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Signed a lease on a shop (Service Shop in the Auto Industry)

Carlitos

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I been putting off this thread for a while already. All though I do keep a diary on this business journey, ideas, issues and solutions that comes along mostly everything gets documented in it. It would be nice to also have an execution thread here in TFLF.

If you go back to a few of my threads I have started in the past, none of them got completely followed through till the end. All of them were ideas that I started and gave up along the way. Ever since my last thread here, I have gone through more crazy situations where I finally grew a pair and decided that it was time to pursue my dream I had since I was 16, I am 30 now. Got tired of working for someone else, from helping others achieve their dreams, but now at least I can say I have full time job doing what I enjoy doing which is in the auto industry. This full time job is giving me more experience, and also helping me grow so that I can offer more services in my shop.

This journey is different, is not as easy as to give up and let it sit like i did with the other ideas. I finally signed a lease, got my shop keys this morning, and starting tomorrow I can officially go to my shop and start working on it getting it visually ready and aesthetically looking how I wanted to be.


As of now, and from the beginning I knew that my biggest problem would be advertising and marketing due to the new ways of doing business. With having that in mind, I did chose a location that has no street view so again my business would at first rely heavily on Digital advertising and marketing, and then it would be referrals. Another thing to consider is in my location a lot of businesses are sort of hidden or have very little street view. The shop I work at has street view, and every work order we get from a client has the question of "How did they hear about us" and about 10-20% are drive by. The majority are online presence or referrals.

My short term goal is to Be able to at least make back my overhead cost, so that I can stop injecting money from my own pocket or from my full time job. My long-term goal which is the next 2 years or by Dec 2023, To be generating at least from 150K to 250K a year.

As of now my overhead monthly cost approximately is: $1,100
Rent is $800
Business insurance is $150
Electricity is around $50
Internet around $50
Misc. Expenses $50

As of right now I have redesign my website completely, integrated a lot of features that would be more accessible for mobile device users. So far 90-95% of potential clients are finding my services or seeing my ads from a mobile device. I am working on landing pages, learning and hiring someone to do SEO, learning how to work with Google ads, and trying to create brand awareness and a reputation for myself and business name. I am very determine I can at least get this business going relying heavily 100% on digital marketing and advertising, before I go out there and network with business cards in hand the old fashion way.

As for the shop, I still have a few equipment to order, as well as supply. Get better lighting in there, paint the walls, get some graphic work for the walls, and move some of the equipment I already have but have it in a storage. Another issue I am debating is, if is best to start offering and advertising the service which I already have the majority of equipment taking a smaller investment in order to deliver it, or purchasing the equipment I would need for another service which is very popular but would take a bigger investment to be able to deliver that service.

My shop would be providing at least 5 different services which they are all correlated in a way. Sort of becoming a one stop shop for these services.

To be Continue...
 
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Empires

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Congrats! Great job on pulling the trigger. I have been in the auto industry my whole life. My dad owned his own shop for 30 years, my day job is as a diesel mechanic, and my own business is in the auto industry.. so I am happy to help if you have any questions.

My 2 cents: referrals is the MAJOR key in the auto industry. You need to become the go-to guy in everybody's circle. Don't focus too hard on the digital marketing.

Everyone "knows a guy" who can do car repairs. You need that to be you. Start telling everyone you just opened a shop and do auto repair. People need oil changes every 3 months, some of the people you talk to are bound to need an oil change soon and you'll bring it up at just the right time.

Online advertising is definitely worth it, but the search volume is going to max out pretty quickly because auto repair is so local. And since most people "know a guy" they often don't search online for a repair shop and just ask their friend who knows a guy...

Your repeat business will come from referrals.

If I was you I would take @Andy Black's Google Ads course, get some ads up and running in the next week or two and get the ball rolling. Start covering that overhead. I think you should spend more time focusing on letting everyone know that you just opened a repair shop. Hand out the business cards, talk to people. Tell your friends, post on facebook, post on craigslist, post on facebook marketplace, leave flyers in people's mail boxes with a discount. Anything to get people in the door. It will snowball from there.

Looking forward to your success!
 

Carlitos

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Congrats! Great job on pulling the trigger. I have been in the auto industry my whole life. My dad owned his own shop for 30 years, my day job is as a diesel mechanic, and my own business is in the auto industry.. so I am happy to help if you have any questions.

My 2 cents: referrals is the MAJOR key in the auto industry. You need to become the go-to guy in everybody's circle. Don't focus too hard on the digital marketing.

Everyone "knows a guy" who can do car repairs. You need that to be you. Start telling everyone you just opened a shop and do auto repair. People need oil changes every 3 months, some of the people you talk to are bound to need an oil change soon and you'll bring it up at just the right time.

Online advertising is definitely worth it, but the search volume is going to max out pretty quickly because auto repair is so local. And since most people "know a guy" they often don't search online for a repair shop and just ask their friend who knows a guy...

