24 Ideas to boost
your bottom line
There’s nothing like a lingering recession to spark entrepreneurs to action. Here are two dozen ideas we’ve heard from business owners in the industry in recent months as ways they’re working to trim costs, boost sales, bump up office or shop productivity or otherwise add a few dollars to the bottom line.
1. Buy a digital picture frame (5x7 or larger) to display a continual loop of messages to customers in your waiting area. You can include before- and after-repair photos, quotes from customer satisfaction surveys, information on up-sell services you offer, etc.
2. Looking for free help with the business side of your shop — your accounting and workflow analysis, for example? Score, the Service Corps of Retired Executives, a non-profit partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration, offers free online business consulting thanks to working and retired business owners and executives who volunteer their time and expertise. It also offers free one-on-on and team business counseling at about 400 locations around the country. For more information, visit www.score.org.
3. UpdatePromise.com, offers a $199-per-month system (that can be tied to your shop’s management system) to automatically send periodic text message updates to customers’ cell phones or e-mail addresses. The system can be set up to update customers every 24, 48 or 72 hours, and sends a thank you message when the job is completed.
4. The real estate slump has impacted commercial property just as it has residential. This may be a good time to renegotiate your lease, particularly if you can demonstrate your business is going through a tough period. One commercial property agent recommends asking for short-term relief — a 25 percent rent abatement for the next six months, for example — rather than a reduction for the remainder of the lease.
5. A slow week is a great time to do some basic house-keeping to extend the life of your shop computers. Dust building up in and on computers can cause the machines to over-heat. Wipe off the machines and clear the vents — and even open up the computer cases and use canned air to carefully blow out the dust.
6. Consider if VoIP, which stands for “voice over Internet protocol,” could help cut your phone costs. With VoIP, your phone calls are essentially routed over the Internet rather than the public telephone network. That means you need a high-speed Internet connection, but there are no long-distance charges and less need for multiple phone “land-lines.” You generally can keep your same phone number(s). While it may require some investment in hardware and software, that may pay off quickly. As with all telecommunication services, there’s no shortage of variations in the VoIP packages available depending on your company’s needs. You can get started researching the options by checking the Web sites for AT&T (www.corp.att.com/voip/), Skype (www.skype.com/business/) or Vonage (www.vonage.com).
7. Trying to track what I-CAR training your employees have? I-CAR is rolling out a new “Training Manager” system to help companies do just that. It starts with your employees logging into their “myI-CAR” account and indicating they want their training records shared with your company. The system gives businesses and individuals the ability also to affiliate themselves with other organizations with which they have a business relationship, such as an insurer’s direct-repair program.
8. A number of organizations, such as NativeEnergy (www.nativeenergy.com) or Terrapass (www.terrapass.com), have an online form that can help you estimate your shop’s “carbon footprint,” how much carbon-based pollution your business creates. Find that your company generates seven tons of carbon-based pollution? A $98 donation to NativeEnergy invests in non-fossil-fuel energy-producing projects that offset that level. You can tell your customers your business is “carbon-neutral.”
9. Want to know what kind of traffic your competitors’ Web sites are generating, and what are the top search terms and Web sites leading Internet users to those sites? Visit Compete.com and enter three Web sites (such as carstar.com, ABRAauto.com and SterlingAutobody.com) to get a graph comparing the sites’ traffic month by month for the past year. Not all the information Compete.com has available is free, but it can give you some ideas about what your competitors are up to online.
10. Automaker cut-backs or dealership closings leaving you waiting for back-ordered parts? PartsVoice is a free OEM parts locator Web site (www.partsvoice.com) offered by ADP Dealer Services that allows any registered user to search for any part at dealerships around the country.
11. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) is rolling out a “Search Engine Solutions” Google program across the United States, city by city. BBB-accredited businesses can subscribe to this program that links their shops to sponsored listings by the BBB on the first page of Google searches when relevant keywords have been submitted. Consumers who click on the BBB-sponsored listing are taken to a page listing all the BBB-accredited businesses for that category. The listings include contact info and links to the business’ Web site, location on a map and its BBB reliability page. Businesses pay a monthly, flat fee for the service and there is no long-term contract.
12. Want to get a rough idea of what your business may be worth? Although no substitute for a formal valuation, BizEquity.com (wwww.bizequity.com), allows anyone to plug in some numbers about a business and get a ballpark estimate of its value. The site, its founder says, makes use of publicly-available data, and the free valuation report it produces is just a “starting point” for a business owner, “not something you can take to the bank.”
13. Need a copy of the estimating guides (often referred to as “P-pages”) for the Audatex, CCC Information Services or Mitchell International estimating systems? All three can be downloaded at no charge from the Database Enhancement Gateway Web site (www.DEGweb.org), which is jointly sponsored by three national collision-repairer trade groups. Just click on the “Get Educated” tab from the homepage.
14. While you’re at the DEG Web site, you may also want to submit a question or concern you have about a labor time or what appears to be missing or incorrect information in any of the “Big Three” estimating systems. The DEG was on pace to receive about 1,000 inquiries in 2009 about the accuracy of labor times or other estimating system information, just as it did in its first full year of operation, 2008. The inquiries posted can lead to changes — often just within a few days — that improve the accuracy and completeness of the estimating systems.
