Setting Your Labor RateviaThe Cost of Doing Business   Although this article is about setting your labor rate correctly, let’s first start with why you should…. If you originally set your labor rate based on what others in your area had theirs set at, raise your hand!  You are just like 95% of the businesses in the independent automotive industry.  You don’t want to be higher or lower for fear that customers won’t come to you or you won’t make enough money to keep your doors open.  Congratulations, you are human and truly believe that your labor rate drives either one of these scenarios.  So, let me pose this question, do you believe that most people buy/purchase based on the lowest dollar amount charged?  Short answer……NO!  Let me explain, as a general rule (write this down and believe it) “People Buy People, NOT Price”!  In the se ... read more

OK, so you’re the Owner of “Your Repair Facility”, now what?  This article is going to look at, “Working IN your Business or Working ON your Business” and all the idiosyncrasies that entails. First we’ll start with those of you who prefer to work “IN” the business.  These business owners typically tend to work as Service Advisors by day and Owners by night after everything is shut down and somewhat quiet.  In this scenario the owner, who put up the cash to build his dream, now works from 7:00 in the morning to 5 or 6:00 at night depending on the hours the facility is open as the Service Advisor, a Technician or combination of anything that requires getting done.  Maybe 5 days a week, maybe more!  Then when the business closes he/she turns into the Owner again and starts doing the paperwork required to run a GOOD facility.  This generally amounts to 3-5 more hours well into the evening.  ... read more

RayKunz ENTERPRISES LLC Presents Creative Automotive Management Solutions 2/2/2018 Ref; AAA Inspections and You!Good Morning, Afternoon, or Evening Everyone             AAA, everyone knows who they are, and for the most part everyone uses their name to help bolster their facilities appearance or draw.  Like them or not, our customers know the name, AAA and trust it.  But this article isn’t about AAA, it’s about those sometimes-pesky free AAA Inspections that they require we do for anyone who requests one.  You’re busy working away (or not) and someone calls you’ve never seen before and ... read more

BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE Part 2 This is the continuation story I promised when I wrote the original “Bad Things Happen To Good People” and although this story will continue on for years, this is the part where it starts getting better…. let’s recap: One of the facilities I coach and train with recently brought a car into the shop for a starting issue that had yet to be diagnosed or inspected for the cause of the customer complaint and as the day came to an end, the vehicle was pushed into the shop, luckily it was the last car go into the shop that night.  The shop manager did his normal walk through to make sure all the shop doors were locked, all the driver side vehicle windows were down (you all do this or should to make sure a vehicle does not “auto” lock with the keys in them, right?), checked that power is off to all the equipment, set the alarm and left.  Normal right?  It is 99.9% of the time and ... read more

I was going to a facility to let a Service Advisor go (terminate him) and as I thought about the words I would say and how this was going to go, I realized that maybe there was a chance to save him.  Maybe I could teach him to be better on the phone….. maybe? Let me start at the beginning here, you see we have just started getting the taped phone conversations between our clients (the automotive facilities) and their clients.  And the one thing that I heard repeatedly through these conversations was that my clients weren’t doing a very good job on the phone when speaking with their clients.  Well, to be honest, the words “very good” were a huge understatement; this particular Service Advisor had done a terrible job!!  And so, based on the multiple conversations I had heard, the ones the Service Advisor had taken part in, I was going to terminate him.  Why you ask?  There was never any asking for the appointment, never any helpfuln ... read more

Maybe you started out as a one man operation, as a lot of us did.  But then you started getting behind….further and further until you decided you needed to hire someone to help with the day-to-day operations.  Whether that person or persons were hired as Technicians, Service Writers, or Shop Helpers, in almost every case we needed someone else to help us grow our business.  This article is about them, those individuals we call, employees! As a former employee as many of you have been, most of us were dedicated to the owner and the business.  For the purposes of this article, these are the employees we will be talking about.  Certainly there are those employees who jump from shop to shop, job to job simply looking for the next best thing.  We all have or currently know these types, but this really isn’t about them.  This is about the employees who care, who show an interest in the business and are with us for more than a simple place to b ... read more

This blog isn't about the Hybrid I just bought, but instead how shops MUST change their current thought processes towards more education to embrace these vehicles or end up closing their doors.    First a little back ground; my recently departed vehicle had just shy of 300,000.00 miles and although still running like a top I was really starting to get worried about its future reliability @ that mileage.  One day I was scanning Facebook and I saw an Internet ad for the end of the current year Hybrid sale, and started checking into it.  Short story, No Interest for 72 months, substantial vehicle markdowns (as the year was closing out) and they gave me more than expected for my 300,000.00 mile vehicle, they made it too simple and forced me to buy it!  I now own a Hybrid, which given the miles I drive a year will pay the monthly (no interest) payments in fuel savings alone!  This is where it gets interesting; I was at a client's recently and he notice ... read more

A New Year “Out with the old and in with the new” is but just one of the sayings that go around the beginning of every year when people speak of The New Year!  This article is about just that, changing the old and trying the new. Interested?  For the purposes of this article I will be referring to the Independent Automotive Repair business, but this applies to all business, big or small!  This is about changing with the times, growing any business and getting more: time, money, freedom (you pick).  So, let’s take a moment and look at each one of these items and how they may/do affect business….. your business! Changing with the times!  Do you do business as you did 10 years ago, 5 years ago or even last year?  If you have seen any growth in your business the answer is probably a resounding “NO” followed by how could you?  And although there may be MANY reasons, one of the biggest and most trendin ... read more

The Fear of NO! Have you ever had a customer come back to you claiming that ”you just worked on that and it is still; leaking, CEL is on again, it’s still running bad….you name it”?  Come on, this has happened to you; I know it has because it has happened to everyone! So, what do you think is the most common cause of any of the above mentioned statements?  The answer may be as simple as this; we repaired/replaced the failed component, and did not repair/replace the system that the component is related to.  The underlying cause for incomplete repair/replacement of the actual system may not be as simple to understand, the fear of rejection. Let’s start with repair/replacement of components.  This most commonly occurs because we overlook the root cause of the component that failed.  For the best and easiest to understand example, let’s look at a leaking water pump (leaking from the vent hole).  OK, the ... read more

You’re Fired! A tough opening statement for sure, but one that, as an owner or manager you need to be familiar with.  I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s start from the beginning. I have been working with this particular client for a couple years and as such have become very familiar with his operations and personnel.  During my visit last month I discovered a HUGE discrepancy in Cost of Goods, specifically Parts in the P&L’s versus the Point of Sale (POS) system.  The P&L’s showed a MUCH higher cost for the first 6 months of the year than did the POS system.  After much research I was able to verify that we had indeed spent almost $7600.00 a month more than our POS system indicated we had!  No increase in inventory, and minimal “owner” vehicles being worked on without the proper paperwork occurring.  After accounting for the above mentioned owner work we still had $7300 plus per month whe ... read more