Selling your auto shop means more than just making it look nice for potential buyers, especially when other shops are also on the market. Standing out from the rest comes down to the numbers and that starts with maximizing your auto shop revenue.
Here are a few tips to make your shop more attractive.
Optimize Technician Efficiency
Getting cars repaired as quickly as possible is the foundation of almost any auto shop. That’s why maximizing your technician’s efficiency is crucial to increasing revenue. Start by determining what their current rates of efficiency are with the following formula:
Hours you’ve invoiced customers for ➗ Hours you’ve paid your employees
So, let's say you have a crew of auto techs on the clock for 160 hours per week, but you’ve only billed customers for 120 hours of work. If that were the case, the efficiency of your staff would sit at 75%.
Your ultimate goal should be to have over 100% efficiency with billable hours greater than the hours logged by your auto techs. Here are a few ways to get there:
- Standardizing more of your processes- This might mean creating workflows, manuals, or checklists so that every tech follows the same steps.
- Organizing your workspace- Time spent looking for tools and supplies is time wasted. Consider making it a requirement that techs keep their spaces clean and consider providing added storage to help.
- Incentivizing individual efficiency goals for auto techs- Everyone loves competition. That’s why setting efficiency goals, and rewarding auto techs for achieving them could serve as a great solution for increasing efficiency.
- Eliminating non-billable tasks - Busy work like managing invoices, handling inquiries. or paying bills can be time-consuming tasks for techs. That’s why it’s important to have front end help so your techs can focus on completing more billable hours.
Parts Margin
The parts department can have a major impact on your bottom line. For example, ordering too much of some stock while other parts are nowhere to be found can have a profoundly negative effect on the rest of the operation. It all comes down to having a grasp on the parts margin. A few ways of doing that include:
- Eliminating or reducing errors when purchasing- Consider setting up extra training opportunities for employees with regular inventory checks.
- Learn customer buying patterns- Some parts may move off the shelves faster than others. Developing an intricate understanding of the traffic patterns of how fast or slow items sell can help you carry the ideal amount of product relative to the parts margin you’re aiming for.
- Understand the cost of part lines- There’s nothing worse than finding out you could have gotten a part for a lower price. Research the industry and work to build relationships with third parties to nor only expand your knowledge of part lines but secure better deals.
Strong Digital Marketing/Brand Presence
While displaying efficiency in operations is one way to stand out to prospective buyers, another is with a strong marketing presence. Auto shops with solid brand recognition are likely to be seen as more valuable to buyers than ones that don’t. Some great ways to start increasing your brand recognition include:
- Create email marketing campaigns
- Send customers reminders or sale announcements with SMS text marketing
- Increase your customer reviews on social platforms
- Create a loyalty program to reward legacy customers and keep them coming back
Improving All Three Using One Platform
There are numerous components that go into increasing revenue and they’re equally important. It can sometimes be difficult to prioritize where and how to start. That’s why you should consider using resources made for auto shop owners facing the same challenges as you.
BayIQ was developed by former auto shop owners with the goal of making shops like yours more efficient. It offers a built-in loyalty program, point-of-sale integration, SMS text and email marketing, and solicits reviews and posts them to social media for you. Additionally, the platform provides multiple reporting options allowing you to collect all the insights necessary to manage multiple locations.
Implementing a platform built with increased efficiency in mind is one of the fastest ways owners can get the results they’re looking for. The developers of BayIQ have been exactly where you are, which is why they’re able to deliver a solution you won’t find elsewhere.
