Content brought to you by Motor Age. To subscribe, click here.
Since taking control of the business from the previous owner five-and-a-half years ago, Mark Showalter, owner of Advanced Towing & Automotive in Vernal, Utah, has been able to continually grow it through new marketing tactics.
"Every year has gotten better, but it’s been the last year-and-a half that we have really taken off and made ourselves a formidable shop in town with a solid reputation and an ever-growing customer base,” Showalter says.
In fact, he says, his is now the top towing business in his area. With a dedicated team of nine, the shop has been able to fine-tune its work to perfection.
Showalter has a long history of living in the community, with multiple generations of his family living in the town. He has a deep love for his community and the people who live there.
"The members of this community are hardworking and close-knit," he says. "I’m proud of where I’m from and I’m always happy to give back to it.” When Showalter isn’t at the shop, you can most likely find him drag racing. He actually proposed to his wife in 2017 while participating in a street legal shootout at the Western Colorado Dragway. The county just finished building a drag strip eight miles from his business last fall, so he is looking forward to spending a lot of time there this year. He also loves to spend time with his family. With a two-year-old son and a little girl on the way, Showalter and his wife are kept very busy.
One thing that makes Advanced Towing & Automotive stand out from its competitors is its customer service.
“Customer service can go a long way, so we make sure to maintain a high level of it,” he says. When you take care of and value your customers their more likely to become a repeat customer and recommend your shop to people, they know. Keeping and growing your clientele is essential part of owning a business. One way they do this is by owning up to and fixing any mistakes the shop makes. As he puts it, “we’re all human and we’re all going to make mistakes, but if you handle them right, you’re not going to lose a customer because of it.”
“You can have an awful day or week and just want to crawl in a hole and hide," he says. "But it all passes, and life moves on. Don’t live in the one bad moment; look at the bigger picture and keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
As owner of the only heavy towing operation in his area, Showalter knows there’s always something that needs to be towed. To run a successful towing business, one needs to be up to face any challenge. And he has faced many in his five-and-a half years in the business. His area is known to produce large amounts of oil and natural gas, so there are lots of terrain difficulties when it comes time to do his job. By having a dedicated tow manager, he is able to have every tow documented in great detail in the invoice and get bills set out quickly.
A piece of advice he’s received as a DRIVE client that’s gone a long way is to advertise yourself. Showalter says at first it “was a hard pill to swallow" and "felt silly" to put money he didn’t feel like he had into something that may not pay off right away. But after sticking with it, the benefits came back tenfold. “We have gotten so many new customers from advertising and having a presence on the web,” he says, noting that new customers are right around the corner and advertising is how you get them from the street into your business.
Another way Showalter motivates himself is to remember to never give up. When he believes in himself and his team, his performance improves, and his shop does better. He remembers where he started and how far he’s come since he took over.
“You can have an awful day or week and just want to crawl in a hole and hide," he says. "But it all passes, and life moves on. Don’t live in the one bad moment; look at the bigger picture and keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
One way Showalter keeps his eye on the bigger picture is by focusing his efforts on his marketing. Before becoming a DRIVE client, he says, his days were very quiet and filled with a lot of stress due to the lack of business. He was so overwhelmed with the multitude of things that needed to be done that he couldn’t put anything into action. As he started working with DRIVE, he was now able to prioritize what needed to be done and where to start. “As each piece was completed, things began to fall into place.”
Showalter says DRIVE’s push for him to establish a strong online presence has been one of the largest contributions to his success, especially in the summer months as his town receives a lot of tourists from May to September. He says, “with DRIVE doing our website and content online, it keeps us relevant and at the top of the search listings in our area.” With DRIVE’s help, his business now has the highest Google rating and most reviews out of any independent shop in his town, which helps consistently bring in new customers. That along with a professional website has helped to set them apart from their competitors.
With all of the improvements to his business, Showalter has definitely seen a payoff. Just last year for the local newspaper's Best of the Basin awards, the shop was voted by readers as the number-one towing company and number-three automotive repair shop in Vernal. He called it a “humbling experience” to place in the top-three for both categories, especially since it came directly from his community. He can’t wait for this upcoming year and to keep growing his business in new, exciting ways!
