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Well, I am old, been in business 55 years. What I have found and continue to do. You know what has worked in the past, because you always monitor it. If it doesn't work, get rid of it. We are on the west coast. As of today, we are up 39% for the year. That includes being shut down a whole week for a storm. I will say it has slowed down to the effect of we were making appointments out a whole week, now we are working on the current week. A couple things I will say is, know when it might be slow and do what it takes. For us it is our rebate check $39.23 mailed out in 3 groups, February, March and April. Our new snail mail to new customers 3 times over 6 weeks. Probably the best thing we have done is have the phones forwarded to either my daughter or me. We have Log me In on our home computers and can make appointments on the week-end. We have almost every month something going on from coat drives to Free brakes with donations for the food bank. Loaners were are biggest thing, especially after Covid. No more rides. We have a really small parking lot. We encourage our customers to pick up as soon as possible . No care leaves without paying.

Good afternoon... 2nd half of April was challenging... Our Sales were close to last year but not enough. We were short 9%... We're doing google ads and that works for us.. Again, we're a Specialty shop, We're a brakes & front end shop big challenges for this year. We have to keep in mind, we're in a Presidential year. It has been my experience that in this type of year Sales are more of a Challenge. Also every things is very expensive, as consumers, we don't have the buying power, which creates a big problem for the consumer.. I am really good about finding solutions to the problems but at this point my view is very cloudy and gray, which makes it very difficult to have a clear view. We live in an area where there are several small town within our town and we advertise in the surrounding areas. I am going to consider to reduced our advertising area to just within town and see what results throws this approach Thanks JP

We provide major equipment and some specialty tools, but for the most part, the technicians are responsible for providing their own tools. Having said that, Offering a spiff or a bonus of a credit on the tool truck can be a great incentive to increase performance or productivity. Especially for a tech in his first few years trying to build up their tool collection.

Wow, 55 Year in Business, That's an accomplishment! ...with that amount of years, your business is a land mark for the city/town where you live. Your business is 55 years old, I am 52 years old and my business is 10 years old. We have had our ups and downs but I started this business from scratch.. I don't considered myself a mechanic since I did not go to school for that. I am an Entrepreneur/accountant that got retrained 10 years back to do Brakes & Suspension work. ...and Yes, I come from a family of Mechanics, I just did not enjoyed it when I was young, now I loved it It's harder for a younger business to even consider the thought of competing with a 55 year old. HOW? The business itself has it's path and journey, at that age of a business, somebody will come through the front door, it could be minor activity or a lot of it. Now reaching goals and owner's expectation is something totally different! Congratulation I just hope one day our business can reach to that age, and that would be up to my kids...

I need to correct my 39% up for the year should have said up $39,000 Sorry. I should proof read what I write.

Just to show you this morning when I got here, there was only five vehicles on the schedule. We made an email blast and sent it out immediately to fill the bays. Always have to be ready for slow time.

The lure of cheap rent is a universal rookie mistake resulting in a low/no traffic count. Cheap buildings are affordable for a reason. One of the best pieces of business advice I ever got was, "Expensive rent is the cheapest advertising you'll ever buy." From Roy H. Williams in Austin, TX. With a killer location, a shop won't need Repair Pal or Open Bay.

Definitely. We do a colored newsletter every month. Most of our marketing is for our own customers

Try https://www.convirza.com/pricing/ for all of your call-tracking needs. It is very economical and accurate, letting you know what works and, more importantly, what doesn't. 🙂

Good day to every one and very thankful for the responses, everything helps. I already took some action and reduced our advertising to the zip codes where we get the most on google ads. working up on a list of follow up from our current customers Also working on an advertising campaign for the coming holiday, Memorial Day and the summer, it's just around the corner and the traveling starts right after the memorial day, since school is out. Thanks again, I will come back with a report right after the end of this month

In my shop we heavily focus on each and every customer we HAVE, getting new ones have been much harder to get through Google, Instagram, and FB. FB is pretty much a joke. It's been much slower from last Nov to current. I talked with our World Pac rep and he said it's even worse on the west coast. Focusing on your customers is excellent advice, I agree but when you don't have enough of them to focus on because people aren't even doing brakes when they are at 2%, then what? Trying to keep an open mind is also good advice, but that gets hard as the percentage of sales to the last fiscal year grows further apart! I know many shops in this same situation too.....we've had some HUGE dealers go out of business here, and one comes to mind that's been in business for a very, very long time with 5 HUGE lots, all gone, 144 employees lost their jobs, business closed, land owners probably freaking out now wondering what to do with their space...it's just a horrible time period right now. Usually, when we are in a recession or recession-like period customers still fix their cars because they know buying new isn't an option, that is VERY different from where we are now.

