5 Tips for Starting Your Own Auto Body Repair Shop
The decision to start your own auto body repair shop is a big one. If you have never started a business before, you might not know how to get things started on the right foot.
Thankfully, there are ways you can increase the odds of success when you open a body shop.
In fact, if you keep reading, you’ll learn 5 tips you can put into action right now so that your body shop experiences the kind of success you’re aiming for.
Let’s begin!
1. Startup Capital
If you are thinking about starting a body shop you need to think about startup capital. A body shop is the kind of business that requires a lot of front-end investment.
In an ideal world, you would use your own money to fund this business. But if you do not have the required funds lying around you’ll need to think about seeking out a loan. You will find that there are banks that provide loans specifically for small businesses.
This might sound obvious, but when you take out a loan remember that you need to pay it back. No matter how poorly your business does. If you do not put this money to good use, you will be saddled with a large amount of debt that might hinder your ability to start future businesses.
There are three key things you will need to think about for startup capital –
- Location costs
- Staff costs
- Equipment costs
You will face costs outside of these three. But these are the ones that will likely take up most of your budget.
2. Source the Right Equipment
If you want to provide a good service, you will need the right equipment. The kinds of equipment you invest in will depend on the kind of body shop you are running.
If you want a thorough list of all the items you need to buy, consider speaking to other body shop owners.
These body shop owners will have a good sense of what you need and what you do not need. They will also be able to let you know where you can source your equipment at the right price.
3. Hire Quality Staff and Train Them Well
Running a body shop is hard work. You are going to need the help of some expert staff if you want to experience big wins.
Finding high-quality staff is never easy. But it’s possible if you put the time into searching for the right people. You might want to consider hiring people who have experience with working in a body shop.
You also want to hire people you are comfortable working with. No matter how good someone’s technical skills are if you aren’t comfortable working with them you will run into issues.
You should also think about how you are going to train staff. More specifically, if you have any kind of special procedures/rules in your body shop, make sure new staff are aware of such things.
This might include training related to handling client vehicles as well as safety training.
Safety training is especially important as a body shop can be a dangerous place. You might want to ensure your staff knows first aid. You may even want to run through some scenarios, that prepare your staff, in the event someone does get injured.
4. Think About How You’re Going to Source Customers
A body shop without customers is a bad thing. You want to have a plan in place, that dictates how you are going to source customers.
For most people that own a body shop, online marketing is a good way to go. You might want to think about running some Facebook Ads.
Facebook Ads will allow you to have a tight level of control over who your ads are shown to. This makes it easy for you to run specific offers, towards specific kinds of people.
For instance, you could run ad campaigns, that are designed to attract the attention of a specific kind of car owner. You could even create campaigns designed to market towards people of a certain age.
Do not expect to get Facebook Ads right the first time around, as paid advertising is generally a hard thing to get right. With a little bit of practice, though, it won’t be long before you’re using Facebook to generate a lot of customers.
5. Constantly Review
It is important you constantly review the status of your body shop. This means that you need to always consider how things can be changed for the better.
You might think that this involves thinking about more ways you can make money with your body shop. Whilst that is one aspect of this concept, you also need to think about the entire operation.
Think about how you can improve the amount of time it takes to do a certain kind of job. Seek out feedback from customers, that helps you figure out what you can do to make them happier. Ask your staff what you can do to them happier too.
Are You Prepared to Open up an Auto Body Repair Shop?
An auto body repair shop can be a great business for people who love cars. If you have no idea how to run a business, though, you might not know where to begin.
In this post, we’ve taken a look at some of the things you need to think about when opening a body shop of your own. You need to think about startup capital. You should also think about how you are going to hire staff.
It’s also important for you to think about improving your body shop over time. If you focus on doing this, your body shop has a better chance of surviving and not contributing to the stats related to closed businesses.
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