Community Spirit: Body Shops Giving Back to the Community
From sponsoring a little league team to repairing vans for non-profit agencies to collecting food for the hungry, body shops across the country are giving back to their communities — and getting business in return.
What’s the Deal with Dealer Body Shops
Most dealership owners consider their businesses sales organizations and service a necessary evil. Though this attitude is the greatest saving factor for independents, it’s slowly changing to a cradle-to-grave strategy — pitting independents against a competitor like none before Have you been paying attention to how many dealerships have elected to close their collision repair
Getting Into Customers’ Heads: Increasing the Chances of Selling Every Job
Hopefully, we can all agree that collision repair falls into two distinct operations: sales and production. Your shop may have the very latest heated downdraft booth and the snazziest computer-driven structural-repair bench, but unless you can get the customer to let your shop perform the repair, all the equipment in the world won’t help.
Cheaters Never Win
Back-alley shops and unethical owners have dragged our names through the mud long enough. Here’s what to do if your boss is bad.
Capturing the Lost Profit: Profit Sharing with Employees
Promise your employees a share of the gross profit from paint and materials, and your shop will suddenly become less wasteful.
The Two Faces of Japan
From ancient Shinto temples to modern-day skyscrapers, the Japanese relish technology, yet revere tradition. But with Japan’s collision repair industry changing with the times,
will the Japanese people also deviate from tradition to fight for their industry’s autonomy?
A Crash Course on Retrofits
As a collision repair specialist, air-conditioning service is part of your job. When your customers bring in their cars for repairs, you want to offer them all the services required.
Ask the Executives
There’s no better place to go for advice than to those who’ve reached the top. To help you climb your ladder of success, we asked Clark Plucinski and Russell Verona – both industry leaders and BodyShop Business Executives of the Year – questions ranging
from productivity to customer relations to future trends:
Creative Recruitment
Your right arm. How important is it to you? An independent body shop owner recently said he would give his to find one good technician. If people are willing to give up body parts, you know things are bad!
Out With The Old
A good place to start when you’re considering upgrading is to take an inventory of your shop.