Dollars per windshield repair?

[clearquest]

Puke Pau, after reading through some of your other posts I realized that my dollars per windshield really doesn't apply to you. You seem to be doing quite well, knocking out 21 jobs a day, including drive time, smoozing, etc, etc, etc. And doing it all at a much lower rate than I am willing to work for. You are the modern day WSR Superman, so "dollars per windshield repair" really wouldn't apply to you,

[puka pau]

We can all agree that there are probably as many ways to make money in WSR as there are people doing it. Some like retail, some don't. Some like car dealers, some don't. Some have no problem cold calling in business parks, some can't be bothered, etc etc. I think that a more illustrative statistic would be how much you make per hour rather than how much you make per vehicle. As an example, I have a friend who has a tent location at a car wash and does three to five repairs a day (mostly insurance) and averages about $60/repair/vehicle. He's at his location 8-9 hours a day. Five repairs @$60 = $300. Divided by eight hours is $37.5/hr. His overhead is minimal - he pays a small rent for the space. Screenman's estimate of 90 or so minutes per retail at the customers location repair counting phone time, invoicing, drive time and communicating with the customer seems about right. So in an eight hour day @ 90 minutes per job, you'd do about 5.3 jobs - so let's just say 6 jobs. At $60/job that's $360 divided by eight hours is $45/hr and that's gross revenue. The point here is that you don't get paid for driving between jobs or invoicing or talking to customers etc, you only get paid when you're repairing broken glass. About fifteen years ago I did a few time studies on myself to see how efficient I was. I did these studies on a weekend which is when I service most of my fleet accounts. I noted the time I spent driving and surveying to find damage and the time I spent actually performing repairs and what I found was that in an eight hour day I spent about 4 1/2 hours driving and looking for damage and less than 3 1/2 hours repairing. And that's on a weekend when there are no distractions like phones, or people talking to me, traffic's light, etc etc . So I find that overall at 40 hours a week I average about $25/repair, I also average about 20 or so repairs a day which works out to roughly $60/hr and a lot better than that on weekends when there a fewer distractions. That's only 2 1/2 repairs/hr and I'm sure ,ost of us coan do that without breaking a sweat. So for me, anyway, it's more about how efficient I am, how much I can cut down on unproductive time like driving and sitting in traffic or jawboning with customers and how many repairs I can do in a day than how much I make per repair. I have a series of territories or routes and I address one or so per day. The accounts are close together and I have standing agreements with the majority to show up whenever I want, repair what I find without having to get authorization and invoice them periodically, usually every thirty days. In exchange for them trusting me not to screw them, (they essentially give me cart blanche) I give them a dynamite price that the competition either can't or won't match. Admittedly, I do a lot of repairs but I'm sure you realize that the more you do the better and faster you get (normally). I'd rather be working than sitting, but that's just the way I'm built. Different strokes for different folks. Oh, and Clearquest, the reason I seem to have so much time on my hands (and I really don't need a second job, regarless of what you think) is that I can normally get eight hours of work done in six hours (as opposed to taking eight hours to do six hours of work) which gives me an extra two hours a day to work on developing advanced techniques like repairing those bunches of semi-circular cracks.

Cheers;

Puka Pau

[clearquest]

Wow, I actually lost interest before reading your entire post. So to whatever you said.....great job!

[clearquest]

Oh yeah, I work anywhere from 6 to 8 hours a day and gross $500-$600 a day. So I'd say my hourly wage is pretty darn good! And I'm not killing myself running all over the place hitting truck and bus lines for $25 a job.

[clearquest]

And repairing the damager you are referring to isnt advanced tecniques! Its a foolish waste of time,

[puka pau]

Clearquest;

Peace out, dude. I'm no more "right" about what I do than you are about what you do. You do it your way, I do it my way. IMHO, one of the functions of this board is to illustrate that there are many paths to the waterfall, so to speak. However, consider that no matter in what venue anyone's craft or profession resides, embracing the twin concepts of practice and personal challenge more often lead to mastery than abdication of personal challenge and practice. A weight lifter doesn't start bench pressing 300# from day one. But if that person restricts the weight he lifts to 150# he'll never get to 300#.

Cheers;

Puka Pau

[screenman]

90% of my work is fleet work, and I am certainly not going to post what I earn per hour. My fleets ask me to be good and save them money, they never ask me to be cheap.

[clearquest]

Puke Pau,

Dude, that's just a feel good theory.

[t4k]

I am with you on this one Screenman. I am about 95% fleet and I am not the cheapest but I am the best and most reliable in my area. As far as earnings, there is no way I would post that for anyone. If you are happy and your customers are happy, what difference does it make what a bunch of guys on a forum think about your hourly, monthly or yearly earnings.

[screenman]

I find the cheap guys have failed to educate the customer that we are a saving and not a cost.