October is Fall Car Care Month As the calendar turns to October and the start of fall is upon us, now is a good reminder that October is Fall Car Care Month. October is a good time to assess the condition of your car and determine if it needs maintenance.  It has been through a long summer with continued exposure to the hot weather, and maybe a long trip or two mixed in.  Now is the time to take your car in for any work that may need to be done before the winter weather arrives.  It feels a long way off right now, but the Farmer’s Almanac is predicting that two-thirds of the country will encounter a colder-than-normal season. So with that in mind, October’s a good time to get your car inspected at Milex Complete Auto Care or ... read more

Five Ways You Could Accidentally, Inadvertently Damage Your Car Routine maintenance or some standard problems with your car will lead you to bring in your vehicle at your local Milex Complete Auto Care or Mr. Transmission shop.  However, there will sometimes be some unexpected circumstances that require service that can be preventable. With our busy daily lives, we don’t always think about simple things we may be doing that can hurt the performance of our car.  Here are a few things to keep in mind and prevent an unnecessary trip into the shop for service. Driving near empty. Many people will wait to fill up on gas to when the needle hovers around “E,”. Maybe that is the sign that it is time for a refill.  Other times you may be too busy to stop, or the price at a certain station may be a few cents high.  Aside from taking ... read more

Most business owners want to grow a business. The question is – how to grow it? After all, there are a lot of ways to grow a business in the wrong way. You can expand your business to the point that you’re spending more on the infrastructure or inventory than you’re receiving in revenue. You can spread yourself too thin, where your business is doing too many different things and none of them very well. There’s a reason the term growing pains is often thrown around. Growing can involve a fair amount of agony. That’s why we’re big fans of co-branding, the concept of having a business that has two or three or more brands under one roof. In other words, if you run a Milex Complete Auto Care, a full-service auto repair shop, you might also be the owner of a Mr. Transmission, which does transmission and clutch repair. It’s a way of growing and avoiding growing ... 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

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

We’re in the middle of winter, and so snow storms are a common sight. Sometimes, it’s just flurries slowly drifting onto the roads. Other times, it’s a whiteout that covers the roads in snow and makes it impossible to drive any faster that 5 mph In some cases, you may even get stuck on the roads if you drive out there. You want to do as much as possible to avoid getting caught off guard, and prevent yourself from getting hypothermia or frostbite among other conditions. The professionals at Mr. Transmission would like to offer some advice if you have to drive out on the roads during a blizzard. However, the first piece of advice they would like to share is this: Do not drive out there unless it’s absolutely necessary. What to do before In the event that your travels will cause you to be in the midst of a snowstorm, planning ahead is essential. If you can, plan your work day a ... read more