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“Bucking The Trend!” How Fred Timbrook Scaled to 20+ Rural Rooftops (and his playbook for 50 stores) | Fred Timbrook, CEO at Timbrook Automotive
“Bucking The Trend!” How Fred Timbrook Scaled to 20+ Rural Rooftops (and his playbook for 50 stores) | Fred Timbrook, CEO at Timbrook Automotive
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About this episode
Fred Timbrook, CEO of Timbrook Automotive, explains how his rural-focused dealer group is “bucking the trend” while many metro stores face margin pressure. He ties growth to operational speed—especially in collision—plus ancillary businesses like Honda power sports, which he says deliver better ROI and higher profitability with a lower cost of entry. The conversation also covers his dual life as a pastor and dealer principal, hiring standards shaped by faith, and why he avoids private equity so he can build equity like a real-estate model. He’s targeting 50 rooftops by age 72.
Topics:
rural dealer expansion strategy
collision growth through speed and throughput
power sports as a high roi ancillary
faith and leadership in a dealership
hiring standards and church overlap
avoiding private equity and building equity
cross-selling and multi-rooftop staffing
per-rooftop vendor pricing challenges
health and longevity as business strategy
targeting 50 rooftops by age 72
Cars:
Dodge Challenger
Today I'm joined by Fred Timbrook, CEO at Timbrook Automotive.
We dive into Fred's unique diversification into Power Sports, the intense efficiency required to run a high-volume collision center, and the personal philosophy of a dealer who also serves as a senior pastor.
This episode is brought to you by:
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Topics:
12:00 Why Working Harder For The Same Beliefs Backfired.
14:20 The 54-Year-Old Dad Who Made His Son Buy The Company.
18:25 Why Rural Stores Outperform When Metro Markets Struggle.
19:45 The Surprising Side Business With Better ROI Than Cars.
20:50 Why Customers Reject $400 Car Payments But Buy $500 Toys.
27:35 The Collision Metric That Determines Feast Or Famine.
33:55 Why Small Stores Pay The Same As Large Ones For Software.
39:20 The 72-Year-Old Goal That Drives A 50-Store Empire.
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Filter:
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Dodge Challenger
"...right? Scout and Sonia feel on all these kind of challenger brands. And just in general,"
Why Working Harder For The Same Beliefs Backfired.
The 54-Year-Old Dad Who Made His Son Buy The Company.
Why Rural Stores Outperform When Metro Markets Struggle.
The Surprising Side Business With Better ROI Than Cars.
Why Customers Reject $400 Car Payments But Buy $500 Toys.
The Collision Metric That Determines Feast Or Famine.
Why Small Stores Pay The Same As Large Ones For Software.
The 72-Year-Old Goal That Drives A 50-Store Empire.
Select text to request an explanation
What drives business and revenue growth
in the collision business is speed.
So if I'm an insurance company, I'm dispensing
and I've got an option of shop A or shop B.
Shop B is backed up, they're slow.
I'm gonna have a rental car for four weeks
or I've got this shop over here
and they're just in time.
I'm gonna have it in and out in a week.
That drives where that vehicle goes.
Today I'm joined by Fred Timbrook, CEO at Timbrook Automotive.
While Metro dealers face mounting margin compression
and high volatility, Fred is bucking the trend
by expanding deep into rural markets
and high margin ancillary businesses
like power sports and collision.
He breaks down the operational discipline
needed to manage a geographically spread out group
and explains why he's doubling down
on a path to 50 rooftops.
A big thank you to our sponsors
for making this episode possible.
Experian, lot links and Nomad Content Studio.
And now let's get into the show.
Fred Timbrook is on the CDG Podcast, Fred, welcome.
Thank you, yes, he's so good to be here.
I'm a new listener.
I'm a new listener, new part of this, excited to be here.
Thank you so much for the invitation.
I'm looking forward to our conversation today.
It's gonna be great.
20 rooftops later, over two decades in the industry,
closer to three, I wanna say, but you'll correct me there.
We've been...
in business for going on 36 years.
But my, as far as my time at the lead of the company
has been the last 25.
