A Few Good Techs
Is there really a technician shortage or just a misappropriation of qualified techs? Is the pool of technicians shrinking faster than the collision repair market?
Will the end result be higher door rates?
Market Like an Insurer
Progressive’s Concierge program is the boldest action ever
taken by an insurer to mitigate the role a shop plays with the consumer. But what might the possibilities be if repairers employed some of these same strategies?
Standard Operating Procedures – Working Smarter, Not Harder
Maximize productivity by standardizing “best practices” across your organization. “Since we started truly implementing standard operating procedures, it’s a statistical fact that I only spend two hours a week in three locations and that we grew from five employees to 50 in a four-year time period,” says Troy Gates, owner of a three-shop operation called Gates
Even ‘Know It Alls’ Need Training
Take it from a reformed Mr. Know-It-All: You don’t know what you don’t know — so training is vital to staying ahead in an ever-changing industry.
DRPs: Our Business Skills
Stop the finger pointing. How well we do in this trade has a lot more to do with our business skills than with how “bad” insurers are. In fact, direct-repair programs have, dare I say it, made many shops more efficient and profitable. It was more than 40 years ago, but I still remember sitting
Is Your Shop Sick? The Preventative Approach
If you want your shop to have a long (and profitable) life, it needs to periodically see a shop doc.
Send Me Your Best Student – Partnering with Vo-Tech Schools
Looking to take the local vo-tech school’s best and brightest? Fat chance – unless you’ve been partnering with that vo-tech school all along. If you’re all take and no give, don’t expect instructors to do you any favors when you suddenly need to hire.
Training Techs – A Guide for the Do-It-Yourselfer
Our workforce is incredibly knowledgeable, skilled and talented. But this didn’t just happen. Someone had to train them; someone had to be their instructor or mentor. The ways people learned the craft are probably as varied as the number of techs out there. Schools trained many, but probably not as many as you might think
Scaring Off New Recruits
n on their business. Much to my encouragement, I’m seeing a slowly increasing trend toward addressing these issues by some of the best shops in country. And that’s good for this industry because a slowly rising tide lifts all boats. Scott Irwin – the BodyShop Business reader who asked about our industry’s viability – is
You Could Put An Eye Out with That
I’m going to tell you about things that could hinder your business.