What separates a vendor from a true partner? And why do so many shops fail to take advantage of the resources already available to them? Those are the central questions from this roundtable episode of The Collision Vision, which picks up a theme from the conversation with Mike Schoonover: that the best operators treat their partners as a real extension of their business, not just a line item.
Host Cole Strandberg is joined by regular panelist Erin Solis and Jim Lovejoy, who has spent 27 years working with collision shop owners and managers on the business side at AkzoNobel. The conversation covers what shops should actually expect from their partners, how peer groups create value that one-on-one vendor relationships can't replicate, and what it takes to build the kind of trust that turns a supplier into something closer to a team member.
A Vendor Sells You Something, A Partner Helps You Become Something
Jim Lovejoy draws a clear line between the two from the start. "A vendor at face value, the basic relationship is transactional. It's price, delivery, product, and invoice," he said. "The partner relationship goes much deeper than that. A partner needs to understand where the business is trying to go, where they're getting stuck, and what the owner is trying to build, and what resources or connections can help move them forward."
Erin Solis builds on that by adding a layer the transactional definition misses: genuine personal investment. Some vendors, she said, are invested in a shop's performance because better business performance means more purchasing volume. That is not the same thing as being invested in the operator as a person.
"The relationships that you build personally with people that are truly acting as your partners, you can really feel when those people are invested in you as a person and invested in your life and your well-being," she said.
She added, "These are the people that you call when you get super stressed out and you just need to talk through something. ... These people become your friends. They're actually your friends and they truly care and they're truly invested in not just your business's well-being, but your well-being as well."
Key Takeaway: Take stock of which supplier relationships are genuinely invested in your growth and which are filling orders. The distinction matters for how much you share, how honest those conversations get, and ultimately how much value you extract from those relationships.
Most Shops Are Underleveraging Their Partners — But It's Not Because They Don't Care
Lovejoy is direct that the gap is not a motivation problem. It's a bandwidth problem. "I don't think it's because most of them don't care. I think it's because they're buried," he said. "They're dealing with customers, employees, insurance companies, supplements, parts delays, supply chain issues, cycle time challenges, cash flow, technology, staffing shortages and challenges."
The result is that when a partner does show up, the conversation stays shallow.
"When a partner shows up, the shop often asks, 'Well, what can you help me fix today?' But the better question to ask — that they should be asking — is what can help me from this problem becoming normal? And that's where partners can create the real value," Lovejoy said.
The distinction matters. Fixing today's problem keeps the shop running. Preventing that problem from recurring is what actually moves the business forward. Partners who are engaged at that deeper level bring a different kind of value than the ones who show up to take an order and leave.
Key Takeaway: Shift from reactive to proactive conversations with your partners. The goal is prevention, not just firefighting. If your partner interactions are mostly transactional, ask yourself whether you're giving them enough visibility into your operation to do more.
Beyond Product and Pricing, the Bar Is Answering the Phone
When asked what operators should actually expect from partners beyond product and pricing, Solis went straight to the most fundamental thing: responsiveness. "If something comes up and you're right in the middle of trying to do something and you literally can't move to the next step until somebody can address this issue for you — if you have to call somebody five times and send them four text messages and it takes them two days to get back to you, that instantly, they're shut off to you," she said. "If you're going to be a good partner, you have good service. You're going to return their phone calls. You're going to find them the answers that they need in a timely manner."
Lovejoy agreed and called consistent communication the cost of entry. From there, the conversation is about what else the partner can bring. "How else can you help me with all of the other things that I have? The training, process improvement, business strategy, things like that."
Strandberg noted that many operators already have access to these resources through relationships they've already paid into, but rarely tap them. The gap between what partners offer and what shops actually use is often wider than either side realizes.
Key Takeaway: Evaluate your current partners on responsiveness first. If they're hard to reach when you need them, the rest of what they offer doesn't matter much. Once that bar is cleared, start asking what training, business support, and process improvement resources are available that you haven't used yet.
The Best Operators Don't Wait Until Something Is Broken
Lovejoy described what strong operator-partner relationships look like when they're functioning well. "They're based on trust. Candor, consistency, mutual accountability," he said. "And the best operators don't wait until something is broken either. They involve a partner in planning, training, process improvement. ... A long-term partnership means that it shouldn't be on autopilot. It should mean that we have enough trust that we can have honest conversations so that we can actually bring more value to the relationship."
Long relationships between shops and suppliers can drift into comfort. The product flows, the invoices get paid, and neither side pushes for more. Lovejoy's point is that a genuine partnership requires active maintenance. The value is in the honest conversations, and those only happen when both sides are paying attention.
Key Takeaway: If your longest supplier relationships have also become your most passive ones, that's worth examining. Schedule a business review and come in with real questions about where your operation can improve. The relationship is only as useful as the conversations you're willing to have inside it.
Operators Have to Let Partners In
The trust piece cuts both ways, and Lovejoy is clear that it starts with what the operator is willing to share.
"The operators have to be willing to share what's really going on in the business to let us in," he said. "Then we can bring honest feedback to them. I realize some people don't want to be told that their baby's ugly, so to speak. But sometimes there are definitely things that need to be fixed. So we have to give them honest feedback, not just pat them on the back."
He also acknowledged that delivering honest feedback requires reading the relationship.
