Ever hear the “Do as I say, Not as I Do” statement before?.........Think back!  For some, it may have been from your parents, for others, maybe a mentor that said it, or it may have been just last week at work!  Another related and similar statement to this statement is “saying one thing but doing the opposite”.  In this article, we will try and focus on the ramifications of these simple statements or actions, both professionally and personally. Let’s start by asking yourself if you know someone who has said, or by their actions, used and/or acted on either statement?  Now, whether this was a co-worker, owner, manager or friend, how did it affect you when it happened?  For most of us, this starts to erode away the base foundation that this person has built his/her reputation on!  No matter how good the rest of his/her “building” is, with an eroded foundation it is only a matter of time before everything starts to ... read more

I Figured Out The Problem, But It May Cost Me Thousands of Dollars?The setup:  in a recent Facebook group we follow, there was a thread regarding a female staff member that was regularly forgetting to perform some of her daily tasks.  Based on the post, this staff member was a valued employee but this issue was causing major concerns about her future with management and the employer. The employer believes that he/she may have found the cause.  Remembering that the staff member has/is going through menopause, the employer Googled “menopause memory loss” and found that 60% of women have memory loss during menopause.  So the question posed to the group was, how to should approach this? As usual, the group had great suggestions,…....or were they?  Most had suggestions such as; work with her, make checklists, have Siri remind her.  One particular comment stood out from a woman that was tr ... read more

“Sorry I broke the………?”   “Sorry, I broke the (insert whatever part here) when I was reassembling the engine”, transmission”, whatever they were working on.  This is where some “hidden” costs come from, those parts that are broken, not on purpose, not even always out of negligence, but parts that are, in fact broken during disassembly or reassembly.  Who pays for those parts?  Big or small the business usually pays because in most States it is illegal to take the money from the employees check.  So how does the business make up for these losses?  Generally they don’t, “it is part of doing business” is the usual statement followed by, “I sure hope it doesn’t cost too much”.   Whether it does or doesn’t cost a lot is irrelevant because it must get replaced, again, usually at the businesses expense. So where does the business ... read more

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