In the year that Judi and Bob Harvey, owners of Auto & Fleet Mechanic in Modesto, Calif., have worked with Elite, they’ve seen their sales increase by 30 percent and have hired three additional employees.
The Harveys have slowly built their business from the ground up, making improvements every year. The couple opened their first location with only $2,000 to their names in 2000, and it was 13 years before they hired anyone else to work for them. In 2013, they hired their first technician, and a year later they moved locations. Both of these decisions caused their sales to increase, which they were thrilled about, but they wanted to continue to grow. However, they were unsure about what the next move was—until they heard about Elite.
The couple first heard about Elite, a training company for automotive professionals, when they were out to dinner with another shop owner couple during a Motorcraft-sponsored trip they had won to the Homestead NASCAR Sprint Cup series. The couple was talking about their recent retirement, and mentioned the fact that they were clients of Elite and their coach had played a major role in helping them build their business and set up their succession plan. The Harveys, who plan to retire in the next few years, were immediately interested.
“We had thought about working with consultants before, but we didn’t want it to be all about money,” Judi explains. “We wanted to put our people and our customers first.”
As soon as the Harveys got home from their vacation, they began researching Elite. They were immediately sold on the company based on what they had read on its website and heard firsthand about the support that Elite provides.
Once they joined the Elite family, Judi says they were lucky enough to be paired with Jim Piraino, who was the first coach that Elite founder and president Bob Cooper ever hired, and the previous owner of one of the top shops in America, Camarillo Car Care in Camarillo, Calif.
Piraino explains that when he is first paired with a client, he gathers a tremendous amount of information to get a better understanding of the client’s business and needs. The Harveys wanted to grow their business, so Piraino got down to the nuts and bolts of how they could do that, and created an action plan.
The Harveys and Piraino speak every Wednesday and discuss what’s going on in the shop. During the phone call they review the shop’s customized action plan, go over the shop’s key performance indicators (KPIs), and discuss anything specific that might be a current struggle. After every phone call, Piraino sends a report of everything that was discussed that week.
