By Shey Knight
In 1985, after 15 years full time in this industry, I was burnt out and ready to change careers.
Our shop was small but very busy and we were an insurance contract shop for State Farm. We worked long hours during those times. In those days, our technicians were paid on commission and they were knocking down some big bucks but my business partner and I had not had a salary increase in a number of years and we were not able to provide many employee benefits.
We were also running so hard that we knew we would have heart attacks by the age of 40 if something didn't change. (I have seen it happen to some of our business colleagues) We were busy but our shop was not making much money! How could that be?
We had long had a reputation for being the “best” but it was common for us to hear from insurers that “we charged more” or we “were the only one”. I bet you have heard that one! While we were charging the same labor rates as every other shop, we mostly used new OEM parts and charged for additional procedures like finish sand and buff, tint color, mask vehicle for painting, etc. We are talking about modest additional procedures and modest cost differences between us and other shops in our area. Not enough for us to have earned a reputation as “the highest shop” in the area.
Our insurance “partner” began visiting our shop each quarter to compare us to other local DRP shops and our scores were not getting better. They would even send someone out a day or two in advance to warn us about the upcoming audit visit. Those visits were meant to intimidate us and pit us against our competitors. They were never meant to make us a better shop or provide safer repairs and they were certainly not to check on the “partners” mentality or economic well being. After all, I thought that is what a “partner” does.
Because we were so busy chasing used parts and checking our partners guidelines to repair these vehicles…it was practically impossible for us to meet a deadline on a repair. We were taking around 50 calls per day from our customers checking on their car. We became great at making excuses and it was highly frustrating.
Our normal process was to schedule 10 to 15 cars in on Monday for our three or four body repair techs and raise hell a few days later when the cars were behind. It was like an awakening when we realized that this broken process was actually a management scheduling problem rather than a technician problem. We were simply doing what we had been trained to do. Matter of fact, we were running our shop just like the system had created it to run but the entire system was broken.
Since we were so busy, we didn't have much time to go out and develop relationships in our community and we regularly said “we don't have to market our business”. We took pride in not having a marketing budget at all because we were reliant on our “partner” to keep us busy. Our “partner” continuously threatened us if our “audit” did not get better. This served to be a wake up call for us.
We decided something had to change or we had to change careers. We decided that we would analyze everything we do. My business partner, Jeff, ran the front office and I set up a desk in the middle of the shop to watch and analyze everything we did. While I was in the shop watching processes and taking notes… Jeff was reaching out to other shop owners and getting information. We began having regular phone conversations and began traveling and visiting shops. We met some phenomenal people who had success in different things that they had tried and implemented to survive this industry. There were a number of folks over the years but most notably folks like Shane Coker, Truman Fancher, III and Tony Lombardozzi. These men served as mentors and we began to realize that we had the power to change.
Our shop's culture began to shift and “change” became a thing at our shop. Every time we came back from a shop visit or a conference, we implemented something new that would benefit our customers, our team and our shop! Our team expected it too…and our shop was becoming a much better place for them to call home.
After a year or so, we rewrote the book (literally) on how we would operate moving forward. We created and wrote procedures for everything we did in the shop from the front office to detailing cars for delivery. We have also realized that it is a work in progress. Just last month, I shared about attending a conference in Virginia in April and I came back with some good information and new ideas…and our playbook was updated to reflect those changes.
I will leave you with this quote by Mary Engelbreit. “If you can't change it, change the way you think about it."
You have the power to change. It's your shop! It's your destiny! Now go and be the change!
