Check out this episode’s Customer Financing Options. What options do you have to help your customers with credit choices? 



There are many vendor credit options to choose from and they are great. Maybe you don’t use them, maybe you should. No one wants a customer to walk out on a major purchase especially safety-related. This session is here to help you capture more of the big-ticket jobs.

You just may hear a financing option idea or two that you’ve never considered. And that is exactly what we do here, push the envelope on strategies and ideas to help you grow as a leader and build your business.

Hear about the acceptance rate of vendor finance programs and a few creative ideas on how to lock in customers with a pre-payment plan. Ever do a comparison of buying new or used vs fixing the vehicle that needs all the work?  Have you ever heard of the M & D loan? You are about to.

The Panel:

Amy Mattinat is the owner and manager of Auto Craftsmen in Montpelier, VT. Her shop is an ASE Blue Seal Shop, AAA approved and she is a member of ASA, SBN & WIAC.  Along with running her independent repair shop, she is able to combine her three passions: teaching small business owners how to run a successful business, teaching car care and safety to the general public and educating young people about the many career opportunities available in the auto care industry.

Amy was awarded the  2012 Top Female Shop Owner of the Year!

The award was given by the Car Care Council Women’s Board, Honored as a 2014 Professional Woman of the Year by the National Association of Professional Women, Awarded the 2015 U.S. Small Business Administration’s Vermont Women-Owned Business of the Year, Awarded the 2016 AAA Business of the Year in Vermont and served as President of Women in Auto Care 2014 through 2016. Listen to Amy’s previous episodes HERE.

Leon Martin owner of Auto Tech Services in Rochester, WA, graduated from “corncob college” as his father would say… The School of Hard Knocks… 1st – Eighth-grade training plus self-study courses. He is just a farm boy out of southern Illinois. Leon’s first formal training was by DANA and a ‘Doctor of Motors’ degree in September 12, 1972

Leon has been ASE certified since 1985…A1-A8 L1 C1 and his shop is an ASE Blue Seal Affiliate. He is a Management Success graduate, Repair One Graduate, E-Myth Business Mastery, AMAM Accredited Master Automotive manager and a Ned Tomarchio Supremacy Automotive Graduate. He is part of Elite Pro-service with Bob Cooper and Jim Murphy

Leon moved to Rochester, Washington in 2006.

He assist a local auto service and working out of a small 29 x 40 shop with a miniature office area. With the help of great people and dedicated techs, the sales average grew with a 20% increase per year for 8 years! Operating at a neighbor to neighbor, bumper to bumper slogan, the shop grew faster and ran out of space.

He looked for options because he needs to continue serving his customers in a timely and efficient manner.

Considering the challenges like getting permits, restrictions, zoning, costs and new building hindered their progress moving forward. His team started making plans with an existing facility and renovate to their standards. This new project ends up with six bays, additional service area which is future expansion. This also includes a very intense focus on being clean and “green” with a commitment that benefits the environment and mankind!

Providence lent his hand!

Leon and his team lease/purchase of the present location 18225 Pendleton Street, Rochester, Washington. It is a 4.4-acre property. Not only they are able to assist more clients, they actually have room to park, with all security cameras/chain link fencing in place, and protecting their client’s vehicles as compared to the small 3/8 acre property they moved from.

Leon’s shop offers a complete auto to light truck service

, under-hood,under-car, and bumper to bumper service! He welcomes visits anytime from clients. He even welcomes competition and calls them family. Anybody assisting in the healing world of automobiles is a part of their family. He and his team are willing to share information to assist in any way they can. They believe in the ethics of honesty and putting people ahead of the money. They want to treat all customers the way they want to be treated. This is his mission!  Listen to Leon’s previous episodes HERE.

