- PNC is proud to support "Business Forward," where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in central Illinois.

(bright inspirational music) - Welcome to "Business Forward."

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, Scott Smith and Sue Smith, co-owners of Detail Peoria.

Detail Peoria is Peoria, Illinois' premier experience for vehicle detailing, paint production, ceramic coatings, and more.

How you like that plug?

- [Sue] That was awesome.

Thank you.

- [Matt] I kind of said it too fast.

- It works.

- It's okay.

So, but welcome, both of you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- So we're gonna get into the business here in a second.

But I really liked, I love talking to entrepreneurs because you go through that grind of the ups and downs of a business, especially a family business, especially husband and wife, right?

So you've been a small business owner for over 30 years, is that correct?

- Actually, 30 years next year.

- Oh, that's cool.

- That's our anniversary.

Yeah.

- That is great.

- Yeah.

- So what business did you originally get into?

- So originally we started SS Marine products.

We manufactured marine accessories that you could go to like Bass Pro Shops, Cabela's, Academy, and buy our stuff off the shelf.

We also supplied boat builders with several products for 27 years.

- [Matt] Gimme an examples of boat products.

- We did keel shield.

It goes on the bottom of the boat on the keel, kind of like a bandaid for the bottom of the boat.

If you would hit something or beach, you wouldn't get any damage.

- I got it, I got it.

- Yeah.

- So I'm gonna come over here, Scott.

So working side by side, now I'm not gonna pick a fight and get you two going back and forth, but, you've been married, what, 40 years, is that right?

- 40 years next year.

Yes, sir.

- 40 Years.

And you've worked side by side a majority of that time.

What's the mindset going into each day knowing that you have to thrive for the business to thrive?

Thrive as a couple for the business to thrive?

- Pretty much after a few years, we kind of knew what both of our positions were.

I took care of day-to-day operations, manufacturing.

Sue did front of house sales.

We had a large sales force, external sales force.

We learned right away, we weren't the best salesman in the world.

- Okay.

- So we went out with different rep groups.

And so we stayed in contact with those guys as far as, so they would call her for sales and more technical questions.

I would be able to supply what we needed for making dates for when the product would be at each manufacturer's plant or at each distribution facility.

And then it'd grow kind of exponentially over the years and bringing our sons involved.

- Okay.

- But we, but that's kind of how we knew what our roles were.

So basically we'd have breakfast and coffee in the morning, maybe, and then we wouldn't talk again until lunch.

We all kind of knew what, (Sue and Matt laugh) we both knew what our roles were, right?

- [Matt] Right, well, you stayed in your lanes, right?

- Yes, we did.

Correct.

- Yes.

Yes.

- We both stayed in our lanes and that's what, I think, the reason that we, we both knew what our strengths and our weaknesses were.

- I'm gonna get to your son later in the show because something popped up on my phone just last night that he did a little infomercial thing and it leads to kind of a funnel to where you put in your name and number and all that.

- Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

For the Detail shop.

- For the detail shop.

- Right.

- Pretty cool stuff.

- Yes.

- So back to this relationship.

So you're more of the COO.

- Correct.

- You're more of the CEO?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Okay.

- I drive it, I spin the plates.

I am the chaos coordinator.

- I love that term.

- Yeah.

- So what is a typical day in your business?

Because you have multiple businesses, which we'll get into, but what is a typical day being in your position look like?

Because it's gotta change every hour.

- It does, and sometimes every 15 minutes.

On my side, I am more behind the scenes, as far as Detail Peoria is concerned, and it's the first time in 27 years that we have not physically been together 24/7.

He is in Peoria at Detail Peoria, I am in Farmington, where our other business, Level Up Coatings and Composites is.

I am behind the scenes on Detail Peoria.

As far as accounting, I'm HR, because we offer benefits to our employees.

So I kind of take care of the chaos behind the scenes.

And then I'm trying to scale Level Up Coatings and Composites, so I'm kind of running two businesses at one time.

And it's interesting because then at the end of the day, when we reconnect at night, we have different experiences that we can share, which we've never had that before.

- Oh, that's cool.

- So it's interesting, where I think it's strengthening our marriage and our relationship and also our business relationship a little bit differently than it did in the past, where we were connected.

- Well, if you think about it, there's gotta be a different type of appreciation.

- Yes.

- Because you're seeing two different businesses, really now, two different lanes.

- Yeah.

