Kevin and Debbie House, the owners of Center Collision in Tacoma, Wash., are living a much more centered lifestyle by utilizing the services of a consultant to improve their business.
Driving this better balance are coaching and training programs provided by DRIVE, based in Monrovia, Calif. and billed as the largest vehicle repairer consultancy in North America.
“DRIVE has definitely delivered on its promise” that it could assist the couple in developing a successful and profitable operation, according to Kevin House, who has been offering enthusiastic endorsements to his collision industry colleagues.
“I get calls regularly from the staff at DRIVE to assist them with skeptical shop owners looking for help with their business,” he reports. “We usually end up doing a three-way call with them so they can talk to a real live person who has been where they are, and they can ask me some questions like, ‘Can DRIVE really help me?’ And my answer is always YES!”
At the time House was introduced to DRIVE, the shop was doing about $350,000 in business per year, “and I can honestly say that I have no idea how much money we were making as far as a net profit.” This past year Center Collision brought in $2.5 million with a net profit of about 20 percent.
“The real amazing part of our business growth is that I have been able to take a lot of time off work while experiencing substantial growth and profits.”
In 2019, Kevin and Debbie went on a two-and a-half-week cruise through the Panama Canal, and then they embarked upon a 10-day cruise to the Mediterranean, “making several stops and enjoying beautiful weather,” House recounts. “We took my parents on an Alaska cruise for a week and finished the year by going on a three-week European River Cruise beginning in Prague then traveling through Germany by boat and ending up in Luxembourg where we took a high-speed train to France.”
Wintertime brought snowmobiling in Washington and Canada, culminating in a weeklong visit to Idaho.
House contends that none of these travelogues would have been possible without the services and advice rendered by their consultant. “First of all, DRIVE taught me what a successful and profitable business consisted of. Next, they set me up with an advisor” who provided step-by-step teaching in “how to do things like calculate profit, track production, motivate my employees and keep the shop full of work, etc.,” he says.
“My advisor was very demanding at times, and he would often let me know that I was doing great and making progress, but that I was also capable of much more,” House explains. “I believe that DRIVE has always been able to teach me what I needed to know to get to the next step of my business journey, but they have always been very clear that I would have to be the one to put it into action.”
A key part of this action was getting a handle on the shop’s KPIs – key profit indicators – and other accountability factors. “Once I learned where the production ‘bar’ should be in my business, it gave me something to work towards. One of the worst things is to work hard and not know if you are gaining or losing,” House points out.
“Since we use the CCC estimating and management system, it has been fairly easy to gather and track all of my KPIs, and I do it on a weekly basis and put each one on a graph that I study and analyze. It’s pretty easy to determine how things are going; up is good and down is bad,” he notes.
“My advisor once told me that if my business were ever to decline to the point of ruin — he was kidding – my graphs would have been telling me this the whole time,” says House. “By using the information on my graphs, I can make informed decisions on what I need to be doing -- or not doing. By constantly evaluating and making small corrections along the way, we are able to keep on course and get to our destination.”
DRIVE continues to provide consulting advice on an online basis. And during the coronavirus pandemic the shop is diligently engaging in masking, social distancing and other practices while House closely monitors the illness’s presence in Tacoma.
“Due to the essential nature of our business and taking all necessary precautions,” he says, the shop is maintaining its normal business hours. “If the current situation gets to a point where we can no longer operate,” a transparent course of action will be implemented “during this time of trial and uncertainty.”
Venturing to Tacoma
“The No. 1 thing that sets us apart from our competition is that we are an independent collision shop without any DRP contracts,” according to House.
“I initially thought that my goal as a collision shop owner should be to get myself in a position to have the space and equipment to qualify to be on a DRP program with an insurance company. After several attempts early on to no avail, my advisor at DRIVE told me to forget about getting DRPs, and he helped me develop a marketing strategy of my own that has worked out great! Our customers love the fact that we only work for them and we do not have any financial loyalty to their insurance companies.”
Achieving a consistent level of 4.8-star online reviews, House is quick to point out that “we work with all insurance companies – we just don’t work for them.”