Key Talking Points:

Leon:

• Uses the NAPA EZ-Pay program that is 6 months same as cash
  • Encourages his customers to pay the amount in less than 6 months so they do not get any surprises
  • Savvy with his recommendations on all his credit options
  • Has a 78% acceptance rate because he knows people have good credit.
  • The time to pay for the service is attractive
  • They will come back and use their card over and over to access the 6 months same as cash  
  • There is a minimum of $199 to finance
  • On his NAPA program if they use the card the warranty jumps to 3/36 on whatever was financed 
  • A young person who is working on establishing credit and they can get a co-signer this helps   
• The time it takes Leon is about two minutes.
  • He does it while on the phone
  • Many customers say yes to invest two minutes to find out if they qualify
• If he sees them waffle on 6 months he will offer one year same as cash for an additional fee. He is paying the fee to get them the extended terms which is why he charges for it.
• His average RO is $900 for the last 5 years
• He also uses an outside firm for financing he goes to that option one in twelve
• Most vehicles are disposed of at ⅓ of their life.
  • The average vehicle in his shop is at 125K miles. If they are willing to go to 250K they will benefit by keeping their vehicle 

• Leon’s M & D loan (Mon and Dad)

  • Some can, some can’t 
  • Parents could co-sign on a 6-month program
• Pre-payments. Customers will pay over-time for work that needs to get done
• Leon offers to leave their vehicle if they don’t have the money.
  • He will keep the vehicle until paid
    • Fenced in area or drive inside each evening. You must secure the vehicle
• Leon’s white sheet tactic used for situations with a large expense $2,000 to $8,000
  • If the vehicle worth repairing.
  • If Leon and technician feels it is worth it
  • Do not spend any money on the vehicle if they don’t like the vehicle. If the answer is yes then the white sheet comes out 
    • 1. Estimate the cost of a new purchase. Estimate the sales tax for a new vehicle
    • 2. Insurance differential on current vehicle vs the new
      • Look at that cost over three years. That is why you are investing in the repair of your current vehicle to get it to last another three years
    • 3. Depreciation
  • If this is a go, then a full health review of the vehicle that can determine all the right moves to bring the vehicle up to spec

Amy:

• She does not recommend holding paper. It will hurt your cash flow. With all the other options available you should never hold a customers debt for service rendered
  • If she does she makes the final decisions and would do only one or two a year
• She discovered a program called VIP
  • People pay forward, like a budget plan.
  • What they wanted to pay per month, using their credit card.
  • They get a 10% credit.
    • If they pay $100 per month they would get a $10 credit on their account 
  • It is a budget plan with a separate bank account to protect the money
  • It helps build loyalty
  • Accounts are designated VIP. They get the best perks
  • They are the best advocates for the shop

Resources:

• A special thanks to Amy Mattinat and Leon Martin for their contribution to the aftermarket.
• Books Page HERE
• Leave me an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one of them.



Your Learning Curve Never Sounded So Good

THE PANEL:

Cecil Bullard is President of the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. He is a trainer and business coach in the automotive aftermarket working closely with service professionals. Previous episodes featuring or mentioning Cecil, click HERE.

Rick White has been working in the automotive, software & coaching industries for greater than thirty years and is currently an AMI-approved training instructor.  He owned and managed several successful automotive repair shops.  Currently, Rick is President and Lead Coach for 180BIZ, an auto repair shop training and business coaching company proudly serving the independent auto and truck repair owner since 2006. Rick has been acknowledged as an industry expert and has been featured in many automotive trade publications. Rick has been training and speaking at industry events across the country including AAPEX, Vision and for AASP PA just to name a few. Find all of Ricks contributions to the podcast HERE.   

Jude Larson is the Director of New Business Development for the ACT Group.  He is a frequent speaker and trainer at industry events. Jude has vast business experience including being a highly successful service advisor, the owner, and operator of a hybrid online and print marketing company, a top performer in the financial industry, and had a record-setting career in retail management.

Jude is also a shop owner, Valley Repair in Tenino, WA. Listen to Jude’s Episodes HERE. Jude uses his rich experience and business success as he consults, trains and coaches results-focused solutions with clients.

Murray Voth, owner of RPM Training learned how to service and repair cars, motorcycles, and airplanes in his youth and earned his commercial pilot’s license. After college, Murray was hired by a firm doing research and development in the service station industry. That led him to own and operate service stations for the next 20 years.

After receiving extensive training from a major oil company in Canada, Murray worked in service station dealer development. His experience in training and development led to an interest in how people function. He began to think about what holds them back from learning and implementing new practices in their businesses. What causes people to change?

Murray has done extensive research into human potential and has the ability to synthesize this material and make it practical to apply.  His favorite moment is when a client says, “I get it!” or “I did it!”  He is known as an implementation coach. For the last 10 years, he has been the senior trainer, coach, and facilitator for a major automotive training company in Canada, and worked part-time in the USA as his schedule allows.  Murray has worked with hundreds of shop owners helping them to be more profitable and reduce their stress levels. Listen to Murray’s episodes HERE.

