Listen and Follow The Collision Vision.

Bryan Thompson: So Beverly Coach Craft was founded in 1979 with an emphasis on Mercedes collision repair. The founder’s name was Peter Sardi. Really good guy. They were one of the first shops in the country to be a certified collision repair facility and one of the first shops in the country to be an elite certified collision repair facility for Mercedes-Benz, which it’s the highest level of certification for Mercedes-Benz. It means you’re able to fix aluminum and composite structure repair for Mercedes. I ran the shop close to here that was a certified collision repair facility for Ferrari. We were one of the first Tesla approved collisions centers in Los Angeles and I fixed a lot of Bentley Rolls, Lamborghini, Porsche GT cars and Ferrari. And I knew Peter and his partner Dan over the years. And when the time came for the founder, Peter, to retire, he and I reached a deal and I bought Peter out.

Cole Strandberg: Wonderful man, and you mentioned your background briefly. I think yours is uniquely fascinating. In our pre show call we talked a little bit about what you studied in school, even talk to us about your career path and and what’s LED you to this point in your career today.

Bryan Thompson: I started off working in the shop. My father owned the shop in North County San Diego. I was a detailer, A polisher, mechanical helper, a body tech helper, have an all around guy. And then my family business sold. I kind of went to explore what my options were. I went to school, I had some starts and stops in school. I played football for a small university in southern Utah. And then I went back to junior college and matriculated to USCI, studied molecular biology when Craig Ventner was unwinding the human genome, and it was really fascinating. And then when I finished the USC, it was time to look for a career and the career options were essentially take on another $250,000 in debt or go back to what I knew. And so I actually went to work for Caliber Collision.

Cole Strandberg: There you go. Notorious hirer of folks with degrees in molecular biology, I think incredible. So cool. I, I don’t think there’s too many folks with that degree in this industry, but I think it paints a picture of, of how you might view things in this industry a little bit differently. As you mentioned, you’re out of the LA area. That’s one of the most competitive markets in this world, probably one of the highest concentrations of these types of vehicles that you specialize in. What sets Beverly apart from everyone else in that world?

Bryan Thompson: I think it’s a relentless pursuit of collision repair quality. The final product speaks for who we are culturally. Also, relentless consistency, so the ability to relentlessly execute on the same quality repair again and again and again. I think that’s what sets us apart.

Cole Strandberg: You mentioned Beverly’s been a certified shop for a long time. You had experience in your career in those Highline high level certifications, starting your career out of school with Caliber. At what point did you get exposed to that specific piece of the business, that OE Highline, and what’s drawn you to that world?

Bryan Thompson: So I I grew up in that world. So I did frame off restorations as a kid for specifically Jaguar and Austin Healey, a lot of Porsche cars, a lot of peak cars. I grew up as a technician’s helper working on those cars. So it was more like going back home when I was fresh out of school working for Caliber. It was what I viewed as a fantastic opportunity. Work on Commission effort equals reward and it was a bit of a golden time in collision repair. So it was an environment where the insurance companies were a little more reasonable, you could make deals, the cars got fixed correctly and everyone made a fair living. I’d love that.

Cole Strandberg: And, and you’ve seen a lot of that evolution and your business has evolved as the number of certifications and the number of luxury brands really in the market have come up. How has that evolution happened? I I think your perspective is so different in the space.

Bryan Thompson: So I I do a lot of the marketing myself. So I spend a lot of time on the road promoting our shop, promoting our brand, working on relationships. I spend a lot of time, my team spends a lot of time with me outside of the shop, doing activities, golfing, spending time with the service writers at the dealers, really getting to know people rather than just expecting work.

Cole Strandberg: You’re a relationship guy through and through as as we’ve had our pre show call and and conversations. That has been extremely evident and I think you approach the business in a unique way. One of them is those relationships with the OES and with dealers. Talk to me about how you maximize the value of OE certifications. All all certifications are not created equally. All dealer sponsorships are not created equally either.

