With a 95% franchise renewal rate, CARSTAR has a proven track record of delivering results. Find out more below on how CARSTAR franchisees are leading the way.
Partnering for success
“Revenues grow to 5.2 million in just three years.”
Small town. Big business.
“CARSTAR has a lot to offer operators living and working in smaller communities.”
Raising the bar
“CARSTAR was looking to do the same thing I was, raise the bar of the industry.”
CARSTAR makes the future brighter
“Network gives you a great opportunity to communicate with like-minded people.”
“CARSTAR meets the needs of the diverse marketplace.”
“CARSTAR is the answer to thriving dealership.“
Partnering for success
Revenues have grown to 5.2 million in just three years
Ian Ladd and Peter Chavez are the co-owners of three collision repair facilities in the province of Ontario. They own one in St. Catharines, another in Brantford, and a third in Cambridge. All three stores are part of the CARSTAR network.
Peter is responsible for operations at all three stores, while Ian focuses on finance, administration, and outside sales. The two became business partners in 2001 when they bought their first store in St. Catharines.
“Peter and I had separately explored the opportunity to buy the facility,” says Ian. “We’d worked together before, and after a meeting we had at Starbucks, decided to go in together.”
It is a partnership that has worked out very well. Ian and Peter bought their Brantford repair centre in December of 2002. A third location followed in February of 2004 with the acquisition of the Cambridge facility.
Since they first opened the doors of the St. Catharines location, business has climbed steadily upward. They’ve gone from pulling in around $650, 000 in 2001, to revenues growing to 5.2 million in just three years. They have no intention of stopping there. According to Ian, their objective is to keep growing. The partners are constantly looking for new acquisitions.
“Let’s face it, most insurance companies aren’t handing out big raises,” says Ian. “We need to build stores that have higher volumes, so that if even with compressed margins we can get a reasonable profit. Peter and I look to CARSTAR to be founders of new and innovative collision repair processes that are appealing to the insurance industry and the consumer.”
Ian and Peter are quick to give credit where it’s due. They say their stores are successful not just because of their strong partnership, but to the efforts of the entire team, from management to technicians to the staff of CARSTAR’s head office.
“Sam Mercanti (president of CARSTAR Canada) is always looking to the future,” says Ian “At this point in our industry, it’s important to look for a different way of doing things. It is the service providers who are better, faster, and cheaper who will get the lion’s share of the business.”
Small town. Big business.
CARSTAR has a lot to offer operators living and working in smaller communities
Keswick, Ontario isn’t exactly a big town. In fact, it’s downright small. You might think that a collision repair facility in a place like this would have difficulty keeping up with the big boys in terms of training, networking, and marketing. But Doug and Leanne Blackborow beg to differ.
Doug and Leanne are the owners of Norris Smith CARSTAR, a 9500 square foot collision repair centre that employs seven people in the town of Keswick. Doug and Leanne say that as part of the CARSTAR network they have access to the very best in training, meetings with the staff at head office, and national advertising campaigns, all without leaving their facility.
“We get I-CAR training through CollisionTV,” says Leanne, referring to an educational initiative delivered via satellite. CARSTAR was instrumental in getting the service up and running. "It allows us to avoid having to send people to the city and we use the satellite hook-up to hold meetings with head office."
Doug and Leanne’s facility has been part of the CARSTAR network since they purchased it in 1996. In their first month, they did about $30,000 worth of business. They now regularly pull in between $70,000 and $100,000.
Leanne says that CARSTAR has a lot to offer operators living and working in smaller communities.
“CARSTAR supports research into Cystic Fibrosis with their annual Frightlites campaign,” says Leanne. Frightlites are glowsticks worn by children on Halloween. “Being in a small town, I get right into this. I go to schools, boys and girls clubs, karate schools, and so forth to promote it. Because of this campaign, our facility was in the newspaper about six times. It makes a big impact.”
Leanne says another big advantage to being part of the CARSTAR family is the ability to offer customers Air Miles.
