Southern migration

Jan. 1, 2020
Hunting and fishing may have lured Ron Hayden to rural Arkansas from Chicago, but it's been a steady influx of business to his body shop, Advanced Auto Body Repair Inc., that's kept him there for more than 20 years.

Chicagoan finds success, community in Arkansas

Hunting and fishing may have lured Ron Hayden to rural Arkansas from Chicago, but it's been a steady influx of business to his body shop, Advanced Auto Body Repair Inc., that's kept him there for more than 20 years.

"I picked this town because of the customers," Hayden says. "The customer base would be the retired person from up North who had a nice car and would have insurance. And I knew they could pay their deductible." Also, he adds, "I like to hunt and fish."

After a brief stint working at another body shop, he struck out on his own in 1988. His first challenge involved converting the 13,000-sq.-ft. former lumberyard into an efficient collision repair facility with a decent workflow. The 10,000-sq.-ft. main building was separate from a smaller 2,500-sq.-ft. space that Hayden decided to convert to a dedicated paint shop.

"I had to build everything from scratch," he says. "It works great. It has a nice flow to it. There are frame racks at one end, then the door opens to the paint prep area where cars can go in." It's a circular set-up that he says makes things run smoothly even when the shop is filled with vehicles.

The separate facility proved a useful solution in more ways than one. "The big compressors are in a separate little building outside so we don't have the noise and aren't sucking all the dirt inside the building," he says. "The 2.5-inch steel pipe is looped together, so the system stays full of air all the time and we don't have a drain at one side. It's little things like that that make your life comfortable."

The air filtration not only makes Hayden and his body techs breathe easier — it also results in a cleaner finish on the vehicles his shop repairs. "We have better quality paint," Hayden says. "I don't have all the dirt in there from the body shop. All the air is filtered before it goes in there. We thought this through."

As an outsider, Hayden also faced the daunting task of building a customer base in the small Arkansas community of Mountain Home. With only about 11,000 residents, Hayden knew he had to solidify a good reputation quickly and saw that word-of-mouth would be critical to his success.

"Being a small town, you meet people at church or Wal-Mart or the grocery store," he says. "Everybody knows everything — and everybody."

Understanding his customers' needs was critical, especially in the early years of the business. For one thing, Hayden knew he would have to provide loan vehicles for his customers because, unlike in his native Chicago, public transportation isn't an option in Mountain Home. "You don't have a car here, you're stranded," he says. "When we lived in Chicago, you get on the [Chicago Transit Authority] and go anywhere."

Another way he built his customer base was by providing meticulous service. Early on, he created a sort of assembly-line process, which the shop still utilizes, with each technician taking responsibility both for his own portion of the repair process and for checking the previous person's work. Hayden created manuals and checklists and has his technicians initial them after each task they complete.

"If you put the fender on, you initialed it. If you painted it, you initialed it," he says. "It's been successful because you don't have comebacks. When they pick it up out there and leave, it's done."

He adds, "You do a good job, they tell three people. Do a bad job, they tell 10."

As his shop expanded, he made technological improvements. Attending NACE around 1990, he recalls, he noted that the insurance companies were evaluating shops on the basis of whether their shops had computers. "If you didn't have a computer, forget it —you didn't get the job," he says. "Now it's what programs you have."

Keeping up with technology is only part of his overall strategy. He also cultivated direct repair relationships with all the major insurance companies. "My office manager Don and [I] sat down and put a package together for the insurance companies about why we're the greatest thing since sliced bread — with photos, certifications and all that —and sent it to insurance companies and, sure enough, they came back."

Although, he says, DRPs aren't the solution for everyone, they've helped him reach beyond his initial customer base and build his business, which was the first I-CAR shop in Arkansas (it's been I-CAR Gold since 1991). "It's great for me, but not great for the smaller shops, and I can see their point in being pissed off," he says. "But you go with the times. I find out what they want and try to accommodate them. And, of course, you have to do good work, back it up with a guarantee."

Living in Mountain Home, he says, he's not going to get rich, but he's been able to make a nice living. "I'm on third-generation repairs now," he says. "I've fixed grandma's car, then the daughter's, and now the granddaughter's. I've got to be doing something right if I have all three generations coming to me."

Sponsored Recommendations

ADAS Applications: What They Are & What They Do

Learn how ADAS utilizes sensors such as radar, sonar, lidar and cameras to perceive the world around the vehicle, and either provide critical information to the driver or take...

Banking on Bigger Profits with a Heavy-Duty Truck Paint Booth

The addition of a heavy-duty paint booth for oversized trucks & vehicles can open the door to new or expanded service opportunities.

The Autel IA700: Advanced Modular ADAS is Here

The Autel IA700 is a state-of-the-art and versatile wheel alignment pre-check and ADAS calibration system engineered for both in-shop and mobile applications...

Boosting Your Shop's Bottom Line with an Extended Height Paint Booths

Discover how the investment in an extended-height paint booth is a game-changer for most collision shops with this Free Guide.