Bryan Thompson: Well, this is a really tough environment for dealer sponsors and OE sponsors. It’s highly competitive and you know, we offer a unique way to absolutely deliver on parts and service sales. So we believe in a reciprocal relationship with the dealers where if you take care of us, we take care of you. We do everything in our power to flood their parts and service department with revenue and make our business, you know, second to none with our competitors with regards to parts and service sales.

Cole Strandberg: I want to dive into that in a little bit, that partnership you have, because that is how you view it in your marketing. I, I, I also want to talk a little bit about how these certifications are viewed from customers who expect more, right, based on what they drive. These are not your typical, maybe DRP centric Body Shop type customers who, hey, my insurance company told us to be here. They’re coming to you for a reason. How do these customers of of high end vehicles view your certifications differently from, you know, the shop down the street?

Bryan Thompson: We’ll have the advantage and definitely the privilege of working in a market of very savvy customers who are hyper focused on their assets and the value of their assets. So they view a certified repair as the only option and they want to either keep their lease contract intact or want to maintain the value of their assets at the highest level. And we deliver on repair quality. It’s car by car. It’s not reputation. It’s what we deliver over the curb, every project, every time, every day.

Cole Strandberg: You’ve used the term quality on more than one occasion. I have a feeling you’re going to use it more throughout our conversation as well. I know that is always front of mind. There is no question who your ultimate customer is, right? It’s it’s at the end of the day, it’s the person who’s going to be driving that vehicle expecting a safe and proper repair. And we’ll talk about kind of how we go. Sure, absolutely. And we’ll talk about all of those things before we do and and we get into some dealer relationship type commentary. Talk to me about any business outcomes that might have been impacted that you wouldn’t have seen coming with certifications. How has your volume been impacted with these certifications? How has your relationship, importantly with insurance companies been impacted by doing business the way that you do it?

Bryan Thompson: You know, I think our volume has increased. We’ve it’s a very challenging environment right now. We have uncertain economic environment and we’re able to drive sales to the door and increase our volume and increase the quality of projects and claims that we work on. We spend a lot of time focusing on quality projects with regards to the insurance carriers. You know, I think we’re a bit of the wave of the future. So they’re still learning to digest our business model. I wouldn’t say it’s something that they recognize or are willing to just accept. It’s something that they’re beginning to digest.

Cole Strandberg: Man, you know, we’ve talked about it. The value of OE certifications are not created equal. Some are going to be more valuable than others. There’s parts restrictions. There’s a lot of things to consider when evaluating OE cert opportunities. One major thing to consider, and I know this is a key component to a few of your certifications, is the dealer sponsorship. How have you gone about getting that done and building those relationships with dealerships in your market?

Bryan Thompson: So, you know, the dealer’s relationship. I’ve quite frankly just been relentless. I’ve been thrown out of dealers. I’ve been asked to leave. We get involved with the dealer and we start to spend right away. We start to try and move the needle, stay away from alternative parts, stay away from aftermarket parts, stay away from used parts. We make a effort to impact the profit loss statement and move the needle with the dealer so that they see us. They see us on the P&L statement and then they see us physically. We start to show up, we start to bring breakfast, we start to occupy the space and we command their attention. And sometimes it goes good. Sometimes, you know, we’re asked to leave.

Cole Strandberg: The risk you run right, you’re there. It’s a balancing act, I would imagine, between being of value and being annoying and finding that that that right cord to hit must be an art. It’s also a matter of being there when the time is right. You never know what their other partners are doing. You might show up on a day where they’re just not getting it done. And that door that was closed yesterday might very well be open today. Generally speaking, and I know you work with multiple different dealers from multiple different brands, how can you make yourself, as a collision repairer, attractive to dealers to where they might look to be open to sponsoring you? What do they like to see?

