Earning Respect: Staying true to a vision

Jan. 1, 2020
Kari Solem is used to catching people off guard. As a woman shop owner in the male-dominated collision repair field, she's left a lot of people shaking their heads. She's even had people tell her she's crazy and destined to fail. But for the past 20

Aggressive approach pays off for Sonoma Valley shop owner

Kari Solem is used to catching people off guard. As a woman shop owner in the male-dominated collision repair field, she's left a lot of people shaking their heads. She's even had people tell her she's crazy and destined to fail. But for the past 20 years she's been proving them wrong.

When she first entered the business in 1984, as a single mother looking to make ends meet, she'd just had a bad experience at a collision repair shop following a car wreck. She decided there was a strong need in the Sonoma Valley, Calif., area for a body shop that was truly focused on the customer, and not just the male customer. She wanted a shop that didn't treat women in a condescending manner. "At that time, body shops had nudie pictures on the walls and when you'd walk in for an estimate the guy would ask where your husband is," Solem recalls.

Her goal seemed realistic. A bookkeeper by training, she had enough money in the bank from the recent sale of her home — a result of the 1980s California real estate boom — to invest in a paint booth and a frame machine. She also partnered with an experienced automotive painter and leased a facility on Piner Road in Santa Rosa, Calif. Advance Tech Collision was off and running.

But before long Solem's business partner started losing interest. They had different business goals and weren't seeing eye to eye. He thought they weren't making enough money in the short term and Solem was focused on the bigger picture. "I looked at this as a long-term investment in the community, where people brought in their cars once and then came back," she says.

When her partner bowed out, he suggested they shut down the business. They had no direct-repair relationships and were only doing $77,000 of repair business per year. "It was basically the smallest body shop in Sonoma County," she says. But Solem didn't budge. She was afraid of losing everything and thought she could make it work. Her tenacity would become the one constant over many years of changes in the industry.

So she kept the doors open and slowly more cars started coming in. In those early days of managing the shop on her own, she had a room in the back where her kids could do homework and watch TV. "I would write estimates, answer the phone, pay bills, hire and fire staff, I did everything all by myself," she recalls. She also devoted herself to soaking up as much industry knowledge as she could. She became a founder of the local Inter-Industry Conference On Auto Collision Repair (I-CAR) chapter and started holding I-CAR classes at Advance Tech.

By the 1990s she had built a local reputation as a solid businessperson. In 1996 the owner of a shop on Todd Road in Rohnert Park, Calif., called her and asked if she was interested in a second facility. "His business was failing at the time," she explains. "He couldn't be there all the time. He knew I'd make it work, so he offered it to me, which was a great honor. Opportunities like that don't come around often. It was literally offered to me."

But the great opportunity wasn't without a serious glitch — the loss of the Rohnert Park shop's entire crew. Not everyone left immediately. A few flat-out refused to work for a woman, some staff members thought it wouldn't work and found employment elsewhere, and a couple of body techs stayed on for a few months and then walked off. So Solem hired a new crew and turned to family for administrative help. Her son was graduating from high school at the time and joined the Advance Tech staff part-time. She also pulled her sister, a stay-at-home mom with five children, into the business. "Family support was what I needed," Solem says.

She also had the foresight to develop DRPs with insurance companies before it became common practice. She recalls that, at the time, other local body shop owners called and said she was siding with the enemy and cutting her own throat. "I had a little bit of vision there," she says. "What happened the next eight years was that insurance companies asked people to be in contract with them."

In 2001 I-CAR recognized Advance Tech as the "Outstanding Training Site of the Month" for the Northwest Region for Solem's dedication to holding I-CAR training classes. She also helped found the Santa Rosa area I-CAR chapter and helped the chapter earn the Superior Performance Award for the Northwest Region for surpassing attendance goals and offering all the available I-CAR training courses.

Keeping her eye on the future of her business, Solem attends NACE each year along with about 20 of her employees and continues to invest in new equipment. "I'd much rather put it back in the business than pay it to the IRS," she admits. And she has a lot to work with — last year her business grossed $5.6 million.

She also tries to stay ahead of the curve, meeting with insurance companies frequently so she's prepared for upcoming changes in the collision repair industry. When key performance indicator (KPI) scores became the industry standard for monitoring workflow and customer satisfaction, Solem already had implemented it. "You have to be flexible," she says. "You can't set a business model and say you'll never detour from it. The only thing in business that you can count on — the only thing that's certain — is change."

But the biggest change Solem has experienced may be in gaining the respect and admiration of her colleagues. Last May Solem acquired a third shop in Windsor, Calif., from an old friend. "Back in the day he was the biggest and baddest body shop," she says.

He was one of the first people to tell her in the beginning, "What, are you, crazy? This is the most stressful business you could ever do." Then last year he called and asked her to take over his shop, which was losing business He knew she could turn it around. This time he told her, "I gotta give it to you, kid."

With her third shop in place and running smoothly, Solem has her eye on purchasing a fourth in the Bay Area. She recently signed a confidentiality agreement with the owner. Since early on her goal has been to become the largest shop in Sonoma County. "That's still my goal," she says. "At this time I'm number two or three." She hopes to push her numbers to reach the goal by the end of the year.

"I'm a very competitive businesswoman," Solem says. "I have to be. I've been told for 20 years by men in the business that I couldn't do it."

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