In 2004 out of frustration of a bad car servicing company, Grant Brady founder and CEO of Car Service City built his multi-million rand company.“I took my car to a one man band workshop and they took me for a ride and kept my car over Christmas.Because they had completely messed it up instead of fixing it”“I had this friend coming from overseas and I fancied taking my friends to the bush, had my car fied and they had completely messed up my car so I didn’t have a car for Christmas. They closed their shop and there was nothing that I can do about it.
“I took my car to a one-man band workshop and they took me for a ride and kept my car over Christmas.”
I thought there will be a space that will open up in the market where you can have a trustworthy company a brand your daughter or your wife can go to that has credibility and won't rip them off.”Even though Car Service City has over 65 Branches Nationwide, Brady says these did not come without any challenges. Infiltrating a market with established big corporates guiding its doors is hard. Adding that they had to work really hard to ensure that the customers left their premises happy with the service they were providing. “Big competitors pushing against you, they’ve got big budgets, they’ve got bigger arms. Whereas we started off small but we became lean, we grew quite quickly and we gave fantastic service, we worked long hours; we made sure the customer came first.We weren’t chasing profits;we made sure the customer was the winner at the end of the day.”
To keep in touch and informed about the ground struggles that franchisees might experience, Brady chose to keep six stores as his own. “In the olden days when we firststarted, the head officeowned a lot more because that’s how you grow. You have to get to a number to get your name out there and slowly over time I’ve sold a branch off to a new franchise. But in that selling you need a couple as the head officeso you can feel the pulse of the industry, so you can understand what’s happening with the customers. The industry changes quite often, if you want to know how things are working you’ve got to understand what the franchisees are going through and that’s why you’ve got to have one or two or three franchises.”
He says that as a franchisor they don’t stop there, they also visit each and every store often. Frequent communication is vital when in franchise, whether it be on a technical level, branding level or just a pop in and say hi level, Brady adds.The frequent communication is also done to ensure that franchisees are following the brand guidelines. But even though this is done, franchisees are trained on the corporate identity of the business; this is to ensure that a standardised brand is communicated to the consumers. These training goes from lower level to higher managerial levels.
Brady states that from the day he started to this current day when approached by a franchisee potential he looks for energy and passion. Adding that if an individual has energy and is passionate about succeeding and doing well they become the right candidate. Because you can teach anybody anything if they have the passion and willing to work hard. So those are things that have not changed over the years.
Car Service City Vital Stats...
Establishing year:2004
Start-up: Bootstrapped
Number of establishments: 60