This great news just in . . . I just read an article on the front page of the Sacramento Bee the other day and its official: The recession is over! The report claims that The Great Recession began in August 2007 and ended in July of 2009. Hey, where’s the thunderous applause and the ticker tape parade down Wall Street? I guess the sound I’m not hearing (stone cold silence), is the sound we all hear when only one hand claps.
For those among us who are still sane and reside in the state of California, we know that while the free fall to the abyss seems to be over, the big bad recession has not even come close to saying farewell. Among the thousands of business owners I've listened to for the past four years, the vast majority who’ve managed to keep their open signs lit and have survived long enough to tell the tale about the beast we call The Great Recession are feeling proud of their accomplishments.
Whenever I put my other hat on as an outside sales rep and try to convince the average business owner to invest in advertise, they often look at me like I’m Jack Nicholson and not the good Jack you see on T.V. sitting courtside at L.A. Laker games in Staples Center. They look at me like I’m the other Jack in “One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest” and “The Shining”! Why? Because, for the past four years, the majority of their customers have been telling them the biggest lie on earth: “That they don’t have any money and no one they know has any money”. So, they turn to me and say: “Why should I advertise when nobody has any money”? The reality of course is that people still have money. Unfortunately, for the majority of us who’ve racked their brains while trying to do more with less, the reality is that we don't have quite as much discretionary income as we once did, and for a variety of valid reasons. Nobody knows that fact better than Walter Ford, the owner of Valley Motorwerks. Walter has managed to do what most business owners believe is impossible in this barren economy: HE’S GROWING HIS BUSINESS AND HIS SHOP IS THRIVING! Simply put, Walter has come up with his own secret recipe and unlike Colonel Sanders, he isn't guarding it with his life. I was really expecting a complex formula for his amazing success that would make Wall Street analysts proud, a place where all roads lead: To the bottom line (Profits).
What I heard was so ridiculously simple, you could hear a pin drop on Main Street, a place where every road should begin and end (Hint: The answer is not the bottom line we call profits). Before I asked Walter what his one and only secret to success was, I wanted to learn a little bit about what his BMW and Mini service and repair shop, Valley Motorwerks, was all about.
Q: Tell us about your business and what makes it special and unique.
A: I think what makes us special is our dedication to customer satisfaction. I tell my guys, you become what you measure, and the only thing that’s important to me is that my customers are happy. If my customers are happy, then everything else falls in line behind it. That means that everything we do is good and the customer is satisfied when they leave here.
Q: Why did you decided to specialize in BMW's and Mini's?
A: Cars are becoming increasingly complex, and I think to provide dealership level service and expertise, you have no choice but to specialize. You wouldn't take the Ford to the BMW dealer and or a BMW to the Ford dealer. I think that by giving the dealership knowledge, performance, and parts, but at a better overall cost, give's the consumer an option. When someone buys a new car and it goes out of warranty all they've ever known is going to the dealer. They are paying this large overhead expense of the dealership and I feel they never really had a choice until we opened. Now they do have a choice and can say to themselves I don’t feel bad coming here, because I know my car is going to be taken care of the same or better than the dealership.
Q: What are some advantages your shop has over the dealerships?
A: We're not tied to using the problem resolutions (steps) that the dealerships have to use. Their hands are tied a little bit, and we are able to think outside the box. If we get a car in here and it has a certain problem, typically the way you would troubleshoot it is to go through the test procedures and it either passes or fails. In the real world, sometimes you do get a gray area and it takes an educated guess to say, “Okay, this is what we think”. You don’t have that flexibility when you go to a dealership. They will either say yes or no. So, we are able to be more creative and innovative with the products and service we give our customers.
Q: Do you have the flexibility to offer after market parts if you are certain they are superior?
A: Yes. One of the very few times we stray away from using OEM replacement parts is in the area of brake pads. Technology marches forward and now we have the option of running a nearly completely dustless brake pad. Anyone who has owned a European vehicle of any make knows that you have to wash your wheels twice a day to keep them clean. The reality is that technology has moved forward, and you can get just as good of braking, with little to no brake dust. So, unlike the dealerships, we’re allowed to give that option. It is the customer’s option, so we don’t make that decision for them. We just give them the pros and cons of both.
