The Tale of One Shop Continues…
….with Paul and Teresa Slate
What’s the Bright Idea?
Shop owners share their thoughts on how to make their businesses – and yours – more successful
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.
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.
Starting Over
Russ Manley and his father, Ron, have run Manley and Son Auto Body and Paint in Forsyth, Mo., for 34 years. In the early years, custom work was the bread and butter for the shop, but because of poor work conditions, paint jobs that went wrong were as prevalent as the ones that went right.
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.
Need Money? Renovations
When running a successful business, a shop owner will – at some point – utter the word “renovations”. In his next breath, he’ll shake his head and utter the words “need money”.
Technology as a Marketing Tool
As a shop owner, you want state-of-the-art diagnostic and repair equipment to help you provide your customers with high-quality, cost-effective, efficient repairs. The value of advanced technology here is obvious.
Like a Rock: Southwest Collision of Alsip, Ill.
Ask anyone in the collision-repair business in suburban Chicago about the work and reputation of Southwest Collision of Alsip, Ill., and the adjectives they’ll use can be
summarized in two words – rock solid.