I figured this would be the place to post this. since i see allot of you guys posting your shop projects ext... first off i want to ask what was the one main thing/things that helped your fab/performance shop get going from ground zero. I'm asking this cause i went to work for my self about two months ago. and i find my self getting bummed when i think i have a cool fab job and then the customer tells me hes is having a nother shop do it. i have been a flat rate tech for two years for a few shops, worked in r&d for Shelby in Vegas for a few months. so i think for my age I'm fairly rounded. not saying I'm near as good as any of the shops on H-T but just as good or better than the ones in my town that call them self's performance shops. i still have lots to learn. I'm building (for the past 2 years) a sfwd car right now thinking, hopping that can be of some advertising and to show my work and #1 reason is cause i love to compete. i have yet to get a business license (need to do that). i get a fair amount of wrench jobs from word to mouth. my father is fairly well known (F&F Vin diesel of the 70s ) were i live, so he gets me a good portion of work for me. i will do what i have to to pay the bills. but would like to get more into the fab/performance of the industry. any advice, suggestions would be much appreciated.
thanks Justin @ SDPerformance

 

justin,

i do this stuff on the side of my regular industrial customers.... that is where more $ can be made. not many people want to pay $ for their hobby. corporations will pay anything in a pinch to get a job done.

 

A couple of I would mention is where isthe contact info in your sig? Also niticed there is no active website off your profile on HT. Just those two things would help to an extent and there is no reason not to do it. At least get a single page bio website with contact info, nothing fancy just something to advertise. Not sure where youi are in northern Utah but I'm in Utah county and get jobs all the time, hardly any in Utah County or Utah for that matter so you can bring in business from elsewhere for sure. Sounds like you do need to get a few local cars to work on though since it seems like you might have a shop that does bolt on stuff as well as fab work.

Weirtech brought up a great point about diversifying with some "boring stuff" to pay the bills and build the side of the business you have an interest in. I have quite a few industrial clients. Until you are very well established diversify as much as possible. It also sounds like you are waiting for people to come to you, go find customers. Other than that just work on your skills and be the best at what you do, be known for your integrity and charge the right price. Way too many shops go under for not charging enough thinking they will make it up in volume or something. If the guy down the street is driving his business on lowest price its just a matter of time before he's gone. Sorry for the soapbox but just a few ideas for you.

 

My buddy just opened a performance shop, and we're almost through the first year.

1. Performance work won't pay the bills...At least at first. You need to build a reputation and a solid customer base before you can solely do performance-oriented stuff. Brake jobs, tune-ups, fuel-pumps...All that BS stuff...It's easy to do, people would rather pay you to do it than do it themselves, and it pays great. A couple hundred profit in parts and labor for an hour's work is what pays the bills. It's dirty work and it sucks, but it's simple and keeps your lights on.

2. Advertise. Get business cards made if you haven't already. We got ours on e-bay(1000 for like 50 bucks)...The better deals will do two sided cards in full color for that price. Get 2000...You'll go through them like nothing. Give a few to every customer, give like 10-15 to a few friends to pass out, leave a little stack at Autozone, etc. You want them everywhere. Always give customers like 2-3 at least...That way if they're ever talking to someone about their car, they'll mention you and give the guy a card...Potential customer(who is obviously into race-cars, etc)

3. Internet. This goes with #2. Get a website up and try to get it out there. Don't ***** local forums up or anything(you'll be 'that guy'), but put it in your sig and maybe even mention it in a post if you're giving tech advice. "Do this blah blah, he you could even run it over to my shop, SUPER BADASS PERFORMANCE, and I could give you a hand". I put ads on craigslist too. Usually one in the Automotive Services setion for, you guessed it, automotive services...and one in the Auto parts for sale section plugging the shop and any sales or deals or what have you. It doesn't hurt, it's free...Craigslists is a bunch of bust-outs around here at least so it doesn't really get us much, but it's worth my 5 minutes to click 'Repost Ad'.

4. Vehicle Advertisement. Get Vinyl stickers made. Windshield banner size, something smaller for quarter windows, and something slightly larger for rear windows. Customers are usually always in for running a sticker. Price isn't too bad if you find a good graphics shop to deal with. Our guy(a friend) is new to the graphics business..He gives us great prices and even offered to fully wrap our shop car if we gave him some advertisement space on the car...which is definitely a good deal. But these customer cars will be on the street, at the track, in videos and pictures online...and your sticker will be there getting you all sorts of advertisement.

A few of the cars that came out of our shop have become well known. They were out at street-races and street-race style events, and winning almost all the time...And our huge stickers were on the cars. Then a friend has a ProStock Firebird, an we towed it through the pits and back from the top end with our lettered up shop truck...The announcers saw the truck and gave our shop a great plug( Here's so and so's prostock firebird which is running great this year and looks to be out of Final Round Performance right here in New Lenox).

This post is getting a little long so I'll try to cut it short. Just be smart, advertise all the time, and do GOOD WORK. No hack jobs.

Good Luck.