- And so that's interesting.

So you have those two businesses.

Are you still in the marine?

- With Level Up Coatings and Composites I am, yes.

- So that is that.

- So before we were approached for the buyout, I actually had spun off our coatings business.

We do polyurea coatings, which is similar to LINE-X, but it's our formulation for the marine industry.

I mean, it would work anywhere, but it's our formulation that has no VOCs in it.

It's 100% solids, UV stable.

It's an amazing material that cures in less than 30 seconds.

- All right, let's slow down because I don't know what you're talking about.

So this is the coating we were just talking about.

- It is.

- Okay.

- So I have builders using it inside the holes of the boat now.

- Oh.

I gotcha.

- For waterproofing, for strength.

We work with GE Wind Energy.

We are an approved supplier.

We make the escape hatch for the nacelles that are up on the wind turbines, the big wind turbines.

- Really?

- Yeah.

So the container that looks like, on top of the wind turbine?

- Yeah.

- If you hike up there, there's an escape hatch.

It's actually manufactured locally in Farmington.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- Oh, that's really cool.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- That's neat.

- Yeah, I'm really proud about that, and it took a while to get that approval.

- I bet.

So in your business, do you have, do you outsource or do you have patents or like, how does that even work?

- So, I had patents and trademarks- - All over?

- All over the place with Gator Guards.

We still do a lot of trademarks and copyrights.

I have learned that trade secrets are my best friend because you technically don't have to publish those.

So if you go for a utility patent, you have to publish the inner workings.

- Okay.

- And then someone just goes in and views it and changes it 10% and does their own thing.

So I've learned that trade secrets, in certain circumstances, actually work better.

- That is awesome.

- Yeah.

- Interesting.

So you've had some ups and downs in this business and I don't know how far you want to go down that hole, but at the same time, we were talking and someone, or some people were looking at a takeover, or a hostile takeover, is that- - 100%.

- Is that right?

- 100%.

Sometimes your best friends are your worst enemies.

- Wow.

- As far as what we ran into in the past and wasn't once, but twice.

So, you get to that point where you wanted to expand your company, you look for friendly investors, and those friendly investors aren't so friendly right up until you get ready to sign your life away, so to speak.

- Yeah.

- So we happened to do, we did our due diligence as well, and we just kind of slowed the gears down a little bit.

And once we realized that it wasn't, maybe this wasn't exactly what we need to be.

So maybe bringing someone on isn't the right thing to do and let's not expand this year.

Let's keep it to the breast and we will just not be maybe as profitable this year or we'll take a loss or maybe even, you know, to the worst point of filing a bankruptcy.

But in turn, it's still yours.

It's not somebody else's, where they can pick it up and take it somewhere else and take your hopes and dreams with them as well.

So I think that's kinda the point where we were at.

- I think, if you think about it, every business is individualized, so it's not necessarily a bad thing to take on a partner or a good thing to take on.

It's just, it varies.

But I had somebody once who is a pretty big business owner in town, and he was telling me, he said, "The worst partner is a partner."

- Exactly.

- Absolutely.

- Exactly.

- And so you've gotta be sitting here thinking, "Okay, I've got this person in here," and I was telling you a story before the show.

I've been in the same boat.

- Right.

- But you, I don't know if the money hurts as much as the trust or the mistrust.

- For me, it's the trust issue.

- Yeah.

- We grew, waited, so I started in a garage.

A lot of backstory to how I started, but basically started in a garage and a few months after I started, we got our first order from Cabela's.

I called him, he quit his job.

So he's been working for and with me for all these years.

And we grew way too fast.

Cash flow, had nothing.

Brought in a trusted friend that helped me with my business plan when I started the company.

He lied on financials, got four other guys to come in, and they did the hostile takeover.

I owned all the patents and trademarks in my name personally.

Told him, "See ya, goodbye.

I'm gonna start on my own."

Bought them out, had to file bankruptcy, started new from scratch, went through everything again, and then came 2006 to 2008.

And the first thing hit was the leisure market.

So we again, and there is some backstory to that, that we can go on when we have a much longer time to talk.

- (laughs) Okay.

- Needed someone to come in and help us.

And it was, again, a trusted friend came in, said, "$25,000, you pay me back $25,000 in, you know, whenever you pay me back, you can have your company back."

Scott worked for free for a year and a half and it took us five years to get our company back and we paid a good premium to get it back.

