FenderBender: January 2024

FENDERBENDER.COM / JANUARY 2024

CREATE A WINNING PHONE PROCESS

PAG E 32

Strategies & Inspiration for Collision Repair Success

ARE YOU COVERED FOR SHOP LOSSES? PAG E 35

TIME TO GROW

HOW TO GET TEAM BUY-IN

PAG E 37

The decision to expand a shop or add another location can be complex PAG E 20

Bringing Systems & Processes Ken Hunnell struck out on his own four years ago after nearly 20 years working for regional MSOs.

SCHEDULE FOR LEAN PRODUCTION

PAG E 39

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CONTENTS

JANUARY 0 1 . 2 4

20 TIME TO GROW

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V O L U M E

2 7

FEATURE

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N U M B E R

0 1

PROFILE

28 ‘FIX THE MACHINE, AND

PEOPLE WILL APPRECIATE IT’

The decision to expand a shop or add another location can be complex

Bob Barks celebrates 50 years of passionately serving customers

BY JAY SICHT

BY LINDSEY GAINER

FenderBender (USPS Permit 25614), (ISSN 1937-7150 print) is published monthly by Endeavor Business Media, LLC. 201 N Main St 5th Floor Fort Atkinson, WI 53538. Periodicals postage paid at Fort Atkinson, WI, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to FenderBender, PO Box 3257, Northbrook, IL 60065-3257. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Publisher reserves the right to reject non-qualified subscriptions.

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January 2024

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CONTENTS

JANUARY

QUICK FIX

STARTER

07

DRIVER’S SEAT

Planning for the new year

08

PAST THE PAGE Paint suppliers consolidate

09

BREAKDOWN CIC panel discusses success of Collision Engineering Program internships

12

LIGHT HITS

Fire destroys New York restoration shop, ADAS increases repair costs by 37%, and more

15

NUMBERS

Do you use industry-specific management training?

09

COLUMNS

STRATEGY

32

35

THE SOP

Create a phone process that wins over your customers

35

FINANCE + OPERATIONS

Review your garagekeepers’ insurance to prepare for any shop situation

37

CASE STUDY

Get team buy-in for not only your processes, but also your leadership style

39

SALES+ MARKETING

Apply these guardrails to keep your Estimators and CSRs on track for lean production scheduling

BY STE VE TR APP

19

SHOP PROFITS

Part 1: Blueprinting is one step to building wastefree repairs

BY G REG LOB S IG E R

42

COLLISION COURSE

Give your staff the freedom to implement all you’ve taught them

BY TIFFANY ME NE FE E

44

DUE PROCESS

Do you view newcar dealers as competition-or as partners?

BY DRE W B RYANT

January 2024

4

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How Does Your Shop Measure Up? HOW ATI SHOPS PERFORM*

47% 58% 37% GROSS PROFIT MARGIN

LABOR MARGIN

PARTS MARGIN

LEVEL UP WITH THE EXPERTS. → The trusted leader in coaching and consulting for independent collision shop owners.

→ Over 25-year track record elevating hundreds of members across the United States.

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+1 410.988.6409 contact@autotraining.net www.autotraining.net Scan the bar or visit www.autotraining.net/level-up *These figures are calculated by taking the average performance achieved by all ATI shops as tracked from their financial statements. Results may vary.

CONTENTS

ONLINE EXTRAS

CL ICK ON THE L OGO BEL OW F OR PRODUC T INF ORMATION

3M Automotive Aftermarket Division

Automotive Training Institute

Polyvance

AUTEL

Buy Auto Supply

SATA / DanAm Air

EDITORIAL

Matt Hudson Content Director Jay Sicht Editor-in-Chief Abdulla Gaafarelkhalifa Associate Editor Kacey Frederick Assistant Editor Emily Kline Special Projects Editor Leah Marxhausen Special Projects Editor Drew Bryant Contributing Writer Tiffany Menefee Contributing Writer Greg Lobsiger Contributing Writer Noah Brown Contributing Writer Lindsey Gainer Contributing Writer Steve Trapp Contributing Writer

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Jordan Beshears Steve’s Auto Body Sheryl Driggers Universal Collision Frank Rinaudo Frank’s Accurate Body Shop Jason Mundy Mundy’s Collision Center Stan Medina Certified Collision Works Auto Data Labels

Goliath Carts

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SALES

Andrew Johnson Associate Publisher ajohnson@endeavorb2b.com Mattie Gorman-Greuel Associate Sales Director Cortni Jones Director of Business Development Diane Braden Account Executive (National Accounts) dbraden@endeavorb2b.com Marianne Dyal Account Executive (National Accounts) mdyal@endeavorb2b.com Chad Hjellming Account Executive (National Accounts) chjellming@endeavorb2b.com Lisa Mend Account Executive (National Accounts) lmend@endeavorb2b.com Martha Severson Account Executive (National Accounts) mseverson@endeavorb2b.com Kyle Shaw Account Executive (National Accounts) kshaw@endeavorb2b.com Sean Thornton Account Executive (National Accounts) sthornton@endeavorb2b.com Ryan McCanna Administrative Assistant

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LET TE RS TO THE E DITOR editor@fenderbender.com

Opinions expressed in FenderBender are not necessarily those of Endeavor Business Media, and Endeavor Business Media does not accept responsibility for advertising content.

January 2024

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DRIVER’S SEAT

CHART YOUR COURSE Have you made any New Year’s resolutions for your business?

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL with the new year, a chance to examine what has worked well and what could use some fine-tuning. Have you made any resolutions for improving your business this year? This month’s issue may provide some ideas for changes you can look at making for your business to increase profits and (hopefully) reduce stress.

Perhaps you’ve been kicking around implementing lean production. Columnist Greg Lobsiger’s first part of a series, “Building a waste-free repair,” on p. 19, discusses how blueprinting can require less effort and resources to achieve an outcome, while veteran collision repair industry consultant Steve Trapp talks about how to implement scheduling systems for lean on p. 39.

“So many people are afraid to lose work, so they just take the work in and deal with the repercussions,” he writes. Instead, shops should plan based on their forecasted sales and capacity.

Have you been considering either pushing out your shop’s walls or adding another location? Our feature, “Time to Grow,” on p.

20, explores some factors at play in what is the best choice for your business. But it all begins with a phone call from a customer.

Did you know you have a narrow window of opportunity – seven seconds, to be exact – to win that prospect’s business? In “Creating a Phone Process That Works,” on p. 32, Sheryl Driggers, Collision Advice coach and former collision repair shop owner, explains how important that first contact is to convert callers into customers. And although your shop insurance policy may not be up for renewal for a while, David Willett tells FenderBender on p. 35 why it’s important to carefully consider how the policy is written so your shop is covered in the event of a loss.

January 2024

I have a few resolutions of my own, but I’ll keep them to myself. But I will say that as no one has an infinite amount of time and energy, experience has taught me to have specific, measurable, and achievable goals, and not to allow many, if any, “cheat” days. May the New Year bring you happiness, peace, and prosperity.

JAY SICHT

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

jsicht@endeavorb2b.com

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VIDEOS

PA ST T H E PAGE

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PODCASTS

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WEBINARS

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NEWS

LIQUID ASSETS: MAJOR PAINT DISTRIBUTORS ACQUIRED Wesco Group, a paint, body and equipment distributor in the U.S. and Canada, shared in a news release that English Color and Supply has joined the Wesco team.

English Color and Supply was founded

by Bob English in 1946. Headquartered in Richardson, Texas, English Color has grown into a distributor with 76 locations serving the central United States.

Robert Burns has joined Wesco as a principal partner and will continue to lead the group in the central United States.

“The entire English Color team is excited to be part of the Wesco Group. Like the other members of the group, English Color has been dedicated to providing the ultimate solutions for our customers with the best and most dedicated employees in the industry. “It is like Cinderella’s slipper; it’s a perfect fit,” said Robert Burns of English Color.

“The union brings together two industry leaders with complementary strengths and a shared vision which will benefit our customers, employees, and vendors alike. This

@fenderbendermag January 2024

reinforces our commitment to the industry and sets the stage for continued excellence on a national level. This is a great opportunity for both organizations, and we look forward to our future together,” said Lloyd White, CEO of Wesco Group.

The combined Wesco Group, which includes Wesco, Color Compass, Kemperle, and English Color is one of the largest privately held PBE distributors in North America servicing customers from 221 stores, 20 distribution centers, 15 equipment divisions, and 12 training centers.

The latest acquisition announcement comes less than two weeks after news that Wesco had acquired Motorcar Colors, primarily based in New Jersey and Delaware.

WILsquare Capital Acquires Automotive Color & Supply Corp.

WILsquare Capital, a mid-market St. Louisbased private equity firm, announced in a Nov. 28 news release it had completed the acquisition of Automotive Color & Supply (“ACS”), a major regional distributor of automotive and industrial paint and supply

fenderbender.com/linkedin 8

products with 10 locations across Indiana and Illinois.

“WILsquare is thrilled to partner with Josh Byers and the ACS team to build upon the legacy the Byers Family began decades ago,” said Jack Randazzo, Director at WILsquare Capital, in the release.

ACS was founded in 1951 and led by three generations of the Byers Family.

“I am excited for the opportunity that our leadership team and I get to partner with WILsquare Capital and look forward to leveraging WILsquare’s understanding of distribution, operational knowledge, and thoughtful geographic expansion to take ACS to the next level of growth, while preserving the legacy of my family’s business,” said Josh Byers, CEO of ACS. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Visit FenderBender.com/news for daily updates from around the collision repair industry.

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SHIRONOSOV / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS

English Color and Supply Joins Wesco Group

NEWS

Q U I C K

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IDEAS

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PEOPLE

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TRENDS

F I X

BREAKDOWN

‘EDUCATION DRIVEN BY INDUSTRY’

CIC panel discusses success of Collision Engineering Program internships

By JAY S ICHT

T H E T EC H N IC I A N S HORTA GE P R OB L E M

JAY SICHT

is nationwide, but one solution, the Collision Engineering Program, addresses it a local or regional level, said Mary Mahoney, vice president of Enterprise Mobility’s replacement and leisure division.

