Mar 21, 2022
This week’s key takeaway:
The magic of thinking bigger with Darren Holmes
Episode intro:
This week we pick the brains of a Paint & Panel award winner - the best large shop to be precise. Darren Holmes from Holmes Smash Repairs in Toowoomba Queensland shares the secret sauce that helped him grow his business from just 8 staff in 2007 to over 50 today.
Like many of our guests, Darren started as a panel beater and worked his way up… his original motivation was simply because he wanted to spend more time with his dad at the weekend!
Darren knows this business from top to bottom, and he knows how to move with the times. Most notably, he brought a whole host of services in-house and made a success of it. Listen up... there’s loads of great advice in this one.
In this week’s episode you will learn:
-The benefits of bringing everything in-house
-How Darren diversified
-How business coaching helped Darren
-How to build the right culture
-Why Darren prefers to do two days per week on the floor
-How much micro management is appropriate?
-The pros and cons of incentivising a tradesman
-Darren’s approach to ADAS
-When to diversify and when to focus on core business
-How to retain regular customers
Show links:
** Find Darren on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darren-holmes-54771185/?originalSubdomain=au
** Holmes Smash Repair website: https://www.holmessmashrepairs.com.au/
** The Collision Repair Expo @ Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre, April 7th - 9th. Register for free here: http://www.collisionrepair.com.au
** Do you have something unique you want to share with us? Contact Paint & Panel editor Sam Street at: sam@yaffa.com.au
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** Go to www.paintandpanel.com.au/podcast to catch up on past shows and access show notes from every episode.