Bryan Thompson: I sell the spend, right? I sell our ability to, to buy parts and service. You know, many shops I believe will take the sponsorship. They’ll hoard all the mechanical labor. They’re ineffective at building body labor and they will, you know, the shop will be profitable, but the dealer will not see much effect. So that’s our biggest way that we try to, you know, have an impact on the Dior also, you know, presence, being there, showing up, being very, very consistent. The one thing I preach in our organization is relentless consistency. If it’s going to be Friday lunch, it’s every Friday lunch. If I have to drive to an hour and a half away to drop off danishes every Friday morning, I’m there every Friday morning, no matter how I feel. So that relentless consistency, I think is one of the key components of our success.

Cole Strandberg: Love it, being there, being the danish guy on Fridays. If you need to, to build that relationship and get it done. And you mention something that I am called back to your molecular biology background and that’s that symbiotic relationship. You might be able to tell I was not a biology major. I, I pretty sure I got aC in high school biology, but I’m pretty sure symbiosis comes to play in there or, or mitochondria or something like that. But it it makes sense be there, have a mutually beneficial relationship, be thinking about how your partners are going to be impacted by your actions and the work you’re putting in upfront, which might be costly, it might be time consuming, but it’s building that rapport and building that trust, which has to go a long way before they’re ready to partner with you and, and sponsor you and go through that process. We talk about how to earn their trust and how to earn their sponsorship. I have to imagine a lot of those tactics are gonna remain in the case of continuing to build that relationship and maintain trust. But how do you view that? How do you view kind of strengthening those bonds once you have them?

Bryan Thompson: Well, you know the IT has nothing to do with the morning danish, right? It’s all about the relationships you build, getting to know people, what they value and you know, we we start to ask to allow us to do some lot damage for free show. Stop listening to what I have to say. You know, let’s let’s show what we can do. Let’s let’s talk to ex Rep who’s in charge of after sales for one manufacturer. Don’t don’t listen to me. Listen to the effect I’m having with this manufacturer at their dealer. Let’s let’s, let’s review some financials for 2024. Let’s look at my spend. Let’s not talk. Let’s, let’s see what we can do. So it has to be a transitionary, A transitionary period from getting to know each other, dropping the danish, getting to know people, what they value and then, you know, trying to close on doing some free work. Here’s what we’re able to do. You know, I’m targeting very highline brands. So there has to you have to develop some trust and then get be given an opportunity.

Cole Strandberg: Relentless consistency, relentless persistence and it seems like to an extent relentless transparency, going through numbers and financials and and showing what you do, being open to putting them together with existing customers and past customers to hear the real story. Hey, I’m selling it, but listen to the customers themselves. I think is a is a fascinating thing. If you had to start over and none of these relationships were in existence and put differently, if you’re a shop owner listening who Hey, I love the sound of this. I like these certifications. What advice would you give that shop owner who’s just beginning to establish and form these relationships?

Bryan Thompson: I would, I would definitely have them plan out their week to vote sometime to being outside of the shop, devote some time to, you know, going to the dealers. Expect rejection, expect a lot of rejection. You know, if if you’re new to this business and you’re ADRP model, you know, start to pick off 11 OEM at a time and try and transition that relationship because the DRP model is completely 1 sided, it benefits one side. So you need to pursue a win win. So the OEM certification gives you leverage to come to the table to pursue a win win strategy instead of being trapped in a win lose.

Cole Strandberg: Well put. Now, I think we’ve buried the lead a little bit here. If you would. I want to talk about some certifications and how to select the best certifications for your business and your market. But taking a step back, can you share with us some of the certifications that that you guys at Beverly have today?

Bryan Thompson: We’re Mercedes Elite and EQ. We’re ABMWCCRC or a certified collision repair Center for BMW where Tesla approved collision center, we’re Lexus approved, We just got approved from Lexus where Nissan Infiniti certified collision repair facility, we’re sponsored for Porsche approved collision center. You know, the choosing of those programs is based on your appetite for CapEx and how much CapEx you want to spend to to achieve the goal. And then you also have to have ear to the ground in the market and make sure that there’s room for you in the market. It may be a dealer has a preferred provider and they’re looking for you to only add value, but not refer any work. So you, you have to be pretty savvy, like you have to work the market and know what’s going on in the market. You don’t want to get trapped and spend money on certifications and get three cars a month.