- You know, what I give you credit for is actually being able to talk about it.

- Yeah.

- Because failure, if someone says in a business that they haven't failed, they're lying.

- They're not in business, then.

They're not really in business.

- [Matt] Well, that's true.

You're not in business.

- So the way that I've had to digest it, and the first time was incredibly difficult.

But now that, you know, all these years and you look back, if I didn't go through those failures, I would not be on the path that I am today.

I wouldn't be in the position I am today.

- Wow.

- And I am very willing to share with anyone, if you don't fail, you're never gonna learn anything because there's things that you're going to learn when that door closes, another one absolutely opens.

And I believe you're pre-destined to a path.

And those doors that shut are keeping you on your path that you're supposed to be, and one point, the big doors open up, and all of a sudden, there you are.

And I feel like that's where we are right now with Detail Peoria and Level Up Coatings.

- And mentally, if you think about it, you're not getting paid.

So there's a mental drain there to say, "I'm working, basically, sweat equity every day to build this business."

But you said something, Sue, that's interesting, is if you think about it, you paid a price for the education to be able to scale.

- Yes.

- Mm.

- [Matt] That's how I would look at it.

- Yes.

Absolutely.

- Interesting.

Yeah.

- Difficult when it happened.

- Definitely.

- But very true.

But it has made us a little hardened when it comes to potential partners.

- Yes.

- Or investors just because of what we've been through.

- And what's nice though is, is as you start to scale, it's easier to say, "I don't need an investor."

- Yeah.

- When your business is thriving, you just said it, the doors open.

- Yeah.

- That's interesting.

- Yeah.

- So go back to something you just said about, I always find it interesting how people start their businesses.

So you said you started in a garage.

- I did.

- Let's go there for a second because I think this is- - Do you really wanna know?

You really wanna know?

- I think this is cool because, you know, Apple started in a garage.

- They did.

I was third generation State Farm Insurance agent, was going to take, my grandfather was retiring, my dad eventually would've retired.

I would've been the largest agent in the state of Illinois and State Farm changed their hiring practices because of me.

I was gonna have to quit and go work in Bloomington for three years before they would allow me to compete.

So I was at a crossroads in my life.

- Mm.

- My dad bought a product.

They were looking for sales reps for selling over east of the Mississippi.

I reached out to them, thought it was a great product.

Scott and I flew out and saw 'em.

We became their Midwest sales representatives.

We invested about $5,000 of our money into their company, promoting 'em on our end.

And our first orders came in and they decided they couldn't afford to pay me commission.

So I hired an attorney, got out of the non-compete, got away from them.

And that's how our first business started, and that's when I started in a garage.

Cardboard boxes was my desk and my fax machine was on a cardboard box and it was wonderful.

It was wonderful.

- We did our first patent on the kitchen floor.

- Yeah.

- Really?

- Oh, absolutely.

- What a crazy story is, we started to look, "How are we gonna build this product?"

So pre-internet, pulled out magazines and all of a sudden we look, there's a 3M helpline.

She picks up the phone, calls the 800 number, a gentleman answers it during lunchtime, who never answers the phone, picked up her phone call, starts working with her from there on out.

He proceeds to tell us six months later, he goes, "I never answered that phone.

I was filling in for the gal who happened to go to the restroom and picked it up."

This gentleman has 30 some patents with 3M.

The rest is, like they say, the rest is history.

- That man, we were best friends until he retired.

Took me under his wing.

So we were very involved with 3M and Dow and several companies.

- I mean, we're not talking little companies here.

- No.

- These are Fortune 100 companies.

- Absolutely.

- That is crazy.

And it's not, to me, that's not an accident.

I mean, for him to be able to sit there.

- Again, it's the path.

- It's the path.

- It's the path.

It's the path.

- So who's the, are you both creative, both come up with ideas, or?

- I think I'm a little bit more creative, but he challenges me.

- Okay.

- So that's a good thing.

- Yeah.

So you're more the inventor, that was the word- - I do.

- I was thinking of.

- Yeah, I do.

But it's funny though, but I see him now, I see a completely different side of him at Detail Peoria, that there's times that I never knew existed, which is really fun to see him really thrive as a leader, and leading people and driving that business.

Because typically, if I was over there, I would've jumped into that role.

So it's good seeing him step out of his comfort zone.

- I think what's cool about it is, maybe you knew it, maybe you didn't, I don't know.

