When Kim Starcevich found herself struggling to replace a body technician who’d retired after 40 years, she eventually decided to try something she knew well: tell the truth.
Kim, owner of Lakeside Collision II in Merrillville, Ind., went on social media and began sharing the shop’s situation and what she was looking for in a technician. She didn’t dress up the independently owned shop as something it wasn’t.
“We may not be able to compete with ... the shiny building and the state-of-the-art equipment,” she said. “But man, you’re going to have people who have your back.”
She talked about the shop’s family-first culture — including getting employees out early on Fridays to be with their families — and about the people behind the business.
And people responded.
Within days, a technician from Georgia reached out and traveled to Indiana with his daughter to explore relocating his family there.
It reinforced a lesson from her earlier career in sales, marketing, and social media, long before she ever expected to run a collision repair business.
“I find the more authentic I am with my audience, the harder they work to help me,” she said.
Finding Her Own Way to Lead
Kim didn’t set out to own a collision shop. After her husband, Brian, died unexpectedly in 2019, she found herself with an ownership stake in the family business he had operated with his father.
At the time, Kim already had a successful career, including training small business owners to build their brands through social media. Cars, meanwhile, weren’t exactly her passion. Her husband used to tease her about it.
“He would say, ‘You don’t know the difference between a Honda and a Lexus. Why did I buy a Lexus?’” she recalled.
She initially kept her corporate job while spending time at the shop, listening, and learning — until COVID-19 eliminated her position and changed the trajectory of her career. The deeper she got into Lakeside Collision II, the clearer one realization became.
“This is not a car business,” she said. “It’s a people business, and I love people.”
That distinction freed her from trying to lead the way her husband and father-in-law had. Instead, she leaned into her own strengths — communication, marketing, relationship building, and what she calls servant leadership.
Kim is quick to point out that none of it would have been possible without the foundation Brian and his father built. The two men spent the shop’s first 20 years doing the heavy lifting — establishing its reputation, its systems and its customer base — long before she ever expected to be part of the business.
“Their legacy gave me the foundation,” she said. “What I have tried to do is honor it by building well upon it.”
That building shows up in the numbers, too. Under Brian, the shop’s best year topped out around $1.2 million in sales. Kim has since grown that to $2.4 million annually, with its strongest months reaching $250,000 to $260,000, which is a next chapter, as she sees it, rather than a departure from what came before.
Authenticity Builds Trust
Kim believes much of that growth comes down to something hard to quantify: trust.
“If you are authentic, people will follow you anywhere,” she said. “If you are transparent on social media, you build an audience who knows you, and then also people who think they know you.”
Kim doesn’t view social media primarily as an advertising channel. She follows an 80/20 rule, with most of the shop’s content designed to inform, entertain or connect rather than sell. A visitor to Lakeside Collision II’s social media pages might see a post celebrating an employee’s engagement, a birthday, a happy customer or something entertaining involving the team.
“Rarely am I out there saying, ‘Come in for your estimate,’” she said. “I don’t have to.”
That approach has created an unusual dynamic: customers walk through the door feeling as though they already know her, and her employees tease her about how many of her Facebook friends end up getting their car fixed at Lakeside.
“A lot of them start out as social media friends,” she said. “But once we connect here, they become real friends.”
Relationships Before Transactions
That same instinct carries over offline. Kim maintains dealership relationships through decidedly old-school methods: stopping by, buying lunch, and occasionally delivering gummy bears from a local candy factory.
She also asks happy customers for something more specific than a review: to remember Lakeside Collision II the next time someone in their network needs a recommendation. It works. Kim said that when someone asks for a body shop recommendation in a local social media group, Lakeside accounts for the overwhelming majority of the responses.
She also still writes handwritten thank-you notes.
“It’s from my handwriting, but they’re getting a note on how much I personally appreciate their business,” she said.
For Kim, being real with customers also means meeting them where they are — she has sat beside customers while they call their insurers and helped them navigate the start of the claims process. Her own experience as a widow has given her particular empathy for customers who walk in saying their spouse always handled these matters.
“Girl, I’ve got you,” is her response.
Culture When It Counts
Perhaps the clearest test of Kim’s people-first philosophy has come during the shop’s current technician shortage.
After its longtime technician retired, Lakeside Collision II was down to a single body technician. Rather than let production grind to a halt, the rest of the team began filling in wherever they could. A former parts employee returned temporarily and has been disassembling and reassembling vehicles, washing cars and handling other tasks. The shop manager has jumped in too, making sure the remaining technician can focus on the work only he can do.
Kim does the same.
“I might be the one who drives you back to your house because everyone else who can work on a car is working on a car,” she said. “I might be the one who is washing your vehicle in the wash bay.”
Despite the staffing challenge, Kim said the shop recently produced $160,000 in one month with one body technician.
“We are the scrappiest team you will ever meet,” she said.
She credits that willingness to pitch in to the culture the team has built together.
“They’re dedicated, they’re loyal and they’re scrappy,” she said. “They’re doing whatever it takes to get the work out for our people.”
Planning for the Unexpected
Unexpectedly inheriting the family business taught Kim another lesson: the importance of succession planning.
Asked to rate, on a scale of one to 10, how prepared Lakeside Collision II was for an unexpected leadership transition when her husband died, she didn’t hesitate: “A cold one.”
It changed how she thinks about the future. She now has plans in writing, financial provisions in place, and has made sure her oldest daughter understands the business well enough to step in if needed.
Her advice to other shop owners is straightforward.
“Have the tough conversations,” she said.
That means discussing what should happen to the business if an owner dies or can no longer run it, putting wishes in writing and making sure the right legal and insurance arrangements are in place.
“When you have a family business, truly make it a family business,” Kim said.
Looking back, she wishes she had known more about Lakeside Collision II. At the same time, Brian was alive, not because it would have made the transition easier, but because of what she now realizes their different strengths could have accomplished together.
“Our two heads together would have been amazing,” she said.
She may not have entered collision repair because she loved cars. She stayed because she discovered how much she loved the people behind them.
Today, in an industry where independent shops increasingly compete with far larger operations for technicians, customers and market share, that’s the strength Kim is betting on.
“Authenticity has served me well,” she said.
Leona Scott