“Only CARSTAR stores can offer that,” says Leanne. “If you live in Keswick and you want to collect Air Miles, there’s just the Beaver gas station, the LCBO, and us. Our town has a lot of Air Miles collectors. Being able to give them to our customers shows that we are part of something bigger.”
Raising the bar
“CARSTAR was looking to do the same thing I was, raise the bar of the industry.”
Concordia CARSTAR operates two facilities in the Ottawa area. The first, Concordia CARSTAR East, was founded in 1964. Back then it was simply known as Concordia Body Shop. The father of the current owner, Walter Grego, started it. The second location, Concordia CARSTAR West, opened for business in July of 2003 as a partnership between Walter and Don Strong, who fills the role of general manager for both stores.
Walter’s title is that of president. It’s a position he tackles with relish and an entrepreneurial spirit. Although that’s true today, there was a lengthy period where it wasn’t.
“When I took over from my father in 1974, I ran the facility as a manager/owner, like he did,” says Walter. “After ten years I’d had enough. I didn’t enjoy it anymore. The expectation of customer service just wasn’t there.”
Walter turned the operation of the business over to a manager and an accountant and became an absentee owner for the next fifteen years. During that time, Walter worked in Toronto managing musicians and later running a combination nightclub/restaurant.
Walter’s long hiatus from the collision repair industry ended when he realized the very nature of the business was changing.
“These changes excited me, even though we had to face the challenges of less work and more competition,” says Walter. “The industry was becoming more customer oriented. In the old days, you could make a profit almost in spite of yourself. That wasn’t true anymore.”
Walter knew that because of his absence from the collision repair scene, there were a lot of new things that he didn’t have information on. That’s when he decided to look into joining a network. He checked into all the available scenarios. Walter says when he hooked up with CARSTAR he was impressed by the way they did business.
“They gave me a list of all the franchisees. I called every single one of them,” says Walter. “What impressed most was the level of commitment and professionalism of all the operators. I realized CARSTAR was looking to do the same thing I was, raise the bar of the industry.”
Concordia became the 30th store in the CARSTAR network in 1998. With sales at Concordia CARSTAR tripling in that time, you can bet its a relationship that neither party has ever had cause to regret.
CARSTAR makes the future brighter
“Network gives you a great opportunity to communicate with like-minded people.”
Brent Hemstreet is the owner of Pro Collision CARSTAR in Red Deer, Alberta. Brent credits CARSTAR with making the managerial team at Pro Collision better businessmen and helping them improve their so-called soft skills.
“We had a good business, but we weren’t really great at marketing ourselves to insurance companies and the public,” says Brent. “CARSTAR has an Insurance Relations Team, and a Marketing team who can communicate on your behalf.”
“Being part of the network gives you a great opportunity to communicate with like-minded quality people. CARSTAR makes the future brighter.”
“CARSTAR meets the needs of the diverse marketplace.”
If you’ve ever traveled across this great country of ours, you know that each province and territory is different. For those in the collision repair business, this means that each region possesses its own special challenges and opportunities.
“Each market in Canada is quite different from the others,” says James Dunn, General Manager of Carrosserie CARSTAR in Montreal, Quebec. “The way CARSTAR meets this challenge is by having a market development manager in each province that is actually from that province. Therefore that person knows all the ins and outs of the collision repair industry in that region.”
CARSTAR is the answer to thriving dealership.
Ask Doug Russell, owner of a thriving dealership in St. John’s Newfoundland, if being in the collision business is a wise investment.
Like many other dealerships, he was faced with the question of whether or not to continue with his collision repair center as he didn’t see it as a viable business going forward.
So he did his homework, and based on his research CARSTAR was the answer.“I called other CARSTAR franchisees, and that helped convince me that I wanted to be a part of this organization.”
“What set CARSTAR apart,” says Russell, “was their ability to guide the local services by the same set of standards devised for each and every CARSTAR location across North America.” And as a result, CARSTAR has built a reputation for superior quality and high levels of customer satisfaction.
Russell’s revenue has grown since joining CARSTAR and he knows that this decision will ensure the protection of his business long-term.
Many other dealerships are facing the same question: Should I be in the collision business? Russell says the answer is yes!