Operations
Operations questions, answered.
Systems, SOPs, scheduling, and getting the shop to run without you.
How do I write an SOP for my shop?
Record yourself doing the task. Type it up as a checklist. Hand it to a new person and let them improve it.
What software should I use to run my shop?
One job management tool, one accounting tool, one calendar. Pick the boring ones. Don't shop forever.
How do I schedule a productive day as an owner?
Owner work in the morning before phones get loud. Production and meetings after. Email twice a day, not all day.
How do I track how long jobs actually take?
A simple clock-in on the phone, by job. After 20 jobs you'll know your real cost. Without this, your prices are guesses.
How do I stop being the bottleneck in my own shop?
Find the three decisions only you can make. Train someone on two of them in the next 90 days.
How do I handle customer no-shows?
Confirm 24 hours ahead by text. Charge a deposit. Bill a fee for repeat offenders. Or stop scheduling them.
How do I handle warranty callbacks?
Go fast, make it right, learn from it. The callback is data, not failure. The repeat callback is a process problem.
How much inventory should I keep on the truck or in the shop?
Enough for the top 10 jobs you do, not one more. Inventory is cash sitting in a corner.
How do I handle a vendor who keeps letting me down?
Tell them once, in writing, with a deadline. Start sourcing a backup the same day. Fire them after the next miss.
How do I handle a busy season without burning out?
Raise prices to slow demand to what you can do well, not to what you can technically do. Quality dies first under volume.
How do I handle a slow season?
Use the time to build, don't panic. Maintenance, training, marketing setup, and calls to past customers. Then ride it out.
Should I buy a new truck or van for the business?
Buy used, three to five years old, low miles, from a fleet sale. New depreciates 20 percent the day you drive off. Save it for when the business is mature.
What do I do when I'm overbooked?
Call the customer before they call you. Honest update, real new ETA, and an option. They forgive late, they don't forgive surprise.
How do I stop drowning in paperwork?
Do invoicing daily, not weekly. Do receipts the same week, not at tax time. Most paperwork pain is just procrastination compounded.
What do I do if I think an employee is stealing?
Don't accuse without evidence. Audit quietly first. If you're sure, fire that day with documentation in hand. Don't try to rehabilitate.
Do I need an office or shop space?
Not until the business won't fit in your house or your truck. Pay for space when storage, customers, or team genuinely need it, not for ego.
Should I install parts a customer buys themselves?
No, or only with a signed waiver and full labor rate, no warranty on the part. It's rarely worth the comeback risk for the money you save the customer.
Who pays when a repair comes back, the shop or the tech?
The shop eats the customer-facing cost every time, no exceptions on that. Whether the tech eats any of it internally depends on whether it was a mistake or bad luck.
When should I add a second bay or a third tech?
When your bays are consistently booked out more than a week and you're turning away work you'd take, not when you're just busy this month.
What do I do about techs who won't clock into jobs properly?
Make clocking in the job the same physical action as picking up the ticket, and treat unclocked time as lost data you have to chase every single time it happens.
How do I turn down a job I can't do profitably?
Say it plainly and quote what it would actually cost if you did take it. Most customers self-select out once they hear a real number for a job that would eat your whole day.
What do I do about cars sitting on my lot waiting for customer approval?
Set a firm storage and decision deadline in writing at drop-off, and enforce it the same way every time. A lot full of unapproved cars is dead capital and a liability sitting outside your building.
What should my warranty policy be on parts and labor?
Match or slightly beat your parts supplier's warranty on parts, and offer a clear labor warranty of 12 months or 12,000 miles on your own workmanship, in writing, on every invoice.
Should I take on used car dealer inspection and recon work?
Only at a set volume rate that still protects your margin, and only if it doesn't crowd out your higher-margin retail customers during peak hours.
What's my legal exposure for tuning a customer's diesel or gas engine, especially around emissions?
