If I have to i would start off small, with just selling car audio, installing stero systems, doing window tinting.
is this profitable?
any tips or idea for more stuff to do in the shop?
thanks for any help
Anonymous
Favorite Answer
Detroit.....
First you need to contact vender's of Performance Automotive products. Ask about being a dealer for their products. They will at no charge to you, come to your business and set up a display of their products, manifolds, carburetors, headers, chrome tail pipes and 1,000 or more products.........set up in your business for free.
These products are "On consignment" which means when you sell a product, they will replace it and bill you in a monthly billing. Which means....
You collect the money for the product and installation and pay the bill next month....."Holding the money for their products for the month is called a business "FLOAT." (private financing)
If products sit in your display area, it does not cost you anything....and gives a lot of expensive decoration, for a custom shop.
Things like Headers, you can send out to a muffler shop for installation and add to the price for your profit. The muffler shops will greatly discount their labor, so You can make money. (So will Carb. shops, and Mechanics Shops for heads and manifolds, and Nos products.)
Lift kits and Lowering kits are not that hard to install and are hard to find "ON THE SELF" to buy right now.
I would include at least two "Automotive Pen-stripe displays"
That will bring in the body shop guys.....and they will send you radio and window tinting work.
There is no charge for these products, usually monthly a driver will come by and replace the products sold that month to keep their display full, and send you a bill at the end of the month.
The more products you stock....The more interest your business will generate. The different manufacturers will have monthly special and include your business and address in the advertisements in news papers and hot rod magazines for free.
Oil filters, oil, air filters, "custom air filters" and on and on.
Deck out your business with national products line and it will turn in to profits before you know it. And it will cost you nothing to do that!
So get going on asking about dealer information for national products and manufactures.
So you will need a "Proforma" ( what your business should make in the first year) and a single sheet "Personal Financial Statement."
If you can't bull-**** up a good looking financial statement, ask for help from the SBA..."score" guys.
Keep the paper work simple and neat....it will sell it self.
Use the 50K your flashing around.....just for that, "flashing around" and to pump up your finical statement and "cash flow pro-forma"
That will give you 1) a great looking business 2) extra cash across the counter occasionally 3) listing in National publications and local publications, and most of all 4) creditability.
Then "Dude" you can install your window tint and radios like you would had anyway!
But this way it will be doing with a future....and "Class."
You don't need any employees, as you can contract out each job to others or other shops.
When you get a fair amount of work in a line of products then you can hire an employee and do the work "IN HOUSE."
If you look around there are hardly any stores that stock a full line of "custom" intake manifold for HOT RODDERS with a complete set of carburetors new in the box. I would include the 671 AND 471 "Blower" products and the install parts.
Just having that hanging on a wall will give you a lot of traffic for Hot Rod guys. No shops do that.....so if some one is looking for that product.....Your shop will be the place to Go!
In a 4,000 sf shop, I would use the front 2000 sf just for display and sales. The "rodders" toy shop what ever they need in new products.....no mail order....sell it over the counter. Right Now...cash in the register!
So Keep your MONEY in the bank.....if you think you will need it......get a job instead. The business will pull its own weight and more......."If you got lots of stuff to sell!" and you still have the radio's and custom speakers and window tint, you can contract with "new car dealers" to do all their work including boom boxes for new cars.
When a new car is sold, people want extras....the dealership don't supply or install them.....they send it out to shops like yours......and you bill the dealership.
The dealers will keep you busy.....if you advertise, you may be to busy to service the real money customers "the dealers."
Well Detroit......are you that slick, to pull off some simple business tricks......
If you think it won't work....walk in Wall Mart, Wall Mart does not own nothing in their stores.....the manufacturers stock their shelves.......not wall mart....
All Wall Mart has is the Building, the Name, and Cash registers. Their tire shop is just a space "Wall Mart leases out to discount tires shops"
Wall Mart just collects the money! All the products are owned by the manufactures. Every grocery store in America operates the same way.....Toys or Us...its the same.
That is the way its done, Detroit..... and it cost you nothing.
Then when you go to the bank next year for a loan to build you own building.....List all the free inventory and the prices and tell them you have "X Million" dollars in inventory and you would like funds to build a new building.
Those turkeys will drive to your house to get you to borrow the money from them....instead of other banks.
IN the real world "Credit is just for dumb People with Jobs!" Not business people.
Its not what you do.......its "How you do it!"
A tint shop...thats good.....but why not a Tint Shop with a free Million dollar inventory....and some "cash sales" on the side!
Its cost......EXACTLY THE SAME!
So, What ya think..... You got the Nuts, to pull it off?
Its up to you.......
(Houston)
Anonymous
idk how much it costs to start up a car shop, but my friend started the same way you say you will, audio and window tinting. then he got really big without n e advertisement at all, just relying on customers/friends to spread the word about his shop. now he does some big jobs and can even tune cars and install big projects like superchargers and turbo.
***50k would be a good start i think, but you could always take out a loan if you need more.
Jason B
No. That would be enough to pay your first employee for the first year he worked at your shop.
blackheart_987
Yes, if you are very,very care full. just stick with your business plan to stat with and if you can grow a bussiness work with it.