Tag Archives: repair shop profit

GROW OR DIE NOW!

This is my 6th recession as a business owner. The first 5 were relatively short and simple. This one isn't -- for most businesses. Now I admit in the early part of my career I was lucky to make it through those tough times. But as I applied lessons learned I began to focus on what I could control and not allow paralyzing fear to set in.

HOW TO HIRE AND MANAGE A BOOKKEEPER

It was only after 30 years of miscommunication, pain, suffering, embezzlement, and all-around general bamboozling that I finally figured out how to hire and manage a bookkeeper for my shop.

BUSTING THE GROSS PROFIT MYTH!

By Terry Keller

Who should you listen to when it comes to setting a target for your gross profit percentage in your shop?

There are a LOT of opinions out there, but you don’t have to look any farther than … Read the rest

SINK OR SWIM… OR FLAIL AROUND?

By David Rogers

In some of my recent travels and coaching sessions, I’ve run into what I believe may be one of the 3 most COMMON, CRITICAL, and COSTLY mistakes made by almost ALL shop owners today!

If you’ve been … Read the rest

WILL HYPER-INFLATION KILL YOUR SHOP?

By David Rogers

A few weeks ago, the Federal Reserve announced that it would purchase $600 billion in U.S treasuries. What does this mean? What could it mean to your shop?

Very high inflation will cause prices and the cost … Read the rest

REPAIR SHOP MANAGEMENT: HIRING AND RETAINING QUALITY PEOPLE

How good are the people that work for you? How loyal are they? How long do they stay with you? Are they better than you are at their position? For 25 years, I really struggled with this one. Because my shop was not consistently profitable during that period, I was always looking for ways to hold costs down including the wages I was willing to pay.

REPAIR SHOP MANAGEMENT: MAKING SYSTEMS STICK

If you are like I was for the first 20 years as a shop owner, you have introduced dozens of policies and procedures that could have brought some order to things, but fizzled out after a few weeks. WHY? What are the causes of this fatal flaw in your business? Over the next few weeks I will blog on the twelve most important components of “How to Make Systems Stick” in your shop. Today, let me share with you what I have found to be a foundational process for making all policies, procedures and systems stick with individuals and organizations. It’s how we help our clients actually change permanently!

BLOWING SMOKE AT THE BOSS OR DOING YOUR JOB

It's funny what I've learned now that I'm a business owner that I never would have been able to predict when I was working on the front lines and in the trenches as an entry level service writer many years ago: when someone tries to flatter me, it makes me want to fire them, run from them, slap them, or just laugh in their face while publicly calling them a LIAR!

WHY ISN’T MY MARKETING WORKING FOR ME?

It's really interesting to me how time after time, repair shop owners fall for the same couple of marketing "tricks" to try and fill their bays. The truth is, if there are "tricks" to marketing your shop, they're about how you run your shop and who you're marketing to...not about tricking people into bringing their car to you...

JUST BECAUSE IT IS SLOW, DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN’T GROW!

There are certain times of the year that a bit of a slowdown in customer traffic seems inevitable. These times are the ones where many teams become unproductive and unhappy. If you aren’t concerned, maybe you should be! Your employees may not always outwardly demonstrate their dissatisfaction, and you may think that they ought to know by now that some weeks are just slow, but it’s when we relax and think we know what others are thinking that we really get in trouble!