Your repeat business will come from referrals.

If I was you I would take @Andy Black's Google Ads course, get some ads up and running in the next week or two and get the ball rolling. Start covering that overhead. I think you should spend more time focusing on letting everyone know that you just opened a repair shop. Hand out the business cards, talk to people. Tell your friends, post on facebook, post on craigslist, post on facebook marketplace, leave flyers in people's mail boxes with a discount. Anything to get people in the door. It will snowball from there.

Looking forward to your success!
Thank you for your wishes! But I am not in the mechanic industry either :) I am more on the enhancement side of the auto industry.

I do have a potential client I met a few weeks back, I would have to go pay him a visit to see if he is still interested, and see if I can place some of my business cards at new business he just opened as well (Vape Shop) I met him, due to we were installing some graphics at his business.

:) I did buy Andy Black entry course in Google ads, so far it has helped, but I find myself youtubing alot of things to make sure I am following the process right.

From past experience I have learned that, the way you market and advertise you will attract certain clients. For example, I am building a high-end brand shop here, and by no means I will be the cheapest. I also work in a high end shop and is about 20-25 min from where mine is going to be. We do live in a upper middle class and wealthy area as well. Marketing in Craiglist and FB Market place has been a hit and miss. You could get lucky where you attract the right clients, or you could be attracting the lower end of the spectrum clients that are looking for a cheap service.

I am very aware in order to get referrals my customer service, as well as Quality of service and a bit of a wow factor has to be there so that I can over deliver what I promised them.

I am planning in running a limited discount offer on Google ads to get people in, and be able to take more marketing content such as picutres, videos, etc... I plan on starting a Youtube channel as well. Another way I plan on documenting my journey.
 

Carlitos

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Shop Keys.jpg
Day 1 at the shop, I have an awesome landlord by the way. This business needs to work! There's no reason for it to not work. I have over 10 years of experience in the industry.

First addition to the shop was a sink, landlord actually bought it and had it installed for me. I purchased a one stage water filter station is a must for one of the services il be providing. Landlord will also be installing it for me. :)

The shop is 1,000 SQFT 50x20 here are some pictures of it how it looks as of now.

Shop 1.jpg












Shop 2.jpg













Clearly there's a lot of work to do, out of everything the floor would be the last thing I would invest money in to it. This would be hopefully a few months down the road, once I have some positive cash flow coming in.

The following are the main things that needs to get done. Probably a cost of around $500.
  • More lights
  • Paint the walls
  • Add Trim molding in between sheetrock and floor
  • add graphics to wall
So moving on to what I have going on with 2 campaigns on Google ads, as I am trying to understand what I am doing and if I am throwing money away which seems like it.

So the first campaign was based on targeting a specific service so the keywords were all correlated to the same service.

As far as location targeting, I added every city close by from a 10 miles radius. Now at first I didn't have my state location added, so the targeting was very specific, but I was not getting any movement no clicks or impressions. I then decided to add my state location and from the data shown I got 100 impressions and 9 clicks avg click cost $1.89. Interaction percentage was 10%.

Now my second campaign was more of a brand awareness. It brought me 5K impressions, and 39 clicks avg click cost $0.30. But the interaction percentage was 0.70% extremely low.


Am I doing something wrong, or why is there 0 clicks coming from the specific locations that I have added close by my shop. Most clicks are coming from the specific state location alone instead of the more precise locations i added.

I am working on a 3rd campaign which would be a service with a landing page, adding keywords and the same with the locations.
 
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Carlitos

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The 4th campaign I am working on, would be a more simple service with a grand opening discount. What @Empires mentioned yesterday got me thinking, maybe I can definitely come up with something where I don't look desperate, and attract cheap customers. A simple service that could perhaps bring some clients in, or at least some cashflow in. I may not be covering my overhead cost, but some cashflow vs no cashflow definitely is better.
 

Empires

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Am I doing something wrong, or why is there 0 clicks coming from the specific locations that I have added close by my shop. Most clicks are coming from the specific state location alone instead of the more precise locations i added.

I am working on a 3rd campaign which would be a service with a landing page, adding keywords and the same with the locations.
Nice shop!

It is likely due to low search volume which means there is not enough searches for your ad to show, or due to low ad rank which will cause your ads not to show even if there are searches.

Have you used the keyword planner to see what estimated volumes there are for the search terms you are bidding on?
 

Carlitos

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Nice shop!

It is likely due to low search volume which means there is not enough searches for your ad to show, or due to low ad rank which will cause your ads not to show even if there are searches.

Have you used the keyword planner to see what estimated volumes there are for the search terms you are bidding on?
Thanks! Looking back at my diary is crazy how securing a shop a few months back was the hardest part of this business. Now the hardest part is getting the word out and bringing in customers.

i have used the keyword planner, but I may have to go back and double check on that.
 
