The Art of the Deal

Before the presentation starts, you’re handed a six-page black-and-red booklet brandished with “Auto Art Body Shop.” You flip to the first page and find the story of Wallace’s father, Bill, who opened the first Auto Art facility in Murfreesboro, Tenn., in 1970.

Back then, Bill was dedicated to the people, to the repairs. There were no ambitions of expanding into the metropolitan market—which didn’t coincide with Wallace’s vision of spreading the company’s reach.

“My dad started this business with an insurance partner, and it was built on customer service, it was built on quality repairs, and it was built on being fair,” says Wallace, who took over Auto Art in 1999. “We were poised for that next level.”

Utilizing his business degree from Middle Tennessee State University, Wallace expanded around Auto Art’s original location. Over 13 years, he would open three more shops in Murfreesboro, Smyrna and Franklin—inching close to Nashville, but never quite knowing where to break in.

“I didn’t understand the market,” he says. “I needed to get bigger because I was trying to grow my market share.”

Nurturing by Nature

Just recently at one of Auto Art’s seven locations, the computers crashed. Harris spent six hours on the phone trying to resolve the issue.

And she didn’t mind the experience one bit.

“Everybody I talked to was like, ‘I love Nashville. Everybody is so nice!’” she says. “I love living here. We’re nurturers by nature. We like to take care of people, which is probably why I’m in the body shop business. I want to help people.”

When Harris sells Auto Art’s quality service and dedication to customers and dealerships, she speaks with the same passion, devotion, fervor she uses when gushing over the city she’s lived in since also graduating from Middle Tennessee State in 1990. It’s a level of affection she’s attempted to infect all 104 of her employees with since joining Auto Art three years ago.

“They understand the expectations before they come to work here,” she says. “If you can’t put your daughter in that vehicle, then don’t put someone else’s daughter in there. That’s always been the idea we try to live by.”

Starting out as a receptionist at a dealership, Harris bounced through various fixed operations roles—from customer relations manager to estimator to body shop manager—all the way up to operations manager for two dealerships. Through the years, she studied the Nashville market and built relations with various customers, insurance representatives and dealer professionals. All of that enticed Wallace, with whom Harris sat on the Nashville I-CAR Committee.

“She understood the national market,” Wallace says. “It was much more competitive with bigger shops, the DRPs and the concierge services available in Nashville than where we were. They had a bigger skillset than we had.”

“It was such a good fit for both of us,” Harris says. “He had some really strong relationships in the outskirts of Nashville, and I had some really strong relationships in Nashville.”

A Dying Breed

Harris and Wallace didn’t schedule this meeting with your dealership by happenstance—they spent hours researching your region’s growth forecast to position themselves as the answer to a common dealer dilemma.

“The dealership body shop is a dying breed,” Harris says. “Any of the newer dealerships, they’re not in the body shop business, so they rely on their collision center partners.”

While The Romans Group LLC reports 38 percent of dealerships having a collision center in 2015 (the highest was 39 percent in 2014), the research firm states the vast 33 percent decline between 2006 and 2010 reflects a long-term downward trend that began in the late 1980s. And from day one, Harris pinpointed body-shop-less dealerships in regions poised for growth.

Just as market analysis helps sell their businesses to dealerships, it’s been key to Auto Art’s growth. Carrying over a strong relationship with PPG, Harris introduced Wallace to the paint company’s propensity reports, which track growth patterns, median income, average demographics and vehicle makeup in 5-mile, 10-mile, 20-mile radiuses. Those reports helped the collision network establish two more locations within Nashville and another just north in Mt. Juliet, which, according to propensity reports, is the fastest-growing area in middle Tennessee.

“In some of our markets, the median income is $55,000. Nissan is a huge player down there because they’ve got a huge manufacturing plant. You’re going to fix a lot of Altimas and Maximas,” Wallace says. “But if you’re in [Mt. Juliet], the median income is $90,000 and you’re going to get a bunch of Mercedes and European vehicles.”

One-Stop Source

Appealing to market interests is one thing—earning your complete trust with just one meeting is another pitch entirely.

As a seasoned fixed operations manager, Harris can appeal to the average dealership’s customer base, and how much risk there is sending customers to an independent body shop.

“It takes a while for them to trust you and feel confident, because that’s their customer first,” she says. “[The customer] bought their car there, they’re probably going to go back and buy another car there.”

That’s why, on top of preaching her company’s extensive philanthropy efforts and deeply ingrained customer service mentality, Harris offers a proposal:

“A lot of times we’ll start with, ‘Let us fix one of your cars. We’ll show you what we can do,’” she says. “And then we just build on that relationship. Slowly but surely they tend to start using us.”

In the end, what truly appeals to dealerships is the win-win proposal.

“We explain to them the benefit of having a one-stop source,” she says. “We have seven locations, so all seven of those locations will commit to buying our Kia parts from one Kia dealership, and in return, we want you to be comfortable referring work to us.”

Layers of Confidence

The true root of Auto Art’s 10 percent growth (almost $2 million of its $19 million revenue) came from building “layers of confidence,” Harris says. While dealers have gone on to recommend Auto Art to insurance companies and other non-competing dealerships, the customer referrals have truly amped up growth.

“Especially with the higher-line cars, the Lexus dealership and the Acura dealership, those customers really want the opinions of their dealership,” she says. “They trust the service managers, they trust their advisor. A lot of times, that may even be the first call before they call their insurance company.”

Harris and Wallace will continue to add those layers as they continue their expansion, eyeing fast-growing areas within and around Nashville. And they’ll do it one dealership at a time.

If you don’t take their word for it, consider Joel Trail’s perspective:

“What attracts me to any business that I deal with is the honesty and professionalism of the people,” he says. “It’s always there with them—from a tech all the way up to Danny, you’re always getting the same kind of treatment. That’s most important to me.”