 

Here's a video of my car running. Note the website plug in the video description(and the windsheild banner, although you can't read it because it was a crappy camera): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwS65EBPtQs

The two red notch mustangs that have been rocking our stickers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYMW_aW5ofs


And the type of picture you want to circulate around a little(click for hi-res):




As far as your SFWD car goes, start taking pictures and keep a build log. That way you can do a step by step build log on your website. It gives people an opportunity to see the type of work you do and what type of quality they can expect. So keep it clean and get all the details. I'm doing the same thing with our shopcar(http://www.frp2win.com/shopcar.htm), and we're doing all the little things people normally don't even think of just because it's a rolling billboard. We even painted the whole underside of the car(The paint guy said no one else asked him to do that before).


Modified by xxbulaxx at 1:40 AM 10/26/2007

 

hate to brake it to u guys but ive been working at a racecar shop for a lil over a year very well nown in our area for topnotch work but mostly domestic cars but anyway ur average dragracer is a cheap *** i see the most trashy cars come in most of them are just worried about how big there motor is but when it comes to the car they cant get it to hook so whats the point.most of them dont want to pay for anything they always complain about prices hot rod shops is a better bet most of them guys will pay for good work so just some advise from what ive seen

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fastboy559 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">hate to brake it to u guys but ive been working at a racecar shop for a lil over a year very well nown in our area for topnotch work but mostly domestic cars but anyway ur average dragracer is a cheap *** i see the most trashy cars come in most of them are just worried about how big there motor is but when it comes to the car they cant get it to hook so whats the point.most of them dont want to pay for anything they always complain about prices hot rod shops is a better bet most of them guys will pay for good work so just some advise from what ive seen</TD></TR></TABLE>

Are you really saying hot rod guys pay more than racers? It might hold true for your particular shop but I've done work for both sets of customers and I've seen people willing to pay what it costs to do the job right in both cases. I've also seen people that will try to beat you up over price every time. Your attracting the wrong customers if you say they are all cheap. Your shop may be known for good work but it sounds like it's also known for customers that assume they can get deals. The is a reputation issue. There are guys in both sides doing really well every day.

 

Exactly. Choose your crowd, market to said crowd, go home at the end of the week with a real paycheck. Take a look at what http://www.evoms.com does. Start raising prices, change your demographic, feel it out, blah blah blah, and good luck!

 

take pics of everything u have done, and finish ur car and get it out there. but keep at it man. dont sell ur self short as long as u back up ur work. and the first 1 to 1 1/2 years are always the hardest.

 

hey guys first off i want to say thanks for all your input just reading your posts has help my confidence. next week i'm going to work on getting some Advertisement going. and also i have a friend that sets up web pages so i will see if he will help me out with a page or a blog.

 

i think the post on all the techniques above hit it right on the head, its the cheapest advertising route and its directly marketing to your demographic. and service work as shitty as it is pays alot better then performance.

vinyl is a good but you have to get it cheap to make it really worth the cost. i got ripped off by a vinyl guy for a 600+$order and thats the last time i do that, i went on ebay and bought a vinyl plotter for 250$shipped, then a few rolls of vinyl that added up to 80$ shipped and now my stickers only cost pennies to make in house. plus i get a bunch of people buying random stupid stickers just because i can make them.

the first few years takes total dedication, it can almost mentally and physically break you especially if things arent going good or go back and forth drasticly, i know i have had plenty of sleepless nights,but also alot more really great times.

 

Ive been working for myself for almost 5 years now.

Advertising is key. Like it was stated before, business cards, stickers (give them out free to people at car shows, local strip, etc...), internet and a good word of mouth works great too.

Also, as stated before, do auto repair. Its how I pay all of my bills. Very rarely do I get a customer coming in wanting to drop a large sum of cash on a full custom set up. Hell, I might get one fab. job a month but thats fine with me. I take my time with them and the customer is always happy. Remember theres a very small percentage of people wanting custom fab stuff compared to the amount of people that need their cars repaired.

 

all exactly. think of it like this car being a mode of transportation is priority, car being a toy not a priority. people are much more willing to put out $$$ to get their car fixed so they can get to work on monday morning, but paying the amount of money a nice full custom turbo setup would cost is only when they have some extra $ in their pockets. definitely get some cards and stickers on every performance oriented car you touch, tell the customer that you will give them 5% off if they rock a windshield sticker, 3% for back window, so forth and so on. you might lose a few bucks on that customer but the adv. will hopefully pay for it in no time. just be patient and keep your head up, oh and try to keep the overhead low. i work out of my house so i dont have to pay rent on a shop!! not exactly legal/smart in a few ways but its a start and hey when you have a lift in your backyard you might as well make some money on it right?!

 

i wasnt saying all.just the majority dont appriciate good crafsmanship the always wanna go the cheap rout instead of the way that works better or that is cheaper in the long run as opposed to the hot rodder not saying all but most appriciate the detail and crafsmanship more also we do have a lil rep of being able to be beat down.but that is y we are leaning toward the manufacturing side now

 

Mfg. owns service any day. We have dealer networks, and we only deal with those guys, that's it. We rarely speak to the end user.