Bob Greenwood, AMAM (Accredited Master Automotive Manager) is President and C.E.O. of Automotive Aftermarket E-Learning Centre Ltd. (AAEC). AAEC is a company focused on providing Business Management Resources and Development for the Independent Sector of the aftermarket industry. AAEC content and technology is recognized as part of the curriculum of the Fixed Operations Diploma and the Aftermarket Degree courses taken at the Automotive Business School of Canada at Georgian College located in Barrie Ontario Canada. This school is the leader and only college in Canada that offers an automotive business education. AAEC is also recognized by the Automotive Management Institute (AMI), located in North Richland Hills, Texas USA, allowing 80 credits for successful completion of the AAEC E-Learning portion of the site towards the 120 credits required to obtain the reputable Accredited Automotive Manager (AAM) designation. Bob’s previous episodes are HERE.

Key Talking Points:

• Know the capabilities of your techs. Their gifting.
  • If they enjoy the work they do, they will be efficient
  • Have the right  people do the right work
• Find obstacles that are in the techs way of efficiency. Don’t hold up your technician
  • IDEA:  Open parts boxes before the job is started to prevent the possibility of delay because of wrong parts
• Create a shift in attitude of inclusion to improve processes
• Are the techs able to do their jobs?
  • If not. Why not.
• Build a team so each other has their back.
  • They need to know what the billed hours objective is as a team
  • They need skin in the game
  • If vacation the hours will not change. The costs continue
• The techs keep finding ways to get things done faster and the owner finds ways to give it away. The pencil is hurting efficiency and billed hours.
• Don’t penalize yourself for getting competent and the years of wisdom and knowledge your team has. Bill correctly. No shortcuts.
• Shop owners and technicians do not understand their worth.
  • Charge for your education and tools.
• Rick White: The Curse of Knowledge. Charge for your value.
• You’ve got to bill for the time you invest in test dries, cleaning up the bays, putting tools away. If you had no work you would not be doing these jobs. Don’t be afraid to charge
• Jude Larson: May a man prosper as his soul prospers. A person’s capacity of their success is limited to their capacity for success.
• Some techs won’t let their service advisor undercharge for him/her
• Understand the value each team member brings to the table
• We are a professional and must run our business, train our people and charge according.
• Carm’s pyramid concept. The Charge for Repair (on top) comes with a big investment in Training, Equipment, continuous Process Improvements, Pay/Benefits, and Experience/Knowledge, among others. Don’t forget what your fees are built on. This shows support for using all tools available to improve efficiency and earn a strong profit.
  
• Stop treating our techs like grease monkeys. They are professionals. Does service, ownership, and techs all have each other’s back? This is worthy of a discussion.
  • The entire team understands the entire functionality of the business and what is holding them back.
• Discover your bottleneck. Team meetings will help understand them. Then create new policies and procedures around new processes.
  • Discuss the “Why Not’s”
  • Regular communications
  • The coaches have varying ideas on when to have meetings, however, they are important to the flow of information and constant improvement
  • If you believe you can’t, you can’t.
  • Everyone needs to discover if the processes continue to work and add value. If not stop and discover, at the moment, if improvements are necessary.
  • Encourage your team to bring solutions to their problems or issues for improvement. Listen completely to the ideas
• The service advisor is responsible to be sure the techs are efficient. They need to provide everything to make their techs productive.
• The shop owner does not have all the answers. Encourage your team to contribute and use their ideas.
• Having goals will help with efficiency
• Job descriptions for every position
• Bob O’Connor :
  • You can’t run your business from a creeper
  • You can’t run your business from the front counter
• The value of shop tours to discover improvements in efficiency
  • Amateurs create, professionals steal
  • Study the processes  
  • When you travel to conferences go a day early and visit shops. Call first and do discovery
  • You may be a kinesthetic learner and shop tours gives you the visual immersion  
• Be open to new ideas, if not you’ll never get any
• Change is not an option. This won’t work in my community or in my business is an unacceptable excuse.
• Cecil Bullard: Many problems that exist are not with tech but with processes of the business.
• Don’t interrupt your tech and pull him off his job and/or thought process. It takes so much more time to get back on task.
• Murray Voth: We typically use the oil change/maintenance as a ‘draw’. Consider doing maintenance or oil change while vehicle is in for repairs.
• Rick White: When you hear an orchestra warming up it is like nails on a chalkboard. When playing with the conductor, together, is music.
  • Don’t underestimate cleanliness.

