McVicker, a business manager who had no prior experience in collision repair, realized the shop needed a major attitude adjustment if it was going to succeed. By investing in his staff, focusing on quality and getting involved in a 20 Group, he managed to create a culture of pride at the shop and grow revenue beyond pre-fire numbers. (See "Joining and Leveraging A 20 Group" for the benefits of joining a 20 Group.)
And, after years of hard work, the shop finally got its new facility. In July 2010, Budd Baer Collision Center moved into a new 15,000-square-foot shop. It has a staff of 21, repairs roughly 110 cars a month and generates about $2.5 million in annual revenue. That’s $500,000 better than the shop’s last full year before the fire and more than $1 million more than what the shop made during the first couple of years after the disaster.
Repairing a severed culture
The achievement is not lost on McVicker, who has worked for years to repair what he says was a shop physically and mentally severed from its dealership.
Lead painter Rob Lowden describes the shop’s demoralized state following the fire. “In the original shop we were growing and getting busier and busier, starting to outgrow the shop,” he says. “Then we had the fire and had to start all over again.”
The move to today’s new shop was always planned, but getting there took much longer than anyone anticipated. It was a frustration employees had to overcome. “It was something that had been talked about for so long and been an overshadowing goal for so long,” McVicker says.
Before the new facility became a reality, the rookie shop manager was tasked with getting the most out of the awkwardly configured machine shop, which was dark, had one entrance and was not designed for efficient production. “It was in no way what you’d design it to be,” he says.
How’d he overcome the obstacle? Largely by transforming his staff’s mentality. A focus on people power has been key to Budd Baer’s success, McVicker says. Everything else followed. Here’s how the transformation happened:
Turnover. It’s usually referred to as a problem, but not when employees are holding a shop back. After the fire, some employees left; others were let go. “We lost some employees that just couldn’t get it in their head that this temporary location was where they were going to be,” McVicker says.
Employee investment. The shop started hosting employee dinners and outings and offering incentives, such as golf trips, for hitting sales goals. McVicker also started opening those dusty boxes, installing equipment and making new purchases to make life easier for employees. “It was a gradual improvement,” McVicker says. “Once the employees started to feel like we were making an effort to improve their situation, the momentum started to build on its own.”
Quality. No, the facility wasn’t pretty, but a focus on providing customers with the best repair experience possible compensated for that, McVicker says. He urged employees to take pride in their work and in the successful history of the business, which has been around since 1947.
Training. Budd Baer’s staff is I-CAR and ASE certified. Ongoing education and keeping up with certifications is a top priority. Rather than gaining seniority through years, techs at Budd Baer move up the ladder through certifications.
Marketing. The shop put together a brochure advertising its services and started reaching out to insurance companies and reclaiming DRP relationships lost because of the fire. Immediately after the blaze, the shop only had one DRP. Now it has 10.
Reinventing processes. The convenience of the direct dealership connection was gone. Mechanical and administrative services that used to be a step away were now miles down the road. The shop had to start relying on its own staff for much of those needs, and they had to work smarter to maintain cycle time.
The 20 Group advantage
As the shop started to rebound, McVicker decided he could use some help managing the growth, so in 2008, he joined Sherwin-Williams’ 20 Group.
“We were kind of transitioning past the $1 million level and starting to grow,” he says. “There were challenges associated with that growth and we were adding staff then. We were trying to figure out where to best spend money with people.”
