Twenty shop-tested ways to save money, boost sales and productivity
As the industry gathers this month for the 29th annual International Autobody Congress and Exposition (NACE) in Orlando, Fla., shop owners, once again, will have an opportunity to exchange ideas with one another on the trade show floor, in a classroom before a seminar, on the shuttle bus to the convention center or over a drink in the evening.
In that spirit, here are 20 shop-tested ideas owners have shared with ABRN recently that address trimming costs, boosting sales, bumping up productivity...and all add more dollars to the bottom line.
2. Buy a digital picture frame to display a continual loop of messages to customers in your waiting area. Include before- and after-repair photos, quotes from customer satisfaction surveys, information about upsell services, etc.
3. Looking for free help with the business side – accounting and workflow analysis, for example – of your shop? The Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), a nonprofit partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration, offers free online business consulting thanks to working and retired business owners and executives who volunteer their time and expertise. It also offers free, one-on-one and team business counseling at about 400 locations throughout the country. For more information, visit www.score.org.
4. Jose Magdaleno, owner of Number One Auto Collision in Long Beach, Calif., is interested in making his shop as green as possible. He's converted to waterborne basecoats, installed high-efficient booths, is working to go paperless in the front office and put a reverse osmosis machine in the detailing area. "It's 1,000 gallons of water that continues to be filtered and circulated," he says. "So we're reducing the amount of water we use, which is good for the environment, and it saves us a lot of money."
5. A slow week is a great time to do basic housekeeping to extend the life of your shop computers. Dust accumulating in and on computers can cause overheating. Wipe them off and clear the vents – even open up the computer cases and use canned air to blow out the dust.
6. Determine if Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) could help reduce your phone costs. With VoIP, phone calls are routed through the Internet instead of the public telephone network. That means you need a high-speed Internet connection, but there are no long-distance charges and less need for multiple land lines. Generally, you can keep your same phone numbers. While it may require investment in hardware and software, that might pay off quickly. As with all telecommunication services, there's no shortage of variations in VoIP packages depending on your needs. Research options by checking the websites for AT&T (www.corp.att.com/voip/), Skype (www.skype.com/business/) or Vonage (www.vonage.com).
7. Jason Orrino, manager of Bodyworks Auto Rebuild in Bellevue, Wash., believes in daily updated shop performance numbers posted in the shop for employees. "Last year was a record year for us, and everyone – techs, painters – knows our goal for this year," Orrino says. "Everybody knows where we are at any given time. They have the same goals in mind." On a dry erase board in the employee lunchroom, the shop's 20-plus employees can see regular updates about numbers such as shop sales, cycle and touch times, CSI, average combined efficiency, average repair order amount, and whether those numbers have improved or declined. A similar board in the shop's office compares CSI, capture ratio, up-sales and gross profit for the company's three estimators. Another tracks materials use per technician. "Believe me, none of them want to be at the top of that list," Orrino says. "Just tracking it has them saying, 'I might only need three of those this week,' instead of a handful when they come to get materials."
8. Waiting for back-order parts? PartsVoice is a free OEM parts locator website (www.partsvoice.com) offered by ADP Dealer Services that allows any registered user to search for any part at dealerships throughout the country.
9. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) offers a city-by-city Search Engine Solutions program that links participating BBB-accredited businesses to sponsored listings by the BBB on the first page of Google searches when relevant keywords have been submitted. Consumers who click on the BBB-sponsored listing are taken to a page listing all BBB-accredited businesses for that category. Listings include contact information and links to the business' website, location on a map and its BBB reliability page. Businesses pay a monthly, flat fee for the service, and there's no long-term contract.
10. Marc Graham of Exotic Motors, the collision repair business he co-owns in Bellevue, Wash., says the company has grown its sales but reduced the amount of space it leases for production. "We've streamlined our process to make that happen," Graham says. "We started blueprinting vehicles as they come in. That has helped. We mark all the damage on the car with markers. We write the estimate on the car. It saves the technician from having to read the estimate. He can just jump in and start working on it. We've color-coded the estimators, then the technicians write supplement items on the vehicle in red. Supplements are much easier because we don't have to write everything down. We just take a photo of the car, and come back to the computer. It's a visual thing. That's probably the biggest thing that's helped us."
