When Vernie Menke used to wander out to his father’s shop behind his childhood home, he knew he wanted to work in an automotive shop for the rest of his life.
But when he walked into his first job at Paul Fischer Performance Shop in 1970, his views all changed. Yes, he still wanted to be in a shop, but this was different. This shop was pristine. It was spotless and organized — just how Menke knew a good automotive repair business should be run.
And that’s how things are handled today at Menke’s Automotive Repair in Newburgh, Ind. Vernie and his wife, Barb, run a spotless, organized shop that has a competitive technical edge and an “if you build it, they will come” feel that makes it Motor Age’s Top Shop in the fourth annual contest.
Polishing Perfection
There are 14 bays at Menke’s Automotive, each with a floor polished to a sheen, thanks to scrubbings with the shop’s floor machine between every vehicle service. Barb jokes that the shop is more like a car hospital and everything is cleaned before the next patient is brought in.
When you’re dealing with people’s vehicles, a main lifeline for many, that philosophy helps. But as Vernie Menke says, his mind didn’t always think like that.
“When I grew up in my father’s shop, the floors were greasy and everything was unorganized. You had to look for tools because tools were scattered everywhere,” he recalls. “I grew up that way and my dad kind of seemed to know where everything was. I just thought that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
That all changed with his tenure in the performance shop. Walking in there on his first day, Vernie’s first thoughts were “Oh my gosh,” and “This is the way it should really be done.” So he knew whenever he had the chance to go out on his own, he would offer that same high performance level of service no matter what level of vehicles he worked on.
“I thought, you know, what customers really deserve is to walk into a place like this. I feel that they really shouldn’t have to walk into a dirty, dingy, dark repair shop that smells like grease and all that,” Menke offers. “What has happened since we created the facility that we have is it’s clean and neat and it’s driven a higher class clientele to our facility. I think that’s what you want. And those people don’t want to walk into a dirty, dingy place. I think that the nicer your facility is, the higher class people you get and the more people appreciate what you’re doing.”
In 1976, Menke moved to Newburgh, 15 miles south of the performance shop, to start his own shop. He leased a 2,000-square-foot warehouse in the back of the local NAPA Auto Parts store. He remodeled the entire warehouse and made sure it was the clean, organized, polished shop he had dreamt about.
Business took off. Based solely on his reputation and word of mouth, Menke built his one-man business. He outgrew leased area after 17 years, however, and decided not only did he need more space, but he needed more help.
A Personal ‘Field of Dreams’
In a struggling industrial park in the early 1990s, Menke found a three-acre lot two miles off the main road in Newburgh for only $25,000. Working 16 to 17 hours a day, first at the shop in the NAPA store warehouse and then on his new location, Menke and some friends built the new location in just seven months.
Though he passed over a nice piece of property on the main highway – which would have set him back $300,000 at the time – he was sure that his new venture would succeed. It had to.
“I had everything that I had invested in this building, so I thought, ‘It can’t fail or I’ll lose everything that I’ve got,’” Menke says.
And in 1994, boy did it catch on.
PAGE 2“I thought once I got this place built that I could take a break,” he says, recalling the 16- and 17-hour days doing both jobs. “Well no more than we opened the doors,we were just flooded with business because people, more or less, were watching me build this thing and were waiting for it to open.”
By this point, Menke had added one other technician to his one-man crew, so he still was working 16 to 17 hours a day. He says the shop made great money, but his wife finally called his overworking into question, forcing him to think like a top shop owner.
“Barb even said, 'This thing is killing you. What’s all the money in the world worth if you’re dead?' So then we hired another person so we could handle the workload better,” Menke states.
Focusing more on that business overall than on the details, Menke was able to add employees one at a time to better handle the car count and get the schedule back down to only five days a week. By doing this, he finally was able to enjoy the business he built and make it into one of the best not only in the area, but in the country.
Becoming the Best
Assembling the staff wasn’t as easy as simply putting a help wanted ad in the newspaper. Menke instead went to the people who knew the best techs in the area for help – his parts suppliers.
Menke gave his suppliers a list of qualifications he was looking for in technicians, and they, in turn, suggested the best in the area. He then followed up with the techs to see what it would take to bring them into his shop. The result is a well-rounded team of specialists. Tony Reuscher handles drivability, while Brad Meneely specializes in electrical systems. Nick Houchin works on transmission problems, and Menke’s brother Lloyd specializes in engines and the heavier work on vehicles. The shop also just brought in Richard Calvert, another ASE Master Technician.
“I have hand picked every employee that I have. I keep driving for perfection every day. It’s this passion that I have. And all the people that work for me have that same passion,” Menke states. “And that’s the kind of people you have to hire and that I have to have to work in my business. If they don’t have that same desire that I do, well then they just will not work in my business.”
The team has proven its dedication to the shop and has lived up to what Menke has looked for in technicians throughout the years. The five techs, along with shop managers Jim Shipman and Joe Wiedrich, all come in before the shop opens every day to have a team meeting on their own time. While Shipman and Wiedrich arrive at 6:45 a.m. to listen to voice mails and lay out plans, the techs arrive at 7 a.m. so everyone is ready for the 7:30 a.m. meeting.
“They come in for 45 minutes of their own time just because they’re that dedicated to this shop,” Menke says. “You’ve got to have total dedication, total buy-in to get something like this to work as well as what we have.”
During these meetings, Barb shares the results of the previous day’s follow-up phone calls she makes to customers (all of whom are contacted 10 days after service to see how things are going). Also, work is assigned to the technicians and problems both in the shop and in the employees’ lives are discussed. Menke says it’s that family atmosphere that has brought the team together, making them stronger employees.
Tops in Technology
The staff at Menke’s is strong not only because of its closeness, but also because of the technology the shop’s owner makes sure they have in their bays.
