Business View - January 2016 39
wasn’t because cars weren’t rusting; it was because
customers were being told that they no longer needed
rust protection.”
Now, though, Ziebart realized that it had to diversify
its revenue stream in order to survive. So it added
paint protection, interior protection, sunroof installa-
tion, and other accessories for cars and trucks, such
as trailer hitches, tonneau covers, step bars, sliding
rear windows for pickup trucks, and 12-volt electron-
ics. “The rustproofing business
was still large,” says Baker, “but
to keep growing and maintain
market share, we bought our
largest competitor, Tuff-Kote
Dinol®. That gave us 150 addi-
tional locations.”
The next level of diversification
was the detailing business. “We
bought Tidy Car®, a Florida
company, so we could learn the
detailing business,” Baker says.
“Then we partnered with a com-
pany in Canada, called Speedy
Auto Glass®, and got into the
auto glass business.” Next, the
company partnered with Rhino
Linings USA, the leading brand
in spray-on truck-bed liners.
“So we had franchises that in
the beginning were singularly
branded as Ziebart, that were
now doing automotive aftermar-
ket,” Baker explains. “Speedy
Auto Glass replacement, Rhino
Lining spray-on truck bed lin-
ers, and the detailing business
started to grow. In the 1980s,
we were doing about $100 mil-
lion in annual sales and 80 percent of our business
was rustproofing; today, we do about $170 million,
and about 20 percent of our sales come from rust pro-
tection. We did that by changing our product line and
evolving our business model.”
While Ziebart is still largely a franchise operation, the
company still operates a handful of corporate-owned
stores: three in Detroit; three in Minneapolis; one in
Chicago, two in Cleveland, two in Columbus; and one
FRANCHISE
