Fix Auto - Index

Fix Auto - Magazine02-en - Index

“
ThE INdIvIdUAl
REpAIR CENTERS look
AT ThEIR BUSINESSES
AS REpAIRERS, NoT
AS BUSINESSMEN.
UNFoRTUNATEly,
ThEy’RE doINg ThEIR
SToCkholdERS A
dISSERvICE, EvEN
ThoUgh ThE oNly
SToCkholdER
IS ThEM.
”
22 || MARK MAGAZINE
M Do you see the emergence of a new generation
of shop owners?
RS I don’t see any obvious sign of a new
generation of young people coming into
the business. Traditionally, businesses have
been passed down from generation to generation.
I was not one of those people whose
parents were in the business or who had any
knowledge of the business. Really, the new
generation I see in the body shop business is
the large corporate conglomerates. And if we
want to remain in business, we have to find
a way of gaining the size, scale and strength
necessary to appear, work and function like
the large corporate conglomerates entering
the market today.
M So you expect a big change in the competition
set?
RS Absolutely and for a variety of reasons. First,
we have some very smart business-oriented
people. Second, they are leveraging capital in
a way that body shops have traditionally not
known how to do. They are using economies
of scale to drive down their costs, devising
financing plans to create new incentives for
the insurance companies to do business with
them. These are all new and different perspectives
on business that are pretty common
to other businesses but that are very new to
the body shop business. I think that’s a very
serious threat for people who are unaware of it.
M What advice would you give to anyone
who wants to take up the challenge?
RS I would first advise them to look at
themselves and look at their performance
and ask themselves: “If I were the owner of
this company, would I hire myself to do the
job? Am I doing a satisfactory job of ensuring
the long-term future of the business?”
They, as the current manager of the business,
need to step aside and see the situation from
the point of view of the stockholder and ask
themselves: “Would I hire this other person,
whose job is to follow all the business precepts
necessary to help this business grow, and
pay him the same amount of money?” Have
a plan and work on the plan – that would
be my first suggestion. My second would be
that the body shop owner should give more
importance to training and increase his level
of awareness about the dynamics of the body
shop business. The third thing I would say is,
I would make sure that if I couldn’t increase
my market share in my area to prevent the
entry of corporate conglomerates, I would try
to affiliate myself with other shops. We can
learn a lesson from fish. Why do fish swim in
a school? It’s for protection against bigger
fish. Well we’re animals too, and I think we
need to swim in schools sometimes, because
we can’t always be the big fish. So I would
certainly look to those kinds of tools to help
me make my business grow and survive in a
very changing environment.