“With the class of people with the cars that we work on, we’re working on already some ’09 cars at our shop,” Menke reports. “In order for us to work on those, we’ve got to have the equipment. We are constantly looking at what is on the market and the latest thing.”
That means having factory and aftermarket scan tools and equipment in-house, including Master Tech, Tech-2, OTC Genus, Snap-on and Launch System. And if a vehicle comes in and the equipment isn’t there to fix it, it’s promptly discussed.
“If we see that we are needing some equipment to work on a certain car, we all meet and we look at what’s on the market and we get with whoever’s got the piece of diagnostic equipment on the market and find out what it does and what it won’t do,” Menke says. “We find out the very best piece of equipment that will work for our shop. It’s a whole team effort.”
That team effort ensures that the company’s money is spent only on what is needed and what the technicians will use and benefit from.
“Since I’m the owner, it’s not just my decision,” he says. “It’s whatever it takes to make my people successful. I ask them constantly, ‘What do we need to make you successful so that you can do better work?’”
Menke’s Automotive also utilizes Mitchell On Demand, ALLDATA, Identifix and ACDelco TSS for technical information, and computers in the bays keep the technicians up-to-speed on repair information and vehicle needs. As for shop management, NAPA TRAX is the system of choice and all parts are ordered online.
Utilizing all of this equipment, each vehicle that comes into the shop receives a 20-point courtesy inspection. Customers can watch this inspection, and the rest of the work, through an 8-by-14-foot window between the lobby and shop.
Customers never see technicians standing around, either – they’re always working or scrubbing down the floor getting ready for the next vehicle. Technicians are paid on a commission basis and perform high quality work, according to Menke, because any work on a comeback is done for free.
“I built the whole business off honesty, do good work and get peop;e to trust you,” Menke explains. “That’s what I’ve built the business on over the years. If you treat people fair and do good work and are honest with them, they just keep coming back. That’s what we’ve done.”
To keep up with that honest work, training is required in multiple forms. The entire staff attends monthly seminars, and ACDelco TSS and NAPA online training offerings are utilized throughout each month as well.
Profitable Endorsement
Among all of the marketing Menke’s puts together, one of its top tier programs is the endorsement by nationally recognized financial advisor Dave Ramsey.
“What he preaches is to stay away from getting a new car and fix up your old car and move on. Because you lose so much money when you buy a new car,” Menke explains. "What he preaches to people fits our profession great.”
The Menkes contacted Ramsey about endorsing their shop, and after he visited the facility and saw how they operated, he was on board. Ramsey now does all of their commercials, lending his word and weight behind the Menkes’ message of good service.
Fellow members of the community also endorse Menke’s through Business Networking International (BNI). These are groups of 25 to 40 professionals who meet weekly to pass work back and forth. Only one profession representative is allowed per group, and the Menkes belong to three.
“They’ll bring all their cars to us. And if they run across somebody, like one of their clients or something, that needs car repair, they send them to us,” Menke states. “It’s like having 25 to 40 extra sales people on your staff. And we belong to three chapters, so there’s like 100 extra people out there promoting us.”
It’s also been a great way to increase the number of fleets the shop services.
These unique programs are in addition to the rolling billboard – a custom Ford Escape emblazoned with Menke’s logo, services and information – yard signs advertising services, goodie bags and $10 referral rewards for customers. The shop also has been the only AAA approved shop in southern Indiana for nine years, and both Barb and Vernie Menke sit on the regional AAA advisory board.
And then there are the loaner vehicles.
How Many Loaner Cars?
Years ago, Menke says he really started listening to what his customers were saying when they were setting up service. He quickly realized that people were scheduling service based on convenience to continue on with their lives. He thought the logical explanation would be to give people a car to drive while theirs was in the shop.
Menke began discussing the idea with the shop manager, Shipman, who is a former dealership service managerHe quickly dismissed the idea because it hadn’t worked for the dealer while he was there. But Menke pressed on, saying if a program had only four vehicles, then no, it wouldn’t work. But having a vehicle for each set of keys customers leave, then it would have a chance.
“If we’ve got 15 cars every day, then we need at least 15 loaner cars,” he says. “I said that’s what it’s going to take – at least that many – for this program to work and be right.”
Menke explains that he started by buying vehicles from customers who didn’t want to fix them and from newspaper ads.
“They were good cars, they just needed work. So we would fix them and go through them totally from front to back,” he says. “We'd p ut all new brakes on them, make sure they had new tires on them, go through all the suspension and make sure everything was super, super safe on them.”
It took a little more than a year to compile the 15 cars, and the fleet now stands at 19, with a couple more in the works. The fleet includes nearly every make from Pontiac and GM to Lexus and Cadillac.
“What we do is we try to match the car to the customer. If our customer has a GM product, we put them back in a GM product so they’re familiar with all the accessories, how to turn the wipers on, how to turn the lights on,” Menke adds.
Not Slowing Down
The entire staff at Menke’s strives to better itself all the time, whether it’s reading up on solving the next wave of vehicle technology problems, attending training, creating new marketing plans or just performing maintenance.
The shop hired a business coach for 2009-10 to try and refine business practices even more. And while they’re learning more, they’re going to start teaching some, too. Karen and Bill Langton from Primary Auto Care Inc. in State College, Pa., are planning a visit to Menke’s to learn how to improve their shop. The couple met Vernie and Barb Menke at this year’s Congress of Automotive Repair & Service (CARS) the days they were recognized as the Top Shop winner.
But that doesn’t mean the new teachers are content at the top of the list.
“We will never stop striving to improve. I just want to keep going and getting better and better and better,” Menke says. “Even though we won the contest, which is just huge to us, we are not stopping here by any means.”