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Carlitos

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3/2 Day 2

I decided to pause my auto detailing campaign, and focus more on the brand awareness display campaign. So far at a spending of $5 a day has gotten me nearly 10K impressions and 53 clicks. The good thing is I'm finally seeing impressions on the local cities I was specifically targeting. I did manage to get 1 click out of one of the 10 cities I have in my list, most clicks were coming from targeting the specific state. So i deleted the state, and bumped my spending to $10 to see how that goes.

Keep in mind that with this campaign I cant use keyword since is a display one. But I can see which audience gets more impressions and interaction.

So far I can finally see data on interaction as far as age group, gender, household income which is top 30% which is good.

I changed my CPC from a $1 to 0.60 cents since my average cost per click is under 0.40 cents.
 

Carlitos

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3/3 Day 3
Having my day spending at $10 was great but I cut my CPC bidding to half again going from 0.40 to 0.20. I been getting a lot of more interactions coming from local cities I am targeting. I didn't do much since I got home late from work, and I have not gone by the shop yet. I will be going on Saturday afternoon after work, since work has been busy as well.

3/4 Day 4
Having my CPC bidding at 0.20 I checked today and now my CPC cost average around 0.12. So I lover mine to 0.15, but now I found out I can add keywords to my display brand awareness, I thought I couldn't. Not sure how that's going to go tomorrow when it runs especially having my CPC that low. Also I have my campaign certain hours through out the week, and weekends it mostly runs the whole day. Depending how it runs tomorrow Friday, I may delete the keywords and keep it running for 0.15 and increase my day spending to $15 or $20 for this weekend to see how it goes.

This campaign ad is linked to my main website, it would be awesome if I can land a potential client for any of my services base on cheap CPC and using a brand awareness campaign.

On another note, one of my services landing page is ready to go! This will wait a bit as I don't have all of the equipment yet to provide this service, I don't want to run the ad and get leads and not be ready to provide the service.
 

Carlitos

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Water Filtration 1.jpg












3/7 Day 5
Went over to the shop, and one of our water filter has been installed finally. Landlord had that wall where the sink is and around to the right looking at this picture painted white only. As I told him not to worry about the rest of the walls since I am going to be painting them black as I need less light reflection and more lights to get a better view when working with cars. He was working on finishing up painting the door of the bathroom which is behind this wall.

I got to play around with the led lights I had ordered, to kind of get an idea how I want the lights placed. Tomorrow I plan on getting up early, get some paint, and mount at least some of the lights I have already, and start painting the walls.

As far as my Google ads Campaign experiment, so far seems to be going good in collecting data, but I have yet to get a potential client, or call. Also Google my business does not have my shop address yet due to we are waiting for the post office to approve mailing at the location I am at. Landlord told me this would probably take 2-3 weeks. So I am hoping this gets done asap, so that I can verify my business with Google.

I am preparing a more aggressive campaign specifically targeting a service. This campaign will also be targeting my surrounding cities near my shop a radius of 10-15 miles. This campaign will have a landing page, with a call to action to easily call my business phone number from mobile device, or ask for a quote from a computer device.

Also tomorrow hopefully I can drop off my polo shirts I plan on getting screen printing done on the back side of the shirt, and my logo embroidered in the front by the chest. Once my polos are done I will be wearing it every time I go out to the store or even out with my girl lol I am a free walking billboard.
 
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Tiago

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Keep up the progress!

I have a client that runs a pilates studio and it's always full. She has 68 reviews and 5 stars on Google, and she says a lot of clients are finding her through Google. So the key here is to provide above excellent service, and not be afraid to ask for a review.

One thing that you could do, is to start creating some joint ventures with other related, non-competitive service providers.

I'll leave you this video for you to take a look:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTE9HFYoCDc


Think "Who has my clients are their clients, where if I would provide them with my service, would mean a win for them, their clients, and lastly me?"

For example, I'm working with another person, and she's a running technique specialist. She's one of the best at it. One of the strategies she's doing to grow her business is creating partnerships with shoe stores. For every shoe that the store sells, they'll insert a voucher for a "Free Running Technique Analysis". She does a 30-minute video call commenting and giving feedback on how each person can improve their running technique.

Now let's break this down, what is exactly happening here?

1. The store wins by providing something unique to their customers, at NO cost to them. This will create better brand loyalty, thus making the runners more likely to purchase their next pair at the same store.

2. The customer wins by receiving a gift, and ultimately learning how to run better, making it more enjoyable and mitigating the risk of injury.

3. She wins by providing value to shoe store's customers, and if their clients want more support, she can then enroll them into a running program.

It's a way to think a bit more tri-dimensionally about your business, and see who else might win if you win.
 

Paydette

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View attachment 37001
Day 1 at the shop, I have an awesome landlord by the way. This business needs to work! There's no reason for it to not work. I have over 10 years of experience in the industry.

