A Dash of Curry Blog

We've all got some A.D.D. in us. Discover how to celebrate it!

Monthly Archives: November 2015

Just Say Yes!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas this year, and a safe New Year! Here are some more thoughts I have on phone sales. It’s kind of a part two of my 6 Steps to a Phone Sale video. I hope you can take something away from this. Today is about just saying Yes! We have a problem with our internal marketing. We are pretty good about being on the radio, sending out electronic newsletters, and talking to our customers and communicating with them, but what we aren’t good about is communicating with our employees about what we want. Our business is rapidly growing – we went from 5 stores 3 years ago to opening our 10th location right now. This rapid growth has caused us some growing pains. So one thing I realized looking back at our phone calls with customers is that we really need to start saying yes. I’m spending about $40 for every phone call to make it ring, and every time we fail it costs me an additional $400 of lost revenue, which is what the average service ticket amounts to ... read more

6 Steps To A Phone Sale

This one is for all the business owners or service providers out there that have a product to sell over the phone. I must ask the question: why do my people suck on the phone?! We record phone calls for training purposes and to see how we’re doing on the phone, and I get so frustrated sometimes because I listen to our phone calls and our people are saying no or not giving themselves the opportunity to get a yes from the customer on the phone. The phone is the most important tool in the shop, and what it can do is to get a sales committment from a customer. As a business, our goal is to get yes fast, and the fastest way to a customer’s brain is through the eyes. A picture is worth a thousand words. I think it’s important to visualize our customer’s need and solve our customer’s problems by giving them a tangible solution. So we have to be not just good on the phones, we have to be AWESOME on the phones! I think that if your business is a service or retail oriented business, hav ... read more

How to Find a Good Auto Repair Shop

Is the selection process to finding a good repair shop daunting to you? Here is my advise on finding one that has the signs of being trustworthy, dependable, and friendly. I’ve spoken at lots of events and seminars, being the owner of 9 (soon to be 10) auto repair shops in the DMV area, and I am often asked, “How do I find a good auto repair shop?” I love to give advice on this. If you’re looking for an auto repair shop, you obviously want to find someone you can trust, someone you like, and can have a good relationship with. I don’t recommend hopping from auto repair shop to auto repair shop, but to start by doing a little research on the internet. Look at testimonials given about each shop and check out their website – how much information do they offer you? You should be able to learn a lot from an auto repair shop’s website. See if they offer warranties on their products and services. Find out who has been in business for a long time, and then try someone for a small serv ... read more

Some sober thoughts on texting and driving, drinking and driving.

Some sober thoughts on texting and driving, drinking and driving.

Saturday night we had the Curry’s Auto Service company Christmas party. Every year since we started Curry’s Auto Service we’ve always thrown a good party, we are professionals after all. We’ve been blessed to be able to do this for 14 years and it gets bigger every year. We had over 200 people this year, we gave away 6 all-expense paid cruises to Alaska to our Employees of the Year and for Longevity Awards. The band was great as were all of our family, friends and team members. But this was almost the Christmas party that wasn’t for one idiot videographer. He spent the previous night and earlier in the day at the hospital. He thought he was bullet proof, he thought he was titanium. He was distracted using his GPS on his smartphone not paying attention to the road. He hit a parked car at 65 mph. He almost killed himself…. As I’m sitting here on a Sunday afternoon, I turn on the TV to watch NFL pregame and I hear that two Dallas Cowboys were involved in tragic, all too famil ... read more

Business Ethics

Tonight is a special night because Curry’s Auto Service is up for a business ethics award! Curry’s Auto Service has been on the Inc. 5000 for the last 4 years in a row; we actually moved up 900 spots this year to 2,191. We’ve been on the Washington DC’s Fastest Growing Businesses for two years now and we were named #1 Auto Repair Shop in North America by Motor Age Magazine. So we’ve had a lot of prestigious awards, but this one is kind of special. It’s an ethics award, the National Capital Area Business Ethics Award. We were actually semifinalists for this award last year and we’re up again this year – we’re hoping to bring home some hardware! This one is special because generally speaking, automotive repair is considered a shadowy business right up there with buying a used car. But we’ve always believed in having honest, valued, trusting relationships with our customers. Being up for the Ethics Award is something we are very proud of, more than all the growth awards, or any other ... read more