So just this summer will be 25 years.
Incredible, how was March?
March was great.
We closed out Q1 up, believe it or not,
we're bucking the trend a little bit.
With our existing brands up 1.3%
over the same quarter last year,
including our stores we added,
we're up about a little over 10% year-to-year,
but obviously can't really count that.
But yeah, we're up in a down market, so I'm happy.
March was great.
We set a new company record in March, so...
How do you reconcile that?
I mean, last year in March had the tariff pull forward,
which impacted many people's forecasts.
You have 20 rooftops, mostly rural stores.
I like the quote you said before we started recording,
you were telling me, I got 20 rooftops,
but they're rural rooftops.
These are like two to three metro rooftops.
Yeah, 20, probably four metro.
So yeah, so we're very geographically spread out.
I grew up in a rural setting, I'm like a mountain guy.
Although, someday I'm gonna live in Miami,
I just haven't made it there yet,
but I'm gonna get there.
And if it's the last day.
Why Miami, why Miami?
Well, I really like South Beach, believe it or not.
I know a lot of people don't.
And I travel a lot internationally,
so from an international airport perspective,
it just kind of meets both of my criteria for that.
So easy on and off, great weather.
Interesting.
I just can't afford it yet.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Well, I have to ask you,
why do you travel a lot internationally?
Oh, so not so much for pleasure.
My wife and I do a lot of international work,
other countries.
So in the last, shoot, since 2025,
it was in India, Pakistan, Africa,
several Central American countries.
So we do a good bit of international work
and have some pretty interesting stories that go with that.
I'm guessing faith-driven work.
Yes, yeah, very much so.
Faith-driven, it could be anything from,
we feed a lot of people.
And so I don't, it's just like the give.
I mean, anybody can give,
and I encourage people to give.
We love givers.
So we need people to support things,
but I think there's another value that when you go
and you actually hand things out yourself
and you love people and people that have no chance whatsoever.
We feed people, we share,
well, I don't know what faith you are,
but I'm a Christian, we share the gospel with people.
We feed people, we clothe them,
house them, we do orphanages.
So it's a myriad of things.
And I think every trip's just a little bit different.
It's amazing.
So I'm Jewish, it's actually Passover right now.
And I thought a lot about this conversation.
I actually reached out to someone on our team
who is extremely close to Christian faith
because I said Fred is a first of his kind
on the CDG podcast who is a minister,
but also a dealer principal.
I haven't had that conversation yet.
Imagine that.
So car dealers and attorneys here,
pastors, priests here,
like how do you reconcile that?
You asked earlier, how do I reconcile
being up in a down market?
Like how do you reconcile being a pastor, car dealer?
Well, tell me about it, like what, how did this happen?
Right, where did this, give us,
I wanna understand what went through your mind
over these past couple of decades as you're,
you know, you rose through the dealership world,
built a spectacular group here, 20 plus rooftops,
and as you mentioned, you're bucking the trend right now.
But you also have this another,
this massive part of your life
where you're leading a community in,
I wanna say Maryland, that's where your church is.
Tell us about that story.
Yeah, so the, you know, I kinda,
you know, some people will talk about that,
you know, they had this epiphany moment and God,
you know, they had, they saw a light from heaven
and God called them into, to ministry.
Mine was not like that.
I ended up, you know, I've done a lot of teaching
in different churches over the years
and my wife and I helped launch a church 11 years ago.
The church I'm now the senior pastor of,
which I wasn't at the time,
it was just part of the launch team.
But that church was based on,
and actually before it became a church,
we operated two recovery homes for addicts.
So even though my wife and I,
neither of us are former addicts,
we ran recovery homes for addicts,
men's home and a women's home, residential.
And wow, you talk about getting a baptism in fire
when you begin to help people come out of a life of addiction,
not just to break addiction,
but to holistically see healing in every area of their life,
even to the point where we hire and employ a lot of those
that came through that.
So I kind of fell into it.
We launched that church.
The gentleman that was the pastor at the time
had a bit of a moral failure, had to step down
and I guess you might say the rest is history.
