It takes two

COLLISION EXPRESS

Partnership drives success at Collision Express

Even though Carl Cimino had been in the collision repair business for years, he felt completely unprepared when he opened his first body shop in March of 1982. "My desk was a cardboard box with a phone on top, and I was sitting on a bucket-that literally was my first day," he says. He was also on his own after working with his brother off and on for several years.

Cimino started in the collision repair business at age 15, when he landed a painting gig at the car dealership where his brother Chuck worked as general manager. But the younger Cirnino wasn't interested in making body repair his career and enrolled in college on an ROTC scholarship. After a while he decided to drop out and return to the automotive industry. By then his brother was running his own business, and Cirnino took over as manager of the 15,000-sq.-ft. body shop in Philadelphia.

It was a crash course in body shop management, and Cimino continues to draw on this experience today. "When I left college, I was about 21 or 22 and I was managing men who were double my age, and I learned then that they were an asset and they had to be treated like an asset," he says. He worked hard to earn the respect of body technicians and credits this experience with the high retention rate in his current shops.

This early collaboration lasted five years, until the brothers had a falling out. So Carl Cimino opened his own shop-Cimino Complete Auto Center, a small, 2,000-sq.-ft. shop in a rented building in northeast Philadelphia.

Just two years later he'd gained enough experience to open a second site on about 1.5 acres of land in Bucks County, on the current site of Cimino's Collision Express. "When I bought it in 1984, I didn't use the whole property," he explains. "There were two other tenants in parts of the garage, and then, over the course of the next two years, I didn't renew the leases of the tenants and eventually took over the whole property."

Expanding his business required a shift in priorities for Cimino. "One of the first challenges when I was a single shop owner was making that transition from being involved and hands-on working on repairs to being able to hire someone to write estimates and deal with the customers and begin to back out of that process a bit," Cimino says. "That was a big mistake for me. I made a few mistakes with personnel, and I had to regroup a bit ... and the same thing is true with multiple locations. Fortunately I have my brother as a partner in three of the shops."

The Cimino brothers reunited in 1997. That year Carl Cimino was considering buying an auto body shop in Delaware. It was a great opportunity but far from his Pennsylvania base, and he realized he might have a logistical problem on his hands if he didn't find help running the business. So he talked it over with his old mentor, his brother, who had a private plane and lived closer to the potential location. The two went in together and purchased the 10,000-sq.-ft. Blue Hen Auto Body in Dover, Del. Two years later they partnered again to purchase the 10,000-sq.-ft. shop that is now Brookside Collision Express in Brownstown, Pa. and, finally, the 6,000-sq.-ft. Richboro Collision Express in 2002.

"Three of our shops are 100 miles apart, which is kind of a logistical nightmare, but they were tremendous opportunities, and they have turned out to be successes," Cirnino says. The reason: a strong partnership between Carl and Chuck Cirnino that draws on each brothers strengths.

The Ciminos appoint managers at each location who conform to their management style and philosophy. They also have standard operating procedures on the shop floor and use the same technology in each shop-this allows them to move technicians between shops, depending on workflow. "We're both hands-on managers," Chuck Cimino explains. "Obviously, with four locations, two of us can't be in four locations at once. It's very important to have that key person at each location that you can count on. Every day we spend at one of the four shops, and we're on the phone with all the others."

At two of the locations Carl Cimino handles the vendor and insurance relationships, and at the other two, Chuck does. Today the brothers are in charge of 33,000 total square feet and 40 employees, and their business is thriving. Chuck Cimino says the two are lucky because their strengths complement each other, but admits that "sometimes families can work together, and sometimes they can't."

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SNAPSHOP

NAME: Collision Express

NUMBER OF SHOPS: Four

NUMBER OF BAYS: 60

VOLUME: 275 cars per month

REVENUE: $6.3 million

AVERAGE REPAIR COST: $1,935

EMPLOYEES: 40

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EXPANSION ISSUES

Location, location, location

Body shop owners looking to expand their business should pay attention to demographics above all else, Carl and Chuck Cimino advise. Knowing your location, they say, is as important as having a successful business philosophy.

"The first thing that I'd recommend is for people to do a demographic study of the area they are interested in," Carl Cimino says. "Historical information is important, but what we've found is that in a lot of cases communities are changing on the upside or downside-and you have to know what side you're coming into."

Issues such as market saturation and labor costs may vary considerably even within a relatively small geographical area. When you cross state boundaries, even more issues arise. "When you work in three different markets so far away from one another, it's a challenge," Chuck Cimino says. "The labor rates in the Delaware market are $4 to $8 an hour less than in the other markets. If you measure by dollars, it's not equal."

But that shouldn't discourage body shop owners from pursuing opportunities in new markets. On the contrary, says Chuck Cimino. "You have to go where you think the business is and where you can have your best shot of success," he says. "When opportunities become available, demographics are so important. But I would also add, don't worry about mileage and distance ... Do the demographics and go to where the business is instead of being dominant player in a market where there isn't enough opportunity."

[Author Affiliation]

By Heidi Moore

Contributing Editor

[Author Affiliation]

HEIDI MOORE is a Chicago-based writer and children's book author. Before she took the leap to full-time freelancinq, she was special sections editor of a daily newspaper. Her shop profile explains how brotherly love helped a Philadelphia shop grow.