The proof is in the pudding: It’s hard to find qualified auto professionals, let alone people who want to do this work without starting their own shop. So, what are shop owners to do? For Cumming, Georgia-based Grave Robbers Sheet Metal Replacement, the answer is found in the shop’s growth and customer service strategy.
“A lot of times I want to get [another employee] so I can be a salesman and go around to all these body shops [that refer work to us]—really I could hire five more guys—but I don’t want to get that big,” said President Jeff Kipfmueller, who expressed many of the same frustrations shop owners are familiar with when it comes to hunting for new hires.
Grave Robbers, according to Kipfmueller, is somewhat resistant to growth, relying solely on word-of-mouth in order to protect its standard of quality and maintain its commitment to perfection.
“If you do good work, it really just snowballs from there. We’re referred by everybody because we do the metalwork, and we do it right and in a reasonable time,” he said.
Since THE SHOP last talked with Grave Robbers back in 2011, the business has gone from a two-man shop to four. Although there is talk about the possibility of doubling the shop size another 5,000 square feet, Kipfmueller said he would like it to just stay where it’s at.
“The smaller the shop the better,” he explained. “We double-check everything. I look at it, another one of the guys looks at other guys’ work—there’s no ego here. It's easy to miss something, so we make sure these cars are right. It’s more [manageable] this way.
“We’re a smaller shop, but we turn out a lot of cars.”
On average, Grave Robbers works on four cars at a time, with up to 15 cars in the shop. It takes between 40 and 50 hours to complete each project and most cars are returned within 4 to 6 weeks. In the last three years, the shop has completed 52 cars each year. Last year, they reached 62.
Moving forward, maintaining those relationships with the body shops it works with is Grave Robbers' highest priority.
“When you’re building your house, you don’t have just one person building the whole house. It’s the same with a car. You have different people doing what they’re good at and that’s how you get a better-quality job,” he said.
“We’re not painters, we’re not Bondo guys, we’re not electricians—we’re metal guys that want to get these cars right and we’re good welders who know how to fit these panels.
"It really is an art to do the welding with thin sheet metal.”
