The most important thing to remember when getting negative feedback is to not get mad. Sure, getting mad may give you an energy burst to be more effective and get more things done, but it’s more likely going to get you worked up over nothing and make you waste time.

There are two things you can do instead of getting angry or upset, and which one you choose depends on what kind of negative feedback you got. Negative feedback can pretty much be divided into two categories: useful and mean spirited.

If someone sends you feedback that simply says they disagree with you and says nothing more than that, your next step is simple – ignore it. There’s nothing you can do to change their opinion and acknowledging them is simply going to waste both your times. Just forget about it and move on.

Just because feedback is negative doesn’t mean it’s bad. Negative feedback should be looked on as an opportunity for improvement. And while this person may have been upset and not have been the nicest person in sending their feedback, the first thing to do is thank them.

It doesn’t have to be big, just a quick email letting them know that you value their opinion and will look into the issue. If you already know, you can let them know how you’re going to fix the issue at hand. This will not only help you keep a customer (and possibly make more by referrals), it will also encourage them to send more feedback so you can make further improvements in the future.

Once you have helpful negative feedback, the first step is to analyze whether or not it matters. Just because a suggestion gives a good idea, doesn’t mean it’s worth the time and money you have to put in to it. If a problem is difficult to fix but only affects a few of your customers, it’s probably not worth it to spend your resources making it better.

After you’ve decided you need to take action, it’s time to brainstorm what action to take. This could take a few minutes, or even a few weeks. If you are getting stuck, you can even ask customers (or the person who gave you the feedback) what they think would be a good fix.

For each possible action, also go back and weigh it based on how much the negative effect matters. While you may agree that the problem needs fixing, you may not agree that you need to make a substantial investment to fix it and opt to go for a cheaper, but less effective fix. Once you have all your options laid out, it should be much easier to choose a solution.

Once all this is done, you can finally implement your solution, but don’t forget to let your customers know about the changes – particularly the one who inspired the changes in the first place.

The first step in keeping your vision alive is to have a clear vision in the first place. If you haven’t already, try sitting down and writing a clear vision statement, for your business and yourself. Think about why you started your business, and what you hope to achieve.

While it’s important to have a vision statement, you have to keep it in mind if you’re going to actually achieve it. Having an idea of what you want doesn’t really matter if you throw it in a drawer and only think about it once every six months. Try posting it somewhere in your office or having it written down where you will see it regularly.

It might also help you to do more than just post your vision. Most people know the phrase that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, why not use this to your advantage? Find pictures that make you think of what you want and what your goals are in life, and post them in places you’ll see. If may be posters around your office or even just your computer desktop. They’ll serve as a constant reminder of what you’re working for.

To keep your vision going, it’s important that your work reflects your vision. That means not only working towards your goals, but associating with people who feel the same. Sure, you’re not always going to be able to choose who you work with, but you can still try to make business contacts who have similar vision and beliefs as you. These people will help you stick to what you want and become successful.

It’s a generally accepted fact that if you’re surrounded by negative people, you’ll probably start thinking negatively eventually. Attitude is something that permeates to the people around us. To help keep your vision on track, surround yourself not only with positive people, but with those that share your vision, or a similar one. They will help keep you on track when you get discouraged.

If you’re having trouble focusing on your vision statement, maybe it’s not you that needs help, maybe it’s just your vision. You are not the same person you were when you opened your business, so why is your vision statement the same? If your vision statement doesn’t reflect what you want anymore, considering reviewing and revising it. Just be sure not to do it too often, or you’ll find yourself going from focus to focus without actually accomplishing anything.

What’s most important is not to lose faith in yourself and your business. Great businessmen aren’t the ones who have never failed, they’re the ones who failed and kept on going.

How important is customer service? It is a vital part of your auto repair business. Satisfied customers keep coming back. They will tell their friends about you and they will buy from you. It is the way that business owners ensure that their business will continue.

I try to put myself in the customer’s shoes. Actually, I am not just a business owner but a consumer as well. I know what constitutes excellent customer service to me and anyone I do business with deserves no less than that.

One thing about customers; you never know who they know. Any one of them could be a person with a lot of influence in their town or city. A word from them could send people to your website. On the other hand, their job could allow them the opportunity to tell others of influence that you don’t provide good customer service.

All right, so it could be a hundred to one shot that one of your customers is someone like this. But, the average customer who is concerned about customer service can post a bad review on forums, eBay, and other places where you may be looking for new customers. And, the truth is, people flock to bad news. They will think twice about using your services if it is floating around in the ether that you are a bad egg.

