At the 2017 VisionPLUS Performance Group Business Conference held recently in Litchfield Park, Ariz., BASF awarded 2016 Shop of the Year designations to seven collision repair shops.
The winners were selected based on overall improvement and gross profit improvement from the previous year, along with excellent Performance Group preparedness and participation.
Performance Group winners were:
- Wenzel’s Auto Body, Pocasset, Massachusetts – Group I
- Marshall’s Auto Care, Billerica, Massachusetts – Group II
- Frank’s Auto Body, Vernon, British Columbia – Group III
- Herb’s Paint and Body, Richardson, Texas – Group IV
- Quanz Auto Care, Albuquerque, New Mexico – Group V
- Mercedes Benz of Arlington, Arlington, Virginia – Group VI
- Blue Ribbon Auto Body, Loveland, Colorado – Group VII
Winners had great praise for the value their Performance Group peers provided and the relationships they developed in the process.
“Our Performance Group consists of a great group of guys—friends, really—we can bounce ideas off freely,” said owner Dan Wenzel, Wenzel’s Auto Body. “When you are at your shop, you’re just worried about getting things done. In the Performance Group I know I am going to see them every few months, and I want to have good things to say. It keeps me accountable for the bigger numbers I don’t always think about every day. We are proud to have won [shop of the year], it was a lot of hard work from our entire shop, top to bottom.”
“When I started with the group, I thought our shop had maxed out and we couldn’t take any more cars,” said co-owner and manager of Frank’s Auto Body, Matt Brunelle. “The Performance Group has shown me many areas of additional productivity from administration, to paint, to body. I always come back from meetings with a few ideas to improve the shop, and Mark Livingston, our BASF BDM (Business Development Manager), has been extremely helpful in the process.”
The Business Conference brings all BASF Performance Group members together to network with members of other groups they may not, otherwise, find the opportunity to connect with. The conference highlights business best practices, training, the future of the industry and how to find good employees to compete against the industry-wide issue of aging technicians.
“The exchange of ideas and best practices in these meetings is extraordinary,” said Craig Seelinger, BASF VisionPLUS Program Manager. “BASF is proud to work with such dedicated owners and managers. Just last year we added an eighth group dedicated to customers that have completed BASF’s Advanced Process Solutions (APS) program, and we continue to expand the Performance Groups to meet our customers’ needs.”
