When Aberdeen-based oil and gas manager Tom Giles was faced with the tough job of sacking scores of colleagues he knew it was time for a career change.
The Canadian ex-pat spent more than 20 years working in the oil industry but decided to pursue his love for cars by launching a vehicle bodywork repair franchise.
Revive! Auto Innovations opened in April 2021 and has continued to grow with new premises opening in Portlethen last year.
Dad-of-one Mr Giles was working for Weatherford UK as drilling services operations manager when he decided to switch career paths.
New type of business for Aberdeen
He said: “The oil moves up and down a lot and during Covid one of the last things I had to do was lay off about 26 people. Most of that was by Zoom. A lot of those folk I had hired and trained.
“It was hard on me.
“Just then I thought I’m not really enjoying this anymore and applied for voluntary redundancy.
“I was looking for business opportunities and franchising seemed to be the thing.
“I’d always been interested in cars and spent way too much money on them over the years and always found it hard in Aberdeen to find someone that would do small bodywork repair.”
The business specialises in small to medium repairs, such as bumper scuffs, scratches and door dents.
The team, which consists of four full-time workers, carries out repairs at the customer’s home or place of work – meaning they do not have to take time out of their day to drop their vehicle off and pick it back up from a bodyshop.
Big career change
In its first full year of trading Revive! generated revenues of more than £220,000 with Mr Giles forecasting £410,000 for 2023.
It represented a growth of 94% from its 2021 takings, and made the business the second fastest-growing branch in Revive!’s 47-strong UK-wide franchise network.
Mr Giles, who also worked offshore for 12 years, said: “Having worked as a petroleum engineer for three decades, little can prepare you for such a significant career change, as well as becoming a business owner.
“It’s been difficult. I won’t lie about that. I was the manager of a department but I had lots of people helping me. But now I have to do everything.
“However, after our success during the early stages of the business, the team and I are keen to see just how far we can grow.”
The business’ rise to success has been far from been plain sailing – with the Granite City weather being a major obstacle during the firm’s first winter in operation.
Takings reduced by 59% compared to the summer. It was then Mr Giles decided to invest in new premises.
He said: “Having come from Alberta, Canada in 2001 and working on oil rigs for much of my career, I’m no stranger to bad weather – but, believe me, the Scottish winters can often be just as unforgiving.
“We, as a team, have faced many obstacles over the last few years, but we have adapted to weather the storm – in some cases quite literally!
“Our first winter was quite tough.
“If we didn’t have the premises in December last year then I don’t think we’d have got any work done.”
Cost increases tough on business
The rising cost of fuel and supplies has also been a concern for Mr Giles with bills more than doubling.
He said: “Fuel has almost doubled from what it was this time last year. Right now I’m paying about £2,000 a month for diesel for all the vans and it used to be between £900 and £1,200.
“Supplies themselves have gone up 20-30%.
“It’s tough because I can’t just add that on to my prices.
“We got the premises in April last year and electricity was high then. It’s just a lot of cost.”
The growth of Mr Giles’ SMART (small-to-medium-repair-technique) vehicle repair business has caught the attention of the Scotland FSB Small Business Awards judges in the highly-competitive Start-Up Business of the Year category.
