Hello Everyone, I have not posted for over a year but do come here and read post most days.
As I posted last year, I am a professional in the auto restoration business and am also am a certified master auto tech as well as a certified bodyman and custom car painter.
I worked for several years by myself but figured that I am not getting any younger (I am 59 in a couple weeks) and really wanted to get out of the "hands on" aspect of the business. I have had several automotive businesses over the last 34+ years and am very familiar with having employees and having a "real" business, not self employment.
In January of 2022 I moved from my small shop to a much larger professional facility and bought the equipment to needed to make this a much larger "real" business.
I set the shop up to run 4-5 technicians along with a manager and general shop helper/parts runner.
Fast forward 2 1/2 years and I have had a REAL tough, basically impossible time finding qualified help. I have hired and fired 14 people in 2 1/2 years and only currently have one good bodyman plus me working. Most guys have lasted only a couple months before I had to let them go and some only a couple days.
Some of these employees were certified professional bodymen who looked good on paper but they were not capable of restoration work.
The problem I am running into is that I require employees that are basically artists.
This auto restoration business requires employees that are super detail oriented, know their trade inside and out (Masters) and have a very high sense of pride in their workmanship. What I have found from the collision shop world is just hacks and half-a$$ guys who just want to get the car out the door as fast as possible, quality be damned.
The guys I have hired that were professional auto body techs from the collision world have all been total disasters as they had no clue (or did not care) how to do this highly skilled, highly detailed work.
I pretty much know all the shops around the country that do this high end restoration work and almost without exception there is the owner doing the work with a helper or two. The ones I talk to ALL need help and have basically given up finding anyone, like I have.
This is self employment and NOT A BUSINESS and certainly nothing that is scalable.
Before anyone replies with a suggestion to rear the E-Myth, I have read that book many times over the last 30 years. It is not that I do not know how to set up a business with systems, it is that I basically picked an industry that there are no employees for!
Also, before anyone says that I need to hire trainees that have ability, I have already been there and NEVER AGAIN! You basically are paying someone to follow you around all day and watch you work and all it was doing was causing me and my one good employee to be babysitting all day.
I need qualified help that is ready to work from day one.
The other alternative (besides closing and walking away) is that I just realize this is a self employment situation and try to just make as much as possible to put toward another business where you CAN find help and IS scalable.
As I posted last year, I am a professional in the auto restoration business and am also am a certified master auto tech as well as a certified bodyman and custom car painter.
I worked for several years by myself but figured that I am not getting any younger (I am 59 in a couple weeks) and really wanted to get out of the "hands on" aspect of the business. I have had several automotive businesses over the last 34+ years and am very familiar with having employees and having a "real" business, not self employment.
In January of 2022 I moved from my small shop to a much larger professional facility and bought the equipment to needed to make this a much larger "real" business.
I set the shop up to run 4-5 technicians along with a manager and general shop helper/parts runner.
Fast forward 2 1/2 years and I have had a REAL tough, basically impossible time finding qualified help. I have hired and fired 14 people in 2 1/2 years and only currently have one good bodyman plus me working. Most guys have lasted only a couple months before I had to let them go and some only a couple days.
Some of these employees were certified professional bodymen who looked good on paper but they were not capable of restoration work.
The problem I am running into is that I require employees that are basically artists.
This auto restoration business requires employees that are super detail oriented, know their trade inside and out (Masters) and have a very high sense of pride in their workmanship. What I have found from the collision shop world is just hacks and half-a$$ guys who just want to get the car out the door as fast as possible, quality be damned.
The guys I have hired that were professional auto body techs from the collision world have all been total disasters as they had no clue (or did not care) how to do this highly skilled, highly detailed work.
I pretty much know all the shops around the country that do this high end restoration work and almost without exception there is the owner doing the work with a helper or two. The ones I talk to ALL need help and have basically given up finding anyone, like I have.
This is self employment and NOT A BUSINESS and certainly nothing that is scalable.
Before anyone replies with a suggestion to rear the E-Myth, I have read that book many times over the last 30 years. It is not that I do not know how to set up a business with systems, it is that I basically picked an industry that there are no employees for!
Also, before anyone says that I need to hire trainees that have ability, I have already been there and NEVER AGAIN! You basically are paying someone to follow you around all day and watch you work and all it was doing was causing me and my one good employee to be babysitting all day.
I need qualified help that is ready to work from day one.
The other alternative (besides closing and walking away) is that I just realize this is a self employment situation and try to just make as much as possible to put toward another business where you CAN find help and IS scalable.
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