And I kind of found, although I love the car business,
I actually love this a little bit more,
but it takes money to do a lot of the things we like to do.
So, you know, a lot of people say,
well, I have a few habits.
Well, this is one of my habits
and I have to work to support my habits.
So, you know, I work, we sell cars
and we use so much of what God's given us
to then be able to do a lot of things,
not just locally, not just nationally,
but literally globally around the world.
And it's just been a tremendous ride
and not one that I ever imagined.
I mean, I was gonna be a stockbroker.
So, this was not my, not the path I thought I'd take.
I'm guessing you did not grow up like this.
Well, I grew up, I actually started working
in a car dealership when I was 14 years old.
My dad was a general manager of a Pontiac Cadillac store.
I had no desire whatsoever to be in the car business,
but I spent a lot of time there as a kid.
I would even go to work with him in the evenings
and sit there and watch the TV,
have a little crank knob on it.
But it just wasn't something I ever wanted to do,
but when I was in college, the dealer passed away.
My dad ended up buying that store in 1990,
Pontiac Cadillac store.
And so, by the time I graduated,
my degree was in finance.
I really was gonna go really a different route.
I thought, well, we're off to a good start here.
Started in the car business at 14,
the same degree in finance, the same.
Let's keep going.
You too.
I went in full-time.
I started then when I was 22 full-time writing estimates
in the body shop and spent the next
probably nine years in fixed operations.
So my start, unlike most dealers today,
I started on the back end of the business,
not the front, so a little different perspective
coming into the role that I now am in.
Now, in terms of your philanthropic contributions
and involvement, would you say you put more weight
on your time or your money?
I know it's kind of arbitrary to what I'm asking this,
but I'm trying to understand,
you travel a lot, you minister in your church, right?
So it seems like you are, compared to the average,
and again, I'm using my own personal assumptions here.
It seems like you spend a lot of time
with just philanthropic involvement.
Am I correct with that assumption?
Yeah, unfortunately, I can't claim time
on my tax return, but definitely if I could,
the time is the most valuable.
I mean, they make more money every day somewhere.
I mean, you can always generate additional income.
You cannot, time's gone, it's gone.
So if I'm traveling and I've got 32 hours
or 34 hours to get to an event,
I hit the ground running, I don't stay long,
I don't stay extra.
I mean, we get in, we get out, and I come home.
So time is really valuable, but I think it's both.
I applaud people that serve.
I want our employees to serve the community.
I want them to serve in athletics and faith-based things
and whatever, but I want people to give too.
I don't think it's one or the other.
I think there's a combination of both
to where it's not just giving what we've been entrusted,
but also giving of yourself.
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Tell me more about operationally.
You have this huge part of your life,
as you mentioned, involved with your faith,
and how does that impact your operating style?
Do you hire based on looking for certain values?
I'm sure you do, but what are they?
Tell me a little bit about how it's shaped your role
as a dealer principal.
It's changed me.
So I'm not the same guy I was 25 years ago.
God's completely changed my life,
but I was a very abrasive.
I'm still driven, but just driven,
I'll probably have a better character now.
I don't necessarily go after a certain characteristic
in a person.
I mean, I look for obviously attitude and work ethic
and all those things that everybody else does,
but I have a few people, very few that work for me
that also attend the church I pastor
because a couple reasons.
One, I found out that people think there's a golden handcuff
that doesn't exist.
They think, oh, we believe the same,
therefore I don't have to work as hard.
And I think differently.
I think if we believe the same,
you should actually work harder, not less.
And so most people don't want to be held
to the higher standard.
So for that reason, then also it's pretty tough
when you have to fire somebody that goes to your church.
That's never a pleasant thing.
That hey, goodbye, we're parting ways,
we're going a different direction.
I love you, see you Sunday.
You definitely have to create some insulation, right?
At least I think that's what comes to mind.
Like there's, you know, it's just like hiring family, right?
Like you report to someone else in a company,
they're your direct manager,
like and ultimately they're accountable.
I'm not involved, obviously I'm involved,
but there's a layer that keeps it objective.
And I think it's a really good practice
because then it's, you take some motions out of the picture.
