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.
Advice for independent garage owners
Things worth knowing.
Straight-talking advice on running a garage business, from someone who ran one.
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.
Running the business
How The Garage Inspector got its name: a TV narrator said it first
Asked on camera what I actually did, I had no job title for it. So I said Gordon Ramsay, but for garages. The narrator's voiceover gave me the name.
Team and recruitment
Why garages can’t find technicians any more, and why it isn’t a recruitment problem
Staffing is the biggest challenge in the independent sector. But it isn't really a recruitment problem. It's the bill arriving for fifty years of charging too little.
Pricing and profit
Cost of doing business: the golden ticket most garages never work out
A garage sells one thing: time. If you don't know what an hour costs you to open your doors, you'll never set your labour rate right.
Pricing and profit
Pricing like the garage down the road? Why the average price is a trap
Setting your prices by what everyone else in the area charges feels safe. It's the most dangerous place a garage can be, and it starts a cycle that's hard to break.
Customers
Your garage is a restaurant, and your technicians are the chefs
Kitchen and workshop. Chefs and technicians. Waiting staff and service advisors. A garage and a restaurant face the same challenges, and both live or die on the service out front.
Customers
Customer service isn’t a department. It’s an attitude.
Nobody wants to be in a garage. Your customers arrive anxious, and every silence you leave makes it worse. That's why customer service can't sit with one person on the front desk.
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