Collison Pros expands while putting customers, employees first

“I wanted to finish off my career a little closer to the customers and the employees,” von Tress says. “Some of that was a little idealistic. It’s harder than I thought, but I wanted to be a smaller company that gave back and cared about the customers and the employees.”

Five years later that connection was fully tested when a wildfire stormed through the California Sierra Nevada region and destroyed his Paradise, Calif. Location. In addition to the shop, several employees lost their homes in the fire. The owner continued to support payroll for the shop and donated to the families, and then launched a successful GoFundMe campaign to help his employees recover.

Eventually he relocated all of those employees to his other locations, but he also remained dedicated to Paradise. The area was decimated by the fire, but von Tress re-opened in a new building and hopes to be part of the effort to rebuild Paradise.

“There was a shift in population, and a lot of the population that was displaced to Chico, Calif., where we also have a shop, so that store got very busy, and we were the only shop with the extra technicians to handle that load,” von Tress says. “We were able to keep everybody busy right away.”

“We found a shop in Paradise that did not want to re-open, so we acquired it and opened on a limited basis,” von Tress continues. “We want to support the town and see it rebuilt. If every business abandoned the town, it could be 20 years before it comes back. We want to be part of getting the infrastructure back up.”

Starting over from scratch

Von Tress began working in body shops as a teenager and while in college. He later served as a regional manager and then COO for Golden State Collision (later acquired by Caliber), which operated more than a dozen shops. However, after nearly 20 years in the business, he decided he wanted a change.

He saw an opportunity to launch a multi-shop operation north of Sacramento. In July 2013 he opened his first Collision Pros store in Auburn, followed by a store in Chico at the end of that year.

“In 2015 I brought on two key staff members, Ty Stowers and Jason Meehan, and gave them an ownership piece to run day to day operations while I focused on other areas like acquisitions. Since then we have been on fire opening at least one store per year,” von Tress says.

The company’s goal: 10 to 12 stores and $25 million in revenue. “But we are half way to that, and I think we are already looking beyond,” von Tress says.

Targeted acquisitions

Collision Pros has a centralized accounting, payroll, human resources, banking, marketing and acquisitions functions, while all other operations are local to the stores. The company has grown exclusively through acquisitions, which von Tress had experience with at his previous company. “That’s been more successful and it’s a little less risky,” he says. “I didn’t’ really have the money or the energy to fail.”

Once established, Collision Pros acquired its next few shops using Small Business Administration loans, and then paint company and owner financing. When looking for a shop, von Tress says he evaluates a number of different factors.

“Opportunity is the most important,” he says. “I look for a shop that has market share, weak competition or overburdened competition. We want to gain immediate market share. Then it is important to us that they have a key staff that can continue on to run the store. In these small markets, the value of a local manager that's been on site for years is invaluable.”

Collision Pros has also purposely targeted Tier 2 markets because of the lack of interest from consolidators. “We have learned to thrive in markets that have had little interest from the big guys,” he says.

Location is also important. “We want to be in a good, highly visible location that everyone knows where it is. Our keys to success are to have the best location, best equipment, best training, to be the most professional in the market, while maintaining the local-guy feel,” von Tress says. “We have learned that people that live in small markets do it because they like small towns. They do not want to think of a corporation coming in and buying the competition. They are happy to have smaller companies like us if we contribute, give back and care about their town.”

Once a shop is acquired, Collision Pros has a general set of standard operating procedures, but there is some flexibility built in.

“Because our shops are in the buildings they come with, it is difficult to standardize everything. The same is true for equipment, we usually have some level of good equipment to start with,” von Tress says. “The things we always standardize are, computers, software [CCC], phones, frame rack, measuring system and paint line. The rest we change when needed.”

The stores also don’t do any load leveling, because of the large geographic distance between locations.

Currently, von Tress says the company is trying to move away from estimating on the drive. “Writing a piece of paper for the customer on the drive makes no sense anymore,” he says. “Instead we are moving more into consultation where we talk them through what they really need, which is to pick a shop and get started, and bring in the car and get it disassembled so you can get a correct estimate the first time.”

However, that approach can be problematic, especially for locations where the work is booked out for several weeks. “It’s hard to tell somebody that you can’t do anything for them right at that moment, so we’re looking at photo estimating,” von Tress says. “We are thinking of doing that as a trainee position, so someone can cut their teeth on estimating that way.”

Employee development critical for retention

Training is an important part of Collison Pros operations, and von Tress says that the company tries to have an estimator and body tech being trained in each store. “We have a meeting with key trainees monthly to discuss progress, areas of interest, areas of need and check their level of happiness,” von Tress says. “I find checking in with new employees is the key to the program. They can't feel like they are on their own. The key difference with us is we have a vested interest in their career.”

Collision Pros is also active with the Coyote Vision Group (CVG), a 20-Group that meets quarterly. “That’s been huge for us, and we have made it part of our entire management strategy,” von Tress says.

For example, von Tress sys that Collison Pros has a cycle time initiative based on CVG’s method of reporting cycle times and standardizing reporting. “We’re all looking at it the same way and can focus on what we need to reduce and talk about it regularly,” he says. “We’re all marching in the same direction.”

And since many staff members are from small shops in remote areas, von Tress says that many of the managers have had little exposure to what other industry leaders are doing. “They can get in a group of their peers and get another perspective,” he says. “They learn better ways of doing things.”

Von Tress says that being an MSO provides a more supportive structure for the store and staff. “It allows them to take time off, while being covered,” he says. “Our relationships with insurance companies are key to the growth. Probably the biggest piece is we expand the thinking and vision of the staff. Meaning with training, and joining Coyote Vision Group our staff can see things they've never heard of and start comparing themselves to shops on a national stage instead of the local competition.”

Being an MSO also presents some challenges when it comes to staffing. Employees can sometimes feel “lost in the shuffle,” which makes it more important to have active communication. “Employees are our most important asset, and because we are pulled in so many directions and they are used to an owner being on site every day, there is a void to fill,” von Tress says. “We work hard on it, but it's there. The mileage between our stores is probably our biggest obstacle. It's not uncommon for us to drive four or five hours in a day.”

As is the case with most other shops, von Tress also has trouble finding and retaining technicians. When they find potential recruits, Collision Pros puts those trainees into a program based on the Mark Claypool Mentors@Work apprenticeship approach.

“We have managers meet with them on a regular basis,” von Tress says. “That needs to happen for retention. It’s not just knocking the meeting off a checklist. The managers need to be vested in that person’s future. If you care and establish that connection, you will retain them.”