Diesel Connect Recap: Building a Premium Brand

Name recognition. Everyone wants it, few really achieve it—but you’ve got to admit it’s usually really good for business. So how do you get it?

Building a premium brand helps.

We know, we know. “Premium” is a big buzzword these days—almost as big as “brand” itself. But the two words together—premium brand—can be boiled down to reputation. And this industry is all about reputation. 

So how can you build a premium brand? How can you maintain it? 

Mike Schwarz of Iron Buffalo HD Repair has some answers. During a wonderful panel at this year’s Diesel Connect, he shared the shop’s background and how they built out this extraordinary business—and guess what? There’s a lot of strategies in there you can emulate.

We aren’t posting the entire recording just yet, but we do have some of our top takeaways from the presentation on offer. 

You know the drill: keep on reading!

WHY DO YOU WANT A PREMIUM BRAND?

What’s the deal with a premium brand, anyway?

Again, let’s swap in reputation for brand. 

In Iron Buffalo’s case, it was a way to ensure a good future: the team behind the business wants to sell it one day, and it is much, much easier to sell a shop with a strong brand/reputation than it is to sell an ailing one. Also, you can sell a strong reputation for way more. 

Fullbay, you might be saying, I have zero desire to sell my shop. 

Doesn’t matter! Building a premium brand is still a good idea because an outstanding reputation leads to:

• More business!
• More expansion possibilities, if you’re into that!
• An easier time hiring techs!
• More moolah for all!

You like all of those things, right? 

So do we. So let’s look into some of Mike’s advice. 

FIGURE OUT YOUR GOALS & HOW TO WORK TOWARDS THEM

The Iron Buffalo crew knew they wanted to sell the business eventually, so they started out with that end goal in mind. What’s your end goal? 

• Make a trillion dollars and retire on a yacht somewhere? 
• Hand the business off to your kids or grandkids? 

Maybe you haven’t thought further ahead than “I want to make enough money to live comfortably and support my family.” That’s okay; a lot of us don’t! So start thinking about where you’d like to be in five years, or 10 years, or 15. How can your shop help you get there?

Next, consider who you want to compete with. Iron Buffalo knew they wanted to go up against dealerships: they wanted dealership customers and they wanted dealership employees. “We want to be the premiere brand that local, midsize fleet operators go to when they need their problems taken care of,” Mike told attendees.

The team knew that would demand a combination of outstanding customer service and employee benefits (among other things), which would require both initial capital and a way to keep financing it as time went on. 

Obviously, this didn’t all happen overnight. Goal-setting can start with vague (“I want to make enough to support myself”) and be drilled down into specific (“I want to make 1 million dollars…by next Friday”). But as your goals get more specific, you’ll be able to lay out steps to get you there. Say you want your shop to bring in $500K a month. What are some steps you can take to do that?

• Raise your labor rate.
• Hire more techs.
• Expand your service offerings.
• Invest in a mobile repair truck.
• Start taking on emergency roadside work.
• Start subletting. 

We will add a disclaimer here: None of the steps listed above are necessarily easy. But then, building a great reputation and a memorable brand isn’t easy, either. 

(Psst, you can do some experimenting with income goals by using our free sample financial plan.) 

THREE STEPS YOU CAN TAKE TO BUILD A PREMIUM BRAND

Mike’s presentation was packed with useful information, and writing all about it would…well, at this point we’d be writing an ebook instead of an article. But we did identify three key areas that can immediately win customers and boost brand recognition.

1. Attract top-tier employees.

You want a premium brand? You need premium employees.

Yes, that means talented diesel technicians who will actually do the work. It also means top-notch office managers, service managers, parts managers, and so on. You want a team that will work well together and is ready to pull for your shop’s goals.

Iron Buffalo has done this by creating a high-performing culture. They’ve got bonus and incentivization programs. High-earning techs get special prizes (they sent one guy and his partner to Hawaii!). 

