Gross Profit Archives - Transmission Digest
Bucking the Trend, or How to be Successful in a Down Market

Trends in our business have changed dramatically so that customers can price-shop or buy parts or reman units on the Internet and then seek someone to install them. This puts a lot of pressure on price as the most-important factor in the business equation, with quality becoming a less-important factor in the decision. It is very easy to get caught up in this squeeze between what cheap is and what good is. There is a difference between spending less money on repairs and buying a better-quality job. That difference is “value added,” and it is vital that you know and understand the difference and explain that to your customers, and that you practice the same policies in your business purchasing.

That’s Gross!

Pricing jobs in the transmission- and auto-repair business has always been a complex issue. Coming up with a labor rate and a parts markup that make sense and are applicable in all situations is almost impossible. There are too many variables to consider.