Having proudly won “Best Marketing Initiative” at Brent Council’s Small Business Saturday Awards, and with Small Business Saturday coming up this Saturday (2 December), we dug out one of our older blog posts.
It was in 2014, the 25th anniversary of our garage, when we reflected a little bit about the beauty of being a small (rather than big) business.
Although our points may be quite unique to our workshop, many may also apply and resonate with other small business owners as well.
Personable service
You might be greeted by a voicemail when the chief is with another customer or talking to one of the suppliers, but if you get through you will speak to a real mechanic, guaranteed. No passing on from voicemail to department to salesperson.
Flexibility
Speaking to the chief mechanic, who’s at the same time the big boss, you’ll benefit from a much greater flexibility as to how your mechanical problems get resolved. If there’s anyone who can break the rules, it’s the boss.
Expertise
Similarly, 35 years of experience in the automotive industry and 29 years of which in the setting of his own garage, mean our chief has a wealth of knowledge and expertise as well as a track record of fixing ‘mechanic challenges’ which often seemed unrepairable.
Quality
With the chief mechanic and big boss all in one person, you can be sure that the quality of your service is nothing but top notch. No passing on of quality assurance responsibility or blame. The buck stops here.
Trust
Put personable service, greater flexibility, comprehensive expertise and tiptop quality assurance together, and you can only get one thing: trust, which we think is the key to our strong local reputation and returning customers.
Backed up by the big boys
Last but not least we might be small, but we do play with the big boys, and have long standing partnerships with a number of big dealers, supplier and peers – be it for car parts, garage equipment, or knowledge exchange.
At the end of the day, it’s not about being big, it’s about “standing out from the crowd” as Brent Council’s Small Business Saturday Awards put it, about “being remarkable” as Content Marketing Institute Founder Joe Pulizzi said it … OR about “being classic” as we set out to be when we changed our name from Brent Autos (ets. 1989) to Classic BRENT AUTOS :)
