Performance groups bring together collision repair shop operators to drive collaboration, accountability and operational excellence that improves everyone’s individual business.
Erin Solis is senior vice president with Square One Systems and its Coyote Vision Group, one of the most influential groups in the industry. She appeared on a recent episode of The Collision Vision podcast, driven by Autobody News and hosted by Cole Strandberg, to talk about what truly separates great shops from the rest and how any shop, regardless of size, can adopt best practices from the industry's elite.
Solis said she got her start in the collision repair industry at age 16 when she took a summer job in a family-owned shop as a receptionist. There, she learned the basics — how insurance works, the claims process, working with customers.
After graduating from high school, Solis started learning how to write estimates and repair plans. She later moved onto the insurance side of the industry, working as an adjuster for 10 years.
Eventually she returned to the shop environment, as an operations manager. In that role, she was first exposed to one of the performance groups run by Square One Systems. Solis said that group helped her grasp what drove profits and losses (P&L), which enabled her to set up solid processes as the shop grew from one to three locations.
She later joined Certified Collision Group. When it acquired Square One Systems in 2023, Solis took over running Square One.
Square One’s Coyote Vision Group was founded 41 years ago by shop owners and an accountant who wanted to share numbers and “work on accountability with each other,” Solis said.
“It's my understanding it was one of the first of its kind in our industry,” she added.
Today, Square One has a wide range of performance groups for members in different segments, including groups for those who use the same paint vendor, and another for shop managers only — no owners allowed.
“They hold each other accountable,” Solis said of the various groups’ members. “No one wants to walk into a meeting having bad numbers, once or twice or three times…and not have any answers for why it continues to not improve.”
Solis said group members tend to have varying goals, whether it’s to focus on their P&L, processes, hiring, OEM certifications or marketing.
“I think that's what's really cool and unique about the groups is that they're not all the same,” she said. “Every owner and operator in all of the groups has something different that they want to focus on. And they get that perspective from all of the different members on things they've tried and what works and what doesn't work. It's pretty cool to see.”
Joining a Performance Group
Potential group members are vetted to ensure they’re a good fit, and their shops are not too close to existing members’ shops.
“We do have some shops that are a little closer to each other than we normally would allow, but they're either already buddies or they already have a lot of conversations in performances and processes,” Solis said.
To join Coyote Vision Group specifically, a potential member has to come to a meeting and make a presentation to existing members about their personal background, business experience, what they hope to gain from joining the group — and what they can offer.
“It's not just about you. It's about the whole community of the group,” Solis said.
Group members can vote in a new member, and they can also vote an existing member out. Solis said that could happen if a member consistently misses meetings, doesn’t appear to be taking the group seriously, or has numbers that are “consistently kind of messy.”
“They'll call a meeting within the group, and they'll have a discussion, and they'll decide if you get to stay or not, which is also very unique and makes another cool aspect to the group and the camaraderie within it,” she said.
Common Traits of Top Operators
Shops that perform at a higher level share a few traits, Solis said.
They have solid processes, which allows them to be more organized. They have longtime employees, because people are happy to work in their shops.
They also have “a solid operating philosophy” and share it with their staff, Solis said.
“If [employees] see that you have this drive to be the best, they're going to catch on to that, and they're going to want to do the same,” she said.
Strandberg asked if there are any particular Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) all top operators track.
All financial KPIs are important, Solis said, but you have to choose which ones to focus on.
“Trying to focus on all of them at the same time doesn't work,” she said. “You can't look at your P&L and say, ‘My gross profit needs to be better. And so I'm going to focus on parts and labor and paint materials and everything all at once.’ It's too much.”
Instead, focus on “one set of numbers,” and drill into what drives them.
“Say 50% of your gross profit is made up of labor and 28% is parts, and [you] want to do better in labor, so [you’re] just going to focus on labor,” Solis said. “But if your dollar sales are a little more in parts and your gross profit is down, moving that gross profit one or two points in a different section may actually make a better result in your net profit than focusing on just the one that you think is the most important.”
Over her career, Solis said a lot of shop operators have told her they just “get a feel for the business,” but that sometimes means they end up focusing on the wrong thing.
“I think really having a solid understanding of your financial KPIs and the difference that they can make, either in your net or your gross profit, maybe it's your expenses — stuff like that really is what makes the biggest difference,” she said.
Strandberg asked if top operators tend to make decisions based on data or a “gut instinct.”
“I feel like there is something to be said for a gut instinct,” Solis said. “But I think that tends to relate more to people. Maybe the feel within your business and on how your employees are feeling and if they're happy, and if things are working or if everybody is constantly stressed out.”
But when it comes to finances, it’s better to do a “deep dive into your numbers” to understand where all the numbers are coming from and how they are related, she said.