As a business coach (former shop owner) I see that many areas around the country are having a slow down in business. However, a lot can be done. Focus on your existing customers. Make sure that all deferred and declined work is followed up and reminders sent out. Regarding your advertising, local is always better. Just don't cut your advertising too much. Perhaps the most important factor is to have a positive open mindset. Look for ways to improve, discuss with your team. Don't sit on your hands and say nothing can be done. With the right approach, things will improve. Good luck!

3:16

The Basics of Owning An Auto Repair Shop - Balancing GP per Hour and Productivity

I'm really impressed with Hireology.com A very good intro is a 1-hour video at https://youtu.be/2ZF1XWH94xc A 10-page .pdf is at

Our program shows recommendations when we make an appointment.

The engineer that does the installs. With that we have an area rep that is local. My scissors rack is heavier and very well designed at a comparison price difference of $30,000.00 I have an Atlas 4 post in my other shop and it has had it problems and service from Atlas is poor. The Autel equipment works well for me and this one was made to order for me. Autel didn't sell this lift when I bought mine. Its from TLS in Ontario Canada. I was so please I bought a 2 post Asymmetrical/Symmetrical for EV service and I got the EV battery table from BendPak.

I've said it before and I say it again, we use our Google PPC advertising radius to "throttle our business." Normally, we would be listed at the top of a Google search within a 5-mile radius of the shop. If it got slow, I would increase the size of the radius. If we got slammed, I would even pause our Google PPC ads altogether. If it got slow, I would increase the size of the radius. The largest I've ever gone with our Google PPC program is a 100-mile radius. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Google PPC program works for a transmission repair shop. That's because, in our line of work, it is transactional-based. How it would work for other automotive businesses, where it's usually relationship-based, I can't say for sure. If anybody wants to know that this works, make sure you get hooked up with a call-tracking company and use call tracking where you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's either working or not working. This is true with any type of advertising. Each lead source has a different tracking number. Otherwise, every phone call is just that, another phone call. You have no way of knowing the source of that sales lead. Without call-tracking being a part of any advertising campaign, advertising is just another bill you'd rather do without.

Sometimes perception turns into reality. I have seen this all too often, "Feb is always slow, there is nothing we can do." Just by thinking this, it become the reality. A key thing you did was to be proactive, not giving in to the mindset that Feb stinks. Great job! When I was in business, we had a plan starting in Sept to flood Jan, Feb and Mar with Service reminders, backed up with reminder phone calls. Again, be proactive, not sit on your hands!

Good morning. February was a record month. The Service writer kept saying February stinks, had to eat his words. March we are full for the day and after, but don't have the long term waiting appointments. Still a good month. We send out rebate letters in 3 mailings Feb, Mar and April. That helps us ins the winter months easing into summer .

We are a small shop just around the corner from a 7-11 (convenience store) that sells gas and used to have a FREE air pump. Now, in the past year they have changed to a $1 charge for air, just pop in a dollar and the compressor runs long enough to top off all your tires. What has happened is that we now see all of the people who are to "thrifty" to spend a buck to top up their tires... Much as you describe they have a "I need air - serve me" attitude without so much as a thank you. I am seriously considering one of those self serve dollar a pop air compressors to put on the outside of the building and then inviting those people to "help them selves - it's right out there for you to use" I find that people are becoming more and more demanding of service at no charge - like it is our responsibility to take care of their every whim. Get real people! In the "old days" people had respect and common courteousy for those who would go out of their way to help them out. I know, it sounds like a minor thing but when it pulls techs off of jobs and delays getting the work done for "paying clients" it really does get under your skin after a while. Thanks for seeing this... Curtis

Hand them an old fashioned bicycle Hand pump. I do not think the law requires your compressor to do the inflation, or your payed labor to inflate it. And get a deposit on the pump.

