you would to to cheer him up, gave all the kudo's trying to inspire him to enjoy life. Talk and listen to what he was 'upset' about. After at least 6 months of this, pulled him into the office and said I Quit! He looked at me funny and I said your out of here, I quit trying to get you to work as a team mate and your unhappy attitude to the other guys and office staff. No notice, no lets try something else, I quit YOU. Load your stuff and I will have Sally cut your last check right now. As he was making his exit, the rest of the guys all came and said Thank You! Many said they were in the process of trying to find other employment, but now would stay and not feel threatened by the bad guy. Hard to believe but the work output went up with that one guy gone. Don't put up with a toxic employee.

Many of us do not use face book, so your probably going to have to post here all your trials and tribulations.

It seems many that did respond to the other posting had either first hand knowledge or very close friend knowledge of how some partnerships don't work out. In may cases someones feelings get hurt by either partner working harder than the other partner, spending more time than the partner or the partner spending money or taking money that was not approved. I've had many opportunities to partner up with someone, and every time after sitting down and weighing the pros and cons, I went it alone. Or I should say, I took my wife as my life's partner and we did it alone. Have to say my first wife took my first body shop in a divorce, so even that can have some issues, but this wife and I are on the same page.

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I too had a very good agent and he suggested we split the 3 businesses we had under one name. My rates were pretty high to begin with but when we divided the pot up with three names and three separate operations the total bill dropped quite a bit. I have to say I did have a total of 3 different agents over the 12 years in that location. The first was a friend and I feel took advantage of the friendship, the second was lazy on our behalf and the third was an all star.

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How you going to protect your business should one of you have a tragic auto accident and someone gets killed or seriously injured? What if one of you get divorced and the ex-wife wants her half? How are you going to protect cash that might not hit the books? If you think your both always going to agree your not thinking this through. When only one person is in charge, that person controls the day to day operation as they see fit. When two of you are there it may become a head butting issue when you disagree on whatever the situation was. It sometimes is hard enough when you have a manager that is head strong and wants things done differently than the owner, let alone when the other has his money invested. You also need to write right at the beginning, how it will be divide should one of you decide right away, or 20 years from now they want out. I went through a lot of this when I was contemplating a partner, decided the only partner I wanted was the one I sleep with, my wife. Even then there were some issues we didn't agree on, but since we were married we always worked it out.

I used to close down the shop for 3 weeks, last two weeks of August and 1st week of Sept. All employees got a 40 hour pay check each Friday we were closed sent to their homes so they were there when we reopened and not crying the blues they had no money. I needed a vacation and that was when we wanted to go, so it was the best way to let customers know well in advance that we would be closed. Customers that wanted our services either loaded up the shop before we left, or left they car/items in the shop so they could be the first things we worked on when we reopened. All the employees got the same 3 week paid vacation. I did not have any employee I felt could run the place in my absence for 3 weeks, a day or two yes, long run, no.

Ya just never know, he was a very nice guy, never had any dealing with his family. But I sure learned a valuable less in my life, Nice or not, you pay when I'm done. We all make mistakes, I always tried to learn the ones that cost me money out of my pocket only once!!!

I did that with a really nice older guy that needed the car so he could take is ill parents somewhere out of state. Let him go with the deal that he would return as soon as he got back to pay the bill, just a shade over $500. Well he fell over and died from a heart attack while on the trip, and his wife said, not my problem what he owed you, take a hike! So that was the first and the last time anyone got out of the shop without payment in full!

I'm surprised this is an issue, in the body shop business when I owned or ran one each tech had a time sheet with job number, time, dollar amount or if needed time stamp and it was sticky on the back. The tech may have a job in one of his stalls for weeks depending on the severity of the repairs and as the week ended if he accrued time on the repair vehicle he could flag money against that job. I as the owner/manager would initial the time sticker on each repair order that he wanted to flag, then took it off his ticket and stuck it to the back of the repair order, and collect the employees time sheet at the end of the work week, so he could collect his pay check for that week the following week. It was my responsibility to ensure that he was not over collecting, or collecting more time that was needed to complete the job. Some guys never touched the time/money allotted on a job till it was done, others took is as a draw so they had a pretty steady paycheck. The shop was large enough that each employee had 3 stalls and if held up on parts, adjusters or some other delay, they had work in another stall. Some of these expensive repairs could be in a stall for may weeks and if the tech was putting hours in on that job he could flag time/money if he wanted. These techs were making 75 to 100 grand a year and some paid their helpers out of their gross still leaving them with these incomes.