First addition to the shop was a sink, landlord actually bought it and had it installed for me. I purchased a one stage water filter station is a must for one of the services il be providing. Landlord will also be installing it for me. :)

The shop is 1,000 SQFT 50x20 here are some pictures of it how it looks as of now.

View attachment 37002












View attachment 37003













Clearly there's a lot of work to do, out of everything the floor would be the last thing I would invest money in to it. This would be hopefully a few months down the road, once I have some positive cash flow coming in.

The following are the main things that needs to get done. Probably a cost of around $500.
  • More lights
  • Paint the walls
  • Add Trim molding in between sheetrock and floor
  • add graphics to wall
So moving on to what I have going on with 2 campaigns on Google ads, as I am trying to understand what I am doing and if I am throwing money away which seems like it.

So the first campaign was based on targeting a specific service so the keywords were all correlated to the same service.

As far as location targeting, I added every city close by from a 10 miles radius. Now at first I didn't have my state location added, so the targeting was very specific, but I was not getting any movement no clicks or impressions. I then decided to add my state location and from the data shown I got 100 impressions and 9 clicks avg click cost $1.89. Interaction percentage was 10%.

Now my second campaign was more of a brand awareness. It brought me 5K impressions, and 39 clicks avg click cost $0.30. But the interaction percentage was 0.70% extremely low.


Am I doing something wrong, or why is there 0 clicks coming from the specific locations that I have added close by my shop. Most clicks are coming from the specific state location alone instead of the more precise locations i added.

I am working on a 3rd campaign which would be a service with a landing page, adding keywords and the same with the locations.

Forget advertising. Focus on Google 3 pack. That will drive 80% of sales.
 

Carlitos

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Keep up the progress!

I have a client that runs a pilates studio and it's always full. She has 68 reviews and 5 stars on Google, and she says a lot of clients are finding her through Google. So the key here is to provide above excellent service, and not be afraid to ask for a review.

One thing that you could do, is to start creating some joint ventures with other related, non-competitive service providers.

I'll leave you this video for you to take a look:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTE9HFYoCDc


Think "Who has my clients are their clients, where if I would provide them with my service, would mean a win for them, their clients, and lastly me?"

For example, I'm working with another person, and she's a running technique specialist. She's one of the best at it. One of the strategies she's doing to grow her business is creating partnerships with shoe stores. For every shoe that the store sells, they'll insert a voucher for a "Free Running Technique Analysis". She does a 30-minute video call commenting and giving feedback on how each person can improve their running technique.

Now let's break this down, what is exactly happening here?

1. The store wins by providing something unique to their customers, at NO cost to them. This will create better brand loyalty, thus making the runners more likely to purchase their next pair at the same store.

2. The customer wins by receiving a gift, and ultimately learning how to run better, making it more enjoyable and mitigating the risk of injury.

3. She wins by providing value to shoe store's customers, and if their clients want more support, she can then enroll them into a running program.

It's a way to think a bit more tri-dimensionally about your business, and see who else might win if you win.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for the advice and help Tiago. Great input, this is something I need to sit down and think about and plan accordingly.
 
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Carlitos

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3/8 Day 6
You know when you Google something and google gives you the top 3 locations near you? That's Google 3 pack. It converts better than ads, including google map ads, and better than top google position.
Damn you got me thinking now lol definitely need to look how to optimize for this. Especially now that I have very to no competition even at a mile radius of 20
 
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Paydette

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3/8 Day 6

Damn you got me thinking now lol definitely need to look how to optimize for this. Especially now that I have very to no competition even at a mile radius of 20
There are services out there that optimize gmb listings. To maintain your position, you want to post pictures on a regular basis and drive reviews.

You, ideally, want more than 1 listing. Basically, have several - 1 optimize for the whole city, 1 for your suburb, and one for the other nearest suburbs. However your location can be described, you want a listing for it.

For example: city, suburb, development (neighborhood).
 

Carlitos

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3/8 Day 6
I got a lot done today, but still a lot of work to do with the shop. I finally dropped off my athletic polo shirts with my screen printer and embroider guy. He is going to charge me $100 for 5 Polo shirts to embroider my logo in the front next to the chest, and screen print my logo small version at the top center of my back, list my main services ,with the city my shop is in and phone number. It will be screen printed in white, being my shirts are dark colors. This is another step toward branding.

He also need his King Ranch Serviced, which I will be taking care of him, more than likely he will be the first customer so far.

Shop 6.jpg
So 95% of my walls are going to be Onyx Flat Black. This is to minimize the light reflection from the walls. With so many lights I will be adding, this will give the focus on the cars when I am working on them.

Also keep in mind my brand colors consists of Black, Gold and Red.





