Wells Smash Repair
AWARDS 2006 AAMIAAMI/AP&P AUTOBODY REPAIRER OF THE YEAR REGIONAL WINNER (NEW SHOP) QLD.
Wells Smash Repair
I takes a special kind of courage for a leading Hobart repairer to move to Queensland where he knows virtually nobody, and set up a new shop. That's what Mark Wells did. He has achieved an output of nil to 40 cars week in one year. There are plenty of local shops still trying to get there after five or ten years.
Wells, fulfilling a promise to his wife to 'go north' once their children were self sufficient, brought two employees from his Hobart shop and set up in a newish, but very dirty former repair shop in Arundel, a pleasantly green district about 80Km south of Brisbane.
"Even though I was well known in Hobart, nobody in Arundel want to know me," he says. "I knocked on doors, got happy customers to write letter to insurers, offered to repair anything I cold lay my hands on. I tell you, it was tough. To keep some work coming in I repaired economic write-offs at cost, busses, anything."
Now, with a workforce of 25, the shop is humming with regular work. Already Wells has expanded by taking another factory building across a driveway and is negotiating for more space at the front of the small industrial estate in which he is renting.
Wells admits he is top heavy in people and is now looking around to increase his equipment from one booth, and one Car-o-liner Mk 5, and make-shift prep bay.
"This wasn't what I set out to do," he says looking around bemused, "it just happened. But one thing I've learned is that you can't be really successful if you're too small. I think the ideal number of employees for this shop would be about thirty five."
He also acknowledges that he wouldn't have been able to start in Queensland if he hadn't the cash flow backing of his Hobart shop ? which he has retained.
"As a matter of fact," he laughs, I put my former manager in charge of the Hobart shop and he's making better profits than I did."
Apart from installing new equipment, Wells wants to cement relationships with local insurers. He also wants to attract some car badges to assure a workflow from this source. And over time his quality will attract his own repeat customer base. Currently Wells repairs any car that comes in the door and pulls work from WRM online quoting.
"I'm not against WRM at all," Wells says. "We probably get about half the jobs we quote on and it works out fine."
Mark Wells' success in setting up this new shop is clearly a result of his personal enthusiasm and his eye for detail. His shop is clean and his uniformed technicians have their heads down.
"I just love this business," he says.
POWELL'S COMMENT
This shop is definitely going to grow and attract better and better work. With efficient staff, talent and determination Wells is quickly carving out a share of the Queensland repair business.