However, because he is not a "car guy," he said he believes he understands how the typical customer views the repair experience.  "Most people walk in with a look on their face that says, 'I know your going to rip me off, but maybe I can keep it from being too bad,'" he said.

When he was preparing to open the shop, Fair said he visited a lot of local repair shops to get a sense of how they presented themselves.  "I needed to know what I was going to need to overcome," he said.  "The biggest concern was the lack of credibility."

When the 1,800-squre-foot shop, which originally focused on Volvos, opened in 1988, Fair said he decided the way it could set itself apart was by doing things that would ease the customer's anxiety, including inviting customers into the shop to show them what was needed on their car and offering a two-year parts-and-labor warranty.

Fair said the idea to open a repair shop was actually his neighbor's, who was a shop foreman at an area Volvo dealer and kept bugging him to become his partner in a shop.  Fair's experience included being a high school teacher and varsity basketball coach, owning a group of mobile-home sales offices, and selling stocks and bonds.

"He kept bugging me, so I finally agreed to put together a list of questions that he needed to answer and helped him do a feasibility study," he said.  "He came back after a couple of months with the answers, and I started to realize it could be a good business.

"Thirty percent of people in Orange County lived in apartments, so their car was their biggest investment, and for the other 70 percent it was their second-biggest investment," Fair said.  "There really was a need for the business, and that's the first question you ask yourself about any business."

After about four more months of talking about it, Fair said he and his neighbor formed a corporation and went into business.  He said he had made it clear at the beginning that they both needed to be able to go at least two years without taking a salary because he intended for every dollar they made to go back into building the business.

"The business relationship wasn't what he had expected," he said of his partner.  "He had the finances to go the two years, but as we worked the long hours and he watched his savings disappear, he wasn't able to handle the mental part of it.  After 17 months, he came to me and asked to be bought out."

Fair said that as he considered his options, Marc Kennedy, the first employee hired by the shop, came to him and assured him that he would stick it out with him and take care of making sure the cars got fixed.  "That meant a lot to me," Fair said, "so I promised him that if we made it, he would become a part owner in the business."

Not only is Kennedy now a part owner, but he has grown with the company to become the general manager of the 20-person facility that occupies a 20,000-square-foot building backed up to I-405, Fair said.

The shop's specialties have gradually expanded to include BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, and Land Rover, Fair said.  In about 2000, he said, he began to realize that diagnostic information and tools were going to be critical to repairing modern vehicles but that few companies, Volvo included, were making the information available.  Toyota and Lexus were one of the few, so he said the shop purchased the factory scan tool and access to diagnostic information and began repairing those vehicles.

California legislation requiring manufacturers to make emissions information available resulted in the release of some information a few years later, Fair said, followed by the threat of national Right to Repair legislation, which caused the automakers to strike a deal to release access to most of the information and tools. 

 
While the shop continues to work on a few Toyotas, Fair said they no longer market to that group because "a lot of Toyota owners are price shoppers, so it's hard to compete."

The shop's other lines are "all cars that people buy by choice because of their quality and that people are willing to put more money into," he said.

"I think that this is an area where a lot of people drive Lexus, Mercedes, and BMW, but the real key is what people are willing to spend to take care of their car properly," he said.  "People who love their cars will pay to get them fixed properly."

In order to offer value, Fair said it is important to have a highly trained staff and give them the tools they need to complete the job.  "If you're going to be successful in this business, you have to be very good at what you do," he said.

All of the shop's technicians are ASE-certified, Fair said, and regularly attend classes provided by parts suppliers such as WorldPac and Raymac.

The shop also subscribes to the Mitchell 1 electronic information system and the OE Web sites for all five of the lines it covers, he said, as well as owning the OE diagnostic tools for each of the lines.

 
"I will always keep a Mitchell subscription," Kennedy said.  "We use it about a quarter of the time."

The car manufacturer Web sites that the shop use, Kennedy said, range drastically in price--from $350 a year for Toyota to $7,000 for Volvo, which he notes is also among the most difficult to navigate.  "I don't think any of them can beat the Mercedes Web site," he said.  "They should give up trying to reinvent the wheel and emulate the Mercedes site."

Fair said the shop has received recognition from a variety of sources, including being named one of the top companies to work for in 1997 by OC Metro magazine, being selected one of the top 10 shops in the United States by Motor Age Magazine in 2006, and being chosen the Small Business of the Year by the Orange County Small Business Conference in 2007.

"I really think that if you try to extend an extraordinary experience to people and solve their problems, they reciprocate," he said.
At the heart of the success are the shop's 20 employees, Fair said, noting that they average 13 years with the company.  He said his work at the business now focuses on marketing and hiring.  "My selection process is one of the most important things I do here now," he said.  "If you can hire good people, they don't need you."

Fair points to a sign in the shop that he put up for employees -- "Only the best for our customers.  Teamwork + Commitment + Caring = Achievement."

Beyond the repair process, Fair said he puts a great deal of effort into hiring service writers that can help the shop's customers overcome their anxiety and fear, and said that their training typically takes about two years.

Fair said that when he hires a new service writer, it involves at least three interviews.  Finally, he said, he asks them and their spouse to join him and his wife for dinner.  "I really pay attention to how they treat their wife and the waiter," he said, adding that he is looking for someone who is gracious and grateful.

When a new customer comes into the shop, Fair said the service writer will give them a tour of the facility if time permits and talk about how the shop does business.  "We are trying to help the customer understand that credibility is our first responsibility," he said.  "We are also trying to understand what the customer wants from us.  Some are perfectionists that want everything done, and others have their cars towed in and only want that problem fixed."

For new customers, the technician performs an 85-point inspection of the vehicle to identify its condition and any needed repairs, Fair said.  "If you don't handle this right, the customer thinks that you are trying to sell them too much," he said.  "The service writer tells them we are doing that for our records and asks them if they would like to see a copy.

"It's important not to push it on customers and have them believe that we are trying to force it on them.  Buyer's remorse only comes when you sell them something.  When they choose to buy it because they believe there is a need, you won't see buyer's remorse."

The shop's location, visible from one of the busiest highways in the country, is now responsible for about a third of the more than 100 new customers who find their way to the business each month, Fair said, but that was not always the case.  The shop's first marketing program was to purchase a list of about 14,000 local Volvo owners and to begin calling them to introduce themselves, he said. 

Very early on, Fair said he also began to offer customers $100 off any tow bill to the shop if they allowed the shop to put a license plate frame with the shop's name on their car.  To date, he said he has purchased more than 30,000 of the frames. 

"There was a time when we were off the beaten path, and the license plate frames brought in 25 percent of our new customers."

The plates continue to bring in some customers, Fair said, but the Internet now accounts for about a third of the new customers and referrals another 15 percent.  He said several employees have also chosen to have "wraps" with information about the shop put on their vehicles.  Fair pays for the cost, about $1,000, and pays the employee $50 a month for promoting the shop.

Fair said he is very proud of the business that he and his employees have been able to build.  "There is a self-satisfaction to contributing to this life -- being a positive influence, not a negative one," he said.  "We are in a situation where we are helping a lot of people and doing it in a forthright way.  We are not the cheapest shop in town, but I think we are giving the greatest value."