Faith and Family Form the Foundation for Success at Greg Solesbee’s CARSTAR Hayden

By: CARSTAR Auto Body Repair Experts | 10 Shares 859 Reads

August 11, 2023 // Franchising.com // CHARLOTTE, NC - At 12 years old, Greg Solesbee was working as a janitor in his family’s collision repair business in southern California, sweeping floors for $1.25 an hour. Today, his 11- and 14-year-old children are working in his facility, CARSTAR Hayden, located in Hayden, Idaho, where they wash cars, for a little bit better hourly wage, while his 20-year-old son runs the parts department and works in the front office.

Solesbee, the youngest of seven, learned the value of hard work early in life. All of his siblings were a good bit older than him, and all worked in various aspects of the family business, Solesbee Auto Craft. Solesbee acted as their shadow, learning to pull bumpers and fix body panels. By 14, he was doing spot welds, and his future was set.

He found a beat-up 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback abandoned in back of the shop, and continued his automotive education, learning as he restored the car to serve as his high school transportation. Today, Solesbee still has the Mustang, and has collected trophies at car shows for the car that inspired his passion.

After high school, he spent two years on a mission for his church, and returned to work in his family’s collision repair facility alongside his brothers. He worked in every position from technician to estimator to production manager and chief operating officer.

Greg Solesbee’s Tips for Building a Strong Foundation

Take on the tough tasks. Do all the hard work at each step of your careerand you’ll be more capable when you advance to the next role. You can also find unexpected personal growth when you earn your accomplishments through your efforts.
Do your research. Have resources you can rely on like your paint partner and an organization like CARSTAR to truly understand your market and shape your business to serve it.
Be grateful to your team and family. Celebrate accomplishments with your employees. Thank the people who helped support you. This helps ensure everyone is in your corner and you’re all working toward the same goal.
Find your own path. Know it will be hard, but that’s part of the adventure.

“I wanted to learn every job and how it impacted every other role in the shop,” Solesbee said. “I was focused on lean production and process improvement, but it’s not always easy to implement new methods unless everyone is on the same page. So, I spent time understanding from the technicians the challenges they had, and worked to create common processes and procedures. Soon, we were able to see our sales grow and our productivity increase.”

But like many family businesses, Solesbee found it difficult to implement all the changes he had in mind, and decided he wanted to do his own thing.

“All by brothers are so talented at what they do in their roles in the business,” he noted. “I was the young kid pushing them to do things differently and creating turmoil among our team. So, I decided to sell my share in the company to them, and set out on my own.”

Solesbee and his wife sold everything, packed up the family in a fifth-wheel RV and headed north to Idaho. An admitted adventure seeker and former motocross racer, the thrill of the unknown was part of the appeal.

“It was a seven-year process and I let my spiritual foundation guide me,” Solesbee said. “I had never worked anywhere else but my family’s business. I’d never even applied for a job. But I had a vision for the kind of collision repair facility I wanted to run. I had heard about CARSTAR, and knew that was the right fit for my approach to this business.”

Solesbee bought a CARSTAR license in 2015, and in 2017 bought a building that had previously housed an automotive business. He worked closely with CARSTAR to study the data on his market, the mix of vehicles and the demographics, and also relied on the resources from his paint company Sherwin-Williams. Soon, he was growing CARSTAR Hayden by fixing cars the right way and his reputation was growing by word of mouth.

“We have the most technical certifications of any repair business in our area, and we just earned our Tesla and Rivian certifications to serve all the EVs we are seeing here,” said Solesbee. “We also repair a lot of trucks and SUVs given the geography and weather in Idaho. We work hard to help all of our customers through the process and they pay us back with return business.”

Solesbee and his family have spent the last seven years living in the fifth-wheel together as he built his business, homeschooling their children and creating an incredibly close family bond. Together, they are building the next generation of the family legacy, all founded on faith, hard work and a sense of adventure.

“My philosophy is ‘operate like a family, run like a business,” said Solesbee. “This approach not only creates a strong organization, it inspires an atmosphere of trust, compassion and caring that pays dividends far beyond sales and monetary success.”

SOURCE CARSTAR

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