Cole Strandberg: No doubt tough to justify a great ROI when that’s the case. Got to be very careful with where you spend your money and invest. How? How would you suggest going about in generalities selecting the right certifications for you? What matters when it comes to the quality of the OE certification beyond just the dealer sponsorship and relationship?

Bryan Thompson: Well, for me in my market, I’m looking for special construction, looking for leverage. I mean, I can worded many different ways. I’m looking for leverage, special knowledge, special construction cars that require technicians and special tools and equipment where I can elevate the labor rate and where I can charge, you know, a higher labor rate per operation. You know, we’re in a brutal market. The rent is very high. The labor is expensive here so I have to maximize every dollar so I’m I’m looking for cars that are specialty cars, special construction, restricted parts that only I can fix the car and leverage that for higher labor rates. Love it.

Cole Strandberg: It’s a fantastic checklist for anyone listening who’s looking at exploring the OE world. That’s where you maximize your leverage and your value of an OEM certification. I want to Fast forward a little bit. Once you have this certification, whatever certification we want to talk about, how would you recommend leveraging that for growth and and sort of as a follow up, how do you market that to start both to dealer partners, insurance companies, customers directly? What’s the plan there?

Bryan Thompson: So dealer partners, it’s boots on the ground, right? It’s, it’s showing up to the dealer, marketing it directly to well, I, I market it to lower level employees, porters, people answer the phone. They have a lot of sway in the dealer. You know, if you’re taking the GM out to state dinners, I would argue that’s not going to get you much work. You need to go to the lower level employees that actually have first contact with the customers, with the insurers. It’s going to be transitionary. They’re not going to like what they hear and you’re going to have to silver tongue your way through that relationship a little bit. And then I do like, we do a lot of community stuff, so car community stuff. So we do a lot of cars and coffee. I’m a car enthusiasts. We do events specific to brands, club events. I’m involved with the one car club like APCA Sports Club America. I’m involved with motorcycle club. You know, we do a lot of that type of stuff to market the business, but soft marketing not, you know, not like booths and girls scantily quad. It’s, you know, it’s more like just showing up and supporting our dealers, supporting our dealer events. Our Porsche dealer does the cars and coffee every quarter on their every cars and coffee they, you know, things like that.

Cole Strandberg: Man, twist your arm, right? Not like these cars and coffee events are any fun to you. I know you’re an absolute. If it’s on wheels, you’re about it, which I, I, I love. I’m right?

Bryan Thompson: There I’m a car enthusiast so it’s easy for me to be involved and and then we host a lot of golf things too. Like we do a lot of golf events with the service riders from the dealers. I’m on the golf course. I have a 620 AM Sunday tee time every Sunday. I host 8 spots. So it’s insurance partners, dealer reps, guys who work with me, they’re almost required to golf. And you know, it’s, it’s the, the golf is only a part of it. It’s building the relationship in the cart.

Cole Strandberg: Perfect man. Well, you’ve mentioned multiple times on hiring and culture and and your team. How do you think these highline vehicle focuses that you guys have has contributed to your recruitment of technicians and beyond? Do you think that’s a a real advantage, and if so, how?

Bryan Thompson: It definitely is because we’re able to build more, so we’re able to pay more, so I’m able to attract top talent and keep them. That’s it. I mean, it’s a competitive market for technicians. You need top talent to execute the repairs. We do some in house stuff. We have a program where we have 4B or C tax that train under a weed tack. And you know, I was that I was that B or C tech at one point in my life. And so I take great pride in helping young men, you know, achieve their goals of becoming a tax and, and getting their life going and making enough money to support their families. I’m, you know, I have 31 families that work with me and I’m here to deliver for them, to allow them to have a protected space to work and, and thrive. And, and that’s my real interest in this is providing for those 31 families. So it’s a, it’s a that’s. If you do this for any other reason, you’re in the wrong business.