As your business grows, so will your customer service responsibilities. The people who purchase goods or use your services are more than dollar signs. They have lives and spheres of influence. Treating each one like gold is our responsibility.

It is a mistake to think that your business could ever get so big that one customer doesn’t count. It is also a mistake to think that providing a cheap product just to make money won’t come back to haunt you. It is a fact that it will. You could be on the receiving end of a suit. This is not a good way to do business.

But, neither profits nor customer service has to be suspended to have a successful business. It you feel that customer service is getting lax because you are spending most of your time marketing the business, consider outsourcing parts of the operation. Set up email drafts and use other features to handle emails effectively and in a timely manner.

There is always a way to make it work. Consistently providing good customer service will help expand your customer base and your image on the Internet. This is vital to continued growth in your industry.

You can keep putting out the deals in expensive advertising, but when that fails does that mean you go broke? Absolutely not!

Not if you have already built up a customer base, and have provided those customers with good auto repair service and good products. What you have built up by doing this is your company's number one asset.

Do you know how much that asset is worth? Do you know the lifetime value of your customers? That is how much a customer spends a year on average with you, times the number of years they stay a customer, times the number of customers you have.

It can add up to a lot, if you are doing things in the right way.

Do you have marketing geared toward your current customers?
Do you take the trouble to find out things they specifically and generally like and dislike? Do you ask what you might do to serve them better? Do you publicize a solid guarantee and honor it?

With the right customer service you can keep your customers for LIFE!

Find out information about your customers. Keep a list of their names and addresses so you can keep in constant communication with them by sending a heads-up on deals, new stock, and anything that would make them feel special. Postcards are perfect for doing that. Even get their month and day of birth so you can send them birthday cards giving them their own special discount on anything they want.

Give away things to your customers. Make promotional items freely available like pens, pencils, pocket planners, calendars, calculators, key-chains, mugs, you name it. All those things will have your business name, address, and phone number on them. Sending something like that to them in the mail would even give it more value in your customer's eyes. The more useful the item, the more you will be in the customers sight and mind. That is a good thing!

If you have a clothing store, get to know your customer's sizes. As soon as they walk in the door, greet them by name and say you have saved something for them that you know will look great on them. Then pick the newest most expensive piece of clothing to show them. Say that they simply must try it on, and while they will be in the changing room anyway, fix them up with everything to go with it for trying on as well. You will collect sales for more items once they see how good they look in them. Throw them over the edge by giving them a break in price if they get the entire outfit with accessories.

If you do not have a clothing store, find a way to get samples of what you do have to your customers that they can try. Get them to use something on a trial basis. Once you do that, their ownership of it is practically assured! Once someone is in possession of something, giving it up creates the painful emotion of loss.

A happy customer is a loyal customer. Loyalty comes by your customers knowing you care about them, are actively educating them in the things they are interested in, and knowing you will continuously be able to meet their needs in the best way for them.

The customer is always right in that they know what they want. You are always on top of it by presenting what you have as not only something they want, but something they've got to have. And not just something they themselves got to have. Maybe they have a husband, wife, or children. Compel your customer to treat the family too.

Here is something to jump on. Perhaps your customer is a business owner. Get that person to send the customers for their business over to your business. Beyond word of mouth referral, they can do that by giving coupons good for things in your store, or maybe you can get permission to put a raffle box in their store that gives prizes given by your store. You can either pay them to do it or return the favor. There can be many ways to help each other in cooperation, even paying each other commissions, and also bundling your two company's products and services together at favorable prices for customers. You will find that such arrangements, called Joint Venture Partnering, can be very lucrative as it quickly builds your customer base.

It pays to know your customer, and to know how to supplement and expand your products and services with things like go-along additions, deluxe automatic maintenance service, special package deals, premium upgrades, complimentary products, etc. Think of anything you can.

Give your customer something to put in their purse or wallet, something that equals money to them. A discount card that gives discounts on purchases, or a buyers card that gives rewards after a determined amount of purchases accumulated from multiple visits are two examples. The surest way to get your customer to spend more with you is getting them a charge card. Your own store credit card in your customer's possession is guaranteed to spike sales.

You will have a solid relationship with the customers you have already gotten, and through that relationship, your business will evolve!

This gives lifetime value of a customer a whole other meaning. You are finding ways to improve yourself and your business. Take periodic customer surveys. That way the customer is giving intellectual input as well as money into your business, and if you are innovative enough to make use of them, the customer will more than likely also be giving you new customers by recommending you to their friends.