And I've worked with lots of family and friends
over the years.
And I can tell you that some of it
has been extremely successful and others have not,
but it really depends on the way it's structured.
I was so fortunate to have, my dad was my best friend.
He's still alive, we just don't work together anymore,
but we had such a dynamic relationship
that most father and sons I think don't get to experience.
Even for the last, I don't know, seven years
that he worked for me, we shared an office,
the same room, desk to desk, and shared the same space.
And we just had a great relationship, little different.
You know, I've worked with my dad,
I work with my daughters now, but you know,
what was kind of odd was my dad was 54
when he sold me the business.
I was 31, he was 54.
And he said, I think you'll be a better leader
for the company than I am.
You're more of a risk taker, you're more financially astute.
I'm willing to sell you the company, I'll work for you,
but you're gonna pay full sticker.
I was like, what?
So he said, I want you to feel the weight responsibility
of debt, I want you to feel the weight responsibility
of what it means to have to buy something, pay for it.
The futures of everyone that works on you,
rises and falls on your success.
And so at 31, he sold me the company
and then we switched hats,
which you wonder how that would be,
but he became a great number two.
In my mind, he was still number one.
And I honored him to the day that he left and quit working,
but on paper, he was number two,
but always number one in my book.
And how many rooftops at the time you sold a business to you?
Just one, we had that was the Pontiac Cadillac business.
He moved to Florida and I think maybe it was 0405,
but he bought at the top of the market,
he ended up selling an 08 at the bottom and moved back.
But he moved to Florida,
we acquired about three more stores in 2007.
So I called him, I said, hey dad,
you're getting a paycheck every month.
Would you like to actually come back to work
and feel good about it?
And he goes, I would, I really would.
So he moved back at that point.
And then he took a few years off
and then we worked together for the next 10 years again.
Incredible.
It was very instrumental in helping us grow.
There's nothing like a good old personal guarantee
to get you right away, kickstarted and figuring things out.
And you got to solve that next problem
because there's no one bailing you out.
It's the end of the line, it's do or die.
I actually wanted to ask you about
private equity backed dealer groups.
I assume that you're working all with your own capital.
Am I correct to that?
Yeah, primarily.
Fortunately, unfortunately, yes.
There's definitely pluses and minuses to both,
but I've just kind of done that very much similar
to a real estate model, build equity,
pull the equity user for the next down stroke,
build equity, and we've been able to grow that way.
It becomes, it's difficult to buy a big deal
and would be literally impossible to buy
a bigger deal that way to this point.
Other than buying from the bank and borrowing
from the bank along with personal capital,
we've taken no private equity up to this point,
but I'm not saying we wouldn't, but we haven't.
But is that a reason you've gravitated
towards these smaller stores,
or has it been regional proximity,
which has been the driver of that?
So, I think, I want to say it's my specialty
because I'm not opposed to going to bigger markets,
but I like rural markets.
I like the quality of life that you can have
in a rural market.
We're geographically spread out somewhat,
so maybe 250 miles would be my farthest drive,
but in a rural market, there's time.
We talked about, you asked me earlier,
what's more valuable, the money or the time?
Well, time hands down 100% of the time
is always more valuable.
So, if I have less of a commute,
if I have spent less time in traffic,
if it doesn't mean that I work less,
it means I work harder, and the harder I work,
I can support a better life.
What good is it if I spend 16 hours a day at work
and then commute back and forth and get up
and do it the next day, and I have no life?
So, for me, the quality of life, for me,
my family, our employees, their families,
like it's of utmost importance.
Tell me also about this march over performance, right?
How are you achieving this growth
at a time when many are declining,
especially with so many brands in your brand mix?
How are you doing this?
Like, where are you bucking the trend?
Is it lower cost structures in the rural markets?
Is it, you know, ability to pull customers
from out of town?
Like, what's the secret sauce for you?
Here's another advantage of a rural market.
So, highs typically aren't as high,
lows typically aren't as low.
So, a lot of the, sometimes what we'll see,
and I tell you we're up in the Q1,
but sometimes we're on a tail behind
what's happening nationally.