Q: In today’s world, the dollar is still king, so are your rates lower than the dealers?
A: Absolutely. The dealerships are $165 an hour and we are $100. So, a two hour job, which is about average for us, would save the consumer $130-$140 depending on what’s going on. Parts prices in some cases are less, but they are never more.
Q: So, what’s the story about the Bosch shirt you’re wearing? A: Bosch is a manufacturer of rotating electrical… starters, alternators and even electronic ignition components, coils, just
about everything and auto manufacturer would need to build an engine other than the hard parts (block, pistons, etc.). Bosch is
committed to excellence the same way we are and we were fortunate enough to be chosen by Bosch. This is something you can't
apply for. They seek you out and somehow you have to pop up on their radar. I think we have a lot of positive reviews on the
internet, so the net result is that we are one of the very few shops in the Sacramento Valley that’s authorized to carry the Bosch logo.
We’re a Bosch service center so if you had your car worked on anywhere in the United States and a Bosch part was installed, you
can come here and we perform the repair. Bosch covers the cost under warranty and you are able to go on your way. If you have
a problem you can go to the Bosch website and consequently you find us and we take care of it for you. Q: Are their any other benefits to the consumer besides that kind of flexibility? A: To be an authorized Bosch service center, we’re required to engage in ongoing training and testing which can take 3 or 4
days at a time, so we have committed a tremendous amount of resources, both human and monetary, to maintaining that level of
knowledge. The benefit for us is that we don’t need as much training because my guys are all BMW trained and in a lot of cases far
exceed the Bosch requirements. Q: So the bottom line is that it really is an honor to be selected by Bosch as an auto repair facility?
A: Absolutely. Yes, I was telling somebody earlier that it was sort of like getting some Michelin Stars for restaurants, because
you can lose it too. They do spot checks, so if they come in and they see that our waiting room isn’t clean or if we get complaints,
it's everything. It's a commitment to excellence from the front door to the back door. The shop has to be nice and the people
have to be trained. It's an honor for sure. Q: It's difficult for most businesses to navigate through this recession and your shop has done extremely well. What are you doing to help your business stand out and grow? A: I think the most important thing is to provide value to the customer. When times are tough people are going to watch the bottom line more closely, and if somebody drives by 3 or 4 other repair shops but chooses Valley Motorwerks, we need to give them a reason to feel like they made the right choice. We need to make it worth that extra couple of miles. We strive to give 110 percent to every customer every time. I hold meetings with the guys and tell them that people who are coming in here today and in this economy don't have a lot of extra money, so it's doubly important to make sure that the service and quality we provide our customer’s are better than what the next guy can offer. They’ve taken what little extra money they have, and decided to spend it with us, so we need to honor that decision and make them feel like they have made the right choice. It's far more than
just wanting to run a business and make a profit. I think it's about helping people make it through this tough time.
Q: Do you have a high success rate of customer satisfaction? A: Yes. We do a lot of follow up cards and we ask for feedback. Unfortunately, if somebody isn't satisfied, they are less likely to tell you and more likely to tell all of their friends (laughing), but our feedback is largely electronic and we get a lot of positive reviews on Yelp, the car talk website from NPR, BMW message boards and forums, and we have almost a 100% positive rate. If we do have somebody who isn't quite happy, I address that immediately. I think service after the sale is what we have. You know you car is fixed, we have your money, the deal is done, you’re out the door, and if you come back 2-3 weeks later, or even a month past warranty, I'm still going to take care of it. I'm not going to tell you sorry, it's over. The customer is more important to me than that warranty period. For those who pride themselves with their intellectual prowess and thrive on complex equations to achieve financial success, Walter's answer to beating the big bad recession is painfully boring and tediously simple. Walter and his entire staff put their entire focus on their customers. That's all they talk about and it's become their driving obsession. That's probably why they are so successful and why their service is superior over most of their competitors. For all the Wall Street Wizard's and Gordon Gekko's out there, you can take that to the bank!
Editor’s notes: Valley Motorwerks is located at 11401 White Rock Road in Rancho Cordova. Their phone number is 916-636-9526
and you can visit their website at www.vmwerks.com.
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