Mona Shield Payne / Special To In Business Las Vegas
Frank Scandura has opened Frank’s Mercedes Service’s second location, this one in Henderson, despite other car businesses closing because of adverse conditions in the recession.
Friday, April 9, 2010 | 3 a.m.
Owner Frank Scandura laughs with shop foreman Paul Shepherd, right, while inspecting a 2004 Mercedes-Benz at the Henderson location of Frank's Mercedes Service.
Editor’s note: This is part of an occasional series of stories on how local companies are moving past the recession.
Just because they work on expensive automobiles owned by people who seemingly have enough money to weather the economic storm, don’t think that Mercedes repair technicians haven’t had it tough during the Great Recession.
Longtime Las Vegan Frank Scandura, owner of Frank’s Mercedes Service with two locations in Southern Nevada, knew early that he had to develop a strategy to keep his small business thriving when car dealerships and competitors were closing around him.
“It hasn’t been easy,” said Scandura, who operates a six-bay, 4,500-square-foot facility with eight employees in Las Vegas and a seven-bay, 7,200-square-foot operation with four employees in Henderson.
He opened the Henderson operation Feb. 8, taking a chance that expanding his company during hard times would work out.
“We knew there was a need for a Henderson shop for years, but we never acted on it,” said Scandura, who has been repairing Mercedes and other high-end cars in Southern Nevada since 1988.
As Henderson grew, the need for a second shop serving the southern end of the valley became more apparent. Scandura tracked the growth of Mercedes ownership with a database, developing a customer list that he could direct market to by postcard. When he was offered a good lease deal in a commercial area on Sunset Road about a half mile east of Interstate 515, he took it.
When decision time came for opening the shop, he counted on a typical car owner’s behavior in hard times to hold true — they would be willing to protect their investments in their cars by maintaining them regularly.
“We know that the owners of these kinds of cars take pride in them,” Scandura said. “It made sense to us that people may not be buying new cars, but would be willing to focus on proper maintenance.”
Scandura took another unconventional step during hard times — he kept advertising.
“For a lot of companies, eliminating advertising is one of the first things done to cut expenses,” he said. “Have you seen some of the empty billboards around town? Some of them are ours now.”
In the midst of the recession, Scandura resisted laying off employees, working instead to even out work shifts so that no single employee endured most of the pain. He was able to pick up some talented technicians from dealerships that were shedding employees, giving him a solid workforce.
Scandura is positioned for his latest recession survival strategy — another expansion. He said he is doing his due diligence for a new shop in the northwest valley.
As with the Henderson expansion, Scandura has discovered there’s a growing volume of potential customers in Summerlin to support a new shop. His long-range plan is to have a new location within five years.
He also is working with a local organization to develop electric car conversions for Mercedes and BMWs.
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