Other things you can do: offer your customers incentives for making referrals & collect testimonial stories from them to use in your ads because the best advertising comes from satisfied customers. Not only that, a customer that gives a testimonial for you will become even more loyal by doing it. Imagine that! It just goes to show how things get solidified when written down. Do you write down the goals you have for your business? How about the goals of your business?

Write a Service Pledge to your customers. Post it up where you do business so your customers know what great service they can expect. Find the greatest benefit that solves the most major concern to your customers, perhaps something unique that no other business in the area offers. Make a catchy slogan out of it. Use it wherever the name of your business is displayed so that your business will be known by the slogan. When employees eagerly answer the phone, have them not only say the name of the business, but the slogan as well, followed by giving their name and asking "how may I help you?"

If you spruce up your business enough to make it an interesting topic of conversation, your customers will even talk you up to strangers they meet. Your reputation will travel by work of mouth.

Instead of you looking to find new customers, they will be finding you. And on top of that, their lifetime value will be much greater by your building the greater value into your business. This happens just by catering to your current customers rather than doing the usual routine of chasing after new ones.

That is why you will never lack if you keep your auto repair customers coming back.

The big question concerning starting an auto repair business, besides what you will work on, is how you will market what you are selling.  Marketing is the way that business owners turn their products and services into the “need to know” name in the business.  Learning marketing takes a serious effort and the sheer volume of information available can be overwhelming.

All of the aspects of marketing these days that are available can have your head spinning in no time.  What do you do first?  What is the best kind of marketing for your business?  How do I go about niche marketing?

It seems that the more you read, the more questions you have.  When are the answers supposed to come?  Marketing can be intimidating when you are just starting out and it is all a bunch of foreign concepts.

What is the first thing you think of letting people know about your business?  Take an ad out in the local newspaper.  Well, you can take out ads on the Internet too.  Advertise on another person’s website.  By using an affiliate program, they will advertise on your site as well.

Do you write?  If you have a way with words, you can parlay that into another marketing area.  Good web content on your website will keep people coming back to read what you have to say.  But that content can be read and turned into a podcast or filmed and turned into a video to be marketed.

To do all of this, you need to read some more.  It seems like everyone knows the strategies but you.  In fact, they had to read and ask questions and learn just like you do.  There is no shortcut to learning marketing.  Everything that you learn builds on everything else.

One way to not go so crazy is to learn one area and learn it well.  From a brief description of each marketing strategy you can judge if it is right for you to start.  After you've gained confidence with one strategy, begin on another and another.  Taking marketing one step at a time is a great way to accomplish what you want to do with your business without losing your head.

The busiest season for most auto repair businesses is the winter.  When your auto repair business has defined highs and lows, capitalize on those highs by working a strategy during the lows.  Here are five tips to help you prepare for the busy season when business is slow.

The slow period is not a time to panic or take a break.  Business will pick up and you can be ready with a few simple preparations.  As an auto repair shop owner, seeing the big picture is a constant struggle.  But, we must continually work on our perception to see into the future.  Without the benefit of a crystal ball, use the five tips below.

1.  Beef up your mailing lists.  The heart of any business is its customers.  Be sure that your website has a place for visitors to leave their information so that you can communicate with them.  Let customers know when you add new features to your website and your storefront.

2.  Develop an email campaign.  Most people who are linked to the Internet have an email account.  If they are like me, they probably receive a ton of junk mail also.  But, they do check the titles of all the mail to see exactly what it is.  Use that to your advantage and create directed emails with catchy titles to peak their interest.  Don’t send too many — just enough to keep your name in their memory so that they think of you when the busy season rolls around.

3.  Find new clients.  We always put out feelers when we are starting our business to create a customer base.  Once we have something to start with, we forget that this is still a useful way to bring more clients in.  Were there potential clients who didn’t come on board initially?  Sending cards to these potential clients lets them know you are still interested in having them on board.

4. Networking, networking, and more networking.  There is never a time that networking is not in fashion.  You never know who you might meet.  Maybe your auto repair shop could benefit from a partnership with a new supplier or wholesaler who is willing to dropship products for you.  Setting the wheels in motion when business is not so demanding puts you in the position for the big payday when the business picks up.

5. Learn a new skill.  Business is about meeting the demands of the customers.  A customer who can get all the services they need from one provider won’t want to deal with one who only offers one service.  Increase your services and more clients will come.

What are you doing in the slower periods?  Preparing now for the future will pay off handsomely.  Let the ideas flow and lead you into new directions.