Please Rate/Compare/Suggest Improvements

[ghostridersa]

Good Day members of DK

I have been in South Africa, (Cape Town), in the motor trade for 26 years, qualified as a VW Master Mechanic in 1992 and then moved over to BMW Main Dealer in 1993 where I became Workshop Manager until I left in 1999 to start my own business.

Started off working from home and never advertised as I had more than enough work. However due to a lack of working space 2 years ago I hired a small workshop of 125 sq/meters and moved over mainly into Subaru and Mini Cooper modifications although my heart is with the german vehicles. Within 2 years the workshop had grown too small and I found myself parking up to 25 vehicles outside every night which caused sleepless nights.

Recently I hired another workshop of 320sq/meters, (while keeping the smaller shop only for Subaru and mini). What I have now found in the 3 months that I have been in the new bigger workshop is that again I have run out of parking space but hiring a bigger shop at this stage is not an option from a financial view point and the fact that I have signed a two year lease on the new shop so for now I have to make myself at home where I am now.

I just can not seem to settle in and set the shop up it appeal to the Higher End Customers. All the customers I have now are the word of mouth ones who have followed me over the years and until 3 months ago I have never had to advertise until now. 80% of the work I do now is mostly labour intensive mechanical work (such as engine overhaul, servicing etc), as I only started to move into the electronic diagnostics and repair field over the past 2 years. I have 7 staff members, (some who you will see in my pics), 3 of which are qualified and the others semi-skilled. I have never advertised but find myself now needing to.

So bottom line is I am hoping that some of the members here would give me some advise on the best most effective advertising ways you use, view my workshop pics and rate it and offer some honest advise or criticism on my shop and what I can do to improve it.

Many thanks in advance

[ghostridersa]

Some more pics

[ghostridersa]

here is more

[ghostridersa]

pics continued

[ghostridersa]

continued shop pics

[ghostridersa]

futher workshop pics

[ghostridersa]

Photos continued

[ghostridersa]

workshop photos continued

[ghostridersa]

Rest of workshop pics

[ghostridersa]

And old shop pics

[Meat-Head]

wow, you have balls, or lots of money.

how far apart are the rwo shops?

run as SEPRATE bussiness, if one goes nust lost the lot.

OFF TOPIC

insrall fire sprunkler system, if you hace 21 cars tgats like $21 worth of cars.

do you really need adVERTISEMENT s?

big Digital Kaos - Cable & Satellite Forum sign is a zMust

[daniersms]

Nice pics --- I have kinda the same problem --too many cars not enaugh skilled people.Put larger more visible boards outside and use the yellow pages

[ghostridersa]

Hi Meat-Head, thanks for your feed back. Yes the two businesses are run separately, different names and bank accounts but only 300 meters apart. ( Lol what 21 cars are you talking about?) Don't have sprikler system, costs to much.

What I wanted to know is how do the guys overseas advertise to pull in new customers? I ahve never had to advertise but have always just settled with the low to middle class vehicle repairs. Want to pull in the high end cars where all the money is.

wow, you have balls, or lots of money.

how far apart are the rwo shops?

run as SEPRATE bussiness, if one goes nust lost the lot.

OFF TOPIC

insrall fire sprunkler system, if you hace 21 cars tgats like $21 worth of cars.

do you really need adVERTISEMENT s?

big Digital Kaos - Cable & Satellite Forum sign is a zMust

[ghostridersa]

A quarter page advert in the yellow pages over here costs around R25 000 per year which is a lot of money to put out there without promise of return

.

Nice pics --- I have kinda the same problem --too many cars not enaugh skilled people.Put larger more visible boards outside and use the yellow pages

[daniersms]

Dont have to be a quater page what I mean is Name in bold letters in Afrikaans section and bold in english section --- done wonders for me in the Free State