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.
Advice for independent garage owners
Things worth knowing.
Straight-talking advice on running a garage business, from someone who ran one.
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.
Running the business
Front of house is the hardest job in your garage, and it decides your workshop efficiency
When we talk about efficiency, we look at the technicians. That's half the story. The bigger story is what happens at reception, and whether the job card gives your techs everything they need.
Pricing and profit
The MOT fee: why a rise is overdue, and why it isn’t the whole problem
The MOT fee has been frozen at £54.85 since 2010 and a rise is finally being talked about. It's long overdue. But the fee isn't the only thing holding the MOT down. We are.
Pricing and profit
Put your labour rate up £10 tomorrow. You won’t lose a customer.
Most garage owners are scared to raise their labour rate. Here's why I tell every owner on my finance course to put it up by £10 the next day, and what happens when they do.
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