With some proper budgeting, you can keep providing benefits for your employees.

Shops need to always be training.

Investing in safety has significant economic benefits.

Green shops benefit from healthier work environments and lower operating costs.

By taking the proper steps, marketing on the Internet can have impressive payoffs for your shop.

The current state of the economy – bleak and depressed as it might be – may offer a silver lining for the collision repair industry. That silver lining comes in the form of the assurance that your employees won't be bidding farewell anytime soon. Yes, there are always employees you'd give anything to forfeit, but for the ones you do want to keep, the economic downturn can offer you some much-needed time to step back from your worries about losing key performers and instead spend that time forming a retention plan.

At Korte's Collision, the husband and wife team of Matt and Lisa Korte are still surprised by their five-year success story. Matt can still remember handwriting estimates in the early days. And Lisa recalls balancing the books with their four-year-old son building Legos at their feet. Their tag-team approach to running a business and a family keeps them much too busy to realize their success.

To say Dreher Collision Center – with locations in Appleton and Brownsville, Wis. – is family-owned would grossly underestimate the impact of family on the business. This family comprises nearly 50 percent of its employee base, which is currently at nine.

Planning a trip to New England this year? Aside from the changing leaves, Shawn Moody might have another reason to bring you here — the one-stop I-CAR Gold Moody's Collision Centers in one of soon-to-be four locations in southern Maine. Moody's ultimate goal is to operate in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.