Here at Autosphere we felt something was missing from the magazine and so asked a very successful jobber to write a column geared directly to our Jobber readers! A jobber who is in the business day to day, who recognizes the demands of the business, who realizes time is of the essence, who knows parts and service and that the customer needs the parts sent to them quickly, correctly and efficiently. He’s also someone who sees what is happening in the jobber business today —the changes taking place, the need for younger people to come into the business, and the need for jobbers to adjust to a changing environment. In other words, just like you!

Douglas Squires is President of Colonial Group and Colonial Auto Parts, a well-established jobber business based in Newfoundland. The firm has been around for almost 100 years and was established in 1926 by Gord Elton. In the ‘50s, his two sons, Doug and Bill Elton took over daily operations, also opening a body shop and a machine shop plus a radiator fabrication firm.

The Colonial Auto Group was founded as a family business and to this day is still proudly family-owned and operated.

Douglas Squires: It is said that the only constant in life is change. If you have trouble adapting to change, remember that you are not alone. Most people are ‘change adverse’ and like the status quo because it represents the path of least resistance.

However, is this aversion to change and unwillingness to take a risk preventing younger and more abled talent from flourishing in our industry and thus hampering growth, expansion, or the development of innovative ideas in the aftermarket?

Innovative ideas

It is from the introduction of innovative ideas, some of which will fail, that the aftermarket will be able to adapt and evolve and thereby stay competitive as an industry and by doing so be able to attract and retain new talent.

I know that when I started in this industry almost 30 years ago, I looked at things very differently than my father-in-law. Fast forward from the late 1990s to 2022 when my son joined the company and I found myself in the same situation of having the “new kid” look at things with fresh eyes and ideas, except this time I was the one with the outdated methods and ideas. I had two choices—embrace the change and allow for the free flow of creativity or stay the course. I will admit it was not easy giving up the reins and taking a side-line position, but if we expect to attract the talent necessary for the industry to grow and flourish, they will need the support of the experienced war-horses to bolster them and raise them on their shoulders to reach new heights.

New methods

In his first few weeks I would assign tasks that I believed would keep my son busy, and out of my hair. Before I knew it—and much to my surprise—he was back looking for more. When I questioned how he could be finished, he would explain the method and technology he employed to complete the task, most of which I had never heard of before.

Later, when he had what I believed to be a basic understanding of our operations, I asked for a market assessment, expecting the usual written document of key market information. What I received was a digital transformation of how to look at the market in the form of an interactive internet-based link to Google maps where I could click on a city or town and it would provide me with information on salary, local industry, population characteristics, all possible customers by segment topped off by the location of all competitors across Atlantic Canada!

Evaluating and interaction

It is not easy to give up some control, but if we expect to attract the talent necessary for the industry to grow and flourish, we senior aftermarket leaders need to evaluate how we interact with these new “kids” to the aftermarket. Rather than requiring them to follow existing rules and methodologies that may hold them back, we need to bolster their inquisitiveness and ingenuity and even raise them on our shoulders so that they can reach new heights and push the boundaries of the aftermarket, since the future of the industry depends on it.