So, I believe we're gonna continue to grow this year,
but we're seeing great growth this year
in our two Honda stores up significantly.
We're this, so Q1 for us, driven by Honda cars,
and even Honda PowerSport.
So, motorcycle division is up 22% first quarter.
So, Honda this year for us is driving the most,
has the biggest impact on our increase this year
from a company standpoint.
How is the, how are the economics of PowerSports?
Like, why even do PowerSports?
Why invest your time in that arena?
So, return on investment is better
than a car business.
It has a very low cost of entry.
So, for instance, working cap for,
we're what's called a level five powerhouse,
which is the biggest powerhouse
that you could build for Honda.
They have five levels.
We have two of those, one in Virginia, one in Maryland.
But, it's a lower cost entry.
The PowerSports industry as a whole
has always been about 25 years behind the car business.
So, for us to move into the PowerSports business,
we initially had a leg up.
I think you'll see over the last 10 years
has been a lot of car dealers
adding that piece to their portfolio,
probably more Harley stores than Honda.
But, for us, we're in the mountains.
So, I need side-by-sides, I need four-wheelers.
We need street bikes and adventure bikes
and all those things.
But, here's what never fails to amaze me.
Buying a PowerSport, it's a pleasure purchase.
Like, you want to buy a four-wheeler.
You have to buy a car.
That's a good and bad thing.
That's a good and bad thing.
Right, so, I have seen this so many times.
We're trying to close a deal.
The customer says, I can't pay $400 a month, you know?
And, for whatever reason, we don't do a good job.
We don't close the deal
because they can't afford $400 a month.
But, then they go a quarter mile up the street
and spend $500 a month on a side-by-side.
So, because it's exciting, it's a fun buy, you know?
So, it's been a great addition.
You know, we did 189 PowerSports last month
between two stores.
And, so, it's a, you know, it's not a big revenue
because obviously, some of those could be $2,000 a unit,
some could be $35, but revenue-wise,
it's not a lot of revenue, but it's a fun business.
It's a nice little piece.
It's very profitable.
So, I'm in it.
I'm looking at another PowerSport store right now.
Oh, you're looking to grow it.
Look at that.
Motorcycle guy.
That's where, you know, I could hire anybody to sell cars,
but you have to have a bike person to sell bikes.
So, it's a little bit more of a niche.
I call it here at CDG.
I call it vitamins versus painkillers.
What's a vitamin?
What's a painkiller?
A vitamin, you might need it.
You might not, a painkiller, you have to have it,
but you're actually bucking that statement
because what you're saying is that
they'll give you a hard time on that $400 payment,
but then when they really want something, you know,
that something pleasurable, like this four-wheeler
or whatever it is, they'll just pay all the money for it
because they want it.
Yeah, it kind of bucks the theory of any elastic demand.
Like people have to have a car, right?
Like this goes against basic economics,
but I'll run it while it works.
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I think this entire topic of this dealer diversification
has fascinated me because we are at a time
of just historic disruption in this industry
or at least attempted disruption.
As I've mentioned, right?
Electric vehicles, shifting powertrains,
direct to consumer, right?
Scout and Sonia feel on all these kind of challenger brands.
And just in general,
all these alternative forms of mobility, right?
You have ride sharing,
now you have autonomous ride sharing.
Tesla, full self-driving.
It's just this astronomical,
astronomical of all these forces
that are tackling mobility
because it's such a big space, everyone needs to move.
And so this topic of diversification has fascinated me.
One thing I wanted to ask you about,
given I think I've seen you lean into this is collision.
I know you have a pretty meaningful collision business.
Tell me about that.
How's that?
When did you start that business?
What's that like for you?
We do, we have one standalone collision center
that was birthed out of what's now our GMC store.
It was part of that initial original store
I bought from my dad.
We have three of our dealerships
that have body shops, collision centers inside of the store.
But we have one standalone.
Literally started out, that was my first job.
So it kind of was always my baby.
You know, I learned how to write estimates.
It was part of the Pontiac store at the time.
And I'm talking back in the day
when you had like triplicate, right?