Mahoney, instructors, collision repair shop owners, and recent graduates were part of a discussion panel moderated by I-CAR’s Bud Center at the recent Collision

Industry Conference in Las Vegas to talk about details of the program. The program is novel in its approach, which combines labs and classwork with on-the-job training at participating shops in eight-week rotations for two years. After successful completion, students graduate with an associate’s degree. Founded by the Enterprise Mobility Foundation in partnership with Ranken Technical College in St. Louis, Mis-

January 2024

souri, it concluded its pilot phase about two years ago and has since expanded to a total of seven colleges in California, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, and Texas.

“The Collision Engineering Program was developed to build a new generation of highly motivated, passionate, skilled collision repair technologists for the industry,” she said. “It’s education and industry working together in a collaborative partnership. Each of the schools develops their own advisory council to help guide the program through its term. And we think by working closely with industry partners, we can ensure that the training models are what the industry is looking for, and they’ll keep up with the trends and the advancements of vehicles that are being made. We kind of like to call this ‘education driven by industry.’”

9

Laura Lozano, instructor and department chair at Contra Costa College in San Pablo, California, said the classroom offers structured learning and a slower pace.

Working in the shop, students “get a little bit of the pressure of completing a task in a certain amount of time.” They then come back to school with a greater understanding of what they’re working toward and knowing what questions they need to ask.

What Makes a Good Shop Partnership

Lozano said an ideal shop partner emphasizes training from I-CAR and the OEMs. “We do a lot of footwork in meeting with the shops in getting to know their culture, getting to know their technicians who would be mentors of our students. What I think the biggest piece in all of this is finding an

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QUICK FIX

employer a manager who is open to going through this process with the student and with the college.”

She and Octavio Cavazos, instructor and department chair at the College of Lake County in Grayslake, Illinois, said it’s necessary to have an open “triangle of communication” between the student, employer, and school.

“If we don’t have that open line of communication and that trust and willingness to grow together, we’re never going to succeed,” Cavazos said. “The employers have to understand that it is a process that we have to go through. They have to be willing to put forth the effort, just like the student is and just like the schools are.”

Amber Alley, the Society of Collision Repair Specialists chairman and manager of Barsotti’s Body and Fender in San Rafael, California, agreed. She is helping train a second apprentice student.

“You want to see these young people succeed. They’ve taken the first step: they chose your shop. You have all this support, but you really have to step up your game.”

What Helps Attract Young Apprentices to Shops

Sam Ortega, a graduate of Contra Costa College’s program said he was impressed with the “very clean and up-to-date” environment at Accurate Auto Body, in Richmond, California. “And all the employees were really nice and respectful.”

“I wanted to know that the shop was just as eager to progress and learn about what was coming next in the next models as I was,” said Karina Badillo, a graduate of the College of Lake County’s program.

She had considered other technical programs, including welding. “But nothing was quite as comforting as this program

was. It is really nice to have a team behind you.”

Alley reinforced Badillo’s point about needing to make the shop environment and culture welcoming to women, which is not the reputation it historically has had.

“I think a program like this is exactly what we need to change that perception of the industry. It gives young ladies who do want to enter the industry a very safe way to do that. For 30 years, I’ve been in a management position of some capacity in the industry, and I’ve never employed a woman technician. That’s a problem, and I want to change that. And I just don’t know that we can have the conversation about a labor shortage if we don’t also make it an industry that promotes that in a positive fashion. And I think this is a start to that.”

Tiffany Silva, the owner of Accurate Auto Body, is on her third student apprentice.

WE’RE SOCIAL CONNECT WITH US ON YOUR FAVORITE SOCIAL MEDIA SITES

WWW.FENDERBENDER.COM January 2024

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“The success of this program is something that we need to see nationwide,” she said. “And then we will stop complaining about the shortage of techs, and we’ll also have strong female role models on our shop f loors, not only in our offices. The majority of my workforce is female. I believe I have eight females, and I have 10 people who are under the age of 25 working in our facility.”

What Leads to a Successful Apprenticeship

The Collision Engineering Program is a collaborative partnership between education and industry, Mary Mahoney says.

Shop managers who strive for a successful program will achieve it, although not overnight, said Cavazos, who said he has graduated 26 student apprentices, all of whom are still working in the industry.

“Employers, I’m going to give you the same pitch that I would pitch to the parents or to the students coming into our

program: If you give us two years of dedication, learn the process, and work with us, at the end of those two years, you will have an astonishing employee on your floor. I told my students: Give me two years of honest hard work, and you will have a team supporting you through those two years to make you successful.”

The extra effort yields a technician ideal for the shop environment to which he or she has grown accustomed, he said.

“If you want a technician right now, if you’re looking for an A tech, don’t come to me; don’t come to Laura. We don’t have those.

But we have a model that can get you a very strong graduate at the end of two years, that you can then mold into whatever it is that technician should be for your facility.”

For more information, go to https://www. beacollisionengineer.com

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fenderbender.com 12/20/23 11:31 AM

QUICK FIX

LIGHT HITS

FIRE DESTROYS NEW YORK RESTORATION SHOP

The Campville (New York) Fire Department responded to a structure fire at B&B Automotive, Inc. in Weltonville on Wednesday, Dec. 13 around 7:30 a.m.

The department wrote on Facebook, “Handline operations kept the flames from spreading as the aerial master stream from 301 was set up. Crews battled the blaze, and successfully brought the fire under control.”

The fire resulted in the building being a total loss and is under investigation by the Tioga County Fire Bureau of Investigation, according to a news article from local news station WBNG. The Candor, Weltonville, and Newark Valley fire depar tments, as well as the Candor Emergency Squad, also responded.

According to their website, B&B Automotive specializes in antique, classic and muscle car restoration.

They’ve been operating for over 30 years, providing restoration services including body, mechanical, interior, and electrical systems.

ADAS INCREASES REPAIR COSTS

BY OVER 37%, AAA REPORTS

A recent AAA study found that Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), such as automatic emergency braking (AEB), blind spot monitoring, and lane departure warning, can increase repair costs by up to 37.6% after a crash.

Key findings of the study show the average cost of replacing ADAS components: In a minor front collision repair was $1,540.92, or 13.2% of the average total repair estimate of $11,708.29.

In a side mirror replacement was $1,067.42, or 70.8% of the average total repair estimate of $1,507.55.

In a minor rear collision repair was $684.63, or 40.9% of the average total repair estimate of $1,698.24.

With the new windshield and performing the necessary calibration

January 2024

was $360.00, or 25.4% of the average total repair estimate of $1,439.78.

These findings provide perspective on the cost associated with repairing current model year vehicles of identical make and model with ADAS. The 2023 Ford F-150, 2023 Nissan Rogue, and 2023 Toyota Camr y are included within this study.

In 2018, the A A A Automotive Engineering team evaluated the 2018 model year versions of these vehicles for the same purpose as this study; however, it should be noted that results are not directly comparable due to differences in standard equipment, changes in labor costs, and methodology.

TESLA DRIVERS ARE MORE ACCIDENT-PRONE, STUDY FINDS

LendingTree, an online marketplace that connects borrowers with lenders, has released a study revealing that Tesla drivers are the most accident-prone.

From November 14, 2022, through November 14, 2023, Tesla drivers had 23.54 accidents per 1,000 drivers. Ram (22.76) and Subaru (20.90) were the only other brands with more than 20.00 accidents per 1,000 drivers.

Meanwhile, Pontiac (8.41), Mercury (8.96), and Saturn (9.13) were the only brands with fewer than 10.00 accidents per 1,000 drivers.

The study also determined the car brands with the least and most DUIs, speeding-related incidents, and citations.

Additionally, the study provides a breakdown of the worst drivers by car brand for each state.

WIN’S ‘DREAM OUT LOUD’ CONFERENCE COMING THIS SUMMER

The Women’s Industry Network (WIN) has opened registration for the 2024 WIN Conference, which is “one of the collision repair industry’s most anticipated leadership and management forums,” according to a news release.

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This year’s conference, featuring the theme of “Dream Out Loud,” will be held May 6-8 at the Hyatt Regency Newport Beach, California.

“We had a record 236 in-person attendees and another 66 people joining us virtually at the 2023 WIN Conference in San Antonio, and we know that our 2024 conference will be the biggest and best yet,” said Blair Womble, chair of the WIN 2024 Conference, in the release. “We are looking forward to industry speakers sharing the latest on EV, repair planning and scanning, as well as sessions on personal and professional growth.”

The reasons that WIN listed to attend the conference include networking, education, growth, renewal, and inspiration.

The conference will be taking place near the sun, sand, and surf that makes up Newport Beach, offering sunset cruises to surf lessons, wine tastings, and harborfront promenades.

WIN Members registering by the March 1 early-bird deadline will receive a discounted rate of $575; after that, the member cost increases to $680. The ticket rate for non-members is $725.

Registration for in-person attendees closes on April 24. Anyone preferring to join virtually may do so for $250.

Interested attendees can join WIN as a professional member anytime for just $95, and then take advantage of the discounted attendance if they join before March 1.

To register for the conference, visit the WIN website at https://tinyurl. com/4tauajf7. More details about speakers, breakouts, and conference curriculum are coming soon.

QUALITY COLLISION GROUP ACQUIRES CASCADE’S NINE LOCATIONS IN UTAH

Quality Collision Group (QCG), a syndicate of OEM-certified collision repair centers, has acquired Utah MSO Cascade Collision Repair, according to a news release.

The addition of Cascade’s nine locations brings the total number of repair

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facilities under the Quality Collision Group banner to 62.

Cascade’s nine locations, spread across Utah in Lehi, Provo, Orem, Spanish Fork, Park City, Eagle Mountain, Ogden, West Haven, and St. George, will continue to provide exceptional collision repair services to their communities under their existing brand. A tenth Cascade Collision Repair location, in Salt Lake County, is preparing to open soon.

“This acquisition furthers our commitment to providing superior collision repair services while expanding our national presence,” said Jerod Guerin, CEO and Founder of QCG. Cascade Collision Repair, founded by the Nichols family, has a rich history dating back to 1978 when Terry’s Auto Body opened its doors. Over the years, the Nichols brothers, Brian, Dan, and Russ, have built a legacy focused on trust, honesty, and excellence in collision repair. According to QCG, the family’s dedication to creating customers for life, transparent pricing, and a written lifetime transferable warranty on every repair aligns seamlessly with QCG’s mission.

