Interview with Ronnie Corbin,
There are talented people who can create new ways to do
things better. There are also good leaders able to execute a plan with
extraordinary efficiency. Ronnie Corbin, Founder and President of SourceOne Car
Wash Company, is one of those rare individuals who can do both.
Formed in 2006, SourceOne has made it easy for a growing
number of private investors looking to profit from the car wash industry to
enter the business without the daily challenges of building and managing a
location. Under the Legends Car Wash brand, Ronnie and SourceOne have already
opened three express-exterior tunnels. As of today, SourceOne has another seven
Legends Car Wash locations at various stages in the construction process, two
of which are scheduled to open in the next couple of months. Within the next
two years, SourceOne projects to have 24 Legends Car Wash locations running in
four geographic markets, making it one of the industry’s largest chains.
Ronnie’s interest in the car wash industry first
materialized with the purchase of an upscale, self-serve, automatic car wash
facility built in 2000. Within 6 months Ronnie broke ground on his second car
wash facility and finished construction of the third in 2002. Ronnie and
his associates have since secured interests in 2 full-service car wash
facilities in Little Rock , Arkansas
and opened an impressive express wash, oil, lube and detail center in Tulsa , Oklahoma
This month I’m glad Ronnie agreed to take a few minutes to
share his insights on growing a car wash business, fast. In addition to car
washing, his extensive career also includes notable accomplishments in leading
public relations initiatives and spearheading multimillion dollar corporate
expansion projects which have influenced his approach to the business. Talk to
Ronnie for just a few minutes and you’ll feel energized by his enthusiasm and
vision for how to profit by washing cars; below are a few excerpts from our
conversation.
ANTHONY ANALETTO: With plans to
open 24 car washes in four markets over the next two years, what property and
proximity characteristics do you look for when selecting multiple sites to
build within a single market?
RONNIE CORBIN, PRESIDENT, SOURCEONE: For us, the acquisition
of land is a key capital component that also provides value creation potential.
Correct site selection is fundamental to our success. We invest an enormous
amount of time evaluating properties. Basic demographic information such as
rooftop density, car counts, registered vehicles, and household income is all
important. Every Legends Car Wash for example is located in a residential trade
area with a traffic count near or above 30,000 cars per day (CPD) or vehicle
density of 35,000+ in a three-mile radius. When selecting properties though, I
recommend looking beyond the basics.
For example, one of several characteristics we weigh when
selecting land is how active the community’s nonprofit organizations are. Large
student populations and a high concentration of 503C nonprofits can provide
some evidence of fundraising activity, but it’s also a good idea to talk to
people and learn about the community before you build. We’ve spent a lot of
time creating fundraising programs at Legends Car Wash to make it easy for
local organizations to raise a lot of money promoting our services. If you ever
stop and look at many successful car washes and regional chains, you’ll often
see that they were started by someone who lived in, understood, and had strong
ties to the community where they began. There’s no question that organizing
fundraising events requires a lot of work, but it can really fast track your
acceptance into a community and develop a loyal customer base quickly,
especially if you build in a community with a large concentration of
nonprofits.
ANALETTO: What staffing and
training challenges do you face trying to deliver consistent customer
satisfaction across multiple locations?
CORBIN: The real challenge was to design a scalable system
based on centralized management and total automation that eliminates nearly all
manual labor from the business. We’ve done that. Legends Car Wash can deliver a
consistent service to our customers in wash quality, time of service, and
procedures across all of our locations. Everything is standardized from the
point of sale terminals to the conveyor, to the daily operations, to the
financial reporting. Each location requires approximately three onsite employees
to make that happen. We’ve even built-in backup systems for the conveyor,
hydraulic, and air systems that can be activated immediately to eliminate down
time for the car wash.
That said, we still struggle with employee turnover. It’s still difficult to find hard-working, dedicated employees with some mechanical ability and superior customer service skills. Because we’ve intentionally opened in communities with large populations of high school and college students, they make up most of our labor force. This has some drawbacks, but we allow flexible shifts to accommodate their changing class schedules, and have had success actively promoting from within. We’ve also invested time and money to create a 12 module training program that we deliver onsite at every location. Each module is two and a half days in length and every employee completes one module per month, starting with car wash 101. Our focus on training has not only improved the operation of our business, but helped to reduce employee turnover.