You'd write the estimate by hand,
you had a book, you looked up the parts,
you looked up the labor, one copy goes to the customer,
one goes on the shelf and one goes with the R.O.
So, but I found, but I'd come to work
and I just got out of school and at 2.30 every day,
the guys would take duct tape and make a ball out of duct tape
and pull a 55 gallon drum in the middle of the shop
and play basketball.
And every day.
Sounds productive.
Yeah, very productive.
If you like to play bad,
and none of them were going to the NBA.
Like they didn't have a shot.
So I thought we'd definitely have to have
a better use of time.
So I began to become a student
of the collision business at the time.
And we grew that shop about three times
where we kept adding onto the building
to eventually one day.
We moved into, bought a building
that was 42,000 square feet,
was a former department store, sits on six acres.
And we launched, we launched,
moved it as an independent collision center there.
We currently do about 3,500, 3,300 hours a month
out of that business.
Now it currently doesn't,
it's not all exclusive to collision center.
Our power sports store sits in half of that
and collision center sits in half of that.
So we kind of tightened things up
once we added the power sports in 2013.
And how does, and how are you optimizing that?
Or I should ask, how different is it
from traditional service department, right?
Are you, when it comes to optimizing it
to its full potential.
A harder business today than it was when I did it.
You know, when you're at a,
I wouldn't say at a fixed hourly rate,
definitely at a fixed margin on parts
because unlike on the car side under warranty
where you can get over retail,
not so on the collision side.
So just like everything today,
you know, speed is everything in the car business.
Speed has always been everything in the body business.
So the quicker I can do something,
you know, I might be fixed on what I can average per hour,
how much I can make on the parts,
but the more throughput I can get in and out
in a given day with the fewest amount of people,
the more money we're gonna make at the end of the day.
And it's been a very profitable business
for the last 30 years.
One of the questions I picked up from circles
are private dealer chat groups
that we operate here at Car Dealship Guy,
which you should join by the way,
is what are your levers for growing this collision business?
I think many dealers have collision businesses
and are interested in scaling them,
but what levers are you pulling?
Again, I go back to speed.
What drives business and revenue growth
in the collision business is speed.
So if I'm an insurance company, I'm dispensing,
and I've got an option of shop A or shop B.
Shop B is backed up, they're slow.
I'm gonna have a rental car for four weeks,
or I've got shop, the shop over here,
and they're just in time,
I'm gonna have it in and out in a week.
That drives where that vehicle goes.
So you optimize, you reduce your turn time,
and it ranks you higher with the insurance company,
and in turn, you're gonna get more assignments,
and at the end of the day, do more repairs.
So again, everything efficiency drives that business.
If you're slow, you're gonna starve.
When you think about the future of the business,
where are you, what do you think is gonna,
has the most growth potential for being a dealer?
What part of the business are you most bullish on?
And ask more specifically,
are you more bullish on the ancillary services,
such as collision businesses,
parts businesses, et cetera,
or sticking to core use cars, service.
Again, it's a pretty broad question,
but where is the pot going in your mind?
I always think there's more opportunity
in the finance department.
We can continue to grow that business,
but that service and parts business is consistent.
It's growth, but I wanna say it's slow growth.
It's just slower growth.
I'm more bullish on the new car business,
but with the caveat that I couldn't be that bullish
unless I had a solid fixed ops,
and wouldn't be that bullish.
Yeah, so moving units to support
other parts of your business.
Yeah, selling cars, it starts the wheel turning.
Nothing happens to we sell a car.
Nothing happens to we sell a car, absolutely.
It's what gets the wheel going,
but other things sustain that wheel.
But until we sell a car, we've gotta sell cars.
When we sell cars, all those other pieces
start to play into it.
I heard you have a story about Fred Beans.
Oh, I love Fred.
Is that true?
Did you know Fred did 100 push-ups
on his 80th birthday?
I did, someone told me that on a previous podcast.
So here's a funny story.
We're flying to Bermuda,
and my wife and I are sitting next to each other,
and Fred and his wife, Gisela, are a few seats back.
He walks up, my wife's named Kristen, he says,
hey, Kristen, go back and sit.