“We see this acquisition as a natural progression in the evolution of Cascade Collision Repair,” commented the Nichols family in a joint statement from Cascade Collision Repair. “Joining forces with Quality Collision Group allows us to continue our commitment to excellence and ensures our customers receive the highest quality collision repair ser vices.”

The MSO carries certifications from Ford, GM, Honda, Subaru, and Rivian, and every technician employed by the company is recognized by I-CAR. Additionally, the MSO offers repair and calibration of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

CAPA OKS BOSCH FOR TIER 1 REPLACEMENT PARTS VERIFICATION PROGRAM

The Certified Automotive Parts Association (CAPA), an independent nonprofit standard-setting and

January 2024

certification organization for automotive crash parts, has approved Robert Bosch LLC (Bosch) for its Tier 1 Replacement Parts Verification Program, according to a news release.

Bosch plans to submit its ultrasonic parking sensors for CAPA verification. The program is available for any Tier 1 supplier that also produces an in-house alternately branded version of car company original (CCO) or car company service (CCS) parts used for automotive repair.

Historically, Tier 1 replacement parts have lacked clear definitions and have been classified as aftermarket parts, making it difficult to determine which parts are truly comparable to CCOs or CCSs. The CAPA Tier 1 Verification Program helps clarif y these parts by ensuring the same factor y, tooling, materials, and manufacturing processes are used during the production of the car company part and the Tier 1 Verified replacement part. Additionally, CAPA Tier 1 Verified parts must also demonstrate compliance with all applicable federal regulations.

“We’re thrilled to add an esteemed manufacturer like Bosch to the CAPA Tier 1 Verification Program,” said Clark Plucinski, Chairman of the CAPA Board of Directors.

“The demand has never been higher in the repair industry for high-quality replacement sensors. CAPA is eager to begin answering that call with its Tier 1 Verified ultrasonic parking sensors.”

With Bosch’s successful completion of CAPA’s approval process, it may begin submitting parts for verification. Verified parts will be announced via CAPA’s weekly updates, and they can be identified by the CAPA Tier1 Verified label.

SIX COLLISION CENTERS PART OF HISTORIC $1.2 BILLION ACQUISITION

Asbury Automotive Group, one of the U.S.’s largest automotive retail and service companies, has completed the acquisition of Jim Koons Automotive

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Companies, based in the Washington D.C. - Baltimore area.

The purchase price of approximately $1.2 billion includes $740 million of goodwill, $420 million of real estate and leasehold improvements, as well as vehicle inventory, parts inventory, and fixed assets of the dealerships.

The acquisition is expected to add approximately $3 billion in annualized revenues. According to BusinessWire, this deal is the largest auto retail acquisition since 2021.

The sale includes six collision centers, 20 dealerships, 29 franchises, and one of the highest volume Toyota dealerships in the U.S. “Not only are Koons’ twenty dealerships consistent leaders in sales volume and customer satisfaction, they are also renowned for their positive employee and workplace culture, essential values we share at Asbury,” said David Hult, Asbury’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We welcome Koons employees to the Asbury family, and are grateful for their hard work and talent, and for the Asbury team, in the successful completion of this historic transaction.”

“Our transaction with Asbury was a large and complex one, and the excellent and dedicated teamwork demonstrated by both companies is a clear indicator of its future success,” said Jim Koons, Chairman of Jim Koons Automotive Companies.

Asbury Automotive Group, a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Duluth, Georgia, is one of the largest automotive retailers in the country. Since 2020, Asbury embarked on a five-year plan to increase revenue and profitability strategically through organic and acquisitive growth as well as their innovative Clicklane digital vehicle purchasing platform.

AIRPRO DIAGNOSTICS APPROVED FOR FORD CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS

AirPro Diagnostics has received approval from Ford for its products to be used in

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QUICK FIX

collision and glass certification programs, according to a press release.

The company is now approved as a diagnostics and calibrations provider for the Ford Certified Collision Network (FCCN) as well as the Ford Certified Glass Network (FCGN).

To prepare its staff, AirPro Diagnostics sent its Ford Brand Specialists to I-CAR’s Chicago training center to receive hands-on training for the program’s requirements.

A variety of different scanning and ADAS calibrations products are offered by AirPro, which aim to meet manufacturer requirements by having OEM licensed software and multi-brand diagnostic applications resident and directly connected to a vehicle.

“This approval is yet another example of AirPro’s commitment to meeting OE approvals,” said AirPro Diagnostics President and COO Josh McFarlin.

CCA LAUNCHES 2024 TOOL GRANT INITIATIVE

The Carolinas Collision Association (CCA) announced the launch of the 2024 Tool Grant initiative in a news release.

Following discussions at the previous year’s CCA board meeting, where a commitment to increased committee engagement was established, the Trade School Committee set its sights on creating a fundraising event with a meaningful purpose.

The chosen event for this year was a skeet shoot, open to all — vendors, members, non-members, and enthusiasts alike. Despite an initial postponement due to inclement weather, the rescheduled event successfully raised $17,000. 100% of the proceeds will directly fuel the 2024 CCA Tool Grant.

According to the news release, this initiative stemmed from extensive brainstorming sessions aimed at addressing the technician shortage within the collision industr y. While considering various options, including donations to larger industr y non-profits or tuition scholarships for technical schools, the committee ultimately conceived the CCA Tool Grant as a more personal and impactful endeavor.

This grant is tailored for individuals

January 2024

dedicated to pursuing a career in the collision repair industr y, of fering crucial assistance to kickstar t their journey.

The applications for the CCA Tool Grant will be distributed to high school and college collision repair programs in the Carolinas starting January 1, 2024. The submission deadline is January 31, with recipients announced by April 1. Each recipient will receive a $2,000 voucher, with access to approved tool lists specific to their job requirements, enhancing their preparedness as they embark on their careers.

Organizers have hope that the program wil foster closer ties between trade school students, co-op opportunities, and CCA-affiliated apprenticeships. This synergy ensures better-prepared students entering the workforce and recognizes and supports those committed to the collision repair industry.

The announcement of the 2024 CCA Tool Grant winners can be found at www. carolinascollisionassociation.com.

CRASH CHAMPIONS ACQUIRES ADAMS COLLISION IN CHICAGO

Crash Champions has acquired Adams Collision in Chicago, according to a news release.

The deal includes four collision repair centers serving customers in the northwest Chicagoland communities of Harvard, Lake in the Hills, McHenry, and Huntley. The acquisition officially closed on Friday, Dec. 8, with operations transitioning immediately to Crash Champions, according to the news release.

Crash Champions now operates a lineup of more than 60 locations across the Chicago market, complementing its overall lineup of more than 610 repair centers in 37 states across the U.S. “Chicago is home, and we are always proud to grow our brand and our team across this community, which has supported us for so long,” said Crash Champions founder and CEO Matt Ebert in the release. “Adams Collision is another strong addition to the Crash Champions team. We’re grateful to earn the trust of their staff and look forward to expanding our service to new customers and communities across the area.”

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Adams Collision is a long-time trusted name with local and national automotive insurance providers. Each of its four repair centers is I-CAR Gold Class-certified.

“With more than six decades of ser vice to our local customers, it was important to our team that we entrust the next chapter of our stor y with a company that is committed to the Chicago community,” said Jay Adams, president of Adams Auto Body and Ser vice Center. “Crash Champions aligns seamlessly with our vision. They have built a preeminent collision repair business upon the foundation of trust and creating opportunities for team members. We’re confident this is a tremendous step for ward.”

CLASSIC COLLISION ADDS FIVE NEW COLORADO SHOPS

Classic Collision has acquired Colorado Auto Body, with five locations in Aurora, Castle Rock, Denver, and Littleton, Colorado.

Colorado Auto Body has been ser ving customers since 1984, with a reputation for quality auto repairs and excellent customer ser vice, according to the news release.

“Our mission has been to provide quality, professional collision repair coupled with our total commitment to providing you, our customer, with the highest quality of workmanship and service. We have faith that Classic Collision will uphold our mission,” said Bill Lipsitz, former owner of Colorado Auto Body, in the release.

“We recognize top-notch workmanship and dedication to customers within the Colorado Auto Body organization and look forward to adding these high-quality locations to our growing Colorado market,” said Classic Collision CEO, Toan Nguyen.

Classic Collision is based in Atlanta, Georgia, and it’s one of the largest privately held national providers of auto body repair services, with 255 stateof-the-art repair facilities in 16 states across the U.S. In the past three months, the company also acquired auto shops in Washington, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

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NUMBERS

DO YOU USE INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC MANAGEMENT TRAINING?

I T 'S N O T J U S T C O L L I S I O N R E PA I R S that have become more complex. The multiple challenges to maintain shop operational profitability and prepare for the future mean you may benefit from some outside help, whether that's attending industry-specific training, enlisting the help of a consultant, or networking within a 20 group or industry association.

These figures are part of the 2023 FenderBender Industry Survey Report.

How often do you personally attend industry-specific management training?

Never 18% Within the last five years 30% Annually 31% Quarterly 14% Monthly or more 7%

Do you work with a consultant or business coach?

Are you a member of a 20 group or other peer networking group?

Are you involved in a state, regional, or national industry association?

Yes 25%

Yes 33%

Yes 37%

No 75%

No 67%

No 63%

January 2024

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SHOP PROFITS

BUILDING A WASTE-FREE REPAIR: PART 1

Blueprinting is one component of lean that can help you create more value with less effort and resources

JOSIE SMITH PHOTOGRAPHY

“We cannot solve our problems with the same

thinking we used when we created them,” said Albert Einstein. It’s interesting how some days while driving home, shop owners and managers feel like all they did all day was put out fires. If this is true for any of us, we need to realize there is a better way. Our all-consuming goal should be to create a culture of “long-term mutual prosperity for everyone!” If we can accomplish this, we can pay our people more than anyone in our market, enjoy profits we never imagined, repair cars with more efficiency and quality, and take market share. This is only done by having systems in place to make the work easier and more fun.

Outside of collecting total-loss fees, we only get paid to complete lines items on our estimates. For the next three months, I am going to focus on the most crucial stage of waste elimination inside of today’s collision repair shops.

For the folks who have been in collision repair for, say, less than 10 years, there was an ocean wave called “lean” that rolled through our industry from roughly 2005-2014. Lean is about creating more value with less effort and resources. Many buzzwords at that time were floating around, like kaizen, kanban, continuous improvement, 5S, and so on. Lean is a very high road level of thinking, but sadly it can be hard to find in most traditional North American body shops today. Fortunately, there is just a one-word exception that we still hear in quite a few shops from the Lean movement and that word is “Blueprinting.”