15. You can make some serious cuts to your electric bill by making sure all office equipment is turned off after hours and on weekends and holidays. Just leaving one computer and monitor on during those times it’s not being used can add $105 to your annual power bill. Check an Iowa State University Web site (http://www.fpm.iastate.edu/utilities/energyefficiency/typ_equip.asp) for more savings potentials by turning off equipment when the shop is closed.
16. Looking for a unique “up-sell” product to offer your customers? Wisconsin-based STRATTEC Security Corp. has a series of locks, called BOLT, that can be programmed to open with the owner’s car or truck key. The user simply inserts the key and turns once to program the lock to that key, the company says. Initially available are a padlock and receiver lock, but a cable lock, spare tire lock and other products will follow, according to the company. Check the company’s Web site (www.STRATTEClock.com).
17. Looking for an inexpensive way to have a simple Web site designed for your shop? Aaron Bien of Bienie’s Body Shop in Ottawa, Kan., worked with a local high school computer teacher who split a class into three teams of four students, with each team creating a Web site for the shop as an assignment. Bien said he liked two of the three sites students developed, and he had them combine elements of the two into the final Web site he is now using. (You can check it out at www.bieniesbodyshop.com). Bien acknowledged it wasn’t a quick way to get online; the process was spread out over at least six months. But beyond the time he spent providing students with the information and materials needed, he said the process cost him only about $150 in gasoline gift cards for the students.
18. Jason and Allison Bass of South County Collision Center in Morgan Hill, Calif., say a unique estimating arrangement helps them sell the job. “We have a large monitor on the wall right behind where Allison sits to write the estimate, and the customer can watch that as she does the estimate and she can explain all of it,” Jason said. “Some people have a suspicious attitude about body shops. This helps show them it’s straight-forward.” “People just love to watch the process and see the graphics showing the break-down of their car,” Allison said. “And man, woman or child, I explain everything, what ‘tint color’ is and what ‘restore corrosion protection’ is. It’s all right there for them.”
19. As David Bourgeois laid out the 10,000-square-foot addition to Queen City Auto Rebuild, the 25-employee shop in Redmond, Wash., that he owns and operates with his brother Steve, he implemented an idea he saw at a Nevada shop. He created “hidden” areas around the perimeter of the new shop space, using 6-foot-high “false walls” to give each of his technicians an area for toolboxes and parts. With the shorter walls painted to match the building’s interior walls, they virtually “disappear” when looking across the shop, but help give the larger space a more tidy, professional appearance.
20. Customers of Gustafson Brothers in Huntington Beach, Calif., can participate in a “20-20” referral program, receiving one or more plastic cards with their name that they can use to refer others to the shop. “Not only does that referred guest get a $20 discount on their first visit, but we also send a $20 voucher back to the giver when we send their card back to them,” shop owner John Gustafson said. “So they can cycle the card as many times as they want, and we’ll make up to 10 cards per guest.”
21. Gustafson has also trimmed expenses by using automaker-sponsored credit cards for much of the shop’s purchases, getting one point for every dollar spent and five points for every dollar spent at the OEM’s dealerships. “We can then pay part of our bill with rewards points at the dealership, which is bringing our costs down,” he said.
22. Gustafson also buys bottled water labeled with his shop’s name. When a local high school athletic team asked for a $200 sponsorship donation, he instead give them 400 bottles of water (his cost: roughly $200) that they can sell at the concession stand on game day for $1 a bottle. They end up making $400 from your donation, and Gustafson gets his shop’s name in front of 400 local fans of that high school.
23. Kraig Weninger said one his best sources of work for his shop, Si’s Auto Body in Portland, Ore., is not something on which he spent a dime or even a minute of his time cultivating: positive word-of-mouth over the Internet. “Tons of people kept telling me, ‘I heard about you on the Internet,’ so I started looking there myself,” Weninger said. “We’ve had some really nice people say some really good things about us on various sites there. I bet we now get one or two jobs a week off that, so it’s huge. People have been very generous.” Do an Internet search of your shop’s name to see what reviews have already been posted. Then encourage your customers to post a comment about you on any of the consumer review sites they use (which may include www.Yelp.com, www.Kudzu.com, or www.AngiesList).
24. Robert “BJ” Bjorneby says that he first put his best low-cost marketing tool to work back in the mid-1970s, the last time a gas crisis seriously cut into people’s driving habits and “you could have played football on the street” in front of his shop near Seattle. He invested in a reader board he still uses near the street in front of his shop on which he displays birthday greetings to local residents and customers and other “fun stuff.” “It’s become real well-known and it works,” Bjorneby said. •
John Yoswick, a freelance writer based in Portland, Ore., who has been writing about the automotive industry since 1988, is also the editor of the weekly CRASH Network (for a free 4-week trial subscription, visit www.CrashNetwork.com). He can be contacted by e-mail at jyoswick@SpiritOne.com.
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