View From The Trenches

One hard lesson I have learned over the years is that every company and every real technician have to constantly re-invest in their business and their tools. Those who don’t find themselves left far behind in the race for customers. For proof of that maxim, look at the idle steel mills of the Great Lakes region. Putting it another way, the French Foreign Legion had a truism: March or die. We can’t stay still because, if you keep falling back, failure becomes inevitable.

Recession times are very tough. Often, customer numbers shrink as do profits, making any sort of ability (much less desire) to improve your infrastructure or marketing position, difficult to achieve. Business success or insolvency frequently is dependent upon your talent to become more efficient and attract customer by more novel means than previously used.

I don’t like to compliment my competition, but Belron does some things very well. In some cases, the company has embraced new technology to aid in workflow, communications and marketing, just to name a few areas. Techs are being outfitted with personal digital assistants that give them access to data, retail support, GPS and other functions. A new call center has opened to meet expected higher demands.

In the marketing department, e-mail addresses are being acquired for personal contact with past and potential clients. Belron has rolled out extensive and repetitive radio ads on a national basis that certainly have the goal of laying the groundwork for establishing their brand, something an auto glass company has not attempted on such a grand scale within my memory. The media ads serve a few purposes, one of which, I believe, is to validate the company’s identity during an insurance claim contact; but the company obviously is looking to acquire new customers as well. Belron isn’t the first (or the last) to use the word “free” to gain some listeners’ attention. I’m not here to debate the merits of such actions. My point is that Belron is not standing still and letting events dictate its response. The company has every intention, it seems, to lead the parade, not to idly watch it go by.

Like it or not, I would humbly put forth that if you or I could reverse roles with Mr. Lubner and perhaps even Mr. Feeney and manage the other’s business, we would be implementing many of these same concepts without a second thought. So, in that sense, I will tip my humble chapeau as a mark of respect to a rival.

This is why the independents of this country can’t afford not to be pro-active when it comes to improving their work efficiency and their marketing. Many scoff at being beaten on our home turf by an interloper. Tell that to Detroit.

If we were selling fast food, our audience would have the chance to “try” new places and return over and over again to our establishment. However, when on average, an American has an auto glass need every seven years or so, it becomes critical that your marketing is effective because, like the Chinese water torture technique, repetitive radio ads take their toll on resistance and it helps validate or assuage a potential customer’s confidence in his or her choice of vendor.

Many of us have laptops. I know I will never be without a PDA again. This past year, I’ve acquired a far superior caulking gun to the one I was using. At Ft Myers, I bought a pair of suction cups that Lil Buddy was marketing because, at first glance, they looked far easier to use than the brand I’m using now.

Advertising and phone contacts have become far more crucial for new business acquisition. When I target my clientele, I make sure I use two words – local and certified – along with two terms of note – “you get what you pay for” and “we are not beholding to any insurance company.” Those are concepts that have worked successfully for others and me.

We are seeing generational shifts in media advertising. Who would ever think that the Yellow Pages would be supplanted by something as nebulous as the Internet? Many believe that we are seeing the end of that Dinosaur Age now and there is hard evidence to support that theory. It is far easier to type in a desired service into a search engine and receive the information at our keyboard or on our cell phone.

I am of the age that still appreciates a low-tech approach to many items in my life. (HD TV and laser range finders in golf are notable exceptions.) However, we can’t afford to be overrun and lose a war without a fight. There are tools out there that we all can use to make us better techs and businessmen and it is imperative that we use them. Make the effort, market yourself and get your name out to the public in a positive light. If not, you may very well find yourself at the back of the parade cleaning up after the horses.

I had a first this past week. I had the privilege of co-chairing a forum discussion at the Independent Glass Association’s Independents’ Days Conference, which also was my inaugural glass trade show to attend.

Other than a massive case of cross-country jet lag that occurred upon my completion of this two-day sojourn, I was glad of the opportunity to both attend and participate. What I appreciated the most was the ability to communicate with people from other shops and to meet some of the suppliers that support our industry.

I almost showed up on the podium wearing a surgical mask. Once I heard that State Farm had cancelled their appearance due to the Swine Flu, I became seriously concerned that perhaps the eye of this overrated pandemic had centered itself over the southwest coast of Florida, news that I was unaware of. For myself, I did not want to become the Typhoid Maria from the Golden State who potentially could have been responsible for infecting the corporate hierarchy of Bloomington, Ill.