If we had a thesaurus for collision repair, here could be some blueprinting synonyms: repair planning, damage analysis, 100% disassembly, teardown, and more. So, what is blueprinting? Well, as my friend Steve Trapp, formerly of Axalta and now Leap Consulting (and FenderBender contributor) has so accurately defined: “Blueprinting is the question mark-removal department; all questions are answered right here!” “What kind of questions?” you ask. Well, have we made all our repair vs. replace and blend/no blend decisions? Have we researched all OEM procedures, inspections, and one-time-use parts? Have we discovered ALL the damage? At the end of the blueprint, have we ordered every part we need? The goal of a complete blueprint is to make only one parts order, have a thoroughly written repair plan, no supplements

January 2024

beyond this point, and for the vehicle to never stop once production has started. For some, this may sound like a fairytale, but this is the cornerstone to a culture of rewarding work for our employees, customers who leave as raving fans, and cash to share with all!

I went out-of-state months back to visit a shop and view their processes. Prior to my visit, this shop had told me they had a blueprint process.

When I entered their “Blueprint Dept.,” there was a job that needed a rear body panel replacement.

The only parts removed were the rear cover and a couple trunk interior pieces. Near the car was a pile of new parts still in boxes, and the car was headed for production that day! This job was DOOMED to have no chance of having all the parts on order and running non-stop through production. The estimate was also likely missing 40-50 labor operations or would have to stop during production four to five times for supplements. I was literally sick to my stomach. I asked a few questions about the vehicles’ current state, and I received a broad-brush answer back, “There won’t be any problems downstream.” The good book says it best: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

For those who have cameras inside their shops, I want to challenge you to watch the shop floor for an entire day at 8X for one hour. Many shops will find the actual technician touch time on a vehicle is very limited and at best, probably less than two to three clock hours per day. I am talking hands on the car (removing, straightening, sanding, priming, bagging, spraying, installing, and washing).

By studying the video, here are the wasteful things that we will likely see our people doing: Looking for paperwork, finding keys, discussions between departments, moving cars, creating additional supplements, repriming, do we fix the dent in the blend panel, digging through parts carts, sifting through hardware, finding wrong fasteners, missing a bracket, etc. to infinity! Remember, the problem 99 percent of the time is NOT our people, but rather the system we have forced them to work in.

Look for February’s column as we dive into the nuts and bolts of what a proper blueprint should look like. This will include how to check in a vehicle, parts carts, blueprint teams, OEM procedures, proper dismantle, and more.

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GREG LOBSIGER

Greg Lobsiger has owned Loren’s Body Shop in Bluffton, Indiana, for over 23 years. He has been a member of Mike Anderson’s groups for ten years and had extensive lean manufacturing training.

EMAIL:

greg@lorensbodyshop.com

ARCHIVE:

fenderbender.com/lobsiger

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January 2024

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The decision to expand a shop or add another location can be complex

By JAY S ICHT, NICK HE MPHILL PH OTO G R A PH Y

January 2024

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TIME TO GROW

YOU’RE EITHER GROWING OR YOU’RE DYING,” or so goes the popular business saying.

While one can certainly enjoy same-store sales growth, increasingly, collision repair shops are becoming multi-shop operators (MSOs.) In fact, 26% of respondents to the 2023 FenderBender Industry Survey reported they are MSOs. But when is it time to either expand the building or to add another location? And what’s the best way to add an additional location: Acquire an existing body shop, build from the ground up (greenfield), or convert an existing building (brownfield)? For the two shop principals we interviewed for this article, that varies, depending on market conditions and what’s available.

Ken Hunnell, who spent the better part of nearly 20 years working for regional MSOs in Kansas, was ready to strike out on his own at the end of 2019. For his first shop, an acquisition of a shop in Enid, Oklahoma, provided immediate cashflow.

“I bought an existing shop at the beginning of 2020,” he says, “so, it was not exactly the best time to buy a shop. But in spite of COVID, we still grew. In 2020, we were up 40% from the $1 million per year the shop had been doing. And then in 2021, we doubled what we’d done the year before. We’re on track this year to clear $4 million. So, I’m proud of the growth there from what it had been doing.”

Hunnell just opened his second shop in November in Hutchinson, Kansas, after

January 2024

months of renovation of a historic building, with his sights set on additional locations down the road, with a preference for acquisitions.

“I just feel like I can bring some systems and processes in to help. Especially in some of these smaller markets, the shops are just not performing at the level they could be, so I feel like I can turn those around fairly quickly.

Eustis Body Shop, with six locations that span about 200 miles along I-80 in Nebraska, has grown from its first Eustis, Nebraska, location in 1979 using a mix of all options, says Vice President Ryan Clark.

“We’ve done them all. We’ve done a greenfield, we’ve done an acquisition, and we’ve done a brownfield,” says Clark, who is the son-in-law of owner and founder Doug Keller, noting that when possible, Keller prefers greenfield construction over an acquisition.

“He can design it and build it how he wants and buy the equipment he wants instead of fixing all the unmaintained equipment and having to buy new, anyway.”

Ready for a New Beginning

Hunnell began his collision repair career in 2001 working in the parts department for a regional MSO in Wichita, Kansas. He came to All Angles Collision, also in Wichita, in 2009, which at the time had just one shop doing a mix of restoration work and

22

collision repairs. He says he helped convert the shop to a focus on collision repairs and later implemented lean production processes and team-pay systems. The company began a growth spurt in 2015 with the opening of its second location, growing to five locations before Hunnell struck out on his own in late 2019.

“I think they finished 2019 with about $13 million in sales,” he recalls. “I was overseeing all five locations, and they were getting ready to start the construction of their sixth. So, I felt like it was a good time for me to leave without getting in the middle of a bunch of big projects. I was ready to have my own shop and was very thankful for the opportunity there.”

Hunnell had signed a non-compete agreement with the company that limited how close to Wichita he could operate. But the decision to buy the shop in Enid, a nearly twohour drive southwest of Wichita, was driven by his wife’s roots in the area, not a restriction in the agreement.

“My wife is from the area, and her parents live outside of Enid, so I stay with them a cou-

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Hunnell found a neat historic building in downtown Hutchinson to convert to Hutch Auto Body.

January 2024

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TIME TO GROW

ple days a week,” he says. “My son’s mom lives in the small town I live in. He’s a junior in high school, and my wife and I knew we weren’t going to move until he was out of high school.”

Once he had operations running smoothly enough in Enid to allow him to leave it in capable hands several days a week, Hunnell found a gem of a building in downtown Hutchinson, a town he’d previously planned to expand to and had the foresight to “box out of” the noncompete agreement. The historic building has the distinction of being the second franchise in the country for the Yellow Cab Co., Hunnell says, as well as a history of hosting service and repair operations for ambulances and buses.

“My wife and I are always driving around lots of old downtowns, and you’ll see where an old dealership used to be, or something like that. We fell in love with this one once

January 2024

we saw it. It’s actually a historical landmark building on the face of it.”

The free-span 22,000-square-foot building was essentially an empty warehouse that required three-phase electrical service to be brought into the building and throughout, a new paint booth, and heating and air conditioning, the latter of which Hunnell says helps to attract technicians. The shop opened to write estimates on Nov. 6.

Preparing to Expand

Hunnell says he was looking for additional expansion locations soon after he bought the Enid location. But to get to that point, Hunnell says, he first needed to be able to get it running smoothly on its own. Larry Baker, owner of Baker Collision Express, is Hunnell’s mentor, and the two conferred for an hour once a week.

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“We were doing well with our processes, but we just didn’t quite have the right people in the right place and the leadership for me to be able to not be there as much,” he says.

“In the spring of 2022, I looked at some of the people we had in the business and realized they didn’t all align with who we were and what was important to us. And so I knew we needed to make some changes.”

The transition was “tricky,” Hunnell admits, but it resulted in a staff of “high-quality people that fit very well with what we’re doing.”

“So now, I could start looking again at buying a location, and I've looked at some existing shops. I made a few calls, but I didn't really try hard. It's a small market, so there's not going to be a ton of opportunity. There's not going to be 20 shops to go see who might be interested in selling. But I was ready to grow,

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“IN SOME OF THESE SMALLER MARKETS, THE SHOPS ARE JUST NOT PERFORMING AT THE LEVEL THEY COULD BE.” —Ken Hunnell, Owner, Hutch Auto Body

January 2024

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and so I just started driving around looking at buildings and found this little yellow sign that said ‘For rent’ and thought, ‘Man, this thing looks awesome. I’d better call them.’

And then when they said the price, I was like, ‘Yeah, that seems really reasonable for the rent. I think I could swing that.’”

With money borrowed from his grandfather, Keller started his first shop in Eustis, a village of about 400 people, Clark says. Keller had community support, but a couple years later, he realized that although he knew how to fix cars, he didn’t really know how to run a business. Going to school at night, he earned his MBA. (Of 2023 FenderBender Industry Survey respondents, 2% reported having earned a master’s degree.)

“And that was really what got him to understand business, to understand break-even

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TIME TO GROW

analysis and realize that if he wanted to provide for his family like he had dreamed of, he was going to have to expand, because that one small location wasn't going to cut it.”

Along with his first employee – also his cousin and one of his best friends – Keller rented a little shop about 25 miles away at a car dealership in Lexington, Nebraska. But operations were restrictive, so he bought property and built a new spot for that second location, which opened by 1986.

“His righthand man and best friend was running that Lexington location. And he realized that management is key in continuing to grow. And they got together and said, ‘Hey, let’s do this again.”

In 1991, they looked at other markets, with their sights set on Grand Island, a sizable market of about 40,000 people at the time. Through his membership in the trade

January 2024

association, Keller knew a member with two locations looking to sell. He bought both, combining operations into one location and selling the other. Meanwhile, Kearney was booming, Clark says, and once Keller had someone ready to manage an additional location, he built a greenfield location, which opened in 1997.

“Doug attributes everything to his management team and having people willing to take over,” Clark says. “He’s never once built one and said, ‘I hope people come.’ He’s had people online to have that growth from within. And that’s probably why he’s been so successful.”

The Cozad shop came up for sale in 2006, making it number five in the Eustis family.

