Car Count Daily

Hey shop owners! Thank you very much for joining me on this issue of Car Count Daily. My name is Ron Ipach, but you can call me Captain Car Count, because that all I’ve done for the past 20 plus years, is help thousands and thousands of auto repair shop owners, just like you, to get and then keep, all the top quality customers that your shop can handle.

To start off today’s episode, I’d like to show you this cool little pessimist mug that somebody sent me a few years back. I just happened to notice it was in the cabinet when I was looking for a coffee mug, this morning. On one side, there’s a little line that says, “This glass is now full empty.” What makes this a little ironic that I have this glass with me is, most people consider me to be the eternal optimist. I find good in every situation. So, the word “pessimism” is not frequent in my vocabulary, at least my personal vocabulary.

I always look at the bright side of things. You can find a negative, and dwell on it, or you can find the positive that equals things out in the universe, and excel on that. So, let me ask you a question. What about your Car Count? Is your Car Count glass half empty, or is it half full? In other words, are you looking at the potential lack of Car Count, and the potential for your future, as it relates to Car Count? Are you looking at is a pessimist, as in, “It’s not going to get a whole lot better,” or as an optimist, like somebody that’s going to look at their bays and say, “Yeah. It’s going to get a whole lot better. There are cars sitting on lifts in other shops, in my own area. I’m going to market to get them in.”

A lot of it depends on your mindset. If you realize there are plenty of cars out there, chances are you’re going to go and get them. If you’re looking at the negative, you’re going to find every reason in the world to support the reason why there’s not enough Car Count there, for you.

The idea popped in my head because I’ve been involved in a ping pong match with a pessimistic person, a shop owner, on one of the online forums, and he’s trying to find every reason possible why Car Count is down. Everything other than pointing the finger at himself, for not marketing to attract them. He’s trying to debunk all the positives. The fact that the average vehicle is 12 or 14 years old, that’s out there. He’s finding every reason why that’s a bunch of b.s., and it’s not appropriate, that that’s not going to help him with his Car Count. He’s looking for every negative article that’s written on Car Count, and that’s what he’s believing. Anything positive, he’s disbelieving. He’s finding reasons to keep his Car Count low. That’s a problem. His Car Count, he’s looking at it as half empty.

If you look at it half full, then you’re looking at the opportunity. You’re looking at the articles and saying, but look, I see plenty of cars driving by my shop every single day. There are plenty of cars out there. There are plenty of cars on other lifts in my neighborhood, in my area. They just don’t happen to be in my shop. Your chances are better that you’re going to go out and try to attract them, rather than look for the excuse, or the reason, as somebody would say, of why you don’t have a Car Count. You look at the solution of what it’s going to get the Car Count to your shop. This is a mindset, here. It’s all about thinking on the positive side.

A lot of people, this might not be your bag. I get that, but I’ll tell you, if you look at the opportunity, chances are you’re going to go and grab it. If you look at the negative, chances are you’re going to leave it alone, and you’re just going to piss, moan, and whine about it. Don’t do that. There are plenty of cars out there. You can do this. You can attract as many cars to your shop as you need to keep yourself extremely busy with good, quality customers in your shop.

Focus on these. Focus on these videos, and you will get success when you start using these strategies.