Car Engine Business and Management
Four Exit Strategies For Leaving Your Business

Selecting your business successor is a fundamental objective of planning an exit strategy and requires a careful assessment of what you want from the sale of your business and who can best give it to you. There are only four ways to leave your business: transfer ownership to family members, Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP),

Win $1,000, an iPad and Engine Builder Bragging Rights

If you haven’t nominated your shop to be recognized as tops in this industry, you better hurry. The deadline for online nominations in the annual Performance Engine Builder of the Year Award is Sept. 30! Just go to www.topperformanceshop.com and fill in the required fields.

Independent Study Confirms Safety of Shop Towels

TRSA, the leading global textile services trade association, announced that an independent study conducted earlier this year found workers who routinely use shop towels had no increased health risk above regulatory levels of concern. The study, commissioned by TRSA and conducted by Arcadis U.S., Inc., measured heavy metal exposures in laundered shop towels sampled from

Thank You Notes: 392 Magnum Engine Charity Build Update

As we get closer to completion of Engine Builder magazine’s 392 Magnum Charity Engine Build project, we would like to take a moment and update the project status and thank all those responsible for this project.   First of all, we would like to thank Dave Sutton, contributing editor for Engine Builder for organizing this

John DiPaola Named Vice President-Group Publisher at Babcox Media

Babcox Media Inc. is pleased to announce that John DiPaola has joined the company as Vice President-Group Publisher. He joins Babcox from Penton Media, where he spent the past 25 years. In his most recent role with Penton, DiPaola served as Vice President and Market Leader — Manufacturing & Supply Chain Group. In this role,

The State of the PERA

When Frank Owings grew up, his generation viewed cars as a passion. It was freedom. “When we turned 16, it was a right of passage to get a car,” Owings says. “We worked on it, we fixed it and we customized it.” For most guys Frank’s age, cars are still a passion. And like a

Leadership Tools for Resolving Employee Conflict and Improving Morale

Is your shop a hotbed of employee conflict? Even if we look only at generational differences, it’s not hard to see why employees can butt heads and morale can suffer. Millennials are replacing Gen Xers, who displaced the Baby Boomers before them. Each group grew up in a vastly different world, and each has their

What Is Your Roadmap To Profitability?

Your roadmap begins with collecting all the labor dollars for your technicians’ time. Through measuring and managing, you can determine whether or not you are collecting all the labor dollars that are available to you, or if you are leaving money on the table. Once you start measuring a few important metrics, especially ­effective labor

Reflecting on ‘Speedy’ Bill Smith’s Impact on the Performance Industry

I met “Speedy” Bill Smith while on a magazine assignment for a former hot rodder magazine back in April of 1999. The magazine editor called early one Monday morning… “I know you only write technical articles for the magazine but we need somebody to go interview “Speedy” Bill Smith in Lincoln, Nebraska. You are the

Executive Interview: Roy Kent, Federated Auto Parts

Roy Kent joined the Federated Auto Parts management team in January 2014 as chief strategy officer and president of new business development. An industry veteran, Kent’s vast aftermarket experience includes a long career at Federal-Mogul where he held a variety of positions, most recently serving as vice president of wholesale distribution. At Federated, he oversees a number

Exceeding Expectations Builds Customer Loyalty

No customer likes surprises when it comes to doing business with any type of service provider. When customers can count on consistently great service each time they do business with you, their confidence increases and they are far less likely to shop around for their engine rebuilding needs. But when the customer’s ­experience is inconsistent —

Is Your Shop A Good Place To Work?

I recently got an email from a reader who made me think a little bit. His question was: Do you have any good ideas on how to keep engine specialists? In my 35-plus years in the industry, I’ve counseled hundreds of shops and have had the good fortune of meeting thousands of engine builders. Not