Fionna Blackburne is the owner of Southeast Auto Mechanical in Beenleigh, southeast Queensland. Once a lawyer, Fionna turned from the courtroom to the workshop in 2016, purchasing the business and earning her light vehicle qualification for good measure. Two years on, Southeast Auto Mechanical continues to offer quality service to its community, but also provides free basic automotive maintenance training for women through the ‘Women on the Move’ initiative – a program that saw Fionna and her team win the 2018 MTA Queensland Community Award.

What products and services does Southeast Auto Mechanical provide?

FB: We do logbook servicing, general servicing, LPG, brakes, clutches, suspension, tyres, RWC – we do everything!

How long has the business been operating?

FB: I purchased the business in 2016, but it had been in operation for about 15 years before that.

What is your background in the industry?

FB: In a prior life I was a lawyer. After I had my daughter, I was meant to go back to that job, but I wasn’t ready to leave her and decided to resign – she was too important to me. However, I still needed more, so I would go in to help my husband at his mechanical business and do small things like getting parts, dropping people home, invoicing and paperwork and so on.

I enjoy working and learning, and I wanted to have the background knowledge to be able to advise people, to quote on jobs and have a clear understanding of the work, so I decided to do the light vehicle trade qualification. That went well and not long after I had completed, I bought this business.

I don’t know if it was meant to be, but things fell into place nicely. We bought the business from Rob and Dave, who agreed to stay on, and everything has just worked. It was the right time for them to sell, they were happy to stay on, and we have since employed another mechanic, Damien, who is my right-hand man.

We work cohesively as a team, we have new procedures and systems that work well, and we are always pushing and working to achieve new goals.

You won the MTA Queensland Community Award for your Women on the Move initiative. Can you tell me about that initiative and what it was like to win the award?

FB: I started it because I wanted to help educate women on basic maintenance of their vehicles.

We have a lot of female customers, of all ages, and I wanted to empower them so that they know, for example, if they’re in a situation that they need to change a tyre, they can do that.

We hold the course quarterly, it is free, lasts for a couple of hours and we teach not only how to check tyres but cover subjects such as radiators, coolants, brake fluid, brakes, common leaks, where to find your cabin filter and so on. You don’t need a trade qualification to check some of these things, just confidence and knowledge.

And the women who have come through the course have loved it. They do feel empowered. They are here to learn and this is a judgement-free space, so there are no stupid questions!
We’ve been running Women on the Move for about two years now, and about 40 women have come through the course. It has been a very satisfying project.

What was your reaction to winning to the Community Award?

FB: We were told before the award’s night that we had won and my reaction, I think, was, “Are you serious?!”. I was taken aback because the Women on the Move initiative is just something we wanted to do. I didn’t think about awards or anything like that when we started it. We wanted to help, and it is just a part of our lives – it is our ‘normal.’ So, we were all shocked to be presented with the award, are very grateful and feel very humbled by it.

You’ve been the owner of Southeast Auto for a couple of years now but have been working in and around the industry for more than a decade. What sort of changes have you seen within the sector over that time?

FB: From my perspective, the internet has played a huge role in our business with Facebook, Instagram, and platforms such as AutoGuru, the online booking site for vehicle service and repair.

That is a massive change for the industry. Before, a customer would have to call around to get quotes but now, those quotes are in front of them in under a minute. And they can leave reviews and ratings of businesses they use. To me, that sort of feedback and transparency is a huge thing.

I joined AutoGuru a couple of years ago and it has worked well for us. We have new customers, happy customers, good reviews and, to me, it’s the future. If you’re not in it, you’re going to be left behind, that is my view.

We use Repco’s Smart Inspector – a digital Inspection App. It allows us to carry out vehicle inspections directly on an iPad providing a professional report and images for our customers which we send via email.

It is brilliant because it helps the layperson understand what is happening and decide what they want to be done and what they can afford to have done. Knowledge is power.
Social Media is playing a significant role for us. We use Facebook a lot – it is our top marketing platform – and I try to post something at least once a week. I actually went along to the MTA Queensland marketing seminar on social media, and that was really interesting and very useful. I learned a lot that day about the best ways to use social media.

How many staff do you have?

FB: There are four of us at the moment – Rob, Dave, Damien and me – though I do have an apprentice starting with us in January.

To what do you attribute your success?

FB: Just like everybody else, we have good and bad weeks. We are not perfect, but we learn from those mistakes, are a great team and treat our customers like family and friends. Some customers, of course, want to get in and out and that’s fine, but we offer an all-round positive family-friendly experience.

What does the future hold for you and the business?

FB: I’d like the business to continue to grow, and we will look at ways we can help families and tackle their needs, as well as to continue to develop the Women on the Move program.

We’ll continue to do the best we can every day, work hard to keep our customers happy, and keep learning. That is a big thing for us, learning and developing and keeping our skills up to date. We do training courses through companies such as Penrite, Ryco, and NGK, and keeping up to speed with what is happening in the industry is especially crucial with electric cars now on their way.We are very aware of them and are keeping an eye on developments and training opportunities. We haven’t seen one here in the shop yet, but we know they’re coming.

What do you do with your spare time, if you have any?

FB: I am very family oriented and always running around taking my children to their after school activities such as dancing and swimming or whatever it may be. I also like to shop, see my friends and, if I have time, I binge on Netflix!

Source: Motor Trade E-Magazine (December 2018)

13 Dec 2018