May 2020

They rang yesterday and wanted to do an article on us – me buying the equipment from them and what we have done with it. Just to put it into perspective, we bought the equipment last year, and it cost £21,000. We have had the equipment for eight months, and three quarters of the investment has already been paid off through work generated. “We are ticking the box for that aspect, and the customers are coming in. I’ve just done three ADAS calibrations this morning in fact. Two were b2b, one was a retail customer.” Summing it all up, Asif added: “I can’t ask for more.” MAY 2020 AFTERMARKET 53 www.aftermarketonline.net “As the years progressed I continued to upgrade it. Five years on from there we built on more, adding new additional buildings at the rear of the main building, which meant we could put in three more ramps.” As you might imagine, Asif did not spring fully formed from the franchised side. He also had some independent experience to fall back on: “Before I was with Toyota I had been at an independent garage that specialised in VW and Audi.” Marketing Fast forward to today, we asked Asif how people find Five Star Autocentre: “The number one way to find us is via Google. There are a lot of outstanding reviews from customers.” Then there is the physical aspect: “We overlook the local Kia dealership.” That’s handy. Look up, and you will see the garage. However, Asif does not rely on people happening to crane their necks at the right moment, in the right spot though, as you would imagine: “The majority of the main dealers are in the centre of the town, but for us it is word of mouth more than anything. It is through recommendation that we have gotten to where we are. Friends, families recommending, Google AdWords as I said, as well as Facebook and so forth.” We assumed this means Asif is a great believer in marketing and social media: “Absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt,” he confirmed. “Without marketing, no one knows you exist. You have to put your business out there, at the forefront. If people don’t know you exist, they aren’t going to find you.” Top Garage As well as being generally an exemplary business, Five Star Autocentre was also a finalist in Top Garage 2019. We asked Asif about his experiences in the competition: “The experience was outstanding and overwhelming. To be honest with you, being in the position of being a finalist is an accolade on its own. To be able to present ourselves in front of the judges and to have gone through the presentation and to have put a pitch across to the judges was an experience and a half on its own.” Future Five Star Autocentre is there, it is doing well, and it has been there quite a while now. With the past and present in hand, we wondered about plans for the future for the business. Asif commented: “If you go back to 2019 when we actually entered the competition, our aim was to go into ADAS. My goal was to be at the forefront of the market for ADAS calibration within Huddersfield. If you go forward six months from there, that wish had actually come true.” We mentioned the ADAS side at the start. It has become quite a big thing for the business. Asif’s ADAS equipment supplier has also recognised what the business has achieved: “I have just done some marketing for Hofmann Megaplan.

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