A History of Success and Change
The time: 1894. The place: Boston, Mass. The body shop: Fitzpatrick Brothers.
It’s All In The Mix: Do it Yourself and Save on Materials
Mixing your own paint is the single best way to save money on a shop’s material bill – in fact, no other individual change will make a shop more profit than in-house paint mixing.
Internet Insight
You’ve no doubt heard about the Internet. Whether it’s those commercials with guys in suits surfing in the streets, Al Gore talking about the Information Superhighway or somebody on the radio telling you about "dot com," it’s all around you. You may even be a “netizen” yourself.
Legal Insight: Know Laws that Affect Your Business
As a body shop owner, you have a lot to worry and think about. If you’re successful, though, you probably make the time to check the quality of the paint work leaving your shop
– even though you employ painters.
Opening the Books: Balance Sheets
Looking for a way to increase employee productivity and loyalty at your repair operation? You may need to look no further than your monthly balance sheet.
Get More Green from Your Yellow
Most body shops advertise in the Yellow Pages, and many of those shop owners renew their ads every year, leaving well enough alone.
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:
Paint-Shop Smarts
To increase production in the paint shop, you can do one of two things: Buy more equipment – the object here being to do more work in the same time period by mechanizing
the task. Or, you can produce more by better utilizing your present facility and equipment – the old “work smarter not harder”
school of thought.
Negotiating with an Insurance Adjuster
Regardless of where the majority of your business comes from, one fact of life of owning a collision-repair shop is having to negotiate with an insurance adjuster.
Overcoming Roadblocks
Three men – Bob Anderson, Jerry Kottschade and Joe Sanders – have devoted a great deal of time over the years to assume positions of leadership within their chosen field.