September 2021

S o, here we are in September. I hope everyone had a good couple of months, and managed to have some sort of holiday. Mrs P and I opted to stay in the UK this year. It was part- staycation, as the word actually means “stay at home” – the vac in vacation referring to the fact that one is vacating the premises. Anyway, so we spent a few days here, and spent the rest of the time at a holiday camp, believe it or not. In the UK. Hi-De-Hi indeed. I know this might sound a little old-fashioned, but I couldn’t be doing with the traffic light system for international travel. We have enough trouble with traffic lights here at Parkit Motors. Accidents will happen, and often do around junctions. This is where we do occasionally stray into a little body repair – no not mine, the cars. It’s not my favourite part of the business as dedicated bodyshops are better suited to this sort of thing, but if needs must and all that. The safe is certainly happier when we say “yes” to work we might otherwise turn away, even if I grimace. We have been looking for all sorts of ways to gain some traction on additional business, summer checks, then we will do winter checks, we do pre-MOT checks. We are all about contacting the customers to make sure they know their MOT is due, and we try to remind them about servicing intervals too. This is all running pretty smoothly with our GMS humming away in the background. With all this set up, we were able to head down to the south coast to our lovely holiday. As I said, it was a nice, old-fashioned trip. While the holiday camp had facilities, we really used it as a base for our own little trip. The huge and sandy beach was right next door, and apart from the days where the wind whipped everything up like a scene from Lawrence of Arabia, it was really wonderful. To be honest, after a few days there, I was already making “tssk-tssk” noises when we encountered families who were clearly day-trippers. Talk about going native! It was really good to switch off from the day-to-day grind in the garage, although I think things continued to tick away in my mind while we were down there. While I was confident that the day-to-day would tick along nicely without me and Mrs P to encourage everything along, the future direction of the business is still an open book. As I discussed before, we are set up for EVs and hybrids, and we are actively generating work by massaging our own data, which is a real goldmine. What more is there however? Which way to turn? It is this kind of thing that can take a while to percolate, which is why you have to think, read, listen and find out new ways of doing things. I know I won’t find all the answers within the industry itself, and new ideas will come from outside. Maybe I found some between our chalet and the sea? Am I going to tell you now? Well, I’ve not finished thinking about it yet, cheeky! HI-DE-HI 66 AFTERMARKET SEPTEMBER 2021 TEABREAK: MEMOIRS OF A MOTOR MECHANIC www.aftermarketonline.net