"Depending on where you are in that relationship, you have to at least have the foresight to realize that some people may not be ready for the truth yet. And when you get to the point where you've built enough trust, then you have to share that with them and let them know — ‘hey, this is what I see is going on with your business’. So then we can get down to how do we fix it. Not just a band-aid for today, but a long-term solution."
Key Takeaway: Honest feedback is only possible when operators are transparent about what's actually happening in their business. The more a partner knows, the more specifically they can help. Keeping problems close to the vest may feel safer, but it limits what any outside resource can do.
The Ones Who Make the Biggest Improvements Come In Willing to Be Honest
Solis described a pattern she sees repeatedly across the performance groups she facilitates. Shops that hold back, that don't want to be the one in the room with the worst numbers, also tend to be the ones that improve the least. The ones who make the biggest improvements are the ones who walk in without the armor. "They come into it with an open mind. They set their egos aside and they're there to truly get help and also help the others that are there."
She also noted that the approach to surfacing difficult truths matters. Sometimes, rather than pointing something out directly, she'll walk an operator through a line of thinking and let them arrive at the answer themselves.
"You almost get them to see it on their own. You didn't have to point it out to them. ... At one point it's almost like you can see the look on their face change and they're like, 'Oh my god, now I see it.' ... And I think you build a lot of trust when you get to an answer by letting them figure it out on their own as well."
Key Takeaway: Vulnerability in a peer group setting is not a liability. It's the mechanism by which the most improvement happens. If you're showing up to a performance group with your guard up, you're paying for the seat but not getting the return.
Peer Groups Surface Answers Before You Know You Have the Question
Solis described something that happens regularly in 20 group settings that individual partner conversations rarely replicate. Operators come in with a problem (or without realizing they have one) and the room takes care of it before it becomes a formal agenda item.
"Getting into those 20 group settings where you have 20 people to help you answer that question... sometimes it negates the question even coming up in the first place. They get the answer before they even realize that they had to ask."
Lovejoy added that the shared-problem dynamic has its own value. "A lot of times they also find out that they're not the only one having that problem. And to find out the different solutions that other people may have already tried, this is where the networking comes in and best practices."
He noted that meetings are often structured to make space for exactly this kind of open exchange, with scheduled time for open discussion so that problems that haven't been formally raised still have room to surface.
Key Takeaway: If you are not currently participating in a 20 group or peer performance network, contact your paint supplier or industry association this week about joining one. The structured agenda is valuable. The unstructured conversation around it is often where the most useful exchanges happen.
It Takes a Village to Keep Up with How Fast Things Are Changing
Both panelists were direct about the limits of what any single operator can track in the current environment. Solis pointed to ADAS as an example of technology that is moving faster than most shops can absorb independently.
"There's absolutely no way one person could possibly keep up with all of the technology, with how fast it's changing," she said. "You really need that village to be in your corner to make sure that you're aware of all of the things that could potentially help you with whatever aspect of the business you're trying to improve."
Lovejoy described how he approaches that responsibility from the partner side. He attended a six-hour ADAS training and workshop through AASP of Minnesota, and went through a front office course at 3M's training and development center not because he was required to, but so he could bring that knowledge back to his customers. "So I could speak intelligently to my customers and pass on information that could help them."
That kind of active learning, he said, is how partners stay useful rather than becoming a familiar presence that doesn't actually move the needle.
Key Takeaway: Your partners should be actively learning and bringing that knowledge to you. Ask what industry training or events they've attended recently and what they brought back from it. If the answer is nothing, that's useful information about the relationship.
Accountability Has to Run Both Ways
Operators often think about what they should be getting from their partners. Less often do they think about their obligation to hold those partners accountable — or to invite that accountability back in return.
"They have to tell us when our baby's ugly, too," she said. "If I'm not meeting your expectations or if I missed something and I don't see it, I need you to tell me. ... If the feedback is always only one way, you don't build that two-sided relationship. It's just a one-sided relationship."
Lovejoy brought the same logic into the performance group context. For benchmarking to work, shops have to provide clean, accurate financials.
"There are expectations on both sides. To give you what you're looking for, there are also things that I need you to provide to me so I can evaluate things and then provide clean, intelligent information and solutions back to you."
The partnership only produces useful output if both sides are putting in honest input.
Key Takeaway: Call your partners to the floor when they fall short. A relationship where feedback only flows one direction, from partner to operator, is incomplete. The shops that get the most from these relationships are the ones willing to have honest conversations in both directions.
Two Questions Every Operator Should Ask Their Paint Supplier This Year
Lovejoy closed the conversation with two specific questions he recommends every shop owner bring to their paint supplier. The first: "Based on what they see in other high-performing shops, where are we leaving the most opportunity on the table that we could address?"
The second addresses the labor and technician shortage directly: "What are we doing or not doing that would make it harder for us to become the employer of choice in our market?"
On that second question, he made a point worth noting separately. "They should be asking their employees this as well, because the employees know better than anyone what the business does well and what they could do better."
The partner has an outside view. The employees have the inside one. Both perspectives, together, give an operator something more useful than either alone.
Key Takeaway: These are not rhetorical questions. Bring them to your next supplier business review and pay close attention to what comes back. If your supplier can't answer the first one, they're not spending enough time in high-performing shops. If they can't engage with the second, they're not thinking about your business strategically.
Building the Relationship That Actually Moves the Needle
The through line of this conversation is straightforward: the gap between what most shops get from their partner relationships and what they could get is wide, and closing it doesn't require finding better partners. It requires using the ones you already have more honestly and more deliberately.