Judy Curry’s Post on Child Car Safety Featured on BeInkandescent.com

A Dozen Ways to Keep Kids Safe in the Car

By Judy Curry, CMO and Co-Founder, Curry’s Auto Service
Few parents forget the first time they put their infant into the car. In fact many hospitals won’t release a new mother unless she has an infant car seat for her baby. Clearly, installing car seats correctly is an essential part of being a good parent. But almost anyone who has installed a car seat knows it’s a challenge to get the seat in right. The good news is that help is available. At Curry’s Auto Service, we want to be part of the solution for parents with young children. Click here to read the entire article.

Going Green in a Black Industry

Wow, what does that mean? At Curry’s Auto Service we take our environmental responsibility very seriously. A byproduct of fixing cars is that we end up with tires, scrap metal, fuels, leads, and chemicals. We recycle just about everything we take out of a car, including tires, scrap metal, and even the oil. So when you bring your car in to Curry’s Auto Service, we actually recycle your old oil by using it in our used oil furnaces that heat up our shops in the winter time. We also recycle all metal and scrap metal parts like brake pads, rotors and oil filters. Lots of times we’ll when people bring their cars in for oil changes their oil leaks, and sometimes we even have spills in the shop – it happens. Back in the old days they used to take a hose and just rinse the oil off or wipe it up with a squeegee and dump it outside. That’s just what they did when I began in this business in the 70’s and 80’s. Today that doesn’t work. We use something called pig mat – an absorbent mat tha ... read more

The Curry’s Auto Service Story

Curry’s Auto Service was incorporated in 1997 and we opened for our first day of business on March 16th 1998. I started Curry’s Auto Service with $103,000 in debt spread out over 13 credit cards, a $200,000 equipment loan, and a $35,000 loan from my father-in-law. I quit my job making $106,000 a year and opened Curry’s Auto Service taking a 65% pay cut (I paid myself only $35,000 per year). Soon after, my wife Judy had our second child, Jenna, and she decided to quit her job and join the business too. We risked it all to start Curry’s Auto Service. We had all of our eggs in one basket and had the attitude that we COULDN’T fail. The first day we opened we did about $600 in business (we actually had a few customers!) and in our first year we did $800,000 in sales in 9 months. We were in a cramped, terrible location in the Sullyfield Industrial Park in Chantilly, Virginia far away from the main road and with only four parking spots. When you’re in the auto repair industry, having ... read more

Video: Meet Matt and Judy Curry, Passionate About Customer Service & Curry’s Employees

Child Car Safety Comes First–Literally

Car-Seat Safety for Children From the Virginia Department of Health Few parents forget the first time they put their infant into the car. In fact many hospitals won’t release a new mother unless she has an infant car seat for her baby./p> Clearly, installing car seats correctly is an essential part of being a good parent. But, almost anyone who has installed a car seat knows it’s a challenge to get the seat in right. The good news is that help is available./p>At Curry’s Auto Service, we want to be part of the solution for parents with young children./p> Although we aren’t car-seat specialists, we are your partner in car safety. So we turn to the experts for advice on how to install a car seat, as well as other great tips on how to keep your kids safe in the car from the VA Dept. of Health. Remember: VA law states that all children under 18 years of age must be properly restrained in the car. The VA Highway Safety Office wants ... read more

A Dash of Curry Consulting is committed to ensuring effective communication and digital accessibility to all users. We are continually improving the user experience for everyone, and apply the relevant accessibility standards to achieve these goals. We welcome your feedback. Please call A Dash of Curry Consulting (703) 646-8280 if you have any issues in accessing any area of our website.