When I had the shop and had 5 full time employees I paid all the health insurance for everyone under a group plan. Then on night two the the star players went out and got drunk and had a 1 car accident in a parking lot. Police came and arrested both of them. Courts assigned alcohol school and the insurance company sent a nasty gram a few months later that my 'group' was experiencing an unusually high percentage of expenses and raised the whole groups rate by about double what we had been paying. New rules went into effect, I would write a check once a month for the old insurance rate and the employees could shop and find whatever insurance they wanted, I was only giving the amount i used to pay. Oh yea, if they decided they did not want any insurance, they got no check. I got to see the policy and the bill and made sure they were actually using the money for insurance. I had to do the same thing, cancel the original policy and go shopping for myself a new policy. No more groups for us. If I was to reopen I would make the employees pay something, I want them involved and aware of the real costs to have insurance. What percentage would depend on my bottom line and how much i wanted to keep those guys.

When I had my shop i found that just random advertising was expensive and very hard to track. My advertising budget was about $8 grand a year and I found giving price breaks or free work to selected individuals paid off well for me. The firemen were restoring a old fire truck, so I did all of the work they brought to me for free, and made sure to tell them let others know I'm doing this work. Fireman seem to know a lot of people. Car clubs, church or religious groups got help for free or at a much reduced price from me. A radio personality came in and we bartered work for advertising. As other have said, get your name talked about, get involved in the community and do good work. I talked to every customer, found out what they did, where they worked and in my mind how much influence they might have where they worked for getting work into my shop. They might get special pricing and were made aware this was their price not what the job normally cost. I let them know I need more customers and needed their help. It paid off well for us and in the long run it was cheaper than my budget of 8 grand a year doing it this way.

No longer in the business, now I live in a gated community and have to pay folks to do what I used to do. How times change. Will come look for you on the next trip your way.

Wish you all the best in Florence, I now live in Casa Grande and next time I venture over your way will stop in and say hi.

The Irish Bic Lighter Mick and Paddy were fishing on the Irish shoreline when Mick pulled out a cigar. Finding he had No matches, he asked Paddy for a light. 'Ya, sure, I tink I haff a lighter,' Paddy replied and then reaching into his tackle box, he pulled out a Bic lighter 10 inches long. 'My God, man!' exclaimed Mick, taking the huge Bic lighter in his hands. 'Where'd yew git dat monster?' 'Well,' replied Paddy, 'I got it from my Genie.' 'You haff a fecking Genie?' Mick asked. 'Ya, sure. It's right here in my tackle box,' says Paddy. 'Could I see him?' Paddy opens his tackle box and sure enough, out pops the Genie. Addressing the Genie, Mick says, 'Hey dere! I'm a good pal of your master. Will you grant me one wish?' 'Yes, I will,' says the Genie. So Mick asks the Genie for a million bucks. The Genie disappears back into the tackle box leaving Mick sitting there waiting for his million bucks. Shortly, the Irish sky darkens and is filled with the sound of a million ducks flying directly overhead. Over the roar of the one million ducks Mick yells at Paddy, 'What the hell? I asked for a million bucks, not a million ducks!' Paddy answers, 'Ya, I forgot to tell yew dat da Genie is hard of hearing. Do yew really tink I asked for a 10 inch Bic?'

I used to be on the Board of directors of a small credit union while I owned a shop. The credit union had too much money and needed a way to find new borrowing customers. We ended up doing exactly what is being discussed here, we approached small business that could use our services, loans. The shop customer in need of money to fix a big repair in that shop could contact us and come in for a loan. We had staff that could evaluate the persons credit history and within 1 hour approve or deny the loan. It helped the credit union gain customers and helped the shops we had signed up as approved shops. Over the years we did this, I suspect we loaned many thousands of dollars and also gain many new customers we never would have got. That credit union was taken over by a big credit union and I lost my seat on the board, so have no idea if it is still doing anything like that or not. It would cost zero to the shop to have this system in place with a local close by credit union. Might be worth a try.

The last shop I owned I would give a weeks average pay to each employee 2 weeks before Christmas as the bonus. This included overtime, actual weekly pay divided by 52 equaled their bonus. If we had a great year I explained through their hard work, attention to detail, looking out for the waste and not having any damage, they got a Bonus on the bonus and got 2 weeks average pay. It did not happen every year, but many. The years it didn't happen they all knew why, someone screwed up and it cost everyone. It helped me as they as a group wanted to keep eyes on anyone that might cause them to loose the added bonus. It came out of the net from the company profits, but I figured it kept turnover to a minimum, I hated to train new people. They made more money with me than any of the competition and actually made it easy for me when I needed to add personnel. Explaining the pay and the bonus program let them know how we paid up front and what they could expect. Worked for me. I had 6 employees and that shop 10 years when i sold it. My oldest employee had 9.7 years with me, and the newest hire full time had 6.5 years. The 2 part time employees were the ones that changed out every so often over those years, not the full time guys. This pay was on top of their vacation pay that was based on 40 hours base pay per week.