Shop 5.jpg
So today the plan was to work on this wall today, install the set of 4 lights and paint the wall. But it was getting late, and I was hungry AF. I was very excited and happy with the outcome, I am not really a DIY person, but the techniques and ideas I used today were from previous job experiences. Only got as far as installing the lights, prepping for paint.









Shop 4.jpg

Keep in mind I still have yet to order the rest of the lights I am missing. I ordered these to play around with them and get an idea before moving forward with them. More lights and more lights are needed :hilarious: is extremely important to have enough lights here.

Shop 3.jpg

I was also able to find someone, who has the right equipment, professional cameras, drones, editing software and has a great portfolio of his past work to do a short promo video of my shop, brand what we have to offer to the city we are operating at, our services, etc... We going all out on this video, I am here to take over my competition and make this happen. :bicep: He is also charging me a great price.

To be Continue...
 

Private Witt

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Looks like you got a great space at decent cost and even better with a supportive landlord. Good luck on your venture and living your long time dream, rooting for you.
 
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From the bottom of my heart, thank you for the advice and help Tiago. Great input, this is something I need to sit down and think about and plan accordingly.

Glad to be able to help.

If you want help in hashing it out, and want to jam a few ideas, just send me a DM and we'll go over a few strategies you can implement.
 

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So I was finally able to see the Keynote Tiago posted above, and my mind went crazy. Because I was also brainstorming a similar idea except mine was to give it out to customers as an appreciation gift after purchasing a service from me. It was a really nice gift bag idea that occur to me. I researched where I could get what I needed to fulfil them, and the cost I believed average around $5-$10 can't remember exactly. Inside along the goodies I was including, it was also going to include a card with a QR code to MyBusiness Google in order to try to get and remind them to give us a 5 star reviewed, and if they wasn't satisfied enough to ear a 5 star to contact me ASAP to see what I can do to better their experience in order to get the 5 star review.

Now I am looking as giving them away to kind of mimic the idea on the video. But in my case or industry Dealerships are our worst competitors. Most of them now provide the same services I am in house.

So with that being said maybe look in to partnering with for example Salon Shops, Nail Salons, Mechanic shops that specialize in European cars. I am building here a brand, a high end shop, so I would like to target or partner with businesses that have the same mentality structure. Just like another video of the speaker I saw where he mentioned "If you hire talent, you can attract a great clientele, but if you hire a staff member they may not put in the same dedication as you and may attract the wrong clients."

Once I talk with these locations perhaps come up with what's the average spending their customers do at their location, and every time someone spends that amount they get a free bag. The bag will obviously contain my information to where perhaps they grabbed interest and purchase a service from me.

This definitely got me brainstorming, Tiago I will be PM you.
 

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This is more of a personal post, but I wanted to share being that I can't hold it and not rant out. I am going all out on this and spending all of my free time on getting this business going, and working full time as well that is costing me my relationship with my girlfriend. Seems like we may stopped being together, she is not bad gal. But is hard to juggle all those things and give her the time and affection she wants, when my mind is always thinking in "This needs to work" "How can I start getting customers" "How am I doing so far" etc... She doesn't understand that, and I am also a Capricorn so I am stubborn AF.

At least I am glad I am not married yet, I don't want to get married until I reach the financial freedom I want. Is time to make this work, I waited too long for this. Being 30 gets you thinking where I am going to be in 10 years, when I am 40.

My 20s were trial and errors, trying out as many things as possible, finding my passion and knowing my weakness and strengths. Now that I am 30, i know what I love enjoy doing, and I believe I am in a great position to finally make it happen.
 
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Carlitos

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3/16 Day 7

Another update here, over the weekend I had an awesome Zoom call with Tiago. Awesome dude he is what I like to call a Gold nugget that we have around here in TFLF. We talked about strategies I can implement in my business, how to put myself out there by making cold calls etc... A lot of great ideas that are going to be implemented, and I will share here as we put them in to play and I see how it plays out.

I have not been able to go back to the shop since the last time I went. But I did received finally the rest of the lights I needed to be able to finish with the walls and finally paint them very soon. Keep in mind ever since Covid companies delivering packages has been extremely crazy, to where amazon drivers are claiming packages get lost very often lol

There's a lot of things that have been falling in to place that is hard to believe but at least I'm glad things are sailing smooth, I obviously don't expect the whole journey to be smooth lol

Keep in mind I had mentioned here that I was already planning a gift bag idea I was planning in giving away to clients that would spend money in business, in hope to push for 5 star reviews in my Google business, and for more referrals or the spread of word of mouth. One of the goodies included in this gift bag is a liquor bottle.

So as soon as I got off the zoom call with Tiago, I was looking in to the process of putting these bags together running some numbers, and putting 200 bags together will cost me around $400-$500 an estimate.

