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Cat Money - Reinvest or Other?

We have all stockpiled cats in order to get a huge ‘payday’.  However, we all seem to get spend-happy when that large payment arrives.  A simple change is our spending mindset can change the growth trajectory of our businesses - it did for me.   There are three types of things you can spend money on: Appreciable, Depreciables, and Consumables.  The decisions that we make on the distributions of these types of expenditures will greatly affect our businesses, profits, savings, bank account, etc.   Appreciables are items that are bought for less than they can be sold for in the future.  In this example, these would be damaged vehicles.  They can be bought for roughly 40% to 55% of what the parts can be sold for.   Appreciables can also be assets like land, buildings, commodities, stocks, etc - it’s not limited to just damaged vehicles.  But, we all know damaged vehicles will make a quick and predictable return.   Depreciables are items that decline in value from the day they are purchased
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Cat Logic

I’m sure that many of you have already heard this story - especially the yards that I have been consulting since I sold my yard back in 2019.  But, I’d like to share it as an article so others can gain some knowledge from my experiences related to selling catalytic converters. When my brother and I bought our yard from our dad back in 2008, we ‘inherited’ a relationship with an older fella that would come by on the first of each month and buy our cats.  We had used him for roughly 10 years at that time, and we felt confident that he was paying us top dollar for our cats.  After all, he was a nice guy and seemed to be just scraping by.  In my mind that meant that he was not making much profit off of our cats.   Somewhere around 2009, he showed up to pick up our cats in a brand-new Dodge Crewcab Dually 4WD that was nicer than anything I had ever owned. The presence of this new truck told me that he is making good money off of our cats, and it got me thinking about ‘testing the waters’ to
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Location: Knoxville, TN, USA
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Tradition vs. Technology

Tradition vs. Technology  If a family-run small business survives long enough, the reality of generational transition must be faced and worked through. Since selling my facility in 2019, I have had the opportunity to work with hundreds of recyclers from all over the world - and I have seen a wide variety of effects of generational transition in almost every operation. I’ve seen patriarchs that have refused to ‘hand over the reins’.  I have also seen the incoming generation ‘drop the ball’ and cause the business to fail.  I could write for days about issues that exist in family-run businesses, but today’s article is going to be focussed on the adoption of technology during generational shifts.  The Automotive Recycling Industry has been a very lucrative segment of the overall automotive industry for well over a century.  It has not required a lot of education, ability, or technology in order to provide an acceptable income for many generations.  A strong work ethic has been all that has
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Location: Greenville, SC, USA
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Discouragement vs Imagination

Discouragement is the starvation of imagination. Does discouragement lead to a lack of imagination OR does the lack of imagination result in discouragement. Either way, we MUST remain imaginative during these times. Since its inception, the Automotive Recycling Industry has survived every economic downturn in the history of man. As a matter of fact, our industry actually grows during downturns in the economy. Once the Lockdown of 2020 ends, we will see an economy that will slowly return to normal - over a two year period. But, during that recovery period, people will be very hesitant to spend major amounts of money. We will see a prolonged dip in new car sales which will generate a major upswing in the utilization of Recycled Original Equipment (ROE) parts in the mechanical repair process. We are also hearing that insurance companies have concerns about the New OEM supply chain being affected for months and months following the Lockdown of 2020. They, the insurers, are now looking t
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Location: Melbourne VIC, Australia
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Data Sharing - The Secret to Increasing Sales

With the global lock-down affecting everyone’s sales, we are all looking for ways to find sales dollars. We also all know that the Automotive Recycling Industry is counter-cyclical - when the economy is hurting, we do better. When the lock-downs are over and demand for ROE parts is increasing because of the recession, will you be ready to convert demand into sales? Many will truly excel in the coming months as demand rises and you are able to cash in on it. However, many facilities are not ‘connected’ correctly to capitalize on the opportunities that will exist. What do I mean by ‘connected’? Each customer type that we have uses a different method of finding our inventory. If you are not sharing your inventory so that it appears on the platform that potential customers are using, then you will not have the chance to sell your part. Many retail customers search online to find parts: eBay, Car-Part.com, Hollander Storefront, TradeMe, Etc. Body Shops using Estimate-Writing sof
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Location: Melbourne VIC, Australia
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Will my business survive Coronavirus?

Will I survive Coronavirus? The bigger question: Will my business survive Coronavirus? We are in an uncertain time and none of us know for sure what tomorrow holds, much less next week or next month. I am writing this article from the safety of my couch on a Sunday afternoon - too concerned to leave the security of my own home on a beautiful day that is screaming ‘come out and enjoy’. I am pondering several questions today: Will all of the employees show up tomorrow? Have any of them been diagnosed with Coronavirus? Will others have to self-isolate? Will my state force everyone to stay home for two weeks? We cannot control much in our lives. We definitely cannot control this virus nor what the government is going to do to prevent people from dying. But, we can react to issues that we encounter with wisdom. Businesses are organizations that provide services or products to other organizations or individuals. The bare basic definition: People that help other people in exchange for co
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Location: Melbourne VIC, Australia
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Cutting Expenses without Impacting Quality

Every dollar of expenses reduces your Net Profit by the same amount. Conversely, every dollar of expenses that is reduced increases Net Profits by the same amount. Are you struggling to be profitable? Increase profit by reducing expenses. How can I reduce my expenses without sacrificing quality of service to my customers? Let’s dig into that question and see what can be done. Recurring Bills Each of us have recurring bills that we simply pay out of ‘habit’ each month. I’m talking about bills from you YMS Provider, a third-party software solution, a utility bill, and lease payment, and rental agreement, etc - you get the idea. There are certain bills that get paid each month without reviewing them - simply because of who they are from. It’s time to review these bills. Look for increased fees or increased rates that you did not agree to. Pull out the same bill from 12 months ago - is this year’s bill higher? Did you authorize them to charge you a higher rate? Spend the time, make a ca
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Location: Mobile, AL, USA
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