“Let’s face it… You can have the best training, the best tools, the best location, the best techs around, and make maximum profits on every single job that walks through your doors – but unless you have a constant predictable flow of more customers coming to your shop every single day – I can 100% guarantee that your business will wither and die a slow and painful death.”
That’s an exact quote that I made 20 years ago when I first started working with auto repair shops and it’s every bit as true today as it was back then – in fact, because of the massive changes in technology – I might even amend that last line to read, “a quick and painful death.”
Why? Well, I’ll sum it up with three main factors:
- Cars are made better and are requiring fewer repairs. The days of seeing broken car after broken car are getting fewer and fewer (if they haven’t already disappeared for you altogether.) Add to that the extended maintenance intervals being advertised by the auto manufacturers, and you have the perfect storm for plummeting car count. Now more shops are competing for fewer cars. The auto shop owner with the best marketing strategies that can attract more of that dwindling car count wins.
- Communication with your current and future customers has changed. This is a very connected world we live in today. The average American spends almost 9 hours per day on their computers and mobile phones. They’re on social media, texting, sharing pictures, checking email, watching videos, searching for answers to their questions, reading reviews and buying stuff. Auto shop owners that embrace this reality in their operations and take the necessary steps to get their messages in front of their buyers on the same devices they are staring at most of their waking hours will win the car count battle and increase their profit.
- Buying habits have changed. Have you ever bought anything online? If so, how often did you rely on the reviews that were written about that product or service before making that purchase? Studies show that 92% of people read them and that half of them will make a decision to buy based on just the first 2 or 3 reviews that they read. The auto repair shops that have the most recent and most favorable reviews will win.
What does this mean for you? In one word – OPPORTUNITY!
Yes, I believe there is a lot of opportunity for the auto shop owner that first embraces these changes, and then takes the necessary (by simple) steps to ‘future proof’ their auto repair marketing so they can get more-than-their-fair-share of more customers to their shops.
At the WMDA Training Day in Baltimore on March 4th, I’ll be there in person to share with you the same proven step-by-step process of attracting all the car count that your shop can handle that I show my top shop owner clients. These won’t just be ‘concepts’. They will be the exact strategies that brought in tens of millions of dollars in sales profit for my clients last year and I’ll be showing the attendees exactly how to apply them to their shops so they can start attracting more customers within a day or two of putting them into practice.
I look forward to meeting each and every one of you in person at the Training Day (click here to sign up), but if you can’t make it in person, I’ll be happy to send you my 7-part video series titled, “The 7 Critical Auto Repair Marketing Mistakes That Most Shop Owners Are Making That Are Keeping Quality Car Count Away From Their Shops” To request the entire free video series, shoot me an email at ron@repairshopcoach.com
Take care & see you soon,
Ron Ipach (aka Captain Car Count)