Each team member’s role at Hutch Auto Body is specialized.

Looking to Lincoln

Keller was looking toward retirement, Clark says. “And then I came along and married his daughter.” Clark had gone to college to be a sci-

26

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entist, which had been his profession for five years. But he was “bored and loved cars,” while at the same time making more money doing “side hustles” and business ventures with his friends than as a scientist. On a golf outing, Keller asked Clark if he’d ever considered working in the business. Clark was skeptical. “I was like, ‘I’m not a blue-collar guy.’ And he kind of brought me in and showed me a few things. ‘If you’re interested, let’s try it.’ So, I talked to my wife, switched careers, and moved up to Eustis for a year while my wife lived in Lincoln.”

Clark says he learned the trade from the ground-up, from the detail bay to disassembling cars. Keller next tasked him with restoring his personal 1987 Chevy pickup, Clark’s first project.

“The guys in Eustis were super willing to help me grow,” he recalls. “I think they saw the business side of me, but they didn't know if I'd be able to do the manual labor side. And what I learned from that big project is we are not in the rust restoration business. And we are that way for a reason.”

Clark would soon find his way back to Lincoln, as Keller had been receiving a lot of phone calls from customers asking him to consider expanding to the capital city, where many of their kids were going to school at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“In 2017, we started the dirt work, and in 2018, the doors opened. I moved back to Lincoln and started running that business.”

To decide where to buy land, Clark says the two worked with their paint company, which is a service Hunnell also used to show if an area is saturated or can support more business.

And Eustis is in growth mode again.

“We’re exploring different areas,” Clark says.

“Doug is still a greenfield guy. The hard part is the real estate. It wasn’t that expensive before to buy a lot of land and put up a metal building.

Now it is. So, it’s starting to flip for commercial real estate to just buy the property or an existing business. You really have to do an analysis of what’s more effective for your business.”

Clark says he and Keller are exploring both options and have looked at multiple properties. Prospects have also reached out to them.

“With real estate being so high, we're kind of shying away from building, so we're kind of more listening to body shop owners who are looking to sell,” he says. “We know the big consolidators are in the market, because

January 2024

they call us all the time, too. But once people know we’re in growth mode, they come to us. We can’t offer what a big MSO is offering, but we do have the family atmosphere, the small-town feel, or at least we hope we do, compared to the big corporate culture. And so when we’re discussing this with other body shop owners, that’s what we pitch to them, that we are still a family business.”

A greenfield is not out of the question for Eustis’ next move, though.

“But that being said, we do have eyes on this piece of property,” Clark says. “We're working with the city to see if it would work.

So, we're open. Nebraska is kind of our main focus, though.”

Staffing for Growth

To get Enid to grow within its four walls, Hunnell had to work on his roles and staffing levels, currently at 18. Baker helped him realize in retrospect that while he was running All Angles, he had been running an administrative staff that was leaner than it should have been.

"We were expecting a lot out of our team in those roles, and it really limited our growth, in hindsight, of not having enough people in the right admin roles. As an owner or a manager, I’m willing to do whatever it takes. But a lot of the staff, they’re going to get to a certain point of ‘enough is enough.’ It’s going to hinder you more than it’s going to help. When you get people to that point, no matter how well they’re working, they’re still just never going to feel like they’re catching up or accomplishing anything. And so instead of having just one damage analyst, when we added another writer in the shop, it really helped balance that a lot. And we have two CSRs up front and one sales manager. We really have a good balance.

We’re operating at a much busier level than we have been, but it doesn’t feel as busy because it’s much more manageable.”

Getting those staffing levels fine-tuned has helped him plan for the new shop in Hutchinson, Hunnell says, beginning with seven staff members at the start.

“I’m pretty excited about the crew that we're putting together in Hutch because they're starting out with probably some of the best of the best based on my background and knowing how I operate shops and what we do.

I think in a healthy way, they're probably going to compete a little bit with Enid. It's all

27

about communication when you’re building teams. That's what I love about team pay systems and that is just the team aspect of a basketball team or a football team or whatever.

The best teams communicate well, and they hold each other accountable.”

Respondents to the 2023 FenderBender Industry Survey cited finding qualified workers as the number-one challenge facing the industry. To Hunnell, the national staffing shortage of experienced technicians can be mitigated by specialization, such as having a disassembly technician and a reassembly technician, not leaving an enthusiastic person hopeful for a technician position languishing as a detailer for a couple years with no prospect of advancing within the organization.

“Our system allows us to be able to get quite a bit out of less experienced technicians,” he says. “I think some of the technician challenges we’ve faced over the years are self-inflicted because we were looking only for experienced technicians and weren’t giving a chance to some of these young guys who wanted to do it.”

For Eustis, further expansions provide growth opportunities for its people, Clark says, adding that the company shares in its success by selling shares in the company to its employees. More than a third of them currently have taken advantage of that.

“We’re growing now more for growth opportunities for our people,” he says. “We want to retain them, whether that be for a new management position, or regional manager or the accounting side of things; it doesn't have to necessarily just be the technician side. And we found that when we grow, that's what people want; they want a career path.

And that's kind of what we're offering. We want to promote a good atmosphere by having a big enough company that people can move up into different roles.”

Similarly, Hunnell looks for managers of his future expansions to have more skin in the game.

“My vision is to develop Christ-followers into successful business owners leading with integrity, wisdom, and adaptability,” Hunnell says. “So what I envision long-term is finding these managers and people who want that and really understand who we are, what we do, and want to be at that shop. These managers can develop ownership but are there at that facility.”

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PROFILE

‘Fixandthe Machine People Will Appreciate It’

Bob Barks celebrates 50 years of passionately serving customers

By LINDSEY GAINER, PHOTOS COURTESY OF KIM BARKS

January 2024

28

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Co-owner Kim Barks has worked alongside her father for 17 years

included his daughter, Kim Barks, who coowns the shop alongside him as he trains her to take over operations someday.

“He is the best dad, and my best friend,” says Kim. “I am so proud of his success and all the hard work he’s put into building this business in the last 50 years. I admire his passion and drive to show up every day, and be an expert in his field. He’s always willing to listen and teach me new things, and he has so many great ideas. When we come together as one, we make it happen.”

And the admiration goes both ways.

“I just look at her, and I’m very proud of her,” Barks says, adding that he’s confident Kim is the right person to take over the business. “She just does a great job.

She’s got a lot of charisma, people love to talk to her. She’s got a good, level head on her shoulders…she’s a straight shooter. And she’s legitimately interested in the work, in the technology and the business side of things. She’s got good ideas. She went to school and got her degree, too, which impressed me.”

Building relationships that last a lifetime WHAT’S THE SECRET to 50 successful years

of business? For Bob Barks, owner of Complete Car & RV Repair Center in St. Charles, Missouri, it’s combining a passion to help people and treat them fairly with a love for all kinds of vehicles…and learning everything you can from mentors along the way.

“I was a mechanic, bodyman, and frame man for several dealerships before I opened my own shop in 1973,” recalls Barks. “I’ve built race cars, custom buses, custom cars.

Now we’re into motorhomes, which is really a big market, and we are still doing cars and trucks, too.”

“I love the business…I love fixing vehicles…I just love it. I love every aspect of it.”

And when you talk to him, you know he truly means it.

Barks particularly enjoys the challenge of taking a wrecked vehicle and returning it to its former glory — and then seeing a

January 2024

customer’s reaction and appreciation for a job well done. “That is my thanks. That is my pay, personally, is to return something to pre-accident condition and see the impact it has on the customer.”

It all comes back to a motto that he’s been operating under since the beginning: “Fix the machine and people will appreciate it.”

“I’ve been open for a long time now,” Barks reminisced. “To think that all the stuff that we’ve created started with me…it’s mind blowing. My little house turned into a big house. My net worth went from pretty well zero to being in really good shape. And that was all from hard work and people saying ‘thanks.’”

A true team effort

Barks readily acknowledges that he couldn’t have achieved this milestone in his business without the help of good people by his side — which for the past 17 years has

29

For Barks, the importance of building relationships and forging real connections with customers can’t be overstated. Customers are the only people who can fire you, after all…no one else. Keep your focus on the customer, he says, and everything else will fall into place.

“That’s something I heard from Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, at a conference once…and it’s stuck with me all these years later.”

He also recalls a conversation he had with one of his earliest mentors before starting his business, sharing another invaluable piece of advice that he’s never forgotten. “‘What are you going to do, Bob?’” my mentor asked me. “I told him I was going to open a shop and fix all the cars in this county. He kind of laughed and said, ‘Well, I’ve been doing it for a long time…that’s impossible. You will fix a lot of cars. You’re good with people. You’re a quick learner.

But remember something…what do you buy

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FIX THE MACHINE

from a guy you don’t like?’ And I said ‘nothing.’ He said, ‘exactly!’”

The way Barks treats his customers is one of the things Kim admires most about her dad…and in her mind, it’s one of the biggest reasons for his success.

“Dad doesn’t just fix the vehicle — he listens and builds a relationship first, and by the time you leave here you forgot all about the vehicle,” she said. “He carries a strong family value into every conversation he has.”

Being there for customers during a “terrible time” after they’ve had an accident is something Barks never takes for granted… and never takes advantage of.

“When you wreck your car, that’s your car, right? Or your truck. This is your livelihood. This is how you get the kids to school or get to your job. We have to put you back in that thing as fast as we can, and make it as easy as we can. Instead of saying, well, we should have fixed that the first time…we fix it, we road test it, we run double checks.

We do it right the first time.”

No detail goes unnoticed, and his customers certainly appreciate it.

January 2024

Honesty is key

Always being fair and straightforward is a top priority for Barks, who says honesty and integrity is the key to building a lasting business. “The key really is just to be honest — that’s how you earn people’s confidence, then you’ve got their business for the rest of your life…and the rest of their life. They tell their neighbor. That neighbor tells their neighbor… it’s how small businesses are built.”

A perfect example of how this plays out in Barks’ business: In the spirit of treating all his customers with the utmost respect, he hosts educational clinics for women in his community who are interested in learning more about cars.

“We have an open clinic — we call it an automotive clinic — and we invite all the ladies who want to come in for an open house.

I actually take them underneath their car, show them the engine and alternator, the brakes, the muffler, the ball joints, the air conditioning, the tires…everything. Not to make them mechanics or body people…but when they go in to get an estimate, especially in a repair shop, they should be a little bit informed about what’s going on.”