Another marketing plus is that “we give our customers a little more when they arrive to pick up their finished vehicle” in the form of free Almond Roca chocolate from the Brown and Haley Co., a local Tacoma treasure with a global reputation for top quality candy. House buys their products by the case as gifts for the clientele.
The shop itself is located near the Tacoma Dome and America’s Car Museum. The easy-to-find landmark building in the middle of town at 1111 Center St. once housed the iconic Spout & Toad Restaurant — famous for its heaping helpings of burgers, fries, and…yes, frog legs.
Frequent patrons included the Ventures, another Tacoma treasure that was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame without singing a single note: As the best-selling instrumental rock band in the history of the planet, they were pioneers of the electric guitar and innovators of the fuzz tone. Hugely popular in Japan, the surviving members are still recording and performing. Starting in 1960 with the monster surf-rock hit “Walk, Don’t Run,” the Ventures have released more than 250 albums containing more than 3,000 songs – including the theme to “Hawaii Five-O.”
“Purchasing our commercial property in 2005 turns out to be one of the best financial decisions I have made in business,” says House, adding that he is surprised at the amount of shop owners who rent or lease their facilities rather than investing in a building that they can be paying for with the funds earned through their repair services.
Although it was a struggle at first, renting out a portion of the interior to another business while putting in extra-long hours to make the mortgage payments and cover the structure’s remodeling costs, “all of the work eventually paid off with purchasing our own building and having a place to operate our business and grow,” he notes.
The legacy of the former Spout & Toad Restaurant means also that there is plenty of paved parking, enough to store 60 vehicles.
Along with serving consumers throughout Tacoma, University Place, Lakewood, Parkland, Puyallup, Waller, Milton, Edgewood, Midland, Federal Way, ArtonDale and the surrounding Pugent Sound region, repairs are also conducted on fleet vehicles from rental car companies such as Hertz and military equipment from the Transportation Motor Pool at Joint Base Lewis & McCord.
“We have also recently added a full detail shop in order to provide our customers with even better service,” says House.
‘A fun and warm place’
“We are one of the few shops that I know of who does not sublet out their glass,” says House. “We have a full-time employee with 25 years in the glass industry who takes care of all of the glass and windshield needs for our customers. We often install several windshields a day.”
At present a 2,500-sq. ft. addition is under construction to augment the existing 10-bay space complete with state-of-the-art equipment including a new Car-O-Liner frame machine and measuring system along with the most modern welders and a downdraft paint booth.
House values workforce stability, which is achieved through a variety of employee-friendly extras that induce recruiting recommendations from the staff, such as a $500 reward for an existing worker’s referral if the new hire stays on for at least 90 days. “This has worked out well for everyone.”
Craigslist and Facebook are other sources of potential staffers.
“There are a lot of things that we do,” says House, “to make working here a fun and warm place of employment.”
With COVID-related alternations and adjustments under consideration, the offerings include:
- Free Lunch Friday – House buys the crew lunch every Friday. He lets them help pick out the restaurant as long as it stays within our monthly budget, and often in the summer they will take turns cooking on the BBQ grill.
- Yearly Boat Ride – For the past several years, House has taken the crew out in the Puget Sound for a boat ride and lunch on the water. They always watch the weather and pick a nice and sunny day.
- Yearly Christmas Party – The shop has a company Christmas party at a nice restaurant every year. House brings gifts for the employees and their families, especially the kids.
- Four Days Off in a Row – The shop has traditionally worked the Saturday prior to Thanksgiving so that they can trade that for the day after Thanksgiving, which is normally a work day; everyone loves having four days off in a row for this holiday.
- Food Truck – During the summer, House has a food truck that parks outside of the building in the front; they sell burgers and fries. The shop advertises this to all of its neighborhood businesses and also their customers through Facebook and email. There have been times where they have sold more than 200 burgers between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
- Wheels to Prosper – Each year Center Collision gives away a vehicle to a deserving person in the community. This is an effort that includes the whole shop as well as community and business leaders.
The program “has helped to set us apart from other shops in our city by taking the lead and helping to improving our community and the people in it,” according to House. “Many of our employees donate their time and talents to help get the vehicle in tip-top shape prior to giving it away. This event held at our shop is one of the highlights of each year.”
