| Location: | Castle Rock, Colorado |
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| Description: | Turnkey auto repair shop in affluent bedroom community. Loyal customer base, room to grow. Perfectly suited for an experienced technician looking to go into business. Shop has 3 lifts, benches, various diagnostic equipment, AC machine, etc... Great website. Strong cash flow, very low overhead. Full service shop that specializes in transmission repair. Owner willing to make any reasonable deal due to health/age. |
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| Yearly Gross Sales: | $ 265,000 |
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| Yearly Net Profit: | $ 120,000 |
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| Number of Leads per Week: | 22 |
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| Average Major Repair Order Amount: | $ $750 |
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| Years Est.: | 7+ |
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| Number of Employees: | 1 |
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| Yearly Total Parts Expense: | $ $45,992 |
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| Competition: | BUSINESS DESCRIPTION Serving Castle Rock since 2004. Initially, I had a 5 bay shop with 3 full time technicians. The original shop grossed over $1m a year in sales, netting approximately 9-11% per year. I closed the big shop in 2009 while looking for a smaller shop with much less overhead. The new location fits the bill, allowing me to drastically slash all overhead while providing a clean work environment that has 3 lifts and plenty of workspace. The shop is a full service automotive repair facility that specializes in driveability issues, transmission diagnosis and repair, air conditioning repair and emission related failures. A one stop service center, performing oil changes, scheduled maintenance, brakes and suspension repairs, and every and anything that falls in between. The only thing not done is tire repair or service. We are a 2 person operation. My wife handles the phones, customer service, sales, chasing parts and shuttling customers. I handle all repair work ( I have been an ASE Master Tech since 1974), estimates, marketing and accounting. The philosophy at is simple….we treat everyone like you would like anyone to treat your Mother. We perform full inspections on each and every vehicle, and teach and advise the client about their options. Teach and advise clients what is required and why, and teach clients about the benefits of maintenance and repair. We follow-up each repair with thank you letters generated from out Mitchell based POS system. Tech info comes from Mitchell on demand and AllData. MARKET INFORMATION There are 22 other auto repair shops in Castle Rock, which currently has a population of 40,000 plus. Two are quick lubes that employ kids. Six are chain stores that are essentially tire stores, and we handle much of their heavy work, such as transmission, differential and transfer case repairs for two of those. The remaining shops have been in business in Castle Rock for many years, with 2 having been passed down from father to son. They are competent, but seem to feel very comfortable with what they have. They aren’t particularly modern or customer friendly. In the past, we have been voted the #1 Auto Repair Shop in Castle Rock 3 for consecutive years by the readers of Castle Rock Magazine. The CCN Newspaper (the local newspaper) voted us the “Best of the Best” in auto repair for 2007 and 2008. Now, we generally do not compete with the ‘big’ boys…. We prefer to service our customers, create relationships and go home. Because our overhead is low, we can be very particular about whose vehicle we work on. We offer a 2 year, 24,000 mi warranty on general repairs and a 3 year, unlimited mileage warranty on major drivetrain repairs. MARKETING PLAN Even though we prefer to stay small and maintain a specific customer base, we do market aggressively throughout Castle Rock, Larkspur, Franktown and Sedalia. Our primary target is multiple car families, with family income between $90,000 and $140,000.00 yearly. A person who needs his/her vehicle for work or getting kids to and from activities, and has the means to pay for quality auto repair is the ideal customer. Year after year, we have honed our marketing efforts, weeding out efforts that bare no rewards. Marketing is like a funnel, with customers from numerous efforts funneling thru to our door. We use our own in-house DNL direct marketing piece that is inserted into a local area newsletter once a month. We market with email blasts and an online presence with YP.com and DexOnline, as well as with RepairPal and other consumer based automotive internet sights. We are ATRA members and have an online presence on their website. We have our own website and occasionally we try new avenues to get our name out. We subscribe to a new homebuyers listing and market to these new home owners with a marketing piece sent directly to their homes. We mail out Thank You cards after every repair, and we market to our customers with special offers. FINANCIAL Thru the first 6 months of 2011, we grossed $143,576.61 with a gross profit of $97,583.85 (68%). The last 2 months, GP actually jumped to 70% as we have adjusted our parts matrix up and in July we increased our labor rate from $67.50 to $74.35. Our goal was to decrease the amount of work while maintaining income. The price changes have not affected business at all. Currently, at the half way mark of July, we are at $16,291 in gross sales. April and May were both $30k months. We closed the shop and went on a 10 day vacation in June, and still did,$18,723 gross sales for the month. We are at the low end of the labor rate here in town, with the high end at $104 per hour and the average at $80-86 per hour. We service approximately 46 vehicles a month. |
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