Shop Owners Are in the Driver’s Seat
It wasn’t very long ago that finding employees, especially technically skilled ones, was somewhere between difficult and impossible. If you ran an ad hardly anyone called other than possibly some misfits who were truly unemployable because of any one or a combination of the following…
Never too Late to Fix It
The simple answer, of course, is to adjust the amount of business you do to the expenses. When you are pretty far behind in paying your commitments it’s either because the business costs too much to operate or it doesn’t make enough sales – or shall we say enough profitable sales – to generate the proper revenue. More often than not it’s a combination of the two. Expenses have quietly grown over time and business has withered.
Productivity-Based Compensation
Many of our younger technicians are the product of trade schools that are sponsored in part by automobile manufacturers. As such they are exposed to the concept of becoming line mechanics in dealerships after they graduate. Many are promised the opportunity to make a really good living, but for a significant number that never materializes.
Protect Yourself in the Clinches
Here are some rules you can follow to protect from the minor and major catastrophes that, when they happen, make you wonder why you didn’t take that nice, safe job uncle Frank wanted to get you with the highway department:
Promoting Trust
The way we sound, look and act along with the way we keep our shops goes a long way toward gaining or losing the trust of our customers. If we present a clean and professional image our customers will be more comfortable and believe that they are going to get a better job, often lowering their resistance to price, making it easier to get the amount we really need.
Who’s in Control?
Customers often try to control our pricing by dropping subtle hints or making blatant displays of their mindset as to what they are willing, able or want to pay. Although we shouldn’t, many of us do let it affect the price we quote.
Can You Be too Nice?
Customer service means taking care of the customer all the way through the selling process, then verifying that it all went well and that they received the value they expected for their money. Afterward it means being available and willing to jump right in and help if a problem should develop.
Never Underestimate the Value of an Excellent Credit Rating
When the sales manager checked my credit score his eyes lit up, but only for a moment. He could see that I easily qualified from that angle, but there was one more consideration, a new wrinkle in lending. It’s called the “debt-to-income ratio” (OK, maybe it’s not so new, but lots of lenders have been ignoring it for a long time). Aside from your having a good rating they now want to make sure that taking on the burden of additional debt isn’t going to bury people. So now lenders want to know about your credit-card debt and your mortgage payment if you own a home or how much your rent is if you don’t. They want to know about education loans, other vehicle loans and any other encumbrances. Of course, they also want to know your present income and sometimes that of others in the household.
Are You Guilty of Slippin’ and Slidin’?
There are many facets of business that must be managed regularly to maintain the proper levels of sales and productivity. The first step is to stop assuming that the right things are being done just because they were set in motion at some point. Without continual supervision they can rapidly deteriorate and the best ideas and systems can disappear only to be replaced by the most-convenient ones, regardless of whether those make money – and they usually don’t.
Opening a Second Location in Times like These – Unbelievable!
As tough as it is to turn a profit from a transmission- and/or auto-repair business, you would figure that it is even more difficult in times of great economic hardship such as we now face. Therefore, most owners would be hard pressed to consider opening an additional location until the economy stabilizes and shows signs of growth. The problem is that for the economy to grow, owners of small and medium-size businesses have to take the risk of expansion.
What Recession?
Whenever we find ourselves in a recession we also find that not everyone is losing money on account of it. Some are actually making far more than they would in a normal economy. You are a good example of one who can profit from a long-term economic downturn.
Sell It Slowly
If selling a rebuilt transmission or any other major repair were a race to see who could do it the quickest and probably for the least money, there would be lots of competition. Given the opportunity many of the owners, managers and service advisers in our business would shortcut the process to as few words as humanly possible, stated as quickly as their mouths can move. There may be several reasons why they are in such a hurry, but what they don’t realize is how much money this “need for speed” is costing them.
