If you have glasses, you know how difficult it can be to see when you get them smudged. People wearing contacts may have some experience if they get something on their lenses. Your car can suffer a similar vision problem. Whenever you’ve driven in the darkness, perhaps you have found yourself flipping off your headlights quickly and then flipping them back on – because you suddenly weren't entirely sure your lights were even on.  Even if they were on, they may seem awfully dim.  If that has ever happened to you, your car may be a good candidate for headlight restoration. What is headlight restoration? Think of it as cleaning your glasses with spray and wipes. Every once in awhile, your car’s “glasses” could use some cleaning – which takes more than using some spray and wipes. If you come into Alta Mere, our technicians and their tools can clean and repair your headlights and restore them to its ... read more

If you live in a cold climate, you know what’s in store for any driver in the coming months – icy roads, ice covering the windshield, snow smothering the car roof, slush spraying everywhere on your vehicle.  Due to many of these conditions, salt is applied to the roads everywhere.  Our cars take a pounding with any number of these elements from November through March.  Whether it is repeated snowfall in the north and midwest or ice storms in the south, few places are immune to the toll the winter weather takes on our vehicles. Which is why you really may want to think about getting paint protection film. Even if you’re often parking your car in a garage, time isn’t your car’s friend either. Eventually, if not winter sludge, road salt or snow-melting chemicals, something is going to make that nice looking car of yours a little less beautiful. And it may not have anything to do with weather ... read more

Some people think that if you’re a franchise owner, that’s it. You own one franchise, and you’re almost a glorified employee who works for the franchisor. You aren’t really a business owner. You can never grow your business. You just have one stand-alone store in the franchise network, and that’s it. But that simply isn’t the case, as you may already know. Some franchise owners end up running businesses that operate and manage several different franchises. You could own a corporation that has five gas stations in a region, six restaurants and three clothing stores. No, it wouldn’t happen overnight, but the point is that some people do take that approach. Those people are often called master franchisees or area developers, and obviously, it takes a long time to get to that stage in one’s career, if you go that route. But the point is, being a franchise owner never means that you can’t grow and expand your business – and we tak ... read more

People can learn a lot from Randy Durham. After all, winning the annual Franchisee of the Year award, which is voted on by fellow franchise owners throughout the system, which he did last year, is a sign that your business is on a good path. But securing it two years in a row? Randy is clearly doing something right. So, what’s the secret to all his success? We recently caught up with Randy came away with a few takeaways that other franchisees may want to emulate. First, there are no secrets. Randy that he talks on the phone to a lot of fellow Alta Mere franchisees and often shares tips about his business – mostly on topics like handling the window tinting of certain high-end cars. He learns a lot from other owners, and other owners likely learn from him. It’s never a bad idea to get to know your fellow franchisees and ... read more

For some of us, it’s that time of year again. Suddenly, we have more passengers in our car than usual. On our way to work, or on our way from work, we’re shuttling our kids – and maybe the neighbor’s kids – to school. That’s right. Back to school doesn't’t just mean back to school shopping. For some parents, it means back to school driving and picking up your kids from after school activities. Well, whatever your situation is, we at Moran Family of Brands think that this is probably a good time to offer some back-to-school carpool safety suggestions. There’s certainly never a bad time to think about car safety. So if your car is more full than ever, remember these safety tips. Buckle up. You probably don’t need any convincing that seatbelts save lives, but just in case your passengers do, the statistics make a good argument. According to the most recent statistics ... read more

If you’ve thought many times about starting a business but quickly dismissed the idea, there are probably some logical reasons holding you back.  Fear of failure, having the proper guidance and being able to market and sell your product or service could all be reasons why you hesitate in starting your own business. One possible solution to overcoming many of these fears is by looking into franchising. That is, running a business that is part of a regional or nationwide company. As you presumably know, McDonald’s is a franchise. So is Subway, Ace Hardware and Circle K. In fact, there are over 3,000 types of franchise brands in a wide range of industries. When you own a franchise, you’re the business owner – but it’s a little similar to being a condominium owner. In that situation, you own the property and have a lot of leewa ... read more

What you don’t know can’t hurt you. It’s a ridiculous statement, of course. If you don’t know you have an illness, you won’t go to the doctor, and so that can hurt you. If you don’t know – to go with a comical, nonsensical example – that an Acme safe is falling from the sky and about to fall on you, that, too, can hurt you. What you don’t know can hurt you when taking a test. And, of course, when driving, we’re taught immediately that what we don’t know can hurt everyone. In other words, beware of the blind spot, the areas around your car that you can’t see despite looking out of all your side view and rear-view mirrors. For most of automotive history, the blind spot has been something drivers have had to contend and co-exist with. Drivers have always been able to try to do what they can to help their vision, but the options have never been great – like glancing over their shoulder before a lane change, wh ... read more

July is National UV Safety Month, and while glass windows can protect us from just about every element coming in, they unfortunately do very little to help us from ultraviolet rays. They can get into our homes and office buildings pretty easily. Why is this worth thinking about? For several reasons, including… Your health. As you probably know, ultraviolet rays are, to quote MedicineNet.com, “invisible rays that are part of the energy that comes from the sun, can burn the skin and cause skin cancer.” Now, look, we don’t want to alarm anyone. If you’re going about your business in your house, you’re not going to develop skin cancer simply because you don’t have tinted windows.  That said, if you work out of your home, or you work in a commercial office building, and your desk is next to a window, and you’re next to a window, and you hav ... read more

If you’ve ever considered window tinting for your cars, now is the best time to do it.  Why?  With the start of the summer approaching, temperatures across the country will rise to uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous levels.  And there’s probably almost nowhere on earth, where it can get more scorching than in a parked car. Just take a look at some of the facts on rising temperatures inside a car and the safety concerns the pose for passengers: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the temperature inside cars can rise almost 20 degrees within ten minutes even if windows are open. Studies show parked cars can quickly become greenhouses on wheels.  Infrared rays the enter the car are unable to get out, quickly warmin ... read more

Over the last year, Chandler Goodman has given serious consideration to pursuing a career working side-by-side with his father at his Alta Mere Automotive Outfitters store and possibly taking over the family business at some point in the future.  He can only hope his career with Alta Mere goes much smoother than his first day on the job, when he was fired by his father. Greg Goodman has owned his Alta Mere store in Oklahoma City since 1994.  When Chandler was 12 years old, Greg took him to work and offered to pay him $4 and hour to sweep and clean the shop.  Although the pre-teen was more than happy to be able to earn some spending money, a few staff members informed Chandler he was making less than minimum wage and convinced him to ask the boss for a raise. “Me being the prideful person I am, I thought ‘I’m at least as good as minimum wage, he has to pay me that much,’” said Chandler.  “I ... read more