Much of what I heard in open discussion centered on the change in State Farm’s billing attitude toward logoed glass. To me it just reflects the increasing burden glass shops have to put up with in a needless manner. We as businesspeople have been placed directly in the middle of a confrontation that should be of no concern to us. The insurers alter claim and payment policies and do so in such small print or circumspect language to their clients who either ignore or can’t interpret how that change affects them until a claim is filed.

Then, at time of a claim, a non-captive vendor trying to fulfill his customer’s desire for repair becomes embroiled in his client’s voyage of discovery as the customer learn about the “new” limitations imposed by the insurer. In typical fashion, an insurer brazenly publicizes its humanity (or in one case, its “neanderthalness”) yet it mutes to the lowest level, any hint of future miserliness when it comes to dispensing claim payments. What I am shocked at is the lack of language in an O&A contract to mandate counseling services for insureds conducted by its participant shops. Why not? It seems that State Farm demands are so one-sided in their installation contracts that it certainly surprised me that it left out making the shops provide anger management classes for those mutual clients having issues once they learn of their “fair and reasonable” claim limits.

As for the IGA, stay tuned. I believe many out there will soon learn and appreciate what new programs the association has coming on board. As the recession deepens and the shadow of global influence falls over the American market, I sense that the singular and earnest desire of the IGA board is to be relevant and responsive to the needs of the thousands of shops that form the basis of the installation side of this industry.

As I flew back, I was trying to quantify the benefits of my attending the convention. I am more convinced than ever that the best way we can improve our industry is by somehow improving communications between independents

Having good information forms a large part in the success of any good business. A member of our auto glass fraternity needs not only good technical data on how to install our product into a myriad number of evolving vehicles but we also must be aware of the numerous other facets that make up a skill set required of owners these days.

How many of you out there are aware that on certain Volvo windshields, the rain sensors will not work unless an OE windshield is reinstalled due to glass thickness? That little tidbit of information would certainly be helpful since none of us enjoy re-installing windshields to solve an unknown to us technical problem. Did you know that Lynx knew of said problem making approval of that windshield almost automatic even when it came to State Farm?

We all have many more issues to deal with these days—legal ones such as labor and anti-trust, political ones such as taxes of any kind along with any sort of federal legislation that could affect us and state issues in regard to insurance steering and craft regulations.

The truth is there are far too many of us (myself included) who distance themselves from their compatriots. The simple fact is, that sort of isolation and diffidence is being used against us and with success. When an insurer or a multi-national company has an agenda that is in direct opposition with independents, just mounting a defense becomes extremely difficult when little unity or capital, much less communication, exists. That has to change or simply put, small shops with their viewpoints and concerns may very well be relegated to insignificance.

How can we be so divided and provincial when we live in an age of instant communication? The Internet certainly links us in many ways but it lacks the personal face-to-face interaction that I believe is most effective. Message boards certainly provide an arena for data dissemination; however, there is an inherent flaw with the structure due to anonymity along with the inability to verify both source and accuracy of the subject matter.

What is it going to take for the apathetic, the naysayers or the smugly satisfied independent to realize that communication and unity with his brethren are needed to forestall being overrun and out-gunned? We have an existing framework that can best serve our interests on many levels. The IGA is still in its infancy in many ways and so are independents in learning how to cooperate with each other. It’s time that ranks begin to close together or there may be another type of closure in our future.

It was a very interesting experience this past week to go bare and “come out” onto the AGRR/glassBYTEs.com™ Message Forum and openly express an opinion using my own name regarding the related topics of the upcoming Independent Glass Association (IGA) conference and its viability along with independent glass shops in general.

I learned a few things. First of all, I learned to correctly spell Ft. Myers (not Meyers), Fla. Second, not everyone is in love with the IGA. Third and most important, the “Silent Majority” of independents who are lurking in the shadows out there need to step up and begin to become publicly active in this industry. If not, your wiggle room to survive in certain markets is quickly shrinking.

Ever since I started writing “View,” I have tried to alert my fellow independents that we are at a decisive crossroads in this industry. We are being squeezed unmercifully from both ends of the installation spectrum. Presently we are ensconced in a severe economic recession that is impacting us in ways that were unplanned and certainly not sympathetic to prosperity or continuance.