Transparency is what makes it possible. “[We tell them], this is what you’re here to do. You’re here to produce revenue for us and, you know, and be successful with that,” Mike said. 

To that end, the employees asked for a sort of ticker board. So they’ve got revenue listed up on the board—”We list billable hours in ranked order for the top five techs,” Mike explained. “We list revenues. We actually focus on revenue as well. So average weekly revenue and last week’s revenue per tech.”

2. Give people room to grow.

We’ve also identified this tactic as “provide career paths,” if you want to know more about it.

One of the most extraordinary things Iron Buffalo has done is team up with a local high school’s shop class. They’d seen the difficulties of hiring techs and decided, “Hmm, let’s try to make our own.” They eventually hired the teacher as their full-time trainer and have developed a career path for young people to take. Mike (and the shop’s trainer, Ian) discussed the school partnership and Iron Buffalo’s educational program at length in this Shop Owner Roundtable, so we won’t dig too much into it here. But being willing to grow people into technicians can have a hugely positive impact on your shop’s brand.

Why? It shows you’re going to put the work into people, right from the start. It shows that you care. 

[clip: How Ian Trains Techs]

Iron Buffalo also started competing in their state’s best tech competition. “We wanted to treat it as a training opportunity, but we also wanted to see how they compared,” he said. “Turns out they compare pretty well!” 

Bringing home awards (and going on to national competitions!) isn’t just about bragging rights, although those are really, really nice (and stuff like “Award-Winning Technician!” looks really great on a website). Techs also learn at these competitions—and they can bring what they learn back to the shop. 

In addition, at press time Iron Buffalo was working towards creating a tool allowance for their techs. They already provide and/or pay for the tools their high school students use; extending that perk to established techs is a huge benefit, as WrenchWay’s recent study showed. 

3. Be accountable to customers and each other.

Iron Buffalo is very transparent about their metrics and has guidelines in place regarding how much each level of tech should be bringing in. We’ll quote moderator Chris O’Brien on this one: “If we all grab an oar and row in the same direction, we’re probably going to make it to the other side.”

They hold reviews twice a year. If a tech is meeting or exceeding expectations, odds are they’ll get a raise (yes, that means you can get raises 2x a year at Iron Buffalo). The techs that aren’t meeting expectations are told how they can get there: “Where we want them to be is ten thousand a week,” Mike said. “So we say all that, but we’re like, you know, to really run a successful business like this, we need you at ten thousand a week.” 

You can see more of that conversation below:

[Conversation]

That accountability is extended to customers, too. Honesty and straightforwardness is a huge component in building trust, and trust is what keeps your customers coming back time and again (okay, your sparkling personality might have something to do with that, too). 

To that end, Mike recalled a situation where the shop made a mistake—a pricey mistake to the tune of $15,000. Listen to it below:

[the 15k mistake]

Don’t get us wrong: the mistake matters. But what matters just as much is Iron Buffalo taking responsibility for it. “We called up the customer. We said this is on us,” Mike told attendees. The owner of the business came back with this: “‘Forever, you have all of our business. We trust you indefinitely with everything we do.’ And so it was a fifteen thousand dollar, you know, investment in that relationship.”

If you know you’ve done something wrong, fess up and make it right. The customer might get pissed and work with someone else. Or they might be impressed and stay. Either way, you’ve righted a wrong and made the roads a little safer for everyone—and added a little shine to your shop’s brand. 

AND NOW FOR A READING REC

Like so many Diesel Connect stories, this recap has gotten a little out of control, and you’re probably about ready to kick back with another cup of coffee. We’ll leave you with a couple of reading recommendations:

If you’re looking to expand your shop’s team, Mike recommended the book Teamwork by Natalie Dawson (it also comes highly recommended by Stacy Conner of Equipment Experts Inc) as a good place to get started. And remember, you can catch Mike talking at length about Iron Buffalo’s recruiting process and their relationship with schools in his Shop Owner Roundtable episode. 

Now go and build that brand!