We’re always racking our brains here at FenderBender, trying to come up with better ways to offer more value to shop owners and managers—more ways to help you improve your business.
We put a lot of thought into the stories we share and the best way to present them. Shop profiles and strategy stories have made up the lion’s share of our content for years, and we’ve played with a variety of formats to get the stories across in the most insightful, entertaining and visually appealing way possible. But we thought we could offer more.
So, after months of discussion, planning and development, we came up with a few new offerings that we think will make this magazine more valuable and enjoyable than it’s ever been. The editorial additions debut in this issue.
First up, you’ll find Snap Shop, a section that will give you a peek inside part of a different shop each month. Whether it’s a posh lobby, an impeccable shop floor, or a stunning exterior, Snap Shop will show off some of the best, most unique, or efficient designs that shops have to offer. You’ll also find brief highlights to go along with each photo.
In the feature section each month, we’ll bring you a Case Study, which will explore how a collision repair facility dealt with a specific challenge. We’ll explore the problem, the options, the decision and execution, and the results. As we do with all of our features, we’ll look at shops of all sizes for case studies, and bring you relevant issues that you might have to tackle at your facility one day.
In the Strategy section, we added Shop Talk, to offer insight into the way individual shop operators work every day. You’ll find detailed first-person accounts of a typical day on the job from leading shop owners and managers. Every shop operator in this industry is trying to do the same job, but it’s the way they do it that sets them all apart. Shop Talk lays it all out, straight from the shop operator’s mouth.
You’ll also notice that we added a second columnist this month. You might recognize him from the cover of the February issue of FenderBender. Jon Parker is the managing director of Byteback Group, a U.K.-based information technology and services company aimed at advancing the collision repair industry. Parker has a lot of forward-thinking strategies to share—tactics he has already put into use across the pond with impressive results. He’ll dig into these each month. Check out his first column, on rethinking the typical shop operation.
As always, we’ll still bring you features on industry-leading shops, and real-world-tested strategy stories to help your shop move forward. We hope those stories, along with the new additions, provide you with invaluable information in an enjoyable package that you look forward to getting month after month.
Once you've read your copy of the magazine, tell us what you think of the revamp. And if you don't get the magazine, be sure to subscribe.
Jake Weyer
[email protected]