Resources:

• A special thanks to  Cecil Bullard, Bob Greenwood, Rick White, Murray Voth and Jude Larson for their contribution to the aftermarket.
• Books Page HERE
• 180Biz Website HERE
• RPM Training website HERE.
• ACT Group website HERE.
• Institute for Automotive Business Excellence website HERE.
• Automotive E-Learning Center website HERE.
• Leon Martin Episode as mentioned by Jude and Carm HERE.
• Micromanaging episode as mentioned by Carm HERE.
• Leave me an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one of them.

Subscribe to a mobile listening app HERE.

Leon Martin owner of Auto Tech Services in Rochester, WA, graduated from “corncob college” as his father would say… The School of Hard Knocks… 1st – Eighth grade training plus self-study courses. He is just a farm boy out of southern Illinois. Leon’s first formal training was by DANA and a ‘Doctor of Motors’ degree in September 12, 1972

Leon has been ASE certified since 1985…A1-A8 L1 C1 and his shop is an ASE Blue Seal Affiliate. Leon is a Management Success graduate, Repair One Graduate, E-Myth Business Mastery, AMAM Accredited Master Automotive manager and a Ned Tomarchio Supremacy Automotive Graduate. Leon is part of Elite Proservice with Bob Cooper and Jim Murphy

Leon moved to Rochester, Washington in 2006 to assist a local auto service and working out of a small 29 x 40 shop with a miniature office area. With the help of great people and dedicated techs, the sales average grew with a 20% increase per year for 8 years! Operating at a neighbor to neighbor, bumper to bumper slogan, the shop grew faster and ran out of space.

He looked for options because he needs to continue serving his customers in a timely and efficient manner. Considering the challenges like getting permits, restrictions, zoning, costs and new building hindered their progress moving forward. His team started making plans with an existing facility and renovate to their standards. This new project ends up with six bays, additional service area which is future expansion. This also includes a very intense focus on being clean and “green” with a commitment that benefits the environment and mankind!

Providence lent his hand to give Leon and his team lease/purchase of the present location 18225 Pendleton Street, Rochester, Washington. It is a 4.4-acre property. Not only they are able to assist more clients, they actually have room to park, with all security cameras/chain link fencing in place, and protecting their client’s vehicles as compared to the small 3/8 acre property they moved from.

Leon’s shop offers a complete auto to light truck, under-hood,under-car, and bumper to bumper service! He welcomes visits anytime from clients. He even welcomes competition and calls them family. Anybody assisting in the healing world of automobiles is a part of their family. He and his team are willing to share information to assist in any way they can. They believe in the ethics of honesty and putting people ahead of the money. They want to treat all customers the way they want to be treated. This is his mission!

Key Talking Points:

• Rochester, Washington- Population: 2,300
  • Was told business would never survive in a town that small  
• Everything happens ‘before’
  • Before customer calls you comes to business, gets out of a car, their decision is already being made. Approx 97-98% of all financial decisions are made based on emotions and avoiding side-effects of making a wrong emotional decision. Informing customer of what could happen if a vehicle is not maintained or serviced properly and routinely. “Maintenance is easy to schedule, breakdowns are not.”
• What can I do to make them chose the right decision?
  • Soap, Paint, Light
    • Soap: Cleanliness
    • Paint: Color, using colors to affect emotions
    • Light: Well-lit day and night  
  • The only roof can be seen from the highway, painted bright blue
    • Have a ‘wow’ factor visual for business, grab customers attention
• Hunting is for sport, not for the shop
  • Waste time looking for things, a shop needs to be organized in order to run efficiently
  • Don’t buy anything until there is a place for it- avoid misplacing an item
• Attitude- Choose a good one today
  • Smile and right hand- How can I make your day better?
• Manage money
  • Creative financing- Putting 3k into a car instead of getting a new car
    • Price of new or used vehicle?
    • Insurance cost?
    • Depreciation?  

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