But you had it in you.

- Always.

- It's just you didn't have to do it.

- Right.

- (laughs) You had a boss, right?

- Exactly.

(group laughs) Well, and another challenging thing was as well is for us to get our foot in the door, some of these manufacturers, we had a long conversation about being a woman-owned company.

I was like, "I don't have a problem with that."

But when we would go down to Southern states and start doing business, they wouldn't even speak to Sue.

Miss Sue, they're like, "Well, who's," well 'cause the man has the pants, right?

- That's crazy, yeah.

- So there was more deals done on back docks and stuff that I was involved with and I would walk out and tell her, "Hey, we're done.

We're in."

- Well, and the same thing internationally.

We actually won Exporter of the Year for the state of Illinois.

And we won the first international exporting award for "IBBI Magazine," and there were times where we would go exhibit overseas that I would literally just sit and not say anything because I'm a woman and there's certain countries that absolutely, automatically gravitate to the guy.

So it's been a big learning curve and it's much more equal now than it was 28 years ago.

But it still has room for improvement.

- Yeah, and those are good examples of when, people today, like I have four daughters, so I always say, I talk about my kids on the show all the time because, you know, my oldest is 29 and I always talk to 'em about that confidence, female confidence, be a boss.

- Yeah.

- Be a CEO.

- Yeah.

- Be a, you can do anything that I'm doing, whatever.

But it's hard for some to realize what did happen 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago.

And which is crazy because now you don't even think about it.

There's so many female leaders, as there should be.

- Right.

- But it's just, that's interesting.

- Yeah.

- So Level Up Coatings, what is the core, how would you describe that business in 30 seconds?

Like hey, what is the pitch on that, to sell that?

- We sell protective coatings, but the protective coatings that we sell cure in less than 30 seconds.

So if you're building something and you need to coat it, there's times where you put that coating on and then you would have to wait 24 hours to go to the next step.

With my material, it's instant.

You spray it, you go to the next step.

So the people that use it are actually improving how fast they get parts out.

So if you're building a boat, they're getting two to three boats out more a day, less labor, better product.

It's just amazing material.

- Is that something that you can buy retail or is that just in your store?

- No.

It is, you need specialized equipment.

So this is strictly going to the OEM.

- Okay.

- You have to have a plural component heated sprayer to spray it.

One thing that we're doing is, as we just in the few weeks decided we are scaling Level Up to do cerakote coatings.

So we're gonna go more into a powder coating edge.

I bid a job for 63,000 parts a year and it looks like we might've gotten it.

- Really?

- So we're going to expand.

Yeah.

- That's pretty cool.

So like the paint protection film that you have, is that what you're talking about?

- No, that's completely different.

- That's something different.

- Yeah.

- See, this is why it's confusing.

This is why I wanted to have you on.

- So I'm a spray.

So do you know LINE-X Truck Bedliner?

If you look at- - Yes.

- Okay, that's what my material would look like and it's actually sprayed on wet.

So the paint protection film is Detail Peoria.

- I did not know that.

- And it looks like a clear bandaid.

So it's a clear piece of film.

- I saw that online.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- That's pretty cool.

So then you do window tinting.

I actually do know what that is.

(laughs) - Right, right.

Yeah.

- Yep.

- And then, so do you get a lot of high-end cars that come in for- - We do.

- The detailing piece.

- We do, we have a wide variety of cars.

Probably, we just had, we've had cars from private collections come in.

We actually have a concierge service where I'll go out and pick up, say if you have a collection or whatever, or want to keep it under the wraps where it's at, we'll come get it in our enclosed trailer and we'll come pick it up and bring it back to our shop and we'll do whatever you would like done to it, as far as interior, exterior, we do paint correction.

And as far as new cars, we do the paint protection film, like Sue was talking about, which is the clear material like you saw in that video.

And we apply that to anywhere from just a partial on the front of a car to a front clip, all the way up to a full body car.

We just had a gentleman brought his Mustang, Shelby, from Des Moines, Iowa today.

- Really?

- To little Peoria, Illinois for us to take care of his car.

And he saw us online, maybe.

So that's kinda one of those things where, when we opened this shop to the 7,000 square facility, whatever it was, our whole goal was to have it right here in central Illinois.

You don't have to go to Chicago, St. Louis, or Indianapolis to have it done.

We can have it done right here, right here in town.

