Breathe Easy: Painters and Asthma
The same characteristics of polyurethanes that make them such good paints also cause isocyanate asthma in some painters. How can you prevent your painters from becoming ill? By understanding the health risks they take each day and insisting they use the proper breathing equipment.
Flat-Out Fair: Break Up Labor and Pay Everyone Fairly
How do you break up labor and pay everyone fairly? While converting his shop from all combination techs to a departmentalized metal shop and paint shop (a process he refers to as “Armageddon”), this shop manager developed a system to pay techs what they deserve while motivating them to work as efficiently as possible. It
Clean Up your Act
That tiny spec of dirt in your paint job costs you a lot more time and money to remove than it would have to prevent it. In The Big Book of Painting, page 2,344, paragraph 6, the author explains “The Rule of Dirt”: “All dirt comes to you. But from where? you sayeth. I sayeth,
Say You Don’t Want a Revolution
If you label your customers as “nuts” to brush off their repair complaints and tell them to “just bring it back” withoutaddressing the actual problem, your comebacks are costing you cash.
Save a Buck… Pass the Buck?
As the market demands cheaper, faster, better repairs, the concept of “better” can often be forgotten. But who decides what’s acceptable in terms of repair quality? And how close is close enough?
Signs of the Times: Mooresville Paint & Amp Bodyshop
Since this father-daughter team began posting attention-grabbing signs in front of their shop, they’ve educated passing drivers and increased business. “Crooked and Corrupt Insurance Adjusters Not Welcome In This Shop.” If you drove past Mooresville Paint & Bodyshop in Mooresville, Ind., last September, that’s the sign you would’ve seen in front of the facility. It
A Failure to Communicate
Shops’ goals and insurance companies’ goals don’t always conflict. But when they do, the difference between getting your point across or making someone cross is how you communicate
Getting Personal: Sending Hand-written Cards
Turn the tables on a technology-overloaded society. Sending hand-written cards to customers will not only endear you in their hearts but ensure you’re the one to fix their cars’ broken parts Technology is a buzzword to some and a dirty word to others. Yet everyone deals with technology in almost every aspect of their daily
Who’s Really to Blame for Our Forgotten Work Ethic?
Who’s Really to Blame for Our Forgotten Work Ethic?
Are Double Standards OK, Depending Who’s Paying the Bill?
A double standard [where you write a different estimate if the repair is paid by an insurance company rather than a customer paying out of pocket] creates an image of what this industry is trying to defeat, which is that we’re crooks. I don’t want to present one image to one customer and another image
The Buzz of Prosperity
For most of 2001, financial and economic news was a never-ending stream of mixed signals, confusing data and conflicting reports. Expert Analyst A disagreeing with Expert Analyst B, while both adeptly making use of computer-generated color graphics and historical case studies to prove the merits of their economic theory. During the fourth quarter, just as
Letters to the Editor
Georgina, I wish to congratulate you on penning a most stunningly wonderful editorial [Victims of Our Own Stupidity? Dec. 2001, pg. 4], which I felt handily expresses an honest and very realistic observational sense of candor. Your brave thoughts on this social topic strikes a solid, resonating chord deep within my own noggin, for I’ve
