FROM PROCESS TO PROFIT

Story by MAX REID

Sometimes it takes a leap of faith to find out where your true passions lay. Here at Collision Repair, we have heard stories from numerous industry professionals who found themselves swinging a hammer or spraying a panel through some combination of good luck and pure coincidence. Those first forays into the world of autobody repair can sometimes plant the seed for what could ultimately become a prolific, productive and progressive career in this industry.

For Bryan Leier of Bennett Dunlop Ford in Regina, this was exactly the case.

It’s the late 70s and Bryan is in university studying engineering, while spending his summers working part-time at a bodyshop.

Before long, his passion for academics was being overtaken by a new passion for autobody repair, citing his understanding of metals and keen eye for detail as what set him apart early on.

“I worked there part-time while I was going to university, and it turned out I was pretty good at it,” Bryan said over the phone with Collision Repair.

“When the fall semester came around, I quit university and started working full-time—I was about 18 or 19 at the time.”

Bryan took to his new vocation like a moth to flame, and seeing the financial peril of his current employer on the horizon, elected to make a go of things on his own at the tender young age of 20 years old.

“I was 20 years old and had just bought a building in Sedley, Saskatchewan; it was an old GM dealership back in the 50s and 60s,” said Bryan.

“I borrowed some money from my grandpa, and my dad kicked in some cash to buy the building. I paid like $7,000 for this 4,000 square-foot dealership building.”

Bryan says he fondly recalls the era where his shop was lined with Firebirds on one side and Camaros on the other; and never with a shortage of custom work to do.

“I remember the first car I painted: it was a 1969 Camaro and I painted it in silver enamel.

“I was one of the first shops in Saskatchewan to use acrylic enamel paint products,” Bryan said proudly.

As an entirely self-taught, one-man collision repair machine, Bryan says he rode a steep learning curve, not just in proving his individual skills by challenging and passing the journeyman exam, but in learning how to manage an entire collision centre on his own.

“When I started my business, the interest rate on my line of credit was about 17 percent, so to say it was difficult to survive would be an understatement,” he said,

“When you’re starting out, you need to buy equipment, buy parts and keep getting work out the door while you have interest rates that are just unbelievable.”

Being out in Sedley, a town of a little more than 300 residents, Bryan knew that to survive, he would have to take whatever work he could get.

“We did everything from collision repair to restoration, and being that we were out in the country, we also did a lot of stuff for farmers.

“It would not be unusual to have someone pull up in their tractor and want you to weld their hitch for them. We also did a lot of grain trucks.”

It took a few years of growing pains, but Bryan took these struggles in stride and used them as opportunities to expand his understanding of the collision industry’s inner workings.

Throughout the 90s, Bryan always had one foot in his shop and the other in a SaskPolytech classroom (SIAST, at the time), taking a position as a part-time instructor—a position that he says became a great source for new staff later on.

After a successful 27 year run in Sedley, Bryan elected to sell his shop and start a new chapter of his career.

“I sold my shop in ’02, and about nine or ten months later I started with Bennett Dunlop Ford as an estimator,” said Bryan, recalling his start in the collision centre of a Regina Ford dealership.

“In a few months, I became the manager, and I have been the manager ever since.”

Bryan attributes the relatively quick progression through the collision repair industry, in large part, to the many connections he maintains with representatives of various industry stakeholder groups throughout Saskatchewan.

As a member of the Saskatchewan Trade and Apprenticeship board, the Sask Polytech board of directors, and rep to the SGI committee on behalf of the Saskatchewan Auto Dealers Association, Bryan’s appetite for the growth of his business is well sated.

Working with these groups has built for Bryan a reciprocal relationship in which he can advocate directly on behalf of collision shops just like his, while serving as a star example of all the latest advancements in skills training and education.

“We were an I-CAR Gold shop way before anyone else. We had platinum technicians way before anyone else—we had scanners. A lot of the things other shops were farming out, we were doing in-house,” said Bryan.

“You start to look at how to maximize your square-footage, how to maximize your strong points and the qualities of your technicians so that you are getting better, faster repairs from qualified techs.”

Bryan says that one of the biggest lessons he learned along his journey had almost nothing to do with repairs themselves, but with the almighty “P-word”—process.

“When you look at repairing a car, it all comes down to process: how to process paperwork, even after the repair is done, so that it is done properly for the insurance companies.

“I ran a small shop for over 25 years. It was not a big deal to come in on a Saturday to fix a door so that you could paint it on Monday—that doesn’t work anymore. The process on repairing things, getting things out the door, scheduling and having parts arrive on time, is a nightmare.”

Despite all his many connections and experiences, Bryan and Bennett Dunlop Ford are by no means immune to the pressures currently being faced by bodyshops across the country. The difference for Bryan, however, is that he has a plan.

Bennett Dunlop Ford is planning to launch a new initiative soon, where customers can skip the often-lengthy wait to have their vehicle towed to, and appraised at an SGI commercial claims appraisal site.

Instead, the shop will accept tow-ins and carry out 100 percent teardowns of customer vehicles so that proper damage appraisal and parts ordering can be done within the week the vehicle is received.

“The problem with [an SGI claims appraisal] is that the car is going to get, at best, a partial estimate. So now if the vehicle isn’t a write-off, you need to figure out how much extra damage there is, and then that vehicle sits at my place until I can schedule it in because we have a lot of vehicles here. Now I take it apart and find out that there is an extra 10 or $15,000 worth of damage on it,” said Bryan.

“Instead of waiting weeks or months to find out if their car is a write-off or whether it is repairable, they’re going to get it done in a very short period of time.”

Bryan says the calibration equipment he is planning on purchasing for the shop will also do wonders for keeping Bennett Dunlop’s many services under one roof.

Further to that, the shop proudly uses a combination of Car-o-Liner and ProSpot welders, in addition to a Car-o-Liner frame machine and a full suite of Sherwin-Williams paint products, according to Bryan.

It takes a special kind of leader to remain steady at the helm over the course of a 47 year career, but Bryan has uncovered the science of his operations and knows exactly what formulas will deliver him to the solution he needs.

Many of the staff members at Bennett Dunlop have been working with Bryan for at least a decade; this is a fact evident in both the excellent work done on the production floor, as well as through the cohesion and hard-work of his front-end staff.

One aspect of this system that cannot be quantified, however, is the personal difference it makes to Bryan on a day-to-day basis.

“I have always worked with amazing people. People have come and people have gone, but for the most part, I have an amazing crew of people that I work with that are dedicated and resourceful,” said Bryan.

“I rarely wake up in the morning worrying about what might be happening in my collision centre.”