Longview, Wash.--Ask Tom Sarysz what’s helped his business, Evergreen Paint Inc., succeed over nearly three decades in a competitive paint jobber market, and his response includes four things that collision repair shops are also finding helpful in their businesses: diversification; a relentless focus on the customer; employing and empowering good people; and having consistent, repeatable processes in place.
Like most of his shop customers, Sarysz said he isn’t interested in overextending his company’s reach but rather working to be the best in the market that it serves.
“We prefer to focus on areas we call home in the Lower Columbia Basin: Kelso, Longview, St. Helens, and the greater Astoria area,” Sarysz said. “That’s the market we can comfortably serve with the high level of support we try to provide.”
Given that, Evergreen Paint has sought stability and growth through diversification of its offerings. It offers both DuPont and PPG automotive paint lines, for example, to give its shop customers alternatives. Sarysz said those manufacturers give his business the type of support he wants to give his shop customers as well.
But just as many collision shops are expanding into, say, mechanical repairs, Sarysz said he has used his company’s 10,000-square-foot facility in downtown Longview to stock and offer not only autobody and automotive refinish supplies, but also residential and industrial coatings.
“It helps us ride through the ups and downs of specific markets,” he said. “And it actually helps us serve our shop customers better. We can supply the detailing supplies they need, for example. They may need to paint their office walls and their spray booths. They may need industrial coatings for a floor or a frame rack. Those are all things we can help them with.”
Evergreen Paint also sets itself apart by being customer-focused, Sarysz said.
“Other suppliers may try to poach away customers with price, but they can’t back it up with the level of service we provide,” said Randy White, who started with the company in 1989 and has been its outside sales representative for more than a dozen years. “They have to discount their prices because they can’t outservice us. That’s something we pride ourselves on.”
Sarysz said customer focus is more than just service. It’s really understanding your customers’ needs and concerns.
“I’ve grown up in the industry in a small town, so I don’t know my customers by number, I know them by name,” he said. “I’m not getting information about them from surveys. I’m getting information by talking with them and from my sales staff.
“I’m here every day,” Sarysz said. “I answer the phones and spend time behind the counter. In some shops, we’re selling to the second generation we’ve worked with. We’ve grown up together in the industry.”
Customer focus also means doing more than selling and delivering paint, Sarysz said. It’s about sharing with shops some of the best practices in the industry. It’s about bringing training, whether it be I-CAR or manufacturer classes, to the area using Evergreen’s onsite training room or taking it right to the shop. It’s about helping shops with inventory control, purchase analysis or regulatory reporting.
“I can’t be successful without successful customers,” he said. “I don’t want to bury them in inventory they aren’t going to use because that won’t help either of us in the long run. We just want to get them what they need when they need it.”
The third key to Evergreen Paint’s success, use of consistent processes, comes naturally to Sarysz because of his own penchant for organization, he said.
Sarysz said he began working for his brother, company founder Mike Akers, while still in high school, and gravitated toward business and accounting classes at Lower Columbia Community College. By the time he became general manager of the business in 1989, he said, his business skills were a strong complement to his brother’s sales skills.
When Akers died in 1999, Sarysz said he purchased the business. Since that time, he said he and his 10 employees have developed systems or procedures for virtually everything the business does, from handling stock to its four daily delivery runs, to hosting a product clinic or even the company’s annual customer appreciation barbecue, which draws as many as 300 people to the store.
“Having processes in place is helpful, but also don’t have things so set in stone that you don’t make improvements,” he said. “SOPs have to continually evolve to make them better and better. I try to empower my employees to provide input or to make decisions to try things to improve the systems we have.”
Sarysz said if asked, he would offer his business customers several pieces of advice based on his own experience in running his business. First, he said, stay connected to your community.
“I can’t open my checkbook every time local kids need help with sponsorships, but I never say ‘no’ either,” he said. “We’ll donate soap and wash mitts for the softball team’s carwash or paint when they need to paint a float for homecoming. That sort of thing is what makes you part of your community.”
Second, go above and beyond for your customers, Sarysz recommended. If an Evergreen customer is in a bind, he said, the shop will vary from its normal delivery system to help that customer out, even if it’s just to meet a coastal customer at a half-way point.
When one customer drove in for something she needed and ended up with a flat tire on the way back, Sarysz said he sent an employee to help the woman with the tire.
“We don’t just talk about going the extra mile for the customer,” he said.
Lastly, he recommended that shop owners build relationships with successful vendors and manufacturers, much as he has with PPG and DuPont.
“Value us as more of a partner than just a supplier,” Sarysz said he’d tell shops. “Look to us as more than just a supplier of a can of paint, but a real partner in your business. Because your success is my success.”
