Aftermarket June 2022

JUNE 2022 AFTERMARKET 59 www.aftermarketonline.net With everything (mostly) back to normal, Mark has been able to work on integrating the established business into his stable: “CB Motors has been running since 1973 and has a good reputation, so I kept it as CB Motors. I have redone the marketing and branding to bring it up-to-date, with a new logo, and bought new uniforms for the employees.” From every possible angle The business seems to be taking the industry from every possible angle, from mechanical to crash repairs and beyond. However, if you go back a few years, garages and bodyshops were running separately, but they have come closer together in recent years, and the many arms of Woodstock are doing that. Does Mark think it is the future? “I think you’ve got to do it this way,” he observed. “Every decent garage or even mechanic should at least have a decent bodyshop they can bring work into, or sub-contract it out to. As a small independent, I realised that with a lot of what we do, we need a lot of good sub-contractors around to take on the work. There are so many speciality areas and nuances now with the cars that you can’t know everything on every type of car.” “We cover some electrical work on our own, and then we have an electrician we sub-contract to, if needed. I also have another shop that does all sorts of bigger jobs that take longer to assist us. When you’ve got a smaller workspace in the middle of London, as we do, you need to stick to jobs with a faster turnover. Obviously, we don’t want to send everybody away, so we get the work in, get the right person to do the job, and we can still earn money off-site. If needed, we also send work to the main dealers for customers, and then we can manage jobs for them through the dealers.” Future for Woodstock We asked Mark about his plans for the future: “Recently it has been difficult to plan ahead,” he observed. “Over the last two years our focus has been to keep our operations going. Now we are having management meetings to get our focus back on building the businesses. I used to have lots of ideas about what the future held, especially concerning urban mobility. I looked at getting a fleet of short-term lease vehicles, where we would garage our own vehicles. There was a point where I believed people would not usually own cars. Now with the pandemic, I’m not sure how well that would work. COVID-19 has changed people’s thoughts about mass transport and about how they utilise their own vehicles.” Instead, Mark is going with the flow of traffic and looking seriously at the EV future, although he is clear-eyed about getting it to work for him: “As a repair business, we need the cars coming in. We continue to train staff to work with EV technology and are open to new driving technology as it is released.” Game for a laugh One last thing — that celebrity endorsement. Go online, look up Woodstock Motors at www.woodstockmotors.co.uk and then come back here. We already know that your first question will be: “How on earth did Woodstock get Henry Kelly to do their video?” No, really Mark, how did that come about? “He is a customer.” Naturally, but do go on. Mark took up the story: “Henry had been my customer for years, and he always sent me lots of celebrity customers. One day after he had badly bashed up his car, he popped into the office while I was reviewing our website with our marketing company. Henry said he needed a quote for his car, and I told him it was going to cost a fortune. Then, I had an idea. I suggested that if he made some videos for me, then I would fix his car. He agreed immediately. I found some students from a nearby university who wanted some video experience and they filmed and edited it. Henry didn’t stick to the script at all, but he was brilliant and it makes you realise what a professional he is. We had a good day with him and the students were in awe of him. He still sends me customers.” Looking at what has been achieved with the business, we’d say that Mark might be ‘Going for Gold’, but his way of getting there seems to be vertical integration: “Yes,” concluded Mark, “Just like I learned at college: Do it all yourself, get a big group of the right people around you and you will be able to cover all aspects of the market.” Do it all yourself, get a big group of the right people around you and you will be able to cover all aspects of the market ” Above: Mark Dressekie