Cole Strandberg: Love it man impactful and and to fix vehicles the right way beyond just the the technician skill set requires 2 things from my perspective, and I’d like your commentary on both #1 we’ve touched on is the culture piece and having a culture that ensures you’re living up to the OEM standards every day and beyond, right? It also is a systems piece. So how do you run a business to ensure that these vehicles are being repaired properly from from both a a personnel and a systems perspective?

Bryan Thompson: So we don’t operate on technician ability, we operate based on the service engineering documents from the factory. So every car we pull the service engineering documents for the operations to repair the car correctly. Every we have our own separate server for photographs for the service engineering documents. Every car gets a couple 100 photos. We photograph every step. It’s full transparency and, and every, and we do spot checks. So the management of the store goes through and spot checks files weekly and people get graded according to how they’re performing relative to the service engineering documents of the manufacturer. We hold people accountable. It has nothing to do with individual talent. We actually prefer that people operate from humility and and and follow the instructions the manufacturer provides.

Cole Strandberg: How do you know when a technician has bought into this vision and this goal versus not, and how do we handle that and how do you hire for that? There’s so many things that it seems like uniquely challenging to have those 31 folks all rowing the boat in the same direction.

Bryan Thompson: Yeah, so we, we know pretty quickly if someone isn’t going to fit into the culture. I, I do most of the hiring myself and I’m, you know, I’m pretty thorough in interviews, but also we don’t, we don’t pay a flat rate or commission to do repairs. We pay, we pay hourly and then we run a commission program based on productivity. So everyone rose at the same pace because everyone’s got a large financial gain if they work together.

Cole Strandberg: Makes total sense. Makes total sense. So Part 1 of your interview process is skill set culture. Part 2 is taking them out for 18 and making sure they can keep up.

Bryan Thompson: In the office, in the back, it’s, you know, looking at the work history, where they come from. I’ve been part of the community here for 20 years. You know, I know the shops that produce decent technicians. We have some guys coming out of the STEP program at BMW. The manufacturers are starting to have, you know, technician training programs and I think that’s going to prove very fruitful. We have, you know, kids that have had a hard time who need to get their life going. We have pretty good success with that. You know, it’s if, if you’re an, a tech that produces 1000 hours a week at a caliber, you, you’re not a good fit for us. I’m, I don’t, I’m not interested in how fast you can bond with cars. You know, we, we, we, we want someone who’s got the heart, the hands and the mind, you know, who can come here and deliver every day. And it it is a bit of a challenge, but you know, we pay more and we care more.

Cole Strandberg: Love it, man. A strong value proposition for the right teammates, no question about it. Moving back to sort of the the tactical piece of OEM certifications, you’ve seen over the course of your career, the same certification programs evolved tremendously. How have you seen a lot of these Highline brands evolve their program, particularly around some of these new technological innovations like EVs? ADOS calibration feels like a different world than it was maybe even a decade ago.

Bryan Thompson: And you know, I mean, I was, I was fixing BMWE 60s when that was the only aluminum car on the rock. I ran the only Tesla approved collision center in Los Angeles for eight years. I bought in early and and it’s proved very fruitful. I think people who fight that technology, they’re gonna be in for a tough day. The era of strapping cars to the ground and pulling on them and put them over the curb is over.

Cole Strandberg: No question. Yeah, if you don’t like change, I have some bad news for you ’cause I think we’re gonna continue to see change at the speed we’ve probably never seen it before here over the next 5 to 10 years. And buckle up. And it’s folks like you who are keeping your ear to the ground and up to date with OE trends and and changes that are gonna really be successful for the future of this industry, which is gonna look very different than it does even today.

Bryan Thompson: With electrification, you know the service is gonna be limited. OEMs are looking at after sales. Collision is a bigger percent of after sales. They’re hyper focused on collision.

