Automotive Alley is a half hour ride from my home. So I got the grand tour and we interviewed in the customer lounge on a Saturday morning. Shelly and Jim’s hospitality was great and I was impressed with the breadth of work this shop performs.

Talking Points:

• Jim attended Alfred State College for Automotive Tech.
• He went to work for a Ford Dealership as a shop foreman.
• Jim’s racing and organizational experience came by being part of a race team that ran Busch and NASCAR.
• He was recruited from his alma mater, Alfred State College, and became an instructor.
  • Jim always wanted to teach and it was fate.
  • Spent fourteen years as an instructor.
  • He loved building relationships with his students.
• Mid-career technicians may want to become an automotive technology instructor
  • Some institutions require having a teaching degree. Some do not. It depends on the degree they bestow on the student.
• He was balancing his teaching job and owning a shop while Shelly ran the business for him.
  • Jim ultimately left his teaching job and went to work full-time in the business.
  • Shelly’s background was accounting which was good for the business overall.
• Jim is a planner. They picked the name Automotive Alley because it can embrace many different business models and allow the business to scale.
• Jim believes in a strong process driven company. He is all about improving efficiency.
  • Saving steps for productivity gains.
  • Anyone can study their inefficiencies and make changes to improve productivity.
  • He templated his systems against NASCAR. Immaculate, organized and tools quickly reached and found.
  • Jim perpetually works on streamlining to increase his productivity.
• He misses teaching, but he does get his fix by helping his techs and shares insights with his customers.
• Automotive Alley also specialized in street rod, hot rods, upgrades, and restorations.
• For Jim, the word “can’t” is not in his vocabulary.
  • He feels that he has the facility, the people, the reference materials, the capabilities, and the procedures to do just about anything.
• They have a daily meeting with the entire team.
• He worked on a SEMA car and helped integrate a 2005 Mustang powerplant into a 1967 Mustang.
• Jim and Shelly have plans to grow into more locations and even additional business models such as an off-road center.
• They are finalizing the companies standard operating procedures to paper.
• An impressive element in the business is how Jim integrated Smart Home Control Technology into his business.
  • Light switches, alarms, telephones all controlled by software and easy to monitor from a smartphone.
  • Every door lock has a code and he wrote a rule to turn on lights and set up the company for the start of the day to include the open sign. All of this is based on software rules.
• Jim is a giver and will help friends in the business from his town.
• He sees the technician shortage from a retention perspective.
  • There are many reasons some techs leave the industry yet they love working on cars.
  • Jim says his facility is clean and organized and techs like to work in a facility like his.
• His advice to a start-up shop owner.
  • Find your niche.
    • It is not easy to do all makes and all models.
  • Only two paths to fix a car:
    • You have a code or you have a symptom.

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