Page 42 - Australasian Paint & Panel Jan-Feb 2020

People Matter
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PAINT&PANEL JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2020
LEFT: I Bodyshop has been pivital in efficiencies, keeping track of finances and faster, more accurate quoting.
FAR RIGHT: Mark Debono and Cara Lewis.
COACH’S CORNER
2020 will be a budget for growth. Two apprentices will become fully qualified and cost more in wages. The business will look to put on another tradesperson in February.
Both Debono and Lewis are under- paying themselves and Fewtrell ad- vises a significant pay increase. “When your business is under a mil- lion dollars if feels like it’s your mon- ey but you have to think like a busi- ness owner not an employee. When you make profit then you can decide to take dividends or put it back into the business.”
2020 AIMS
• Increase turnover by another 60%
• Website
• Employing another technician
• Launching Dominator ute lining service
• Diversifying – batteries or air condi-
tioning services
• I-CartrainingforteamaswellasDebono
CARA LEWIS, OWNER
“I’m stoked with the progress we have made. While I think we might have got to this position by ourselves but it could probably have taken another two years. Joining Car Craft has connected us with other repairers, particularly Wes and Helena at Willmott Smash Repair Spe- cialists in Cairns who have been really helpful,” Lewis said.
“Working with Ben Fewtrell from Max My Profit has made a massive im- pact. Probably the biggest thing I’ve taken out of it is mindset. Putting our- selves in a business owner mindset rather than an employee one. We also now understand our financials much better, working with KPIs, cashflow forecasting and budgeting. We’ve also benefitted from a series of govern- ment grants - Back to Work grants and apprenticeship subsidies. I thought they would be complicated and time consuming to apply for but they were really straight forward and represent- ed a significant sum, especially as we always have at least one apprentice on our team.
“IBodyshop has given us the tools we need and changed the way we quote. We know there’s a lot more we can get out of the program and we’ll continue to learn new aspects. We integrated
2019 saw massive growth for Mark and Cara from East Coast Paint and Panel and, as their business coach, it was exciting to watch. It also highlighted a few things for me. Number one was that the collision repair industry has a lot of potential. If you’re willing to work on the business and implement and invest time into the right areas, you can get amazing returns on your efforts.
The first thing that we did was help Mark and Cara understand their numbers so they knew how to read profit and loss statements, made sure their numbers were up to date enabling them to understand their profitability and know where their money was going. Understanding the different costs that are associated with getting the job done is extremely important and being able to then understand what costs you can reduce or change through efficiencies is a big key to increasing profitability in a business.
We also made sure that we had cash flow forecasts in place because most businesses that are going through growth have to reinvest some of that profit into systems and technology or equipment to continue the growth or in people, and if you don’t watch your cashflow you can run out of money and that has a very detrimental effect on the overall growth and morale of the business.
In 2019, Mark and Cara managed to increase their profits by 61% and their net profit is sitting at a healthy 19%, well above industry standards. That’s not down to one thing, but many little things having a compounding effect. In particular, Mark and Cara spent a fair bit of time working on their systems to increase efficiency throughout the workshop. This meant that they could put more cars through the workshop without having to hire any additional staff and in fact, there were times when they had less staff than they did at the beginning of the year for different reasons and they were still able to maintain the number of cars going through the
workshop and increase their turnover progressively throughout the year.
Some of those systems are industry standard systems like workshop management software, some of it was equipment that we bought to put into the workshop to make the job easier, and some of those systems were not industry related but just good business practices like for example, regular team meetings and having agendas for those team meetings so they were a good use of the team’s time.
In addition to understanding the numbers and working on increasing efficiency in the business, a big portion of our time was spent on mindset of a business owner versus an employee, and that made a huge difference to both Mark and Cara in the way that they ran their business and the way they conducted themselves between each other and with their team.
It also affected the way they made decisions towards how they were going to grow the business. Thinking about their business from a business owner point of view meant that they were making decisions in regards to dividends and profitability instead of ‘making sure that I get paid’. So overall, 2019 was a fantastic year. They have done a great job. It was a pleasure working with them, and I’m looking forward to see what they do in 2020.”