Shop Name: Curt’s Auto Repair
Owner(s): Curt & Kathy Rock
Location (city, state): Phoenix, Arizona
Staff Size: 15
Shop Size (in square feet): 4,500 (includes office)
Number of Bays: 11
Average Monthly Car Count: 206
Annual Revenue ($): $1.9 million
In our modern vernacular, we tend to speak of overcoming a difficult time as enduring a trial by fire. For Curt Rock, owner of Curt’s Auto, the euphemism was more literal than figurative. In 2008, while sitting in church for an evening service, the tenant in the building next to his shop interrupted Rock’s worship to notify him that his shop was on fire.
While the blaze consumed everything in the shop, it taught Rock a valuable lesson—take your business seriously. In the years since, Rock has built a shop in his own image, one focusing on character, integrity and selflessness.
It’s this emphasis on building a character-driven business that makes Curt’s Auto, a 15-bay, 4,500-square-foot shop in Phoenix, Arizona, one of Ratchet+Wrench’s 2023 Best Workplaces.
Meet the Owner
When Curt Rock’s shop burned to the ground, he chalked it up as a wake-up call. Prior to then he hadn’t reviewed or updated his insurance policy and wasn’t running his business to the best of his ability. Fortunately, the insurance company took care of the structural losses, but he had to start from scratch.
“Most of our tools were gone. We had to start over, and that's when I got really serious about learning business,” says Rock, who is an ASE Master Certified Technician and ASE Certified Service Consultant.
Within the business are Rock; his wife Kathy, who is becoming an ASE Certified Service Consultant; his daughter Anna Herrera, a service advisor; and his son-in-law, Eric Newton, a shop foreman who is ASE Certified Master Certified Technician, Hybrid Certified, Advanced Level Diagnostic Specialist and a Certified Service Consultant. Rock says the future of his shop runs through Anna and Eric.
Why They’re a Best Workplace
Rock has made it his mission to build a winning culture with a focus on a four-fold facet of people-centered success he calls his inverted pyramid.
"If you draw a triangle and divide it into four parts, the top of the triangle is customers, then vendors, then employees, then principles. That's the culture of the shop: customers are first, vendors gotta be treated right, employees are very important and then the principles. We feel like too many businesses turn that over and put the principles on top. And that just don't work,” Rock says.
And because customers are at the apex of the pyramid, every decision made by Curt’s Auto Repair is made with the customer in mind, starting with how they hire.
Herrera says the company begins by aligning with people whose character and business practices match their shop’s values and ethics, whether at a parts store, a dealership or another supplier.
“If there's somebody that we ethically can connect to, and we think a lot alike on the business ethics side, then we start asking them, ‘Do you know anybody?’ That's a channel we start when we have an opening that we're looking to fill,” says Herrera.
They conduct two interviews, show the candidate around the shop and get to know one another. Herrera says they’re upfront about their values and ethics—the shop is anchored in biblical principles—and if both parties agree, the candidate is brought on board.
“We do a 90-day probation for everybody that comes on board, unless they've been in automotive for years, and it’s moved back to 60 days. It allows them to get their feet wet and when we review with them, we ask how they like it, and if they want to stay here. And if they choose to stay, what will make their job easier and what we can improve on?” says Herrera.
And because customers take precedence, they're sterner when customer complaints are founded.
“Customer service is my candy stick. And of all the things we get complaints about, I will not have any be against customer service that are legit. I won't fly with that. There's never a time to be unkind or to be rude to somebody,” Herrera says.
And pertaining to how they train, Newton says part of having shared values is having shared integrity. Those who work at Curt’s need to be self-starters who want to grow and who capitalize on opportunities afforded them to improve so that they can take pride in their work and better serve the customer.
“If I’ve got a guy in a six-month period that's passed up four or five classes, it's one of those things that I'm going to start dealing with because I gave him an opportunity to learn to grow to learn something new, and they haven't taken it upon themselves,” says Newton.
"I don't want anybody stagnant; you got to be constantly growing. Our industry is changing so fast with so many different things. So, if you're not willing to try to train when we're offering it to you, you're not benefiting yourself and you're not benefiting us. And so that becomes a conversation point.”
For Rock, that fire has now become symbolic of his ascent from technician to entrepreneur. Like a phoenix, he resurrected his shop from the ashes and its new version was greater than its first.
“I started it as a two-man shop and I was a technician, I wasn't a businessman. As we grew, I made a lot of mistakes … When our shop burned to the ground, and we lost everything, I started learning management, and I took Eric along for the ride. Getting kicked that hard and having a shop burn down was the biggest growing pain that we went through. And that's why today we handle everything so differently. We're a lot healthier company because of that,” says Rock.
Required Reading
For shop owners wanting to become masters at leading others, Rock recommends John Maxwell's “Five Levels of Leadership.” “I think was one of the best I've ever read,” Rock says. As for Herrera, she’s a Dave Ramsey girl at heart, she admits. “I'm going to have to go with EntreLeadership.”
