Out of the Crisis.Org

[Louis Altazan]

Harry was a nice guy and liked fixing cars. He always considered advertisement as unnecessary and expensive. With a certain sense of pride he would often boast, “We don’t advertise.” This had always worked for Harry and his three man shop had always stayed busy, largely from word of mouth referrals.

Several years ago things started to change, at first in very subtle ways. First he noticed the three day backlog of appointments, shrunk to one. By the next year the shop was taking clients on a drop-in basis. Few appointments on the books, but he still had enough to do. Everyone said the economy was bad, that was probably it and it would pass in time.

Later there were days without work to be done. As time passed these days became more frequent. When the first employee quit, it was actually a bit of a relief. For a while things seemed better. Finally Harry’s other employee resigned because he had an offer from a shop that represented a more stable future.

Now Harry was doing all the work himself. At first, this worked well, because of the greatly lowered overhead. In time, as things needed to be replaced, he found it was very difficult to cover the cost. He cut expenses to the bone and then cut them some more. He was now able to pay the bills but there just never seemed like enough left over for Harry.

Harry is now in a problematic situation. His cost continue to rise yet his earning capacity is largely capped by the amount he can physically do himself. Further, his equipment budget is very low, limiting the repairs that he can efficiently do.

The repairs that Harry is capable of doing, can also be done be a great many others. This makes them very competitive and the profit is low. Harry works very hard, but there is not much money. Most of his equipment is obsolete and/or worn out. He has now decided there is a crisis and is strongly considering closing his shop.

This is a very sad story and many people know someone like Harry. It is easy to see his problems in retrospect. This crisis did not originate today or even recently, there were several warning signs. Had Harry pursued different solutions several years ago things may be different. His options at this point are very limited. Harry now lacks resources and time to affect a cure. “The time to fix the roof is not when the storm is upon us.”

How could this have happened to Harry?

_________________
Louis Altazan
Owner/Manager AGCO Automotive Corporation
Baton Rouge, LA