Cole Strandberg: Oh yeah. Well, and I’ll tell you this too, it’s to that I look back to O8O9 coming from the equipment side of the business. Dealers doubled down in times of economic challenges and and uncertainty on fixed OPS. And in the case of EVs, to your point, fixed OPS is somewhat limited from a service perspective, but it is not limited from a collision repair perspective.

Bryan Thompson: Yeah, so far the smart driving systems haven’t saved people from too many collisions.

Cole Strandberg: Yeah, well, it it doesn’t stand a chance compared to these babies right here too, but also it’s a limiting factor with you all can fix these vehicles. So these certifications are a compelling strategic advantage for folks listening that that love the idea of repairing Highline vehicles. What have you seen some of the biggest misconceptions about your specific specialization within the world of of collision repair?

Bryan Thompson: The misconceptions is that you know you’re it’s brutally expensive, you’re not going to recover your capital expenditure. Like, you know, anyone who’s stuck in 1988 is going to come up with a million different reasons to not get involved. Right, But the era of making 60% GP fixing cars with 10 tools is over. So you know we’re going to end up in a world of large Ms. OS that cater to insurance companies needs and certified collision repair facilities where people who care about their assets have their cars repaired. So you either need to get on board with the new technology and evolve or sell to an MSO.

Cole Strandberg: You were speaking my language, man. We had a whole series at the beginning of the year called The End of the Era of the Single Store Generalist Body Shop. It’s, it’s not where it’s going in the future, it’s going towards specialization and being really, really good at what you’re doing and not being all things to all people. When I put on my hat of, of the independent collision repair, who who wants to get into your world? It’s a cool world to aspire to be in. It feels like a bit of the a chicken or an egg situation in terms of where to start. So from their perspective, where do you focus? Is it training? Is it tools and equipment, Is it facilities? Or is it relationships?

Bryan Thompson: I would say it’s relationships and training. Tooling comes last. Tooling is a large expense and you need to work on the relationships to make sure you’re going to get to work. And you need to work on the training to make sure you’re surrounded with the right group of people to pull off what it is that you’re trying to achieve. If you have the relationships in the training, the tools just to, you know, credit card lease check away, that’s the easy part. The hard part is developing the relationships and making sure you’re surrounded by the right group of people to pull off the training and have the right group fix the cars.

Cole Strandberg: There you go. Fantastic. So I’ll, I’ll leave us with this. You’ve been incredibly generous with your time. I know at the the time of this recording, it is midweek, early afternoon over on the West Coast. But when I think of you and when I think of Beverly, it’s it’s sort of this, from what I’ve heard, the staple of the Highline LA community when it comes to collision repairs. I will ask you this. We’ve talked about the tooling, the training, the relationships and, and some combination of all the above. But what does it really take from your perspective to succeed in this Highline space beyond just checking the boxes on the OEM checklist?

Bryan Thompson: I mean, you know, you have to be willing to really work hard. This is a working man’s game. This is not, you know, you’re not going to be relaxing on your boat or sitting at the Country Club. You have to be willing to work and you have to really just execute the repairs and be very consistent in your business development, marketing. You have to really want it. You have to have the heart.

Cole Strandberg: Easier said than done and not to minimize the value. Hard work, so impactful. At the same time, the easiest thing you can do is work hard and it’s, it’s kind of a great thing to hear. I think if I’m an independent operator looking to follow in your footsteps. Bryan, man, you have been so generous with your time. I have a feeling there is a ton of interest in your business model and and your specialty in the collision repair ecosystem. For folks who want to follow in your footsteps, where can people connect with you or follow along with your?

Bryan Thompson: They can connect with me on LinkedIn or Beverly Coach Craft on LinkedIn. We have Instagram page, you know, they can check out our website and and I really appreciate your time, Cole. You know, this is to get the word out that people can do this and people can, you know, can take a stand and charge what’s fair and reasonable. It’s very important for our community.

Cole Strandberg: Such a believer man. Thank you for your time. Keep up the great work. And I I hear a rumor that this website that I’ll include all those links in the show notes is brand new, so I’m excited to check it out myself.