Common Mistakes Among Shop Owners, Seizing Opportunities

In most businesses as in life, opportunities have to be seized and when you’re living a good moment, why not take full advantage of it? There is an old saying my father always used in his line of work, “Strike while the iron is hot” and this advice is just as valuable now as it’s ever been. But just because you seize an opportunity, don’t stop planning ahead for rainy days.

If you own a repair shop and you provide great services at reasonable prices, chances are word of mouth will get around and you’ll attract new business. When opportunities arise, you’ve got to take full advantage and more than once we’ve seen a business open, have a huge following for a few months and then appear to just vanish out of thin air. Why is that though? The reason is, poor management.

Opportunities are ephemeral and even though your repair shop might be prospering, you still need auto repair shop marketing to ensure it always will and not have it be just 2 minutes of fame. Move forward, don’t let the hype of a good period stop you from always thinking ahead because let’s face it, you will have slow days and when you do, it is the thinking ahead that will have you ahead of your competitors.

Auto Repair Shop Marketing Strategies

If you’ve read our past blogs you’d know that a successful marketing strategy doesn’t happen overnight. A marketing plan has many stages and in order to thoroughly execute one you must figure out what your goals are. Let’s say your main goal is to increase awareness and name recognition so when the hype of your business might die down you’ll still have means of acquiring new customers.

Your marketing plan should be fluid and on-going, doesn’t mean you have to invest all of your time but always make sure your name is being put out there. Be it Social Media (Facebook), Radio, Newspapers, magazines, flyers or any other marketing outlet you see works for you. Each one of these facets requires planning and it might seem like a lot of work but here is where you learn what works and what doesn’t. It was Henry Ford who said “Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary for a worthwhile achievement” so even the creator of modern consumerism had to make mistakes in order to be successful.

First things First - Know your Clientele

Very few little things in life can be attributed to luck and if you’re part of the group of people that think it is, good luck waiting for customers to magically appear at your doorstep.

I knew you’d be back.

The first step in this ongoing forever changing marketing strategy is to learn about local demographics. You have to learn about the audience before you try to sell them on something. This means doing some research on the town or city you live in. How age demographics, sex, income, the works.

Next, we believe you should do some research of successful repair shops in the area. Learn why they’re the best, what makes them the best and what they might be doing that you’re not. “They have more money” is not an excuse and there are plenty of small businesses in the world that are giving big shops a run for their money. 

Last but not least, analyze your shop’s goals. Yes, we know your goal is to make money but what are your goals as a shop? Do you want to increase maintenance services? More oil changes? Tire sales? Identify your goals and get to work on devising a strategy.

So in the end, some businesses may start off strong, for others it takes a lot longer but every shop experiences a brief period of lots of business. Take advantage of this newly acquired fame but don’t neglect the idea of prospering. Always think ahead and you’ll have a steady influx of work year-round.

What productive measures are you taking during your slow periods of the year?