11. Need a copy of the estimating guides (referred to as P-pages) for the Audatex, CCC Information Services or Mitchell International estimating systems? All three can be downloaded at no charge from Database Enhancement Gateway website (www.DEGweb.org), sponsored jointly by three national collision repairer trade groups. Click the "Get Educated" tab on the homepage.
12. Want to know what kind of traffic your competitors' websites are generating, and what the top search terms and websites leading users to those sites are? Visit Compete.com and enter three websites to see a graph comparing the sites' traffic month by month for the past year. Not all the information Compete.com has available is free, but it can give you ideas about what your competitors are doing.
13. Diversification has helped keep Bob's Auto Body in Cathedral City, Calif., busy. Bob Middleton, who operates the business with his wife, Julie, and son, Bobby, says in addition to working on most makes and models of vehicles, the shop offers RV repairs. It often has a vehicle restoration project under way. And more unusually for a body shop, it operates a powder-coating business on site. That allows the shop to bring in more than just crashed cars. "If it's something we can't liquid paint, it gets powder coated and vice versa," Middleton says. "The two services fit well together."
14. You can make considerable cuts to your electric bill by making sure all office equipment is turned off after hours and on weekends and holidays. Just leaving one computer and monitor on during those times it's not being used can add $105 to your annual power bill. Check an Iowa State University website (http://www.fpm.iastate.edu/utilities/energyefficiency/typ_equip.asp) for more savings potential by turning off equipment when the shop is closed.
15. Jason and Allison Bass of South County Collision Center in Morgan Hill, Calif., say a unique estimating arrangement helps them sell jobs. "We have a large monitor on the wall right behind where Allison sits to write the estimate, and the customer can watch that as she does the estimate, and she can explain all of it," Jason says. "Some people have a suspicious attitude about body shops, and this helps show them it's straightforward." "People just love to watch the process and see the graphics showing the breakdown of their car," Allison says. "I can explain tint color and restore corrosion protection. It's all right there for them."
16. The real-estate slump has impacted commercial property just as it has residential. This may be a good time to renegotiate your lease, particularly if you can demonstrate your business is going through a difficult period. One commercial property agent recommends asking for short-term relief – a 25-percent rent abatement for the next six months, for example, rather than a reduction on the balance of the lease.
17. Looking for a unique up-sell product to offer customers? Wisconsin-based Strattec Security Corp. offers a series of locks, called Bolt, that can be programmed to open with an owner's car or truck key. The user simply inserts the key and turns once to program the lock to that key. Check out the company's website (www.boltlock.com) for padlocks, cable locks and spare tire locks.
18. Want to get a general idea of what your business may be worth? Although it's not a substitute for a formal valuation, BizEquity.com (wwww.bizequity.com) allows anyone to plug in numbers about a business and determine a ballpark estimate of its value. The site makes use of publicly available data. The free valuation report it produces is a starting point for business owners. But if selling your business is in your plans, it's good to have an idea of what it's worth.
19. Customers of Gustafson Brothers in Huntington Beach, Calif., can participate in a 20-20 referral program, receiving one or more plastic cards they can use to refer others to the shop. "Not only does that referred guest receive a $20 discount on his first visit, but we also send a $20 voucher back to the giver when we send their card back to them," says shop owner John Gustafson. "So they can cycle the card as many times as they want, and we'll make as many as 10 cards per guest."
20. Gustafson also buys bottled water labeled with his shop's name. When a local high school athletic team asked for a $200 sponsorship donation, he gave them 400 bottles of water (his cost was about $200) it sold at the concession stand on game day for $1 a bottle. The team grossed $400 from his donation, and the shop's name was placed in front of 400 local fans.
