I love teaching sales for quite a few reasons, but the biggest one is that without sales there is no business. As auto reconditioning professionals, we tend to think that we are in the business of whatever services we offer. In my case, I often identify myself as being in the PDR business. But in reality, we are in the business of marketing and selling those services. I could be the greatest tech on the planet, but if there aren’t potential customers walking through the door on a regular basis, my PDR business isn’t really a business at all. The most successful auto reconditioning business owners in the country apply a heavy focus to sales and marketing because they understand that great services are one thing, but turning those services into revenue is another. In this article, I walk you through the first simple point from my sales training session called “Shifting Into a Sales Mindset”. I recently spoke to 50 techs in Denver about ways they could increase revenue for their auto reconditioning business and really take their business to the next level. This article dives deeply into one of those ways.
“If there aren’t potential customers walking through the door, my business isn’t really a business at all.”
The first thing I talk about with techs who sit through my training sessions is revenue per ticket. The easiest way to increase your bottom-line revenue doesn’t necessarily take spending more money on marketing or spending more time on sales. Most of us are set in our ways with how we value the services we offer and are missing huge opportunities to make more money simply by increasing the amount we charge for the work we’re already doing. Most auto reconditioning businesses could be making 10% more revenue without increasing the number of customers they serve. The first step to this process is knowing what your revenue per ticket is. Take your monthly revenue divided by the jobs you completed that month to get this number. Write it on a board somewhere. Make sure everyone has it memorized. Your goal should be to increase this number by 10% over the next six months. If raising your prices sounds easier said than done, you’re not wrong. But here’s where my system comes into play.
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In my company, we start with an easy-to-explain premise. It’s easy to explain to new employees and to new customers. It’s starts with a baseline price associated with baseline work. This baseline is the smallest or easiest job your business can handle. If you’re in detailing, it could be an exterior cleaning package with no extreme mess. If you’re in PDR, it could be an inch or smaller dent with minimal depth and nothing in the way. Build this baseline pricing into Mobile Tech RX so you know where to start. That’s the key: Your baseline pricing is only your starting point.
“Your baseline is the smallest or easiest job your business can handle.”
Any additional information that makes that repair more difficult should raise the cost of that repair. Mobile Tech RX makes this easy by including steps in the estimating process to identify variables that should impact your pricing but, if you’re not using an estimating tool like Mobile Tech RX, you can start with assigning dollar values to the most common increases in difficulty you come across. Start with your baseline, and add pre-set price increases when you come across changes that make the original repair more difficult. For detailers, this could be a new concept. Many detailing companies use pre-set pricing packages and fit every car into one of those packages. But no job is the same! How much money is being left on the table by not considering the variables of each job for each estimate?
Steps to take:
- Identify your current revenue per ticket number.
- Set your baseline work and baseline price.
- Create a list of common changes to the baseline work and the dollar amount you should charge for them.
- Consider building unique estimates per vehicle to take advantage of each change to baseline work.)
If you’ve identified your revenue per ticket, set baseline work and a baseline price, and talked through common changes that make the baseline work more difficult and the increased pricing associated with them, you’re probably thinking about how you’ll possibly sell these higher prices to customers without them negotiating. This is where Mobile Tech RX becomes the best tool in your toolbox. When an estimate is handed to a customer on a piece of paper with minimal explanation, it’s tough to sell. When a detailed estimate is handed to a customer on a tablet with a professional-looking software showing them why the job is worth the dollar amount, we cut negotiations down by almost 100%.
Partner this revenue per ticket strategy with polished closing strategies, reading body language, and understanding verbal queues, and your business is well on its way to seeing a huge jump in bottom-line revenue. If you offer a great service, you should make great money for it.