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Having this knowledge gives people confidence, he says, and it also protects them from unscrupulous businesses who might otherwise try to take advantage of their lack of understanding…something he’s unfortunately seen happen far too often.

“I’d like everybody to be more educated about their cars, and I want people to feel comfortable. I want to show them what we’re doing, and I always have. It’s worked this far!”

Words of wisdom

Successful business owner. Amazing dad.

Patient teacher. Wise mentor. Epic storyteller.

Bob Barks is all those things and more, says Kim, and he should feel incredibly proud of what he’s accomplished in the last 50 years of business — everyone around him certainly does.

Of the many invaluable lessons her dad has taught her throughout her life, a few have stood out above the rest: “Never give up, and keep moving forward no matter what the circumstances.”

“Be ready to pivot at any time.”

“Hit the ball every day, and sooner or later you’ll hit a homerun.”

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S T R A T E G Y

THE SOP

CREATING A PHONE PROCESS THAT WORKS

The initial call is pivotal in shaping the customer’s overall experience WHEN SOMEONE CALLS YOUR SHOP for the first time, you have a small window of opportunity to win their business…about seven seconds, to be exact.

“The individual who picks up the phone at your collision repair center serves as the director of first impressions,” says Sheryl Driggers, Coach with Collision Advice and former co-owner of Universal Collision Center from 2001–2021. “Research indicates that it typically takes only seven seconds to form an initial impression, making that initial phone call pivotal in shaping the customer’s overall experience. Evaluating whether you’re effectively communicating during

January 2024

this initial conversation or simply running through routine transactional inquiries like insurance details is essential.”

Here’s how to ensure your team is converting callers into customers from the moment they answer the phone.

As told to LINDSEY GAINER

Actively Listen

At Collision Advice, we emphasize the importance of TED — Trust, Empathy, and Direction — in every phone interaction. A proficient customer service team member excels in building trust, displaying genuine

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empathy, and providing clear direction to the customer. The ability to do this authentically and effortlessly requires consistent practice.

The first crucial step in any phone call is to actively listen, and demonstrate a genuine understanding and validation of the customer’s concerns and emotions. When a customer must reach out to a collision repair shop it comes as an unexpected and unwelcome event — it’s not a situation anyone anticipates or eagerly plans for. People find themselves in these situations due to unforeseen circumstances, which results in them expressing a range of emotions…many of which are negative in nature.

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LEARN

A skilled customer service representative (CSR) can discern and acknowledge these emotions during the initial phone call. They authentically empathize with the customer, conveying understanding and support. Moreover, they exhibit a high level of competence in their responses, assuring the customer that they are in capable hands.

Respond Empathetically

Handling customers who may be upset or frustrated can indeed be challenging. But we must keep in mind that while accidents and repairs are routine for those of us in the collision industry, they’re anything but routine for our customers. It’s easy for us to slip into autopilot mode, simply providing information and making the conversation transactional, but it’s incredibly important to put ourselves in our customers’ shoes and show empathy for what they’re going through. A CSR needs to exhibit genuine care, maintain a calm demeanor, and demonstrate patience when navigating emotionally charged situations.

Effective communication is paramount in this position. It’s imperative that they continuously develop and refine their communication skills to be truly effective.

ADOBE STOCK 303308212

Display Warmth and Competence

Research consistently shows that people prefer doing business with individuals they like and trust, which is why a CSR must strike a delicate balance between competence and warmth in each interaction.

A commitment to ongoing learning and growth is critical here, as it enables us to learn how to adapt our communication style to be most effective with each customer. There will be occasions when we need to emphasize our competence, while at other times we should prioritize creating a warm and inviting atmosphere. The ability to gauge the situation and adjust accordingly is important.

January 2024

Ask the Right Questions, in the Right Way

My repair shops had six key questions to ask every customer following an accident, however it’s essential to remember that these questions are not merely boxes to check off.

Instead, incorporate them naturally into a conversational and relational approach.

While we require specific information from the customer to assist with claims and repairs, our primary focus should always be building a genuine relationship and determining if we can solve their problem.

Through two decades of owning collision repair shops, I learned that we may not always be the perfect fit for every customer… and that’s perfectly fine!

Some of the questions we will ask the customer during the initial phone call include: • First and foremost, is everyone okay?

• What happened in the accident?

• Is the vehicle safe to continue to drive?

Ask direct questions to ensure safety.

• Have they filed a claim?

• Are they planning to file a claim?

• Would they like our assistance in the claims and repair process?

Many more questions will be asked during the repair consultation, but these give us the information we need during the initial phone conversation.

Train and Focus on Consistency

Based on my experience, the optimal training approach begins with the newly on boarded CSR collaborating closely with a seasoned team member who has demonstrated excellence in the role. A structured training path should be in place, clearly outlining the essential skills and knowledge areas to be covered. The training method should involve a progressive sequence, where the new hire first observes the trainer executing tasks and engaging in conversations, then actively participates alongside the trainer, subsequently takes

33

|

GROW

|

WORK SMARTER

the lead under the trainer’s guidance and, finally, successfully completes training and begins working independently.

Years ago, I came across a quote that has stayed with me over time: “What gets talked about gets prioritized.” It raises the question: Are you consistently engaged in conversations about the customer experience? Do you maintain a steady commitment to training your customer service team, whether you have one associate or a group of ten? That is the key – consistent conversations.

To ensure an exceptional customer experience, the next crucial step is team auditing. Do you record phone calls for training purposes? Are mystery callers employed to assess your customer experience? Have you equipped your team with all the tools they need to deliver an exceptional customer experience, such as effective word tracks, dedicated practice sessions, and a culture of celebrating achievements? Do your team members have a clear understanding of what exceptional customer service truly entails?

Have you or someone on your team showed them what that looks like?

Another principle that deeply resonates with me is this: “What gets celebrated, gets repeated.” Have you been celebrating your team’s customer service victories?

At Collision Advice, we offer Customer Experience training in various formats, both in-person around the country and through customized virtual training plans. I’d strongly encourage shop owners to visit www.collisionadvice.com to learn more if they’d like help in this area.

The Bottom Line

By training your staff to utilize an empathetic and competent approach, team members serve as guides for customers, alleviating their stress and concerns and helping them navigate the unfamiliar territory of collision repair.

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STRATEGY

FINA NCE+OPER ATIONS

DREAMSTIME_85365978

GARAGEKEEPERS INSURANCE 101

Insuring your shop can be complicated. Learn how to start evaluating if you’re getting what you need from your insurance.

By N O A H B R O W N

January 2024

35

INSURANCE COVERAGE for garagekeepers is complex, more so than standard business insurance, and it can be a hassle to figure exactly what your shop needs to be covered correctly.

David Willett, chief underwriting officer for Spark Underwriters, says far too often he sees shops spend too little time focusing on their own insurance.

“I can’t tell you how many times I hear someone say, ‘I can’t understand how the

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STRATEGY

public buys their auto insurance from somebody just because they have a cute animal on their advertisements,’” Willett says. “Well okay, Shop Owner, but are you maybe doing the same thing with your business insurance? Are you buying it because it’s a big name you know about, or are you are you buying it because they’re in the industry and are giving you the best coverage for your shop?”

Though it can be a daunting task, Willett says taking the time to carefully review your garagekeepers’ insurance will make sure you and your team are prepared for any situation that may arise in your shop.

First and Foremost

Willett says it’s all too common for shop owners, especially those who run smaller operations, to try to navigate their insurance situation without much effort or thought put in.

“The lack of claims knowledge in the industry has bugged me, and it bothers me that people don’t invest in talent. You’ve got to have expertise. If you don’t have that expertise, you often will have wasted time on a claim.”

In a classic example of you get out what you put in, Willett says a lot of more common business insurance providers don’t have tangible experience in the automotive repair industry. That, he says, means they’ll try to avoid a claim at all costs, even if it comes at a detriment to a shop owner.

“They don’t necessarily know how to test out a solution to see if it’s the right one when a claim comes around until they, unfortunately, have to deal with a big one.”

When choosing an insurance provider, it’s critical to work with someone that has experience in the collision repair industry, that has been inside a shop before and knows what problems are facing the shop owners and managers today.

Willett says working with insurance providers that are intimately familiar with

January 2024

industry issues such as tech shortages, parts procurement, ADAS calibration and others helps when filing a claim because you’re speaking the same language and are on the same page.

“When choosing an insurance provider, you need to think about their ability to handle your claims first,” Willett says. “You need to find somebody who can work in your shop.

Special Circumstances

The automotive industry is quickly and continuously evolving. Not only does your shop need to keep up with the times, but so does your insurance.

Willett says it’s a good idea to start asking your insurance provider about situations and scenarios that may not be all that common now but could be in the coming years. He says autonomous vehicles serve as a perfect example.

“Let’s say you’ve got an autonomous vehicle in one of your insured shops, and they need to take it on a test drive. They put it in autonomous mode, and an accident occurs.

Who’s responsible for that? Who’s going to pay for that?” Willett says. “We know we’re going to take care of it because we have the coverages and the policies; we have contacts with the OEMs. Ask your insurance providers if their policies cover autonomous vehicles and watch their heads spin.”

Another example of the industry changing and evolving is actually a callback to its past, too. Willett points to site pollution coverage and pollution clean-up as other key coverage points to have in your insurance.

Pollution coverage used to be essential in the days of lead paint, but that started to fall out of vogue after the manufacture of lead paint for households was banned in 1978. However, Willett says interest in the coverage is ratcheting back up with the inclusion of more chemicals in different parts and f luids used in the collision repair business.

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And while headlines over the last few years have called out the environmental hazards of EV fires, Willett says ICE vehicle fires aren’t any easier to deal with.

“We’re not any more or less concerned with EVs than we are with ICE vehicles,” he says. “ICE vehicles catch on fire, too, and they sometimes have a bigger fire load, especially if you’re not dealing with private passenger vehicles.”

Because of all of that, Willett says it’s important to ask your insurance if there’s any pollution coverage on your policy for your shop and what the pollution clean-up cap is.

“We go up to $200,000 in pollution cleanup. We compete regularly with people that only go up to $25,000. The EPA can’t show up for $25,000,” he says. “That’s just covering a normal occurrence and cleaning up after one.”

