“He’s is absolutely killing it!” crowed a former Advance Auto Parts sales executive over how Billy Konaxis transformed his auto parts store into a role model of profitability. Impressed by a remarkable turnaround within two years, a corporate manager with Advance who supervises the Carquest division for independent store owners encouraged Konaxis, the owner of Carquest Billerica Auto Parts, to write a playbook. Intrigued by his successes, I dropped in for a visit.
Inside a concentrated marketplace dominated by a handful of disproportionately larger merchants promoting nearly identical products and services, it was hard to visualize how a single store owner could distinguish their image in a galaxy of shiny personalities. Fear not. Leaders attuned with their company’s internal characteristics and market forces can fine-tune a memorable corporate identity.
When Konaxis, a former Advance district manager himself, bought this distressed Billerica, Mass., location from Advance in 2017, commercial accounts were dissatisfied with the product coverage and upset with delivery service. Decentralized by strict inventory stocking rules and rigid return policies, he customized the category assortments to fit the area vehicle population. Adopting a take charge vision, he beefed up the fleet of delivery trucks to take on this densely congested slice of metro Boston where Interstate 3 meets routes 495 and 128.
If the Department of Public Works needed something by 630 a.m., said Konaxis, he’d deploy his employees around peak maintenance schedules. During snowstorms while other competitors were contemplating grounding their fleet, this store devised ways to keep their customers running.
E-commerce rivals also know well that speed wins loyalty. In an August 29 story, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon joined the cargo handling business. They fired FedEX, their primary shipping contractor. In order to control their own network and timely delivery, Amazon added more planes and trucks to feed the 400 distribution facilities. Demanding customers, including installers who buy from Carquest or Advance, will be able to receive packages within the day.
Beyond measure, friction-free online ordering at attractive prices is arguably a powerful incentive to boost spending. However, Billy rejects that reasoning. When a vehicle’s guts lay bare on the lift, Amazon is poorly designed to troubleshoot the unpredictability inside a car care facility. When fitment complications surface, these e-commerce sites are nearly impossible to call directly for a quick fix. When the clock is running, online chat sessions are impractical. In fact, the Economist magazine wrote on August 24 that the largest companies “have abysmal reputation for customer service.” They believe that the major industries need innovation. Agreed, innovation can begin with structuring a company brand that installers can relate to.
Over our lengthy conversation, Billy drew the e-commerce contrast by looking outwardly. “My accounts know that I’m here to support them.” Even though Advance’s online cataloging procurement portal supports his store, Billy believes in making it “my job to help customers turn bays.” When customer anxieties begin to overheat from repair entanglements, anyone can phone his team to cool them down with practical shop solutions.
For Billy, corporate brand matters more than branded products and services. A business with decent parts or capable people but lacks direction invites misalignment. It degrades long-term product profitability and diminishes the employee’s role that risks an organizational identity crisis.
In terms of Billy painting a face of corporate identity, he oriented his store mission around what a company strands for in the eyes of the mechanic. If that relationship requires Billy to drive 90 minutes to fetch a rotor in time to save an $800 brake procedure, he will make sure that his team is acutely aware of the impacts of a shop full of stressful disruptions. Konaxis spoke of one installer who increased their daily vehicle intake from 12 to 15. He added, “I am all about speed because my job is to help customers turn bays.” Their willingness to pay more for this partnership with Konaxis has resulted in a spike in sales volume and rising profit margins.
Brand building is an attainable process. Businesses with a sense of their own values and purpose that match up with their shopper’s pain points and frustrations have an advantage to elevate their standing in the market. So it is critical that a shopper knows in advance what they can expect. It’s equally important that the selling company knows what they intend to deliver.
Consider the universally recognizable swoosh that people associate with Nike. A February 2019 Harvard Business Review (HBR) case study highlighted the “just do it” promise targeted at shoppers to guide them to reach for their personal potential expressed through their sporting goods and apparel. Every person much like a company brand, writes HBR, has a core inside out personality that can engage others in an aspirational calling. Closer to the auto care industry, I adore the 3M tagline: “Science. Applied to Life.” It is compact, factual, and characteristically rooted into their history.
To leverage brand identity building for your organization, HBR outlined three interlocking sets of questions. With an openness to brainstorm, HBR suggests forming workgroups with an intimate understanding of the company’s internal workings and external stakeholder perspectives.
Step 1: Looking at your loyal external stakeholders, what best defines the ideal relationship with your customers and vendors? What offerings appeal to winning their hearts and minds? At the end of the day, how do you want to be perceived?
Step 2: Looking at your internal stakeholders, describe which direction your company is pointed and what it intends to accomplish each day. What skills does the company excel at and what makes it better than the competition? Consider how the employees treat other people and how their work ethic fit in.
Step 3: Integrate both steps into what the company can promise. Which core values resonates with the employees and the customers? Keeping both stakeholders in mind, what does the company stand for that they can verbalize in one sentence?
What I gleaned from Billy Konaxis’s walk the walk was pure straight talk. Concise words describing trust, reliability and support revealed the culture inside Billerica Auto Parts. Their team, instilled with the call of duty, are prepared that their commercial accounts do succeed. What I am also reminded about this encounter with Billy is how many seemingly alike businesses fail to capitalize on verbalizing their DNA, the foundation of celebrating its soul with the marketplace.
Coming up with a memorable company identity may require several revisions cautions the study’s authors. To determine whether the brand aligns and feels right with its intended collaborators, HBR recommends shorter phrases over lengthy paragraphs. Stick to relatable words over fancy corporate jargon so that no one thinks that you are out of touch with their reality. If everyone connects with those personalized descriptions, you’re on your way to humanizing the company narrative.
HBR admitted that scribbling out a company brand on the back of a napkin can be done quickly, but to pen a striking one may demand more time in the interest of authentic relationships and a healthy balance sheet. It may mean continual reinventions as the industry landscape evolves. Certainly though, isn’t that a playbook worth writing?
