Old and newer techs leaving and hardly any new ones willing to replace them.

[Auto Doc's]

Jack of all trades about covers it.

I stopped doing free estimates and taking in random customers or "emergencies". Now I only rely on a network of known good customers referrals. Business has been steady without too much hustle and bustle.

Anyone who is referred to me already understands that my time is not free and all parts costs (over $50.00) will be paid up front before any work begins. if they cannot deal with that, they can go elsewhere.

Some are a little shocked and expect for me to pay for everything to fix their problem machines. That's not happening anymore.

It definitely reduced the number of abandon machines sitting that were already repaired along my money and credit accounts being tied up by slow/no payers.

 

[Tiger Small Engine]

Jack of all trades about covers it.

I stopped doing free estimates and taking in random customers or "emergencies". Now I only rely on a network of known good customers referrals. Business has been steady without too much hustle and bustle.

Anyone who is referred to me already understands that my time is not free and all parts costs (over $50.00) will be paid up front before any work begins. if they cannot deal with that, they can go elsewhere.

Some are a little shocked and expect for me to pay for everything to fix their problem machines. That's not happening anymore.

It definitely reduced the number of abandon machines sitting that were already repaired along my money and credit accounts being tied up by slow/no payers.

New potential customers that “have to get equipment fixed” immediately I can not and will not help. They can keep calling until a shop will jump through hoops for them. I have a minimum diagnostic charge so they at least have some skin in the game.
I only work on four brands of handheld equipment, so I don’t get stuck with loads of off brand equipment that won’t run often because of compression issues.
The longer you stay in business, the more selective you can be. Every week someone calls about a minor repair and implies that “it will only take 20 minutes” when I say I am a month out on repairs. So essentially they want me to bump them up over all the other customers to make $30 bucks. Not how I do business. Once your customer base is established the repeat business and referrals give you plenty of good business.

 

[StarTech]

I had some new customers just to test my abilities before becoming good customers over the years. Handhelds are usually done near cost as they tend to bring more profitable business. They are fairly easy to do here as that what I was limited to when my brother had the business in 2008-09 and I was using the funds to pay for the internet and office supplies. At first it took a long time to get the repairs done but now most are under an hour. I actually took a PU load of 2 cycles my brother refused to look at as he was just going junk out, repaired 3/4 of them and made a profit. Of course I wrote a lot in labor at the time as I chalk that to learning the repairs.

Now I don't do advertising as that usually brings in the deadbeat customers. You know those who wants something done for nothing types.

If customer wants a rush job here it costs them 1-1/2 times the normal shop rate. If they come by on Sundays, its 2x so most will wait for normal business hours.

Most customers don't really know what is involved in a repair. I had one that insisted it only took 30 minutes to remove and install a horizontal CC shaft drive engine. So I ask for him to prove it; I even offered to let him to use my tools. He declined of course and he is no longer a customer as I barred him from the shop.

And I just barred another customer for trying an old con job. I don't do work before approval and he just called wanting to know if I had the equipment ready after two weeks of him not approving the estimate. He assumed I was stupid enough to do the work without approval. The equipment was return just like it came in except it had UV dye in the oil.

Now I had to program my phone so it doesn't ring after hours just so I have my peace of mind. Leave a message or I don't call them back. I just demand my private time.

 

[Auto Doc's]

Hi StarTech,

Back when I was a JD service manager, I used to tell my more opinionated techs that I would gladly make them manager for a day if they wanted to see if they could do the job better than me. They knew that I was not joking and quickly backed off with all the gripping and complaining.

It's kind of funny, it seems like everyone wants to be "in charge" until they actually are actually put in that position.

Self-employed and being their "own boss" to many seem like some kind of ideal dream.

Being a self-employed one-man operation, it only takes a short time and a near empty bank account to figure out that "window shoppers", and the phone estimate type people will burn up all of your time if you let them. Mix in a few telemarketers and product vendors trying to make a sale and there goes a majority of the time that you could have actually been working on equipment for paying customers.

Equipment problems are simple compared to people problems. Eliminating distractions, time management along with good record keeping makes all the difference. The phase "Don't suffer Fools" comes to mind.

Most of the younger generations (past 40 years at least) have seldom been taught good management skills, work ethics or raised in or around a hard-working family.