IMO you can't establish your business with a car, or four cars, or anything like that. A lot of businesses that are sales and service oriented take 5+ years to get established. You have to make it happen too. It takes a shitload of dedication and a desire to succeed, and you have to know what you're doing. If you do something and business is boominig in 3 months, odds are it's temporary and will fall off in 3 months. It takes time to become established as the shop to take your lawn mower to, or the shop to have your honda tuned at, whatever.
it helps to show people that you are capable. And by being capable, i mean you have cars displaying your work. If there is a car that is constantly beat on and still holds together, i believe that shows a bit of what your made of.
I agree. Seriously.
All I was saying is that one car or four cars, etc, no one thing you do is going to get anythinig "establisihed". Over time, all your efforts will pay off though. If you builid some shop car that hits the strip 12 times a year for 3 years and becomes "known" to be that honda that's fast and reliaible, great. That will certainly help, along with everything else.
I've worked on cars on the side for the last 6-7 years. At first, it was hard to find any work. Now work finds me. Hell, I was working on a construction site with people I've never seen before during thanksgiving and a guy I was working with asked me if I was the Pat that worked on cars, he needed some work done on his camry. Just one example, but that's the result of doing it for several years. When I first started, I did work too cheap thinking it was the right thing to do. Meh, looking back, I should have charged more sometimes. I've learned it pays more to specialize in stuff vs. trying to do everything. So I don't work on cars that much anymore...
GL, hope things work out. I agree that building a shop car that hits the track all the time is a step in the right direction. And having your own car that's also badass (read, turbo and unusually fast) is also a good idea. If a year from now you took your car and the shop car to the track 10-12 times a year, that would look good and probably help get your business going.
'nother though- When I was 16 and running my thunderbird at the track, I met several people there that helped me tune the carb, adjust the timing, taught me how to read the tree and launch, etc. Learned a lot, met a lot of great people that knew what how to go fast reliably, and ended up doing business with a couple of them. One of them owns a local speed shop and I bought a set of heads from him, and ordered several things from him over the last 5 years. And that's all cause he was the guy with the 5 seconds mustang I raced at the track (1/8 mile).
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Topic: ideas on how to bring import work to a domestic dominant shop (Read 18963 times)