“I can't just look at the bank account and go, ‘Oh, there's money in there, so we're good. Let's go buy a $30,000 welder,’ without looking at what other bills do you already have? And what does that money need to go to already?” Solis said. “So it's kind of hard to just get a feel for things when you run it that way.”
Transparency with staff is key, Solis reiterated. “You can't expect improvements from your staff and your team if they don't understand what it is that we're looking at,” she said.
“When I was an operator up here in Northern Colorado, one of the first things they did was hang up a whiteboard in my office, and every month I would write the numbers for the prior month on there, including our gross profit and our sales,” Solis said. “Everybody knew our goals. Here's where we ended last month. Here's what our focus is going to be this month. I think you have to have that transparency.”
Why Join a Performance Group?
Solis said she enjoys the first and last quarterly meetings of performance groups the most, when members set their goals for the year, and then review how they did.
Often, group members will challenge others to reach for higher goals. “They’ll say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, that's only moving your sales by 5%. And last year you did better than 5%. So why are you only shooting for the same growth you had?’” she said. “And they're serious about it.”
She has seen members who didn’t like being the center of that conversation come to the end-of-year meeting and thank the rest of the group for pushing them to set a loftier goal.
“That's just so cool to see,” she said.
Joining a performance group helps shop operators learn to focus on broader goals to improve their businesses beyond financial KPIs.
“It's just not something that you can do on your own; it's not something that you can just grab a couple other shop owners that you know,” Solis said. “You have to have a good moderator that keeps the conversation on track and keeps everybody pushing to be better.”
The fellow members in a performance group are an operator’s “Board of Directors,” she said.
“These guys own their businesses because they don't work for somebody else. And it's not that [group members] answer to other people, but in a way you kind of do,” she said. “So you have to walk in there and when you set your goals, it's like, does your Board of Directors agree? And the group either agrees or pushes you for different results.”
Group members also recognize their own failures and accept advice from other members to improve.
“Accepting that guidance from others is how we learn to be better,” Solis said.
Group members are “all pretty humble,” she said. If they’re not meeting goals, they have to answer to it. “All of them are pretty good about saying, ‘I screwed up here and this is what I did wrong.’ They take ownership of it, and I think that's something that a lot of them have learned over the years within the group.”
In addition to the quarterly in-person meetings, the members are in constant contact with each other through other channels, Solis said, so there is always someone to turn to when a question comes up related to running the shop.
“I hear stories about these guys, calling each other at 10 o’clock at night, one from the East Coast, one from the West,” Solis said. “And they always answer the phone, and they're always there for each other, and they're always cheering each other on.”
Joining a performance group isn’t just about getting “hammered on” by other members about KPIs, she said. “They're also your squad, they're your village.”
Attending meetings, constantly talking to other operators and gaining new ideas helps avoid complacency.
“When [members] come back from the meetings and they're pumped up about things and they have some new ideas and they share it with their team, and their team buys into what they're doing, it really makes a huge difference,” Solis said.
Some operators have been group members for 20 years. “These guys don't stay doing something like this for 20 years if it hasn't been impactful for them,” she pointed out.
There is a performance group for everyone in the industry, Solis said.
“Whether it's one of ours or someone else's, I still encourage everybody to join one, because I don't think any one person has all of the answers,” she said. “If they only live within their own four walls, they have to know what else is going on out there.”
Avoiding Complacency in Your Own Shop
Strandberg asked what advice Solis had for an owner who wants to start building a more performance-driven culture because they feel they or their team are too complacent.
The first step is to set your goals and communicate them to your team, Solis said.
“Also have conversations with [employees]. Listen to them. Don't just have them come in your office and talk and have it go in one ear and out the other,” she said. “They want to know that they're being heard, or they're not going to buy into your results or the changes that you want to make.”
Those conversations can also reconnect owners with the day-to-day operations.
“One of the things that we do as operators or owners, whether we're one store or 10 or 20, is that we get on this different level and we're sitting in the office and we're not writing the blueprints. We're not out on the floor as much,” Solis said. “There may be a lot happening within the business that you're not aware of anymore because you're out working on your business, not working in the business.”
For instance, Solis said, one group member confidently said their shop’s receptionists ask certain questions every time they speak to a prospective new customer. Solis called the member’s shop right there during a meeting, and it did not go the way the member expected.
“It was one of those moments where they were like, ‘I don't understand how we're missing the boat on this particular part of our process, because we drilled it into their heads,’” Soli said. “And I'm like, when was the last time you sat down and had a conversation with them? Or listened to one of their calls, or asked them what additional training [they need].
“Listen to your employees,” she concluded. “They're in the thick of it. Within your business, you've got to talk to them and see what they need, in order to support the business better.”
Abby Andrews