This shop is more than a repair location, it's a Network

Jan. 13, 2014
Brothers Scott and Sean Webster worked as technicians for Network Alignment and Brakes. In 1995, when the tire company decided to divest itself of this shop, the Websters partnered with their father, Carl Sikes, to help capitalize a buyout.

In this particular Network, it’s not so much who you know, but what you know.

Brothers Scott and Sean Webster worked as technicians for Network Alignment and Brakes in the San Tan Valley region of Arizona when it was a sister company of a national tire retailer (hence the Network name). In 1995, when the tire company decided to divest itself of this shop, the Websters partnered with their father, Carl Sikes, to help capitalize a buyout.

Soon Network Alignment and Brakes became Network Automotive Service Center as they expanded into full repair. The Websters continued to work as technicians while Sikes served as service advisor. Still ‘networking’ with the tire retail chain, they dreamed of expansion into other stores. But they ran into a wall: themselves.

While the brothers had taken business management courses in college and Dad had some automotive background, they were admittedly unprepared as entrepreneurs. Starting off as suspension specialists, the switch to full service meant the brothers were limited as technicians. Sikes also lacked any formal training as a service advisor.

“Running low labor rates, installing other customers’ parts, just making a lot of mistakes,” confesses Scott Webster. “I think initially it was the fact that we were working long hours in those positions and not really making a very good profit, sometimes no profit.”

Thus about two years into their ownership they were amenable to attending a Management Success seminar in California. “It was way out of our budget to do it,” Webster recalls, “but they showed us that all we needed to do was open up a credit card account, put the seminar cost on it, and they guaranteed within a certain amount of time that increased profits would pay back that credit card.”

And it did. “They basically showed us that you have got to get the right people in the right positions, that you’re hurting yourself if you don’t,” Webster explains. “More so it meant that we couldn’t run our shop from underneath the car or from behind the counter. We couldn’t go out and market ourselves. We couldn’t verify that things were running well. (The seminar) proved to us that we could run our store and be much more profitable from the outside in and do more as owners than as service advisors or technicians.”

Consequently the trio moved into management and drastically improved sales by getting people with proper training into their old positions. This left them free to focus on expansion, eventually opening four more stores. “Now we’ve got managers at each location,” reports Webster, “we’ve got service advisors at each location, and we’ve got specific technicians at each: master technicians, lube techs, front end guys--we hired each for specific positions.”

According to Network’s profile, “we do not micro-manage our employees, therefore allowing them their individual management style and at the same time keeping in line with Network Automotive’s mission of giving our customers expert work, honest prices, and excellent customer service.”

But each of those stores presented unique challenges for the team. “The first store was leased with the option to buy,” says Webster. “When we opened the second store in 1998, it was also a lease. We knew that we were going to be expanding for probably a year, so we were basically just saving. It was a struggle initially not knowing what would happen in our second location, but it really took off and did well.”

For the third store they deviated by not locating near the tire retailer’s outlet; it was just too good a deal to pass up. “In 2000 there weren’t any major competitors out in Apache Junction, just a few mom and pop shops,” Webster relates. “And then a building became available at a very good price. Also that particular area got a lot busier in the wintertime. Our Mesa and Gilbert locations were very busy in the summertime and tended to slow down a bit in the wintertime, so we thought that that would be a real good opportunity to try to target some of those winter visitors.”

The fourth store returned to the original plan—sort of. While they were able to take over a store vacated by the tire retailer, it was about 130 miles to the north in Prescott. “That really fell into our laps,” laughs Webster, but the distances proved difficult; they actually put in cameras to help them better manage it. “It’s been a struggle,” he admits. “That one’s been our least effective store. But we’re not considering dropping it; we’re on a pretty good corner location, we still think it has a lot of potential. We’re constantly trying different types of advertising, different training.”

The fifth store was opened in a fast growing suburb in 2010. “We found a lot that had a lease with an option to buy. So we built exactly what we wanted and I believe we purchased that building within one year of opening it. By its very first full month it was second in sales out of our 5 stores. Within 3 or 4 months it was on top.”

Recent expansion at their Gilbert location included a clean room, which has opened up a new opportunity for the future: transmission work. “We’ve checked into the profitability of transmissions” says Webster, “so we’re 80% sure that’s the direction we want to go.” 

As their network spreads throughout the southeast metropolitan Phoenix area, the Webster brothers have added sibling Sheila to mix. Carving out a niche for herself as Administrative Coordinator, she’s been tasked with dealing with that other network, the internet. They recently contracted with a company that will work on increasing their web presence.

“(This company) actually has a proprietary program,” says Sheila Webster. “Anytime we upload an article, it creates another page and sends it to 15-20 different social networks, blogs, whatever. So when somebody searches for full service auto repair in Gilbert AZ, it’s going to go local and bam! It’s going to pull up everything there. That’s where we’re going right now, and we think it’s a very good thing; the timing is right, and we’re really excited about it.”

Guess who you know is important, too.

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