We have all been there, below is an article I wrote a few years back, a true story... A Bad Week Ends Up a Lesson On Life November 21 2010 06:00 PM | Joe Marconi in Customer Service We all have had that week from hell. You know, the one week that makes you ask yourself why in the world you ever got into this business in the first place. The week that makes you doubt yourself, your customers and the people around you. And as you push through the week, every turn you make you find another fire to put out, another bounced check to worry about, another comeback that needs to be done over again, on and on and on. By Wednesday you say to yourself, “it must get better, it can’t get worse”. Well, guess what? It can. For me, my recent week from hell happened this past summer. I came in on Monday morning in the second week of July to find that my service manager was sick and would probably be out until Thursday. I also learned that one of my top techs got into a motor cycle accident over the weekend and was seriously injured, with no information about his return to work. It was 6:45am and little did I know, this was just the beginning, and it was about to get worse. A Subaru we serviced a few months ago was towed in over the weekend with a seized engine and the owner was blaming us for not putting oil in the engine. He was demanding we pay for a new engine because in his mind, it’s our fault. I gathered my crew together a little before 8am and told them this was going to be a very challenging week. I also told everyone to be positive, work together and we will get through this. On Tuesday my air compressor caught on fire. The compressor, only a little over two years old, apparently had a defect in the wiring which caused a short and fried the motor. We were one month over the warranty and I had to eat the cost for a new compressor motor. On the ride into work on Wednesday I called my shop foreman and asked if it was safe to come in. I was joking, but he wasn’t laughing. There was silence on the phone and I asked, “What happened now”? He told me that the transmission we installed in the Dodge Van last Friday was towed in overnight; “the transmission doesn’t even move”, he said. He also told me that there was a note from a very unhappy customer that said she needed the van back ASAP! Then he told me that someone threw a rock through the front window and that the Police are waiting for me. I wanted to turn my truck around a go to the hills and hide. Aside from these new issues, we were getting behind in our work as the problems kept mounting. Somehow, we made it through the rest of the day. Thursday morning started out ok. My Manager was back and we were well into the process of getting all the issues settled. The compressor motor was due to arrive that day. Luckily we had an old back up compressor which kept us going. The glass company was there installing a new window. Things were looking better, I thought. But, I was wrong. That morning we received the wrong tire shipment, and all the tire sales for that day had to be reordered. We lost electric power from a downed pole around the corner at 10:45am. We did what we could, but we all know how dependent we are with computers, lifts, phones and other equipment. The power came back late that afternoon and we all stayed late into the night to catch up. The push to get the work done was draining everyone, including myself. I could sense despair setting in as the morale in the shop was suffering. I spent the better part of Friday morning dealing with the customer of the seized Subaru engine. The truth is, there was oil in the engine, but low about 2 quarts and he couldn’t read any oil on the dip stick. According to our records he was 5,000 miles over his scheduled oil service. We only serviced his car once and as I questioned him, I realized he didn’t take care of the car as he should, often going over the recommended interval for an oil change. I asked him if there were any lights on the dash before the engine seized. After a short pause, he admitted that the oil light and check engine light had been on the day the engine seized. Knowing the truth put me in a better position to deal with the problem. He was still angry and wanted to know what I was going to do because we were the last to touch the car, but the facts were the facts and I stood my ground. By Friday afternoon I was mentally exhausted and was looking forward for the week to come to an end. About 3:30 that afternoon, a long time customer came in for service on her car. I walked over to her to say hello and she started to cry. I sat down in the waiting area with her and asked if there was something I could do for her. She told me that her daughter, 41 years old, just passed away from cancer. She left two young children and a husband behind. In an instant, all the problems that happened the past week took on a different meaning; all of the worry that I had the past few days suddenly vanished. This woman had real issues to deal with; issues about family and life, and in the end, are the only things that really matter. I sat with her until her car was finished and listened as she spoke about her daughter and family. When her car was complete I walked her out to her car. As I walked back to the office, I started to put things in perspective and realized that all the trouble that had happened in the last 5 days seemed a lot less important. As shop owners, we face adversity every day. At times I feel we are being tested. Sometimes, things appear to be too tough to bear. Sometimes, just sometimes, the problems we face are just what we need to remind us that things could be a lot worse. For me, I learned a valuable lesson about life. I learned to appreciate the things that really matter in my life and not concern myself about the things that are only part of life, not what life is all about. Tomorrow is Monday, and I don’t know what the auto repair world has in store for me. It may be hell or it may be paradise. But whatever happens, I’m ready for it.