Look Who's in the Running for an Expense-Paid Trip to CARS or NACE

To help with your recruitment efforts, download ASA's "5 Reasons to Join" flier for free by clicking on the ASA Chairman's Club tab in the Members Only section of the ASA Web site. Plus, find other tools and helpful information to help you take the lead in the 2009 competition.

Want to win a free trip to CARS or NACE this year? Then start recruiting members to ASA! The Chairman's Club has always been an integral part of the Automotive Service Association's membership recruitment program. For every member application processed at the national office that is submitted by a regular member, that member will earn 5 points. During a special promotion in March, for every member who was recruited in that month, the recruiter received 10 points.

The member with the most points Sept. 15, 2009, will receive an expense-paid* trip to CARS or NACE. In the case of a tie, a drawing will be held to determine the winner. To be eligible for the trip, you must have a minimum of 50 points. Here are the current leaders as of April 6, 2009:

*Expenses covered - round-trip airline ticket plus registration to the event and four nights in a hotel. Food and beverage are the responsibility of the winner. All accommodations must be arranged by ASA.

Mitchell 1 Offers Industry Stats

In October 2008 ASA, in conjunction with Mitchell 1, launched the Web-based ShopMeter member benefit that places key performance indicator (KPI) data at the fingertips of today's shop owner. ShopMeter provides national and regional averages on a number of data sets, including average repair order dollars, top 10 repair jobs, average parts sales and the most frequently serviced vehicles.

As part of the ongoing promotion of this valuable data and member benefit, Mitchell 1 and Automotive Service Leaders (ASL) - another ASA member benefit provider - partnered in March to provide members and the industry with an educational Webinar on ShopMeter. The ASL Showcase Webinar, "ASL Showcase and ASA - Know the Numbers. Use the Numbers," will offer suggestions on how to use the data to implement tangible improvements in business operations. The one-and-a-half hour presentation was attended by approximately 30 businesses. The discussion was interactive and provided beneficial information. To hear the Showcase, visit TurnAroundTour.com.

Rick's Independent Car Kare Receives Blue Ribbon Award

Congratulations to Rick's Independent Car Kare, an ASA member-shop in Irving, Texas, for being one of 56 recipients nationwide to receive the prestigious 2009 Blue Ribbon Small Business Award! Presented annually by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the shop will be honored at America's Small Business Summit 2009 May 11-13 in Washington, D.C. The Blue Ribbon Small Business Award was designed to honor businesses showcasing financial growth, significant investment in staff training and motivation of employees, strong community involvement and customer service, and smart business planning.

National News

• Representatives from The Haefer Group Ltd. recently visited ASA's headquarters in Bedford, Texas, to provide a progress report to the staff. Pictured are co-owners Susanne Connors Bowman, right, and Wayne F. Haefer, president. In February, ASA began polling all active shop members as well as former and prospective members to allow them to help ASA shape the organization and ensure that we continue to deliver what members want - and how they want it. The Haefer Group specializes in value consulting to membership organizations. Survey participation levels were impressive, and the results will now be carefully reviewed. ASA thanks all survey participants for their valuable feedback. More information about the survey results will be provided in an upcoming issue of AutoInc.

• The Mechanical Operations Committee met at ASA's national headquarters in Bedford, Texas, April 3-4, to discuss various business items including the challenges facing automotive service shops as a result of the economy; opportunities that will increase the value of an ASA membership and flexing ASA's capabilities to respond to change.

The Education and Training Subcommittee is exploring new ways to attract young people into the industry. The Marketing Subcommittee and the Education and Training Subcommittees determined that the method of communicating with younger generations of customers is changing rapidly and therefore new communication methods - such as texting and use of social networks - should be explored. The Parts Quality Subcommittee is reviewing the findings of a recent survey to determine their next objective. The meeting provided the opportunity for the subcommittees to discuss the status of current activities as well as new tasks.

Pyle	Caspersen

• Ron Pyle, president and chief staff executive of ASA, and Denise Caspersen, manager of ASA's Collision Division, recently attended the Women's Industry Network conference in Dallas, Texas, at the Omni Dallas Hotel Park West, March 22-24. Pyle led two sessions of the breakout class, "Conflict Management Strategies for You and Your Company." Caspersen was recently named to the WIN board of directors. See the story below

Yellow Pages Quotes ASA President

Trade and consumer press representatives often contact the Automotive Service Association for information.

And ASA helps them every way it can. Because it's one more way to elevate the public's awareness of ASA and the thousands of members it represents.

One of the latest organizations to contact ASA is the Yellow Pages Association. It quoted ASA President Ron Pyle in a press release it issued March 26. The release said:

"April showers bring hail damage. This spring, when consumers need auto body repair, they'll turn to the Yellow Pages. The 'Auto Body Repair/ Paint' heading receives more than 51 million references annually, with the highest usage levels in April.

" 'The weather is a major determining factor of auto body repair,' said Automotive Service Association President Ron Pyle.

"Of the people referencing this heading, 49 percent need dent, fender, windshield, bumper, or front end work. The average dollar amount spent by these consumers is $1,010.

" 'The collision repair industry is driven by the consumers' needs for quality repair and available funds, so in the current economy, consumers are choosing to pay repair costs over purchasing a new car,' Pyle said.

"Users of the 'Auto Body/Paint' heading are overwhelmingly 18-to-49-year-old single males who rent their residence, live in the Western portion of the United States, and earn between $25,000 and $60,000 a year.

"When referencing the heading, 79 percent of consumers are looking for a local business. Of the 36,000 auto body establishments nationwide, the 50 largest firms account for only 8 percent of the industry's $25 billion total revenue.

" 'There are very few national auto body repair franchises,' Pyle said. 'The majority of business is done with independently owned establishments, and consumers should look for shops with credentials or affiliations with such groups as the Automotive Service Association, the Better Business Bureau, the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE), the Inter-Industry Confer_ence on Auto Collision Repair (I-CAR) and the Automotive Management Institute (AMI)."

WIN Board Elects ASA's Caspersen

ASA's Denise Caspersen has been elected to the board of directors of the Women's Industry Network (WIN).

Caspersen is the manager of ASA's Collision Division.

Also elected to WIN's board was Nancy Ng, the manager of insurance services and business development for Central Canada for PPG Canada.

"We are pleased to welcome Denise and Nancy to our board," said Kim White, WIN's newly elected chairwoman and district sales manager for FinishMaster.

Caspersen - who was the 2008 recipient of the AkzoNobel Most Influential Women award - serves as secretary for the Collision Industry Electronic Commerce Association (CIECA) board and is a member of the advisory board of the United Recyclers Group (URG). She also is a member of the Collision Industry Conference (CIC) Database Task Force and the National Automotive Service Task Force (NASTF) collision committee.

As manager of ASA's Collision Division, Caspersen works directly with the elected division director and is responsible for the communication and activities of the Collision Division's Operations Committee. She coordinates various projects as directed by the committee and its subcommittees and also develops and maintains relationships with other industry groups to strengthen the association and its role in the collision repair industry.

Caspersen previously served ASA as the association's research management specialist. She has 10 years of experience in the automotive service and repair sector conducting market analysis of various industry segments, formulating proprietary industry studies and supplying fact-based research on behalf of ASA. She also managed ASA's online Information Center containing an archive of industry information to aid automotive business professionals. Caspersen joined ASA in 1997.

She holds two degrees from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla., including a master's degree in mass communications.