After several years in management and service roles at dealership and franchise workshops, Nick Thomas wanted to offer a more personalised service and competitive pricing. With that strategy in mind, he opened Ashmore RWC and Automotive in 2015 and never looked back. In just four years he’s doubled his workshop space and gathered a loyal – and growing – book of repeat clients.

Can you tell us the products and services Ashmore RWC and Automotive provide?

NT: Obviously we provide roadworthies, plus servicing, logbook servicing, brakes, specialty repairs. We also do suspension repairs – we replace a lot of Ford Falcon and Ford Territory diff bushes. When you get that clunk in the rear end that’s usually broken bushes, so we remove the full rear axle and replace the bushes.

One of our other specialty repairs – and we do heaps of them – is that Hyundai i30 have a common issue where they clunk in the steering. Initially, a lot of shops were replacing the whole column. There’s a bush, a little coupling that we’ve sourced, and we actually pull the columns apart and repair them. We replace that part which fixes the noise.

How long have you been established here?

NT: We’ve been here almost four years. I took over from another mechanic shop – Europa Motors. I didn’t actually buy the business itself, but I bought his equipment and took over his phone number and created my own business from it. He’d been around for 32 years in the same place and specialised in European cars.

We now do just about everything. Probably the only thing we don’t do at the moment is air con and we’re trying to gain licensing to get back into doing that.

What’s your background in the industry?

NT: I always had an interest in cars and started as an apprentice mechanic at Zupps when I was 17 or 18. I’ve worked on and off the tools over the years, so have done a little bit of car sales, and seem to have always worked my way towards the management side wherever I’ve been. I managed a couple of Kmart Tyre and Autos, and was a service advisor. I worked at Mitsubishi in London – my now-wife and I were travelling and based over there for a while. I started in the sales department and moved into the service department where I was a service advisor and did workshop repairs as well.

Are you still on the tools much today?

NT: I’m split between the workshop and managing the front end of the business. It’s hard to mentally prepare for it if you haven’t had much management experience – you need to be knowledgeable in the office side of things. Luckily, I’ve got a management background but it’s still a big workload.

And obviously you can’t let your responsibilities in the workshop suffer.

NT: You need to be knowledgeable on your mechanical side too – you need to be a good researcher. People want quotes quickly. Gone are the days where you could just price stuff off the top of your head. Now you’ve got to look up parts, you’ve got to research: “do I need to buy special tools to do that job?” There are so many more aspects to think about in the type of work we’re being asked to quote on now.

Is that split focus between the front end and the workshop your biggest day-to-day challenge?

NT: You usually start the day with a plan, but nothing ever seems to go as planned in this trade. The phones tend to always be ringing – which is a good thing. We get a lot of people that just drop in to ask questions or to book. A lot of people are old school. They do go off reviews, but they still want to come out and meet you and see who’s going to be working on their car. So drop-ins are welcome of course, but then that’s more time from your day. Trying to balance the business and the workshop is a hard game, which is why I’ve gone down the avenue of having staff and mechanics.

What’s your current team?

NT: We’ve got a really good close-knit team. I’ve got two mechanics; they’re brothers. I hired one of them initially, then he told me his brother wasn’t too happy where he was, so we brought him on too.

We’ve gradually, each year, grown by a staff member. We only used to have one shed, then we took over the shed next door and grew from, initially, one bay to three. I think this is the size we’re happy and comfortable with now.

What are your plans for the next couple of years? Are you happy with your current footprint?

NT: I’m happy with the size of our workshop now because it’s controllable. I don’t want to get too big because I like being able to know exactly what’s going on with the business and be able to interact with our customers. I want to know my customers and not give them that dealership workshop mentality where they’re just a number. That’s probably the biggest reason behind why I got into my own business in the first place.

You seem to have quite a block of really enthusiastic online reviews. How do you market? And how do those reviews tie into what you’re doing online?

NT: We do push things online. Obviously, you’re trying to get on the front page of Google, so we push keywords with our roadworthy servicing and our specialty repairs. The idea is to get someone in the door. Once they get to know us, we tend to have pretty good customer retention.

The work that Maz Hancock, an SEO specialist, has put into building our website and maintaining it has put us on page one of Google for multiple keyword searches. That has been a massive part of our growth.

Are you doing other marketing apart from the digital side?

NT: All our marketing is in service of making sure you have a good reputation. We’re on AutoGuru as well. They’ve been really good to me, but I still think word of mouth is the best.

When you look at the evolution of EV and autonomous cars, are you keeping up with that research?

NT: That’s all a scary thought. It is something that’s on my mind at the moment – what you can do to be prepared for it. But it’s like any growth or development, we’ve all evolved to keep up with what the industry’s done in the past. There are plenty of new things on cars now that you wouldn’t have thought of in the past, even down to an electric handbrake. With EV technology, we’re going to have to be provided with the training on new systems or we’re going to be left behind aren’t we? But definitely, training’s starting to pop up for it so yeah, we’re going to jump on it. No doubt.

And what to do with your spare time?

NT: Spare time I spend with my kids, I’ve got three young kids. I’ve also got an old WRX that I try and spend some time on too. It’s looking quite tidy now. It’s just been painted. It’s an old GC8 WRX, the 2000 model, so up against autonomous cars, it’s probably the opposite style. I’m maybe more old school!

Source: Motor Trader E-Magazine (June 2019 Edition)

7 Jun 2019