The keys for survival are not just on a local level. I truly believe that while you have to adjust and adapt to the market conditions around your home locale, you also have to be very aware and opinionated about issues that concern this auto glass industry on a state and national level as well. If you aren’t active, be very aware that someone who may not have your best interests at heart will be. That is a fact that one cannot afford to ignore. Markets are being gobbled up and ceded while many of us moan and groan. The proverbial barn door has been flung open and many of us are standing idle and bemoaning our fate while our livestock (insert livelihood) escapes without any personal effort to stop them.

How can Joe the Glazier, the guy from Main Street USA, fight steering? Slow pays? Incompetent installers? Can Joe pick up a phone and call his state insurance commissioner, licensing board chairman or even his local state legislator and get past the person answering the phone, providing there is actually a human answering the phone? My guess is that he can’t, nor does he have time to try. His best chance is to join a trade group that shares the same goals he has. This brings me to the IGA, of which I will admit I am a member.

I’m speaking at this week’s IGA conference with Corey Hemperly of Windshield Doctor Inc. in Pocatello, Idaho. I’m not quite sure why I was asked, but I am humbled by the invitation. I hope to meet some of my readers there. I also wish I could communicate to the thousands that can’t, couldn’t or wouldn’t attend. I am also looking forward to meeting Deb Levy and Penny Stacey, two people with whom I have had an electronic relationship for more than two years with but never seen face to face. My respect for them has increased over the years because I have become aware of the type of industry pressure they endure and the professionalism they embrace.

Why did I join the IGA a few years ago after being a lone wolf for decades? The way I see it, the times demand it. The independent glass shops are being outgunned, outspent and in many cases muffled by large corporate interests in both the insurance sector and unfortunately in our own auto glass industry as well.

We as independents have to be pro-active about our survival and as I see it, the IGA has the best existing framework to offer assistance and support for issues that are of interest for many of us. I think associations such as the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association have become effective and thereby are powerful voices in their areas of concern. There is no reason—other than apathy—that the IGA can’t grow in stature to become a significant national presence to represent our interests both to the public and to government.

Any trade association, especially one that is grass roots in nature, is an organism that is in constant flux and timbre. It changes constantly due to the people who are active in that group. Perhaps I’m blessed with ignorance of the IGA’s history. I will admit that I’m simply not concerned with what mistakes may have been made previously as some posters seem to indicate. It’s not a time to be damned by the past but to be totally focused on the future because that is the only relevant thing we can influence.

I’m no wide-eyed cherry that believes in fairy tales, reads romance novels and watches Oprah. My point is simply that we are in a war against corporations that have a common purpose and a very large financial stake of gaining control over the auto glass industry. Without a unified front and an opposing action by the efforts of independent glass shops, those corporations will prevail.

Our diversity and inability to unify has already cost us valuable time and market share. While we fiddle, fidget and argue, we are seeing a well planned and executed program unfold designed to reshape insurer glass claims, funneling them to specific vendors by the invention of third-party administrators who actually are surrogates for our nation’s largest glass installation and manufacturing corporations. The independent shops and regional chains that sign network contracts with these proxies are simply trading today’s business at a reduced profit for a future that is hardly secure. Our greatest and most dangerous competitors are using those agreeable shops as stand-ins and a revenue source. As for the relationship between insurers and our corporate Judases, an analogy could be drawn that those companies act much like prison trustees that enjoy special benefits if they can maintain control of the remainder of the inmate population. On some glass shop bathroom wall is etched the sentence: “Remember the Chicago Group,” written as a reminder that good ideas can be derailed and squashed (and some say by larger powers).

So what is the solution? The way I see it, the IGA is in the best position to deal with many of the issues plaguing this industry. I can’t see sitting still and ignoring the blatant dog and pony show that is currently in vogue. We need unity, which means more members, more voices and more money to offset the millions that our adversaries annually muster against independents as a matter of course. Any organization is only as viable and potent as we the associates make it to be. The fault is ours to bear if we stay silent on the sidelines as our industry is overrun. The Roman Senate fretted and debated until the barbarians they feared so much showed up at the city’s gates. We are almost at the same point ourselves unless we act.

I almost got a nosebleed due to the height of this column’s subjective soapbox. However, I won’t apologize for its probable sermonizing. We need to band together and make a strong effort to resist and reverse trends that are being forced upon us from outside interests. We have the structure; the question I ask is, do we have the craftsmen to finish the job?