Well come to find out while searching on Instagram for something, I came across a friend of a friend I met a few weeks backs visiting a friend shop. He recently started his liquor brand, so I asked for his number and we spoke over the phone briefly and set up a time and date to meet up. We were both shocked and excited. He will be giving me some taste samples before placing an order from him, and we will run some numbers to see if I can lower the liquor bottle cost. Not only will this benefit me in many ways, but it will also benefit him in hope my clients grabbed interest in his liquor.

The gift bag idea will not only be given to clients who spend money on my business, but will also be used to attract potential lead clients. This is a work in progress.

I also hired someone for 30 days, who will be reporting to me with what work has been done so far and the progress of doing SEO on my website.

I am also working on doing a professional promo video where it will be 30-50 seconds we haven't decided on this yet but it needs to be the perfect length in order to advertise with it. The video will be shot with professional gear and also including some drone shots. It will show all of our services, and I have also found someone who can get me a few cars together to use for the video. In exchange of some free services for them.


To be Continue...
 

Carlitos

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UPDATE 4/11/2021 Major update as I haven't had time to come to the computer and update you guys, I apologize for that. Right now I am in Chandler Arizona, doing a training for an additional service I been wanting to learn to add to my services I already offer. It has been an awesome opportunity, and really learned a lot and removed any fears of trying it out now on my own and continue practicing.

I was also fortunate to be able to attend a few short car shows here locally in Arizona and it was an awesome experience as it been a while since I attended one, and got so many ideas flowing!

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Ferrari is by far one of my favorite cars I love and would love to own one or several one day. It was also awesome to see a Ford GT in a very nice red which is my favorite color.











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So as you can see back at my shop, the walls has been painted, and lighting is almost done i did run in some issues but doable and fixable. Also recently I was able to finally get approved my paperwork in forming my LLC and assumed name (DBA) I was running with some issues with that, but I am glad things got resolved. I also got my polos in embroidery with my logo and it looks sick!!

One of the issues that hasn't been resolved yet, but I heard yesterday that perhaps this week coming up I can finally verify my Google my business with google. Since my shop is located in a fairly new plaza that hasn't been registered with the post office, I haven't been able to verify the business in Google which will help tremendously!!

SEO has been on the work's for the past 3 weeks and is coming along very well!! I want to be well recognized and established a great reputation in the State of Texas, I am going with full throttle ahead!!

Little by little my dream from when I was 15 is coming together. I do promise to let you guys know what exactly or kind of business I am running here once I get my breakthrough. But for now it will remain as it is. Things are coming along very well! I will be flying tomorrow back to Texas, as tomorrow will be my last training day here in Arizona.
 

tylerwilkinson

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Congrats on starting your business.
I’m a profession mechanic, still working the daily grind. Enough about me.
A thought on generating business. In my state of Rhode Island, most cars get inspection stickers every other year. This program is farmed out to independent shops, mine included. You don’t make diddly from an inspection. A $55 inspection sticker takes an average 15-30 minutes including intake and customer service, blah blah, and we gross $19 from it. We pay to be an inspection station.

But, the money is in the repairs. Obviously. Be a Certified Inspection Repair Technician means we are on the state list that goes to every driver when they fail inspection. We show up when they search, and guess what? Most of them need repairs or maintenance. Even if it isn’t that day, they’re in system now. They might like me because I explained why tint fails safety. I showed “these brake pads still pass, but you’ll be replacing them and the rotors by winter, so be ready for a $350 job”. Blah blah.

It’s one way to make an existing system work for you. Not sure what your state is like. We used to sell gas, which also made little money, but brought in customers. Inspection enforcement measures have gotten stricter in the last two years (in RI).

Second tip: my reading comprehension isn’t great, so you may have touched on this already. For heavy equipment and tools, keep an eye on the used market. A lot of shops close, owners retire, etc, and often a $20000 alignment rack or tire machine can be had for a couple thousand. Tool boxes are another item. Tech school grads find out they hate turning wrenches and sell their $10000 Snap On boxes full of tools for chump change!

Third: we try to be an alternative to the “dreaded” dealership service department. I stock all genuine factory fluids, on display so people can see the names in our front office. One problem we have during covid is waiting appointments. People aren’t supposed to wait in our tiny office. Fortunately, there are several coffee shops across the street. We make sure everyone knows we offer all factory maintenance services at (usually) a lower rate than the dealer.

Four: don’t be afraid to say no. We don’t do engine swaps and rebuilds any more. Why? For a small shop like us with enough “regular” business, it doesn’t make sense to tie up a bay for two days when heads need to go to the machine shop and might come back seemed unusable. We are upfront with our customers that there are some jobs we just prefer not to take on.

If you have any questions, I’m happy to talk to you about my experience. I don’t own the place (I’ve thought about buying it with a partner when the owner retires), but we are a small family type business so I have more involvement than a typical mechanic at a big shop.
 
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Carlitos

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MAJOR UPDATE COMING AT THE END OF THE DAY

I know I have not posted updates for a few months, but in the middle of the time I was out from posting here I did caught Covid and that held me back a few weeks or a month at least. Work has been picking up little by little.
 

