Happy New Year, one and all!
As we continue to develop Transmission Digest products in the digital world, there not only are new features appearing but there are old favorites in new places. First and foremost, we are making Transmission Digest a more concentrated and easier read for you with a new approach to layout and graphics.
The Tale of the Sprinting Hippo
Instead of looking at our entire workload as a never-ending pile of features to build, integrations to create and automations to… well, automate, we just look at it as a series of 2-weeks-worth lists of projects to accomplish.

From The Publisher
It’s been a year of progress and change for the powertrain aftermarket in general and particularly for Transmission Digest. As we settle into our acquisition by Babcox Media, you’ll be seeing a lot more of our brand. We’re expanding our digital presence beginning in January with much more content coming much more often. The same is true with video productions, webinars and podcasts.

The Rules of Selling in the Automotive Trades – Part 5
Selling can be hard work that pays off well or easy work that doesn’t. While it may not be a major rule of selling it is a very important one. It has to do with how hard you want to work physically as opposed to mentally. Again, like as in most other areas, you have a choice. You can either work hard at learning how to deal with customers to get what you need for the success of your business or if you don’t want to do that you can work on lots of cars, well into the night at times, to make up for the fact that you aren’t selling jobs the way they need to be sold to do what’s right for both you and your customers.

Remodel, Renovate, Redesign
Anyone who’s ever taken on a large home remodel knows the time, stress, money, unforeseen challenges and people management that comes with the new look. The amount of time spent planning, strategizing and anticipating simply cannot account for the mold that it turns out was under the floor or the delayed shipping on that tile you picked out, or the endless humidity that prevents the wallpaper from sticking.

The Rules of Selling in the Automotive Trades – Part 4
A major rule in selling is to decide what you want to be and stick to it. As in most other things you have a choice, but you really need to choose wisely because this choice may be the one that shapes your entire future in the auto repair business.

There’s Still $$ in Manuals:
On the one hand, manual transmissions have slowly become less available as automatics, CVTs and DCTs have been adopted in response to changing customer preferences and fuel economy requirements. That said, the venerable third pedal is still available for passenger cars both domestically and on a number of import nameplates. One notable standby missing a manual shift option for 2020 is the Corvette. Wow!

The Rules of Selling in the Automotive Trades – Part 3
It’s Your Business
Terry Greenhut explains overcoming price objection.

The Aggressive Sale Doesn’t Sell
Andee Fromm describes the importance of not being too aggressive in sales.

THE RULES OF SELLING IN THE AUTOMOTIVE TRADES – PART 2
When last we met I was in the midst of explaining, step by step, the process of making the sale. We got up to step eight in which we presented our findings to our customer. This cannot be done until we have all of the information we need to not only diagnose the problem(s) but to determine what is needed to take care of it or them; what parts it will take, their availability and cost, what labor operations will need to be performed and their cost, and how long it will take to complete all work.

The Rules of Selling in the Automotive Trades
Nobody in their right mind wants to spend anything to have a car repaired. They will spend to buy something they want but an auto repair is just not one of those things. It is a necessary evil.

Is Your Team Performing or Storming?
When there’s a lack of harmony on a team, chances are everyone is aware of it on some level, even if it’s just a vague sense of something’s not quite right.
