grant8064

Really?

Hi guys, Just after your pearls of wisdom. We have two sites run by just us over worked directors at the moment but are looking to take on a fresh recruit to ease the workload and, hopefully, make us a bit more efficient. Not having employed anyone before we're a bit clueless so have the accountant in tomorrow to see how it's going to work money wise. What should we be looking out for/avoiding/asking? Basically what mistakes have you all made that we can learn from? The recruit will most likely be aged 25+ and used for the complete sales process ie; getting the vehicle delivered/collected from the valeters, photo'd, up on the web, test driven, sold, MOT and service work phoned through to the usual garage, handover pack prepped and then the handover itself. After sales issues made note of and dealt with once authorised by the directors, enquiries answered, general cleaning of the office when needed etc. Basic salary + commission per sale + commission per vehicle bought from Joe Public + commission on any finance deal executed. All deals to be run past a director before authorised. We're a Lawgistics member so will probably use a lot of their downloadable employment stuff such as a health and safety form, employee details form etc. Thanks in advance you wise old owls.

Congrats Simon...hope it brings a good 2018 for you!

We also used you guys for a sub prime for the first time recently and have two more in the pipeline. Really uncomplicated portal, easy docs and most importantly very quick payout. Staff seem a lot more switched on than that other big subprime lender too.

I would have thought your V Dubs would make excellent rentals for those young professionals that are considering buying one but want to check out whether they like the weekend surf lifestyle before forking out 20k on one. I know it's a lot of money to have tied up but a demo vehicle would be great and it could then be rented out to cover its cost? Very impressed with your builds mate so if I ever decide I want a weekend toy I know you'll be the first person I message

Had a bundle of walk on's today...not one has so much as test driven let alone bought... 'Do you have any family cars?' We have 50 Insignia, Mondeo, Focus, Astra, i30, 308s in stock right in front of your eyes madam. 'We really like it but we're looking for an automatic' They'd been sat in our manual for 20 minutes. Etc, etc, etc. I really really hate this time of year and the people it brings out.

As others have suggested take a look at your website because it's your shop window. Photos are messy...stick with the same angle, same background and some uniformity...some cars have number plates on show and others are missing which just looks either half arsed or suspicious. 50k Skylines, 5k Lime Green Fiestas an a Morris Minor...it's an interesting mix! I'd would pay extra for a Skyline from a specialist, buy the Morris from a beardy old classic dealer and the Fiesta from a supermarket. Not saying it's wrong just unusual. The text is a bit of a mess and some of it reads poorly. Make the website cleaner and have some kind of branding...at the moment it's just a white page with some random cars listed on it. Apologies in advance if any of that's a bit harsh and welcome to the forum!

I don't mind an Auris but it can't be red or silver. Also don't mind a Hyundai i10,i20 or i30 but again red and silver stick. I think a lot of it comes down to having Toyota & Hyundai MD's 5 minutes away though. There's good brand awareness locally for both and if you have 5k not 15k we're you're guys!

This. Desirable stock in theory but very very fragile. FSH seems to make no difference to the longevity by the way

Good luck! We're also just outside of Brighton and there are no junk traders left around here. If it's £80 scrap offers you'll be OK but anything between £100 - £500 we have yet to find someone locally for in the last three years. Any trader locally we've dealt with has been worse than a retail customer so now we just scrap them or do them up, fresh MOT and retail ourselves.

I'm not going to get into too much of a debate about it but it's easy for Elon to talk big when it's other peoples money funding his ego. Can't keep up to speed on Model 3 production and has to keep asking for handouts because there is no cash being generated. I'm sure they'll do very well but it does have the look of a bubble that's got to burst at some point.

Haha, yep it would make a good film! The Tesla situation does make me laugh...people seem so awe struck by the technology that they're forgetting a few of the fundamentals behind a business

I've got a few old faces on the forecourt celebrating their first birthday...do you reckon if I held a party one of them would get snapped up?!

As we all know...buying correctly is where the money is made! Sounds good but IMO appraising is a real skill so it would come down to what staff you had as to whether it was profitable. We have a sales guy who has been in the job 20+ years and couldn't appraise a brick let alone a car.

Funny how different experiences can be...I wouldn't trust those guys to change a light bulb, complete imbeciles IMO. Why not just fit the second hand ECU and have it programmed to show correctly by a laptop guy? Gotta be the simplest route surely?

Did five in that funny bit between Christmas and New Years which was good. Nothing but complete and utter time wasters about so far into 2018 but it'll swing back into life next week I reckon

Happy New Year guys. Hope you don't feel quite as green and wobbly as I do today!

Not taking credit card payments unless it's been in stock forever or the deals worth doing for some other reason. We just explain to the customer that we get charged so they're better off using a debit card or BACS.

...that was kinda my point. In my book spreading your risk over multiple units is always the way to go. We work heavily on developing a chain which is where the real money is IMO. Put £1500 in a 5k car, sell it and hopefully give 1k for the chopper which you can resell for £2500, take another chopper against it for a few hundred that you can knock out for £1500 and maybe even a final chopper you can trade to the local breaker/trader for a couple of hundred. The more links in the chain the better. Cash flow is the important consideration because that original 5k can sit tied up for months but you get a healthy chunk out of each link in the chain. Point is with one 20k Merc you're only getting one part ex...with four 5k cars you're potentially getting loads of choppers you can resell and earn from.

One 3k profit in a 20k car or four lots of 1.5k profit in four 5k cars? I know where my money would be going!

buy cheap buy twice springs to mind! 'we're not the cheapest locally' has become my new line i'm dishing out to punters lately...certainly sorts the wheat from the chaff

Merry Christmas lads!

Third vote for the white stuff...the bottles with the spongy applicator are the best ones for a neat v5 tidy up!

Most definitely. Depends what the part is though and sometimes you can get a new one for a similar price to a used one if you hunt around

Can't really listen to Minor Threat or Dead Kennedys in a car but The Specials, The Beat, Orange Juice, Television are all perfect. The Thatcher & Reagan era was a bit before my time and looked a bit rough but they did spawn a fair few decent bands