December 2020

customer. No more cash-rich boy racers then? “Today, we have more of the professional middle-aged customer,” he confirmed. “This is a total change. I believe my experiences in the performance market helped me to get to the stage where I am now though. That is where I learned about customer service, and I find it natural. “Back in 2004 when I started the business, the internet still wasn’t as massive as it is now. As a result, the performance market was all about socialising, working people, getting into groups, being friendly. This was all customer service. Even if they were not buying anything, you still had to give the professional approach. When they wanted to spend £5,000 on a performance engine rebuild, they remembered you. We wondered if some of the professionals coming in are the grown-up versions of the earlier customers, who suddenly found the urge to have a really smooth ride, and W hen Aftermarket visits a garage, we usually find ourselves in a polished, visit-ready environment. At the very least, they will shove the clutter in a corner until we’re gone. That made it extra refreshing to poke our heads inside the door of Performance 3000 in Yeovil. Forget oily rags, this was a genuine building site, and we couldn’t be happier to be amidst the meat of a “what we will be doing to our business” anecdote. Co-Founder Mike Randino talked us through the plan: “We have a warehouse that is now empty and is now in the midst of being knocked down as we speak, ready for moving our two commercial ramps. This will give us the space for putting in our new Class 7 MOT bay. To the right we have another warehouse, this was originally full of performance suspension, exhausts, air filters etc. When we finish, we will have three 46 AFTERMARKET DECEMBER/JANUARY 2021 GARAGE VISIT www.aftermarketonline.net EVO TO EVOLUTION: PERFORMANCE 3000 Above: Mike Randino and the team Aftermarket heads way out west to find out what gets the pistons pumping at Yeovil-based Performance 3000 commercial four-poster ramps, and two two-poster ramps. At the moment, we are only on two four- posters and two two-posters. “James Trott, my business partner, is actually an engineer and we have a machine shop. That is now located in our main warehouse. This was just done during lockdown, I had seven weeks to list lots on EBay. This produced a nice income to help us through the period, and released a lot of space.Once we have got our MOT bay in, and all our ramps in there in the correct place, we can then start working on moving forward.” The change is part of an ongoing evolution for a business that was previously a mainstay of the performance market: “I used to be well into performance vehicles. We have come away from that market now.” Change As Mike said, the direction of travel has changed, and with it, the typical