I recently spoke with two friends that run successful repair shops. In the course of catching up with both, I asked them the obligatory question, “How’s business?”
The two responses could not have been more different. With Kevin, it was as if I'd asked a hypochondriac, "How are you doing?" His reply was summed up by: “I’m fed up with it.”
He bombarded me with gripes about virtually every aspect of the business. However, the central theme to his comments was that the business is “just no fun anymore.”
He started with how tough it is to find good help and that when you do find a qualified young tech they don’t have the same work ethic as they used to. I asked him how he was dealing with that and he replied, ”I got rid of them all and now I’m working alone.”
He went on to say the jobbers he had known forever had sold out and the chains are taking over. “The guys working the parts counters know absolutely nothing about parts or fixing cars. And then there are the parts,” Kevin said. “Nothing is made in America anymore. Brands that used to be sold exclusively to the trade are now all over the shelves of retails stores. And I haven’t seen a factory rep in years”
Contrast that with another conversation I had with my friend Jim. Jim has two shops and just opened a third. His two sons are running the two branches. His business is booming. I asked him if he was experiencing similar problems to those voiced by Kevin. He admitted that younger techs are indeed different, but that you just have to “learn to deal with them.” He too had seen changes of ownership with some of his parts providers but he said there still are good places with good people who know what they're doing.
Is the difference between Jim and Kevin as simple as the glass is half empty or half full? Clearly, both are looking at market changes and reacting in very different ways.
The facts are the facts. The average age of the owner of shops is increasing. Some like Jim have their kids coming into the business, but there probably are more like Kevin who don’t. It is a fact that more shops are for sale now than at any other time in history.
According to Lang Marketing we are seeing shrinkage of independently owned shops while we are seeing a surge in the growth of national chain shops. In fact, a couple of those national chains recently have made acquisitions of independent garages. For some, it seems to be a keystone of their growth strategy. Studying the Lang data suggests we are fast approaching a time when chain shops will outnumber independent shops.
This should come as no great surprise. We saw this happen with jobbers a few years ago. One morning we woke up and store count of the chains had surpassed the number of independent jobbing stores. It's not a bad thing; it's not a good thing; it just is.
All of us who sell parts for a living need to stay on top of these emerging demographic trends. We need to become students of how the large numbers of baby boomers approaching retirement age are considering decisions about what to do with their businesses.
I’m just hoping that the Jims of the world prevail – maybe even acquiring a significant number of the Kevins.
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