Brethawy

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MAJOR UPDATE COMING AT THE END OF THE DAY

I know I have not posted updates for a few months, but in the middle of the time I was out from posting here I did caught Covid and that held me back a few weeks or a month at least. Work has been picking up little by little.

I've been following this thread and curious to hear an update! This is a current dream of mine that I may act on shortly, would love to chat sometime. Always love hearing what progress was made when people go silent.
 

Carlitos

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One Stop Shop 7/29/21
A lot has happened this past few months, so many things changed that had me thinking for days, there were nights I couldn't sleep because not knowing what to do, either drop my brand (Business Name) and partner up with someone bigger than me, with a powerful marketing, advertising team and a very well known brand or continue to build my own reputation, and continue doing what I have been doing so far in order to accomplish what used to be a dream when I was 15.

Without going in to much details, I am going to share with you guys the industry I am in. I currently work for a Window Tint Shop, I am about to turn a year next week. In a full year I learned so much, so quick, that I can say I have now tinted 2 vehicles under my brand and my shop. Before relocating to another state to work for this tint shop I hated my job, and I wanted to come back to the car industry and try starting my business for a second time. The first time I was 17 and failed miserably, I had started a small auto detailing business, and while I did a great job and customers loved me, I didn't know how to run a business, how to scale and so on.

So now that I am 30, and I was able to get this opportunity of finally learning how to install window tint, it has helped me tremendously and now I can work toward building my brand and shop how I always wanted to.

Things Escalated Very Quickly
I caught Covid back in May, around the same week the shop I currently work full time were finalizing the paperwork and were getting ready to sell the shop to someone bigger in the window tint industry. Economically this person is powerful, understands what it takes to run a shop, scale, and continue growing. He has a different agenda, and all though they are not really a One stop shop like my agenda, he has been pretty successful by offering Auto Window Tint, Flat Glass Window Tint, and Paint Protection Film. These 3 services have very high profit margins, but I strongly also believe that even a one stop shop is also still very profitable and powerful.

He offered me, and still is on the table to partner up with him, basically eliminating my agenda, and brand name, and operating under his brand by paying a membership monthly cost. This membership payment would cover everything else he would provide me such as to my disposal his marketing, advertising team.

Staying focus and under the Radar
I told him I would continue thinking about his offer, and watching how he run things, and how his brand continues to grow. So even though the work environment, and the shop I work for has changed for better is actually more enjoyable, but I am still staying focus to continue growing my brand, and building a reputation for myself, my shop and brand one car at a time. So my shop offers the following services: Interior Detail, Paint Correction, Ceramic Coating, Window Tint, Paint Protection Film (PPF), and Windshield Protection Film.

Recently someone stated something that had me thinking, "There will always be enough cars, and not enough Auto Detailers." Which is why there are so many training courses, and everyone is selling all kind of training for those looking to offer any of these services. I have seen how fast, and well the auto detailing industry has grown, as well as the Auto Window Film. There's enough cars for everyone to make money, what separates all of us in between each others, is whose willing to be a business owner, and who is happier working for someone loving what they do and just taking a paycheck. Because there's a massive shortage in workers who have these skills. There's a lot of shops looking for Window Tint installers, as well as Auto Detailers.

Visualizing the Future In order to Stay Focus
The Car industry is changing, the way car are made is also changing, by 2030 EVs will be the norm. Ever since Covid 19, a lot of mechanic shop have closed down. Now is extremely hard for traditional car mechanics find a location to rent, most landlords now don't allow it. A lot of mechanics have gone mobile. So I believe the next boom will be Auto Detailing Shops, Window Tint Shops, or One Stop Shop who specialize in all of the services together that are correlated in between in more than one way. So if my theory is correct there's no reason for me to fear someone bigger than me who has a different agenda.

Update 2 Coming in a bit......
 
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Brethawy

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One Stop Shop 7/29/21
A lot has happened this past few months, so many things changed that had me thinking for days, there were nights I couldn't sleep because not knowing what to do, either drop my brand (Business Name) and partner up with someone bigger than me, with a powerful marketing, advertising team and a very well known brand or continue to build my own reputation, and continue doing what I have been doing so far in order to accomplish what used to be a dream when I was 15.

Without going in to much details, I am going to share with you guys the industry I am in. I currently work for a Window Tint Shop, I am about to turn a year next week. In a full year I learned so much, so quick, that I can say I have now tinted 2 vehicles under my brand and my shop. Before relocating to another state to work for this tint shop I hated my job, and I wanted to come back to the car industry and try starting my business for a second time. The first time I was 17 and failed miserably, I had started a small auto detailing business, and while I did a great job and customers loved me, I didn't know how to run a business, how to scale and so on.

