Advice for independent garage owners
Straight-talking advice on running a garage business, from someone who ran one.
Running the business
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
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.
Running the business
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
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
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
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
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.
Running the business
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.
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