Find the Answers

As mentioned earlier, it can be daunting to try and figure out how to make sure you’re getting the best insurance coverage for your shop. Willett encourages getting creative and checking with every corner of your network to see what other people are doing.

In addition to asking for advice from people you admire, he suggests calling people in the industry that aren’t necessarily shop owners to see if they have any advice on how to get the best bang for your buck with insurance.

“Call a paint supplier up and ask what insurance companies actually connect with and work with them,” Willett says. “Call an OEM and ask what insurance companies work with them.”

As long as you’re seeking out people with experience and are asking as many questions as possible to people who are familiar with the industry, Willett says you’re on the right track.

“Work with someone who’s been in the industry, who’s been inside your shop and is working on your committees,” he says.

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CASE STUDY

RETHINK TEAMBUILDING

Brandon Roy didn’t just think outside the box with his teambuilding. He threw the box out altogether PHOTOS COURTESY OF BRANDON ROY

By NOAH BROWN

I N A T I M E W H E N the collision repair industry is dominated by tech shortages, supply

chain woes and other challenges that make it difficult to do business successfully, having a cohesive team has never been more important.

In order for your shop to run as effectively as it possibly can, your team needs to buy in not only to your processes, but your leadership style as well.

Brandon Roy, general leader for the CARSTAR Halifax group, says his team has been focusing on reimagining their shop culture. The process has been unconventional, but Roy says the results speak for themselves.

January 2024

37

The Problem

It’s no secret that shop owners are having to come up with creative solutions to industrywide challenges such as team turnover.

Roy says his shops are no different, and after meeting with his leadership team to discuss possibilities to address those challenges, they decided shaking up their management style was their path forward.

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STRATEGY

with their team lead and voice an opinion if they’re not comfortable sharing it at the roundtable.

This, Roy says, is just one of many examples that proves the most effective way to create an atmosphere of trust in his shops is clear, open communication.

“We are a 100-percent-transparent company. Anyone in this company can view any one of our statements. We share our profits and loss statements with each of the team leaders,” Roy says. “Communication is No. 1 for us.”

The Aftermath

“A lot of businesses are based off of vertical management, where you work your way from the top down,” Roy says. “You have a general manager, then a shop manager, assistant manager. We don’t have any of that anymore.”

The Solution

What they have now places employees at the center of the communication system. Instead of having to ladder up, employees can voice their opinions directly to the people with authority to make changes.

Some may call this an outside-thebox approach. Roy says they threw the box out all together and opted for a more circular model.

“One of the main things we do is a roundtable approach. Once a month, we meet at a roundtable where everybody is equal. After a year, it’s created an environment where people aren’t scared to put up their hand and ask questions or say they need help.

“It worked for Arthur and his knights, and it works for us, too.”

Roy says his shops have several different roundtables for different departments such as parts and estimating, and everyone is encouraged to voice their opinion on how the shop is

January 2024

handling business and how they think things could be improved.

While this is typically seen as unconventional, Roy says its an effective way for him to make sure that his employees feel valued and respected.

“A lot of people we’ve brought in here have said they’ve never been listened to so much or that they’ve never felt as part of a team as we do with this approach,” he says.

There isn’t one set way to make sure a teammate feels valued; Roy says his team does quite a few different things in an effort to show appreciation for their team, including team appreciation days, regular team building activities, and other large-group strategies.

They’ve also implemented something Roy calls “head checks.” Rooted in the principle of servant leadership, Roy checks in with each of his team leads each day and encourages them to check in with each of their team members multiple times throughout the week.

During these check-ins, Roy and his team leads ask how each team member is doing, what they as a leader can do to help them as an employee, and what they need from leadership or the company to be successful.

That gives the employees a regular time every week where they can check in

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Roy admits that this style of leadership is not typical, and it requires buy-in from a vast majority of staff to make it work.

When Roy and his leadership team started implementing changes to the roundtable approach a little over a year ago, he said there was a lot of friction from people who didn’t agree with the style of management.

Over the course of last year, Roy says about 45 percent of his original 38-person staff left. Roy says there were some speed bumps along the way, and he says he could have used some more help and material at first before implementing the system.

However, every time a staff member would leave, his shops would hire a replacement that bought into the new management style. That, plus improved financial results – the four shops combined pull in about $12 million annually – helped his staff turn a corner and really accept the new system.

“Once we started producing results, that helped a lot. I had a location that would try to fight me on every single thing that we tried to do,” Roy says. “But then when they started implementing those changes, they looked at the financials the next month and, what do you know, their bonus is bigger. Their staff seems happier. That’s how we got buy in, was with results.”

The Takeaway

Roy says those interested in his roundtable approach can reach out to him for information on how to get started. And while a roundtable approach may not work for every shop, Roy says openly communicating with your team and taking their feedback to heart can go a long way in improving overall morale.

“Everyone is equal,” Roy says. “We feel that is the key to success.”

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FINA NCE+OPER ATIONS

SCHEDULE FOR LEAN PRODUCTION

Scheduling is not an impossible science if you apply these guardrails to keep your estimators and CSRs on track

By S T E V E T R A P P

PHOTO 219335702 © ANDREY POPOV | DREAMSTIME.COM

O V E R T H E PA S T F E W Y E A R S, we have been asked to assist shops in implementing scheduling systems. So many people are afraid to lose work, so they just take the work in and deal with the repercussions. First, we will discuss planning based on forecasted sales and capacity and then we will address scheduling logistics and finally we will address some of the customer concerns.

Prior Planning

Based on the number of working days in a month, most repairers have an idea of what their sales forecast might be. To get started, we work with them to calculate their breakeven and forecasted sales level to generate the profit they need to operate. In the box below we consider their current overhead ($50,000 = #1) and in the 3rd column we added desired

net profit ($25,000 = #2) and consider a new one-time expense for the month ($5,000 = #3). The result is that we need to schedule for $177,777 volume for the following month.

This is where most people tend to stop.

Instead, we attempt to determine the daily hours to schedule and even determine an optimal works in progress (WIP). We take the forecasted sales times the total labor sales

Overhead Expenses

Break-even

Forecasted Sales to Generate Necessary Profit

Overhead Expenses (plus cash needed to pay principal on loans)

$50,000

$50,000 (1)

Net Profit

$0

$25,000 (2)

New Expenses Planned (Hire staff or buy a tool)

$0

$5,000 (3)

Total (Sum of above)

$50,000

$80,000

Gross Profit %

Divided by 45%

Divided by 45%

Forecasted Sales

$111,111

$177,777

January 2024

39

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STRATEGY

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Small / Re-work – 10%

12 TLH or 2 RO’s

12 TLH or 2 RO’s

12 TLH or 2 RO’s

10 TLH or 2 RO’s

10 TLH or 2 RO’s = 56 TLH

Medium – 50%

30 or 2-3 RO’s

30 or 2-3 RO’s

30 or 2 – 3 RO’s = 145 TLH

Large – 40%

Process tow-ins

Total Labor Hours

52 or 5 total RO / day

mix to determine the number of labor dollars needed to achieve the goal. Simply dividing the $80,000 (#5) by the current average door rate will tell us the total labor hours we need to produce in a month (1,176 = #6) to achieve the $177,777 in forecasted sales. Dividing that by the number of working days in the following month produces the all-important number of total hours to schedule and deliver every day (59 = #7)!

Next, we determine the optimal work in progress level (WIP) by taking your shop’s cycle time goal in days times the hours per day (59 * 9 = 530 total hours = #8), which yields the optimal WIP for this location. Once that number is known, we monitor this each day at our morning release meeting and adjust the incoming schedule accordingly.

Next, you need to level out the schedule and assure that you are bringing in only 59 hours per day, or no more than 295 (59 * 5 days) per week. The goal is to never exceed the optimal WIP of work in the shop of 530 hours of total labor for the facility to raise the repair cycle time above the market average. Vehicles which are in the “hospital” or for some reason cannot be worked on due to approval delays, parts availability, or other reason, do not count toward optimal WIP.

Implementing a Lean Schedule

After you consider your technicians’ capa-

January 2024

59 or 5 RO’s

59 or 3 RO’s

bilities, you need to establish what percentage of the capacity you are going to invest in each type of work. In the most productive weeks this shop has had, they process approximately 40% as large / tow-in or heavy hit (over 30 hours), 10% small jobs (less than 6 hours) and 50% medium-sized jobs (7- 30 hours). You will have to adjust this based on your technicians’ capabilities.

The work is spread out where the medium jobs, which should be completed during the week, are scheduled on Monday and Tuesday. Mix in small jobs each day, so those “zero-day” repairs can be completed in the same day as they are dropped off, or at most in two days. Tow-ins are dealt with on Monday but scheduled in for repair planning / blueprinting or disassemble-forrepair (DFR) later in the week. This levels the work out in the repair planning area throughout the week. Any repair planning on small jobs should be done first each day.

Those scheduled drop-off appointments should be the earliest in the morning:

Additional Scheduling Tips: 1.

Attempt to schedule starting with Thursday or Friday of the week and then fill in Monday to Wednesday as the job size and customer need dictates.

2. For medium hits where you haven’t done a physical inspection, estimate

40

= 145 TLH

40 TLH or 1 RO

40 = 120 TLH or 3 RO’s

59 or 3 RO’s

59 or 3 RO’s = 295 or 19 RO’s

them at or near 20 total labor hours until you repair-plan.

3. For heavy hits or tow-ins where you haven’t done a thorough repair plan, estimate these jobs at 40 hours, and adjust once the repair plan is complete.

On the last page of this article is a reallife example of a shop schedule using this method. Note the mix wasn’t as perfect as planned, but we stayed to the 295 total hour goal. And as you schedule repairs, log the RO number and note the actual hours sold on a physical board or within your management system to try to stay to the 59 hours per day or per job size numbers.

How do we overcome consumer objections of not being able to drop off immediately, or bringing their vehicle on later in the week?

1. We try to schedule a few one-two-day repairs later in the week so we can keep that team focused on zero-day or twoday repairs.

2. Bring in most profitable medium-sized repairs early in the week in premium slots and attempt to complete them in three to five days to avoid weekend rental days.

