Tax Court Ruling Benefits Small Business Owners
Owners of closely held businesses, including family owned and other small businesses, can now pass assets to heirs with minimal taxation thanks to a recent tax court ruling (Wandry v. Commissioner, U.S. Tax Court, March 26, 2012).
Can Your Customers Find You Where They Are Searching?
What is mobile marketing and why do you need to know about it? That’s a question I have been asked a lot lately. In this column, I want to give you an introduction to the world of mobile marketing.
The Key To Effective Service Advisor Pay Programs
As with any compensation program, the first thing you’ll need to do is conclude what you want to accomplish with any change in employee behavior. Where most shop owners get into trouble is they’ll immediately say they want to see higher sales when it comes to their service advisors. So they’ll put their advisors on a commission program that’s based on sales, and as you can imagine, their sales typically go up. Unfortunately, so do their expenses and customer complaints.
Bring More Cars Into Your Shop
Although most shops have sales goals, very few have car count goals. In all of our service advisor training courses, one of the things we teach the advisors is to establish daily car count goals that are based on sales goals.
The Customer Can Buy The Part For Less
A customer calls to tell you they discovered that they could have bought a part you sold them for less somewhere else. You can reduce those calls by doing a great car delivery that includes going over the repair order in detail, but when that call inevitably comes in, consider saying something like this …
Why Should A Customer Buy What You Are Selling?
Ever wonder why a customer does not see the value in what you are recommending and declines the service or repair? Our sales approach, at times, assumes that the customer fully understands the reason for or benefits of a particular service or repair, when in reality, they may have no idea what we are speaking about.
How Much Is Your Shop Worth?
Not long ago, I had the opportunity to interview Hal Janke. He is recognized by the top business brokers in America as an auto industry expert, he has owned and operated auto repair businesses, he has spoken at many conventions, and in selling over two hundred shops; he has sold more auto repair facilities than any other broker in the country.
Follow These Two Important Rules To Engage Customers For Life
In order to achieve ultimate success, shop owners must ensure that all of their systems, processes, programs, policies, procedures and initiatives are properly aligned to focus on improving the customer experience. A major part of this accomplishment involves making certain that all employees consistently execute customer-focused behavior.
Prepare The Next Customer Visit At Vehicle Pick-Up
Over the past few months, we’ve talked about how you can leverage web technologies to enhance customer service, increase customer satisfaction and improve your bottom line in the process.
Mitch Smith Auto Credits Success To Adhering To ‘Rules Of Business’
When you’ve been in business as long as Mitch Smith, you develop some surefire ways to ensure top-quality service and repairs that result in satisfied customers and repeat business. Which leads to one of Smith’s rules of business, or “Mitch-isms” as he calls them: Do to/speak to/service your clients better than anyone else.
Spring Cleaning: Tax Records You Can (And Cannot) Throw Away
Spring is a great time to clean out that growing mountain of financial papers and tax documents that clutters your home and office. Here’s what you need to keep and what you can throw out without fearing the wrath of the IRS.
Marketing During Tough Economic Times
During these tough economic times, you need to watch every dollar. One way of controlling your advertising costs is by implementing what we here at Elite refer to as “Grass Roots” marketing campaigns. These are any campaigns where you reach potential customers while they are outside of their homes and workplaces. Little league games, charity drives, local fairs, etc., are all good examples.