So now that I am 30, and I was able to get this opportunity of finally learning how to install window tint, it has helped me tremendously and now I can work toward building my brand and shop how I always wanted to.

Things Escalated Very Quickly
I caught Covid back in May, around the same week the shop I currently work full time were finalizing the paperwork and were getting ready to sell the shop to someone bigger in the window tint industry. Economically this person is powerful, understands what it takes to run a shop, scale, and continue growing. He has a different agenda, and all though they are not really a One stop shop like my agenda, he has been pretty successful by offering Auto Window Tint, Flat Glass Window Tint, and Paint Protection Film. These 3 services have very high profit margins, but I strongly also believe that even a one stop shop is also still very profitable and powerful.

He offered me, and still is on the table to partner up with him, basically eliminating my agenda, and brand name, and operating under his brand by paying a membership monthly cost. This membership payment would cover everything else he would provide me such as to my disposal his marketing, advertising team.

Staying focus and under the Radar
I told him I would continue thinking about his offer, and watching how he run things, and how his brand continues to grow. So even though the work environment, and the shop I work for has changed for better is actually more enjoyable, but I am still staying focus to continue growing my brand, and building a reputation for myself, my shop and brand one car at a time. So my shop offers the following services: Interior Detail, Paint Correction, Ceramic Coating, Window Tint, Paint Protection Film (PPF), and Windshield Protection Film.

Recently someone stated something that had me thinking, "There will always be enough cars, and not enough Auto Detailers." Which is why there are so many training courses, and everyone is selling all kind of training for those looking to offer any of these services. I have seen how fast, and well the auto detailing industry has grown, as well as the Auto Window Film. There's enough cars for everyone to make money, what separates all of us in between each others, is whose willing to be a business owner, and who is happier working for someone loving what they do and just taking a paycheck. Because there's a massive shortage in workers who have these skills. There's a lot of shops looking for Window Tint installers, as well as Auto Detailers.

Visualizing the Future In order to Stay Focus
The Car industry is changing, the way car are made is also changing, by 2030 EVs will be the norm. Ever since Covid 19, a lot of mechanic shop have closed down. Now is extremely hard for traditional car mechanics find a location to rent, most landlords now don't allow it. A lot of mechanics have gone mobile. So I believe the next boom will be Auto Detailing Shops, Window Tint Shops, or One Stop Shop who specialize in all of the services together that are correlated in between in more than one way. So if my theory is correct there's no reason for me to fear someone bigger than me who has a different agenda.

Update 2 Coming in a bit......
Maybe I mis-understood, but from what I gathered, your personal shop/brand directly competes with your full-time job?
As an employer, what would stop him from firing you or making you sign a non-compete?
Hopefully I missed something or else this could be a can-of-worms waiting to happen.
 

Carlitos

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This is my current GMB, is starting to pick up but we aren't there yet ton of work to still do. I do have a few 5 star great reviews as opposed to not having any. I have been posting more pictures, and posts in my GMB profile, I also add a link in those posts linking back to my website blog post if they want to read more on the topic they are reading of. I have yet to get a customer from someone searching or finding me on Google, but I have a feeling is coming if we continue to optimize my GMB.

I had invested around 2K including an ad budget of $500 for Facebook with someone who was going to run a campaign for me. All though I didn't make all my money back, I did make about 49% of the original investment. He did also help me with getting my GMB going to rank higher after I had it verify. So these numbers you are seeing above is about 2 months of working on the GMB. We are also focusing in ranking for the Google 3 Pack, but also keep in mind the shop I work for currently ranks #1 lol and we are about 20 min drive in between.

I originally had someone working on the SEO of my site. But I felt like they weren't doing a good work, so I am in talks with someone else who was a referral from the person who design my website, and continues to handle any changes of my website which I am completely happy with.

So we are going to continue focusing on GMB, SEO, the website, get a pro photographer for better pictures, and the next marketing idea is to get a video together (1 Min) showing the different services we have to offer or maybe focusing in one service, but I kinda like the one stop shop marketing video. Where someone can see a 1 minute video, and learn that we do it all and not just one service.


Maybe I mis-understood, but from what I gathered, your personal shop/brand directly competes with your full-time job?
As an employer, what would stop him from firing you or making you sign a non-compete?
Hopefully I missed something or else this could be a can-of-worms waiting to happen.
Yes we are competitors, he is a really cool dude and boss. His right hand man has actually become very good friends with me. He also helps me and doesn't discouraged me from doing my own thing. I am a good employee, he needs me in his shop for the same reasons is hard to find good employees. There's no need for a non-compete. My boss just simply would love for me to operate under his brand. He has been in the window film industry for over 25 years. The only issue is we both have different agendas with different visualizations. He is more about production, bring in the easier cars get them out quick more money in the bank, I am more about quality, bring me the harder projects but it comes with a price, perfecting my skills better so that my shop can easily stand out.
 
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