And so now we're pulling work from Chicago and from other cities.

- That's great.

- On a daily basis.

- That's great.

And then once you do the job that you do, you're best in class.

That word of mouth, 'cause, you know, there's people, I'm just not a car guy, but there's just people, I've had enough people on, Kauth & Mayeur, we had John Bearce, and Mike Miller, and all these different people on this show.

And people who are car people, they love their cars and they talk.

- Yes.

- Yes.

- They want the best of the best for their car.

- Yes.

- And so you start that word of mouth, now I know, it's clicking in my head right now about how to scale even more because the more you get out and the more you show, because here's what happened.

I did all my homework on you.

I think that's probably why I was getting pinged last night.

But I did all my homework and I was sitting there going, "I didn't even know you could do that with these cars."

- Yeah.

It's amazing.

- Certain things.

You know, simple things.

- Yes.

- Tinting.

- Yes.

- But so, yeah, go ahead.

- Don't mean to interrupt you, but it all stems from what we started with.

The parts that we made in the marine industry for the boat parts was to protect the boat investment.

So we haven't wandered very far.

- No.

- Now we're just in, now we're protecting boats, we're protecting cars.

And it's a protection of that investment, whether it's the Honda Civic down the street or it's your first new Porsche.

We've already had one repeat customer, he was a Bradley graduate.

His mom and dad got him a brand new Honda at the local dealership.

And he had it for barely over a year and a half.

He got a big job.

He bought himself a brand new entry level Porsche and he brought it right back to us.

- That's cool.

- To take care of it.

- Yeah.

- To protect it, and he wants to protect that investment.

- You know, when COVID hit, people were looking for things to do.

- They were, and for our industry, the marine industry exploded because people could shelter in, they could distance, but they could go out on the water or they could go out into the woods.

I mean, the RV industry exploded.

And we went through almost two years of significant growth and someone called us and asked us if we would like to sell our accessory division.

And I always wanna talk to people like that because tell me what I'm worth, right?

So they came back and told me, and I don't even think I told Scott, I just said, "No, I think we still have more in us.

I think that we're gonna keep going.

I appreciate it.

We're still having fun."

They called back in two weeks and asked what our walkaway number was.

So I stuck my head in Scott's office and asked him and he told me, and I'm like, "That's mine as well."

And I go, "So I'll pitch it to 'em."

It was twice what they offered.

They took it and we sold our accessory division and literally left with a box and walked out of my office and sold for eight times EBITDA, which is amazing.

- That is amazing.

- So we're very blessed.

We're very blessed.

- Another great story.

- [Sue] Yeah.

We're very blessed.

- I mean, you could write a book.

- Yeah, it would be really long and probably really boring, but yeah, I could.

(laughs) - [Matt] It's not boring because it's the American dream.

- Yeah.

- My dad always would use, I'd always laugh as he says, "That's Americana right there."

- Yeah.

- That's the American dream.

- Yeah.

- Very cool.

So what's next for both of you?

- A good 10 years.

So I turned 60 this year.

I wasn't ready to retire.

I know Scott wasn't ready to retire.

Love what I'm doing.

The team that we have at Detail Peoria, they're amazing men and women.

- [Matt] How many people do you have there?

- We have, during high season, we have 10 to 12.

Right now we're down to eight 'cause it's a little quiet right now.

But just an amazing team.

Highly skilled.

We're looking at maybe opening up another satellite location in another city, but Level Up Coatings and Composites, I've got my fingers in some things right now, that could be good for the community - How many employees there?

- [Sue] Right now I only have three.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, so how do you train?

- In house.

- Do you?

- Yeah, that's the best way to do it.

I asked a lot of questions, we went to a lot of seminars when we first bought into this with different manufacturers to figure out what the best products were.

And that was the biggest thing is, because there's so many, this is changing so quickly, you know, of what car, what's going on with the car's changing so quickly.

- It's a very cool business and I appreciate you both coming on.

- Thank you.

- That was a quick 30 minutes.

- Yeah it was.

- I still have more questions, but I usually always do when I love the guests, so I appreciate it.

Keep caring, keep doing great things.

- Absolutely.

- I'm Matt George and this is another episode of "Business Forward."

(bright inspirational music) (bright inspirational music continues) (bright inspirational music continues) (bright inspirational music continues) - Thank you for tuning in to "Business Forward," brought to you by PNC.