That said, we still struggle with employee turnover. It’s still difficult to find hard-working, dedicated employees with some mechanical ability and superior customer service skills. Because we’ve intentionally opened in communities with large populations of high school and college students, they make up most of our labor force. This has some drawbacks, but we allow flexible shifts to accommodate their changing class schedules, and have had success actively promoting from within. We’ve also invested time and money to create a 12 module training program that we deliver onsite at every location. Each module is two and a half days in length and every employee completes one module per month, starting with car wash 101. Our focus on training has not only improved the operation of our business, but helped to reduce employee turnover.
ANALETTO: Have you had to make
any equipment, process, or detergent adjustments to accommodate different
conditions in the 4 states where you are building?
CORBIN: No, each of our locations is nearly identical. Our
tunnels are all 135 feet, and we run them at a 130 car per hour chain speed. We
don’t speed up or slow down for changing volumes. Both the tunnel layout and
equipment room at each location is the same, and we have a webcam at each that
allows an employee to perform emergency adjustments guided by a remote
maintenance technician. I’m looking to eliminate variables and reduce the
amount of labor I need to deliver a consistent customer experience. I don’t
want to pay extra people to decide when to change the conveyor speed or
remember equipment maintenance procedures at a specific location; it’s simply
not profitable.
ANALETTO: How did you decide upon
your final service offering and prices?
CORBIN: We actually offer five wash packages ranging from $3
to $12 with a typical average ticket of $7.22. Our goal is to provide our
customers with choices that fit their needs, from the simplest wash and rinse,
to the most sophisticated combination of cleaning and polishing solutions that
can be offered in an express tunnel car wash. Today, “do-it yourself at home”
customers still represent about 45% of the market. We’re trying to drive those
people into our wash by delivering convenience, consistency, and value.
Offering a $3 car wash with free vacuums may be a great value, but it isn’t
necessarily enough to get those people out of the driveway. For an express
exterior wash to really succeed, especially in the beginning, it has to be
combined with good marketing, advertising, and community involvement. One
indicator that our customers really like our model is the growing popularity of
our unlimited wash club. Once a customer signs up and receives their RFID tag
that can be read on any lane, the location will have improved its cash flow,
softened weather impact, and removed a little more labor from the business of
washing cars.
ANALETTO: What activities or
advertising are you doing to establish you car washes in the communities they
serve?
CORBIN: When we go into a market, we’re looking to develop a
brand quickly. Although about 2% of revenue is invested in advertising, the
real focus of our marketing plan is on fundraising. Advertising is great for
building traffic and we’re getting especially strong results from our website
and batch email activities, but our goal is to build a loyal customer base that
we can leverage within, and across, geographic territories. It goes back to
becoming a true member of each community in which we open a Legends Car Wash.
We’ve created an innovative fundraising program that makes it easy for any 503C
or other qualified tax exempt organization to receive an ongoing revenue stream
by urging their friends and family to visit our locations regularly. Anyone
interested can read more about this specific program at our website, http://www.legendscarwash.com.
What I think is most important for anyone looking to emphasize fundraising as a
core part of their marketing, is to realize that they must commit a lot of time
and effort to the project for it to succeed. Organizations that partner with us
commit to staffing a kick off event to create excitement, promoting us in
newsletters, on bulletin boards, and working with us to promote our wash to
their email lists. We commit to make it easier for them to do that by
continuously re-supplying them with banners, flyers, cards, and reminders
customized for their organization. Logistically, it takes a big investment in
both time and money to cultivate these partnerships and keep them moving
forward, but like with most things, the harder you work, the luckier you get.
ANALETTO: What are your plans for
the future?
CORBIN: We partner with private investors and right now
there are a lot of people looking to invest in the car wash industry. When we
enter a new market, we’re pushing to open multiple locations at one time. Our
plan is to build a brand so that when a Legends customer from Wichita ,
KS goes to a Legends Car Wash in Tulsa , OK
Ronnie can be contacted directly at: rcorbin@socwc.com
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