He goes, hey, Kristen, go back and sit, Gisela.
And so she does, you know, who tells Fred no?
And he plops down next to me.
So we're going to Bermuda.
I'm wearing shorts and flip-flops,
like anybody normally would going to Bermuda.
Fred's wearing his traditional gray slacks,
white shirt, blue sport coat, and he sits down to me.
He's got his black steel-toed shoes on.
And he looks at me, he kind of like looks me up and down.
And he says, Freddie, what are you doing?
I said, Fred, what do you mean?
I'm sitting here on the plane next to you,
you just displaced my wife.
And he goes, no, I mean,
what are you doing wearing those flip-flops?
I was like, well, we're going to Bermuda.
I don't know, what do you mean?
What should I wear?
You know, if the plane goes down,
you shouldn't be wearing flip-flops,
you need steel-toed shoes.
And I'm like, well, Fred, if the plane goes down,
I don't think I'll be worried about wearing flip-flops.
I got bigger issues in my mind than that.
So he, like, you know, of all things, you know,
he was worried about the flip-flops and the plane going down.
Look at that attention to detail.
That adds up from the stories I hear of, you know,
like stopping at the dealership to pick up one piece of trash.
I love that, you know.
Yeah, he's a great guy.
Focusing on the details.
To an obsessive level.
I always pick his brain every chance I've had.
I want to understand, like, the scale of your stores.
Like, how big or small are these stores?
Tell me about that.
Yeah, so we have,
picking out the PowerSport store,
we have 18 car rooftops.
We sold just over 1,000 units last month.
So you can do the math,
we're doing a little over 50 units per store.
So now I've got some stores that sell 30 cars a month,
some that might sell 100.
And so when I say small, you know, they're small.
Some might have 14 or 15 employees,
and the largest would have 45 to 50.
So definitely not large by any stretch.
But, you know, somebody told me once one time,
it was Mike Leap.
Mike said that he said it takes as much work
to run a small store as it does a large store.
And I didn't quite understand at the time,
but, you know, I think it does.
I mean, there's just things that need done.
And it doesn't matter, you know,
a lot of times you need one person
to cover multiple jobs, it's the same.
There's a fixed cost isn't the right word,
but there's a fixed amount of effort, let's call it,
that has to be done no matter what size the store is.
And so that does lend its challenges
to running smaller stores.
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Are there any specific things you do to, you know,
just improve that operating leverage, right?
Whether, you know, strong incentives across stores,
sales across stores, or vehicle swaps.
Definitely swap vehicles, we definitely cross sell.
Depending on the proximity, you know,
some of our stores are close.
Some are geographically spread out really in the middle,
literally in the middle of nowhere.
So sometimes we have opportunity to allow one person
to manage, you know, multiple, you know,
multiple rooftops, or, you know,
we have the ability to pull people
from one store to another, so that's a benefit.
The, I think the toughest challenge,
you know, we have some advantages,
we have, you know, our rent's obviously lower,
the cost of living's lower, the cost of real estate's less,
but where, I think the biggest challenge for a rural store
is when you're buying products,
whether it be from a manufacturer or from a vendor,
that the cost per rooftop charge.
And so a lot of times, it would be nice
if those costs per rooftop were scaled
based on the size of the store, which most are not.
So if I'm gonna pay four grand a month for,
let's just say, V-Auto, you know,
it's easier to swallow that on a store
that's done 100 use cards a month
versus one that might do 15.
And so that per rooftop charge probably becomes
the biggest challenge in being able to operate
a small store and do it officially.
Yeah, and not picking on V-Auto,
but I think in general, dynamic vendor pricing
just makes a lot more sense to your point,
because, you know, having a fixed fee per store,
that doesn't, that's not, you know,
emblematic of your usage of this tool.
That doesn't, you know, it doesn't make sense in many cases,
like in your case, it's, you're simply paying a lot more
for less depending on what tool you're using
because it's per rooftop.
Correct.
I think the per rooftop model is not great.
I'm curious to know what others are doing out there
to fix that, but it's, you know, a dynamic.