3. Set the expectations with larger repairs that we will be keeping the vehicle for a few weeks, so starting later in the week ensures we keep working on the vehicle once we start on it.

fenderbender.com

Sales Forecast

$177,777

Total Labor Sales Mix

45%

Total Labor Sales Forecast

$80,000 (5)

Average Door Rate

$67.50

Total Labor Hours Sold

1,176 (6)

Working Days per Month

20

Hours to Schedule and Deliver per Day

59 (7)

Cycle time Goal (1 day below market average)

9

Optimal Work in Progress (WIP)

530 (8)

4. To bring in smaller repairs later in the week, which may roll over a weekend, we can encourage customer-paid repairs by having a higher door rate for those repairs but offer a discount for coming in later in the week when our fast-track repair team has capacity.

calculate optimal WIP and modify your daily schedule to ensure you don’t have too much (or too little) work on site. The true art is leveling intake of work daily to a target. Another art is bringing in the right mix of work throughout the week and balancing the volume of intake and delivery to level the workload of your team.

Scheduling is an art, but it’s not an impossible science if you apply these guardrails to keep your estimators and CSRs on track when scheduling.

The keys to scheduling are quite simple.

Set a reasonable forecast to ensure you make a profit. Once you know your daily sales goal,

Monday R.O. #

Labor Hours

Tuesday R.O. #

Labor Hours

123 125

4

130 135

5

102 117 125

20

103 104 104

25

6=10 10

20=50

60 hours or 6 ROs

January 2024

5=10 10

15=50

60 hours or 5 ROs

Wednesday Labor Hours

R.O. #

Steve Trapp is the senior consultant with global consulting firm LEAP and has presented in 10

countries. He has written numerous paint com-

pany training programs and started the indus-

try’s first 20 groups and managed large teams of consultants whose goal is improving body shop profitability.

Thursday R.O. #

Labor Hours

Friday R.O. #

Labor Hours

140 146

7

3=10

111 113

2

8=10

101 105

4

151

8=8

149

9-9

148

7=7

129

40 =40

102

40=40

145

40=40

58 hours or 4 ROs

41

59 hours or 4 ROs

6=10

57 hours or 4 ROs Weekly total: 294 hours and 23 ROs

fenderbender.com

COLUMNS

COLLISION COURSE

Handing Over the Reins

Give your staff the freedom to spread their wings and implement all you’ve taught them operations of the shop and instead to focus on managing the business. Although they sound similar, they are not. If you have ever dealt with any type of business coach, it is inevitable that at some point they told you to work ON your business, not IN your business. For the longest time I would say to myself, “That’s great advice, but I don’t have the capability to hire enough people to work in my business so I can work on my business.” So, I filed that advice to the back of my mind to be reviewed later.

Well, that later date has come. I now have enough people who are trained to allow me to step away. The problem is letting go of the daily operations of the shop and letting my staff spread their wings and implement everything I have taught them.

In the last few years, I have met many shops where the owner is getting ready to pass the torch to the next generation. My main takeaway has been that the owner will not let the reins go and let the new generation take over. The new generation has new ideas they want to try to implement to benefit the shop, but the old generation won’t let go, and there is a power struggle. I want to learn from this and NOT be that shop owner who can’t let go, but it is hard! I don’t want to be a detriment to my business.

I have started transitioning out of daily operations by staying out of the office. I still handle all the finances, but I have removed myself as much as possible from dealing with customers, supplements, and insurance companies. I now think of myself as a shop consultant. I come in and I let my staff run the production meeting and the general rundown for the shop for that day. I will ask them questions but only at the very end. I try not to tell them what to do or how to do something but instead present questions and let them work it out on their own. If they cannot work it out, then I use that as a teaching moment, and we discuss what I think should happen and how we can conclude in the future without me being there.

So far, this has been extremely helpful to the office but really difficult for me. I have a strong opinion on how I think things should be handled and run, and I struggle with keeping my mouth shut and not telling them what to do and how to do it. I realize it may take my team a few months

January 2024

to really grow into their own and feel comfortable enough to make all the decisions. But if I don’t step back, it will never happen. I must learn to be okay with the idea that they won’t do everything exactly as I would.

The next step in my transition out of the daily running of the shop is twofold. I gave all my employees an accountability chart that breaks down everything that is done in the shop, from clerical tasks, to repair procedures, to cleaning of the shop.

Each employee went through and marked who they thought is responsible for each task. I then reviewed the answers and found out all of us were not on the same page. I now plan to have an open employee meeting to discuss the accountability chart and help them decide on responsibilities. Note, I said “help them,” not “tell them.”

I realize how I run and handle things may be different than how others would. Although we will still have set procedures, the second step of this is to let the employees tweak them to an extent. They understand I retain veto power; we have decided as a team that if they tweak an operating procedure, they will let me know about it. I will only observe how that modification is affecting the shop, and after one to two months we will discuss and review the modification. At that time, we will determine if we should keep, change, or simply scrap that operating procedure’s modification.

My goal with all these steps is to give my employees some autonomy over the shop. My hope is they will feel more invested in the shop because they will have a hand in things and it is not just me telling them what to do. If I can get them to run the shop at 80% of how I would, I think I will consider this a success. I have to keep telling myself the goal is for me to step out of the daily running and managing of the shop so I can work on the business as a whole.

I realize mine is a small mom and pop shop and this may not work for larger shops or MSOs. But what I want to leave you with is this: Even if you don’t have the ability to step out of your shop and let your team run it, then at least an hour or two a week work ON your business and not just IN your business. Working ON your business to help it grow and succeed, working IN your business is very important but working ON your business is just as important.

42

TIFFANY MENEFEE

has more than 20 years experience in the insurance business and now runs a collision repair shop in El Paso, Texas.

EMAIL:

tiffanykaymenefee@gmail.com

ARCHIVE:

fenderbender.com/menefee

fenderbender.com

JOE GRETO

My goal for this year is to step away from the daily

WE’RE SOCIAL CONNECT WITH US ON YOUR FAVORITE SOCIAL MEDIA SITES

WWW.FENDERBENDER.COM January 2024

43

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COLUMNS

DUE PROCESS

How to Coexist with Market Juggernauts

Instead of viewing new-car dealers as competition, why not see them as potential partners? difficult it can be to compete with the market dealerships. Their large glossy storefronts and seemingly endless resources may seem like an uneven playing field. However, I challenge you to reconsider the relationships we have with these market goliaths.

Instead of viewing them as competition, why not see them as potential partners?

As dealerships pull out of the collision repair business, it creates a big opportunity for shop owners to fill the void. However, to succeed in this highly competitive industry, we need to identify our unique value propositions within our markets.

Let’s break it down. It’s no secret that gross profit dollars heavily drive the dealer business model. To fully understand how to impact dealerships’ gross profit positively, it’s important to break down their departmental structure. Dealerships have three major revenue streams: parts, service, and sales.

Understanding the role each of these departments plays in the overall business model is crucial.

The parts department is responsible for selling original equipment manufacturer (OEM) parts to customers and other departments within the dealership. The service department generates revenue through labor and any additional parts needed for repairs. Finally, the sales department brings in revenue through new and used vehicle sales.

So, where do third-party collision repair shops fit into this equation?

When a customer’s vehicle is damaged, they often contact their trusted dealership for assistance.

Statistically, customers are drawn to dealerships because of their brand loyalty/confidence, convenience, and professionalism. In most cases, the dealer has a natural flow of valuable leads.

Do you know where they are being referred to?

Is there an agreement already in place with another service provider?

Service I find it safe to say that a shop regularly pulling procedures and writing proper repair plans will naturally write for more required calibrations over a shop that doesn’t bother with research. Right? These calibrations are required and can be shared with the dealer service departments. This helps to establish a relationship with the dealer. However, if the dealer is naive to the market’s prevailing rates for calibrations, they could be missing the mark big time. If we help connect their service team to the opportunity

they are leaving on the table in order to boost their service department’s GP, everyone wins. As the dealer service department receives more business, your shop establishes foundational trusting relationships, which leads to a continuous flow of business for both parties.

Parts As professional repairers, most of us support the use of only OEM parts. If our teams share this passion for using original parts when performing repairs, then as owners we should warrant a realistic time for our writers to consult consumers on the importance of their crashworthiness, fit, and function under a subsequent accident, all in an effort to justify the use of all original parts. In turn, this stimulates the dealer’s parts department GP with full OEM orders rather than the typical default list of whatever was not available aftermarket or recycled. This not only ensures the highest-quality repairs but also helps the dealers keep their loyal consumers loyal.

Sales Now, what about the sales department? How can we work together to drive more revenue for both our businesses? If you look at a total-loss claim as optimistically as possible, you will find a huge opportunity. Through the discipline of pulling procedures and writing our best repair plans possible, the insurer’s decision may be to total a vehicle. In this scenario, sure, we have helped protect the consumer from diminished value and/or an improperly repaired vehicle. But what if we researched some comparables on the vehicle’s market value and empowered them with third-party data from other consumers’ total-loss experiences to ensure maximum payout? Then, after our work is done, we follow with a referral business card to our dealer partner that saves the customer $500 on the purchase of a new or used vehicle? It’s a win-win situation, as your shop gets paid for writing the repair plan/teardown/admin, the dealer gets a potential sale, and the customer is in awe over everyone’s efforts.

As we coexist in the market, let’s also collaborate and thrive together. Let’s shift our mindset from competition to cooperation and see how we can help each other grow in this ever-changing industry. After all, it’s not about outdoing or undercutting each other; it’s about working together to provide the best possible service and solutions for our customers.

D R E W B R YA N T has been

the owner of DB Orlando Collision since August of 2011. A 20 Group leader, in-demand conference speaker and award-winning shop owner, Bryant takes a non-traditional approach to process implementation, lean process development, & overall operational experience while remaining dedicated to his staff’s personal and professional development.

EMAIL:

drew@orlandocollision.com

ARCHIVE:

fenderbender.com/bryant

January 2024

44

fenderbender.com

STEVEN PARKS

As collision repair shop owners, we all know how

TO GET A QUOTE, VISIT OUR WEBSITE OR CALL/EMAIL Toll Free: (866) 694-2278 info@goliathcarts.com www.goliathcarts.com

The GWS-MOB1 Weld Stand: 2023 SEMA Show Best New Collision Repair & Refinish Product of the Year!

G1-AT “Go Cart”: Run diagnostics, scanning & calibration from anywhere in the shop.

January 2024

45

fenderbender.com

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January 2024

46

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