Real, and it's bigger than most shops treat it. Delete tunes and defeat devices carry federal penalties that land on the shop, not just the customer, so know your state and federal rules before you sell a tune.
Should I install customer-supplied parts on a performance or diesel build?
Only with full labor rate, a signed waiver, and the customer paying for the parts you'd need to correct a bad or wrong part after you're already into the job. On a build, a customer's cheap online turbo can cost you a full week of labor if it fails on the stand.
Can I charge storage fees on a build the customer abandoned or stopped paying for?
Yes, and you should have it in writing before the vehicle ever comes in the door. A daily storage fee that starts after a defined grace period is standard in this trade and gives you real leverage when a customer goes quiet.
Do I warranty labor on a modified or built engine, and how much?
Warranty your workmanship, not the parts and not the customer's driving habits. A short, specific labor warranty with clear exclusions protects you far better than a vague 'we stand behind our work' line that means nothing when a rod lets go.
How do I manage a waiting list and lead times for build work without losing customers?
Quote lead time honestly, in writing, with a range not a date, and require a deposit to hold a slot on the calendar. A waiting list you manage loosely turns into a dozen angry customers all convinced they were promised a spot that doesn't exist.
When do I fire a build customer instead of finishing the job?
When they've changed the scope three or more times without paying for it, when they treat every invoice as a negotiation, or when they've made it clear they'll blame you the moment anything goes wrong. Finishing a bad build relationship rarely gets easier the further into it you go.
What do I do when a customer wants more power than their platform can reliably handle?
Tell them the real ceiling in writing, offer the supporting mods that would actually get them there safely, and let them choose with full information instead of quietly building past what the parts can take. Building it anyway without saying anything puts the eventual failure on your invoice, not just their decision.
How do I handle a customer blaming the shop for a blown motor after a tune or build?
Pull the logs, pull the paperwork, and separate what you can actually prove from what you're just being accused of. If your documentation is solid, stay calm and factual; if it's thin, that's the lesson for next time, not a reason to cave on a claim you don't actually owe.
How do I know when to stop taking one-off custom build jobs?
When your R&D and rework hours are consistently eating your margin on novel builds, or when a couple of repeatable builds would fill your bays with far less risk and headache. One-off work is often more prestige than profit once you actually run the numbers on the hours it eats.
When should I add a second truck?
When your first truck is booked out more than a week and you're turning away same-week work, not when you're just busy. Run the math on what the truck needs to bill before you sign for it.
How do I dispatch when every customer says it's an emergency?
Build a short, specific triage list so your dispatcher isn't deciding urgency call by call, and hold the line on the schedule for anything that doesn't meet it.
How should I handle callbacks and warranty labor?
Fix it fast, don't charge the customer twice, and track callbacks by tech so you know if it's a training problem or a parts problem.
My sub didn't show up. How do I replace him mid-job?
Give him one direct conversation and a real deadline. If he misses that too, you already have your answer, get someone else lined up before you cut him loose.
How do I close out a punch list that never seems to end?
Cap it at one walkthrough with one written list and one deadline. Rolling, informal punch lists never end because nobody agreed on when they would.
Should I take on a job outside my normal type of work?
Only if you can price the unknown honestly and you have someone on the crew who's actually done it before. 'We'll figure it out' is how bids turn into losses.
How do I run two crews when I can only physically be on one site?
You need a lead on the site you're not at who can make real decisions, not just relay questions to you. Without that, two crews just means two things going wrong at once.
How do I build an employee handbook I'll actually use, not just a binder that sits on a shelf?
Write ten pages of the policies that come up every year, in plain language, and actually enforce every line in it. A fifty-page handbook nobody reads protects you less than a ten-page one everyone has actually opened.
How do I cover my own vacation without the business shutting down while I'm gone?
Build coverage in stages over months, not the week before you leave, starting with a written list of every decision only you currently make. If that list has more than a few items on it, that's your actual project before you can leave.