Running the business
Dreading your VAT bill? Move the VAT out of your garage account every week
The VAT return comes round and some of that money has already gone. One simple weekly habit stops it: move the VAT out, because it was never your money.
Advice for independent garage owners
Things worth knowing.
Straight-talking advice on running a garage business, from someone who ran one.
Running the business
Garage KPIs: the handful of numbers that tell you how your business really works
If you don't understand your numbers, what they're telling you and where they come from, you can't make sensible decisions. You don't need hundreds of KPIs. You need the right handful.
Running the business
Stop paying your technicians to fetch cars: how runners kept my workshop over 90% efficient
Every minute a technician spends hunting for keys or moving a blocked-in car is time you can't sell. Here's how two runners kept my techs on the ramp.
Marketing
The supermarket car park test: find the cars your garage should specialise in
A so-called VW and Audi specialist saw one Golf in half a day. A walk round the local supermarket car park with a pad and pen showed him where his customers really were.
Team and recruitment
Why I put a technician on the front desk once a month
Once a month, one of my technicians left the workshop and ran reception for the day. It cost me a day on the ramp. It gave me a team that worked as one.
Running the business
Why some garage owners earn less than their own staff
Fifty or sixty hours a week, a busy workshop, and nothing in the bank at the end of the month. Some owners take home less than their team. Here's why it happens.
Running the business
How you’ll know your garage is working: you can take a holiday
Ask me what success looks like and I won't give you a number first. I'll tell you the owner went on holiday for two weeks and didn't worry about the place once.
Running the business
The weight a garage owner carries: 6:30am, dark and pouring down
Lifting the shutter at half six on a wet Monday, with no idea what the day will throw at you. Vehicle owners rarely see this part of running a garage. I do.
Running the business
Why most garage owners struggle with the business side: there’s no school for it
You can study to be an accountant. You can't study to be a garage owner. So most of us arrive at ownership with the one skill the business depends on least.
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