If you look at all these LLMs, right,
like all the AI tools, you know, Claw, ChatchiBT,
they charge you by tokens, right, it's by usage.
So it's, there's really great alignment.
The more you use, the more you pay.
I love it.
And I'd be willing to pay more as I used it more
or pay less as I used it less,
that if we could get that model in vendor pricing
in the car business, it would be great.
And I, but of course, a larger deal.
The problem is many businesses don't like it.
Many businesses don't like it.
Yeah, well, it appeals to a smaller, smaller store,
not definitely not large.
Because, well, no, even on the vendor side, right,
the ones who are making the prices,
because for them or any company out there,
you're now adding a level of unpredictability
to their earnings.
And SaaS businesses are valued at their values
so highly because they're more predictable.
So, but look, models have been tried in every industry.
I mean, remember, do you remember,
I don't know if you've heard of Metro Mile,
they were doing like pay per mile insurance.
They went out of business.
That didn't work.
Well, I'm renegotiating our CDK contract right now.
And I'm trying to put together a core product
that works for every store.
And it's tough to do.
You know, if something, let's just say it's $1,500 a month,
it may be great, but it may not fit in a very small store.
We just can't swallow it.
And so their answer was this, well, what we could do
is up the price to your larger stores and redo it.
I was like, well, that's not fair.
That's not fair to the general manager
or partner at the larger store to do that.
So there's gotta be a better solution.
We'll figure it out.
But in the meantime, we're still selling cars
and having fun.
That's amazing.
What do people not know about you, Fred?
What should we know about you?
Other than the fact that you went with Fred Beans to Bermuda
and you do lots of, you do lots of, you know,
global philanthropic work.
What else?
There has to be one other part of Fred Timbrooke
that we don't know.
Something people don't know about me.
This is terrible.
I weigh every day.
People say-
You're not talking about weighing cars
on the list.
No, no, I step on the scale every day.
Why?
Is it just like a health thing or what is it?
Yeah, well, the old thing you can't manage
what you don't measure.
So, you know, a lot of people are like,
why don't I get on the scale when I go to the doctor?
I'm like, well, what about between now and a year from now?
So, you know, when we talk about, you know,
that building employees, building employees
is more than just training.
I mean, I want to take a holistic view.
What good is it to be the most skilled guy in the room
if you're depressed, broke,
and you have a heart attack next year?
So, like, health is a big deal to me.
In 19, let's see, 2005, 21 years ago,
I lost 20 pounds.
I've kept it off for 21 years.
And I'm within two pounds of that weight 21 years later.
And I believe that, you know,
if we're going to run long and run hard
and be effective, you've got to be healthy.
And so that's staying healthy is a big part of my life.
I couldn't agree more.
It's very important to me too.
When we chat in 12 months, 18 months,
and we'll chat before that too,
but when we do an official podcast then,
will you have more stores, fewer stores, same amount?
We're going to have more stores.
We're going to grow to 50 stores by the time I turn 72.
So our growth goals were, I'll be 56 this year,
our growth goals were to be at 25 stores
by the time I turn 62, which will be there
well in advance of that.
And then to be at 50 stores by the time I turn 72.
And then I think it's going to be time for me
to take a backseat.
But I want to make it to 72.
I want to work at 50 straight years.
I started full time at 22.
I'm going to run hard at 72.
You'll get it.
And yeah, so 50 years, 50 stores,
we're going to do it.
So yes, we'll have more.
We're, we look at stores every month.
And obviously some, you know,
some we move forward with, some we don't.
I've been row-ferred, I've been turned down,
I've been accepted, so been through all of it.
I hear you.
Amazing story, Fred.
And thank you for coming on the podcast.
This has been super fun conversation.
So Fred, Timbrook, Timbrook Automotive.
Fred, thank you so much for coming on.
Yeah, it's good to have.
Thank you for having me today.
I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.
Have a great day.
God bless you.
See you.
All right.
Hope you enjoyed that episode.
Please give the podcast a rating.
Consider subscribing to the show
and check the show notes for links to what we talked about.
Thanks for tuning in.
I'll see you guys next time.
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