Remarkable Results Radio Podcast Oct 24, 2025

Walking the Talk: Why Auto Coaches Are Buying Shops Again [THA 456]

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Look at this guest list, oh my god, Chris Cotton, oh, wait a minute, 30 pounds down.

It's less of me, right?

I'm here, but it's less of me.

Yes, that's right.

Please don't stay in sideways, because I may not see you.

Oh, no, there's still plenty there, trust me.

Good to see you, Chris Cotton Auto Fix Auto Shop Coaching, the weekly blitz podcast

on the Auto Repair Podcast Network and auto shopcoaching.com.

Hello, Chris.

Hey, everybody.

Good to be here, finally.

Clint White's here, coaching with integrity, coaching with integrity.lc, and I mean,

yes, they're all now shop owners, that's why they're all here.

Hey, Clint.

Hello, Carm.

Good to see you guys.

Thanks for having me.

Glad you're here.

Brian Gillis is here, chief, you net result strategist, you net results.com and recent shop

owner.

God.

I'm sorry.

Coach, countless shops, lots of owners to success, but now you've stepped back into ownership

yourself.

What made you guys take this leap?

Maybe you missed being in the trenches, Chris?

I missed it, but I'm a full on absentee owner, right?

So I'm not really there any negligible amount, like I go in on Mondays and like yesterday

I went in.

We had our monthly team meeting, I walked around asked everybody how they're doing,

made sure they weren't any problems and then came home.

So you know, for me, it was fuel for the podcast, right?

Like there's so much I get out of this that I can take and do podcast episodes on.

Number two, there was a need like there's you and I have done an episode before on this

older gentleman that wanted to get out.

There were like no buyers in the area, the silver tsunami's happening.

It was really too good to deal in the end to pass up, so like, you know, somebody has

to do it.

It will be me.

And then I just opened a second shop like two weeks ago.

So I don't even, well, I don't think we've talked about that or the last time we talked

to car, maybe it was on the radar, but it hadn't happened yet.

Yeah, I think you were kind of giving us a prelude that it may happen soon.

And good for you now from zero to two in about a year, Chris.

Yep.

Less than a year.

All right.

Like, so did you miss being in the trenches, Clint?

Yeah, absolutely.

This is, it's all I know, I've been doing this over 30 some odd years started in the,

you know, what, early 90s, mid 90s.

I enjoy coaching.

I love coaching.

I've been doing that since, I don't know, 2019.

So I guess I'm fairly new to the coaching industry six, seven years.

I just miss being in the environment number one.

I love interacting with the public.

I love helping people.

That's probably my biggest, almost prominent trade is having a surf and it's hard.

I love to serve.

And frankly, I didn't want to become that coach.

The outdated back when I had a shop in 83.

It doesn't work.

So I needed to be a current in my clients.

I think appreciate the fact that I'm putting into practice the things that have previously

worked and still do work.

Interesting.

Hey, Brian.

Hey.

How about you?

Yeah.

Wow.

Were you sweating?

I need to get back in.

You work with your clients and you hear the stories.

And yeah, I absolutely missed it.

I was looking forward to get back into the trenches and, and I think, you know, like Clint said,

it's going to make you a little more of effective coach.

Things happen so fast and it's not the same as it was five years ago.

And so now you get to kind of practice what you preach or, you know, walk the talk so

to speak and I believe it's going to make me more effective coach because I'm involved

with it, you know, day in and day out.

As rapidly as technology moves forward, you know, we just have to be on top of it.

What better way?

Brian, what did the family say when you said, hey, I'm buying a shop?

Well, my wife was, she was thrilled about it.

She's like, oh, good because, you know, sometime you're at the house too much and now you

get out of here and go find something to do and she's thrilled about it.

And she's involved as well, too, so that is not the same reaction I got.

Yeah.

Yeah, she was happy about it, you know, for me to get out and, you know, not just, because

you know, as coaches, you know, a lot of us are offices right home, we do travel for

events and things of that nature, but for a large part of the time, you know, we're

at home.

So in her mind, I didn't work much in, you know, in her opinion.

So she was happy to see me do something else.

So and I'm enjoying it.

Okay, Chris, finish that line.

When I found out the shop was available last, first thing I did was ask Kimberly, Kimberly

was like, as long as I don't have anything to do with it, it's fine, like whatever.

And I don't want you to have to be there all the time.

Gosh, we travel so much and we bought the location was there for two weeks.

And then Kimberly and I left town for a month and basically just said, Hey, guys, this

is it.

Like I'm giving you the opportunity to run your own shop.

Here it is.

I'll take care of all the backside.

You know, I got to go and I like dipped on them for a month.

I think Kimberly likes the, as far as like the, like the logo design, the colors, the

uniforms, she's kind of got into that the first time and then the cleanup, you know,

Kimberly's, if you had her in a housing crew, you'd want her on the demo crew, not

to finish Carpenter crew.

So she's all about demo and then just like here, finish it off.

And then the same thing when we started with the second shop is, you know, logo design,

just finished up a website, everything else, I think she gets into that.

So the other thing I would say that I didn't bring up the first time is, you know, it gives

us an opportunity to diversify as well.

Like all of our chickens or all of our eggs, chickens, whatever are not in the coaching

basket, not that they don't need to be there.

But if anything ever happened, now you've got another business that you can use to your

disposal or another one like, you know, we had such a good turnaround with the first one,

that, you know, it's paid for debt free and we use that cash flow to do the second one.

And when that turns around or gets going, you know, the thing about number two is we started

from scratch.

I have an existing location.

So it's been kind of like a different learning curve.

But you know, you're self funding the next effort through your previous efforts.

I got to ask you a quick question, Chris, about shop one.

I mean, you got a great deal.

You paid it off.

I think you told me in six months, six months.

Yeah.

Are there opportunities like that around the country for clients like yours?

Yeah, everywhere.

Like you just have to be open for them.

Like I've probably had three more people reach out to me within like a 75 mile radius.

Now, because they've heard our story and then we're in the community, they talked to

the BG rep and then they talked to other people and they're like, man, I want to get out

to I'm 75 years old, like, maybe I'll call Chris.

Well, here's his new nickname, Coach private equity, Chris got well, I keep thinking if

I've mentioned this enough that somebody's going to be like, Hey, Chris, here's like two

million dollars.

Go scoop up as many shops as you can, but nobody's taking me up on that.

It would pay off quickly, I would think.

Yeah.

So what's it feel like being on the other side again, Clint?

Absolutely.

It's where I belong.

Now, I'm a little different than Chris.

I am hands-on day in and day out, mentoring, again, that's part of who I am, mentoring and

training and bringing up the next generation of specialists in our shop as well as throwing

people in the fire that didn't want to be there.

You'd mentioned, you know, the wives and my wife has had nothing to do with the odd

people in the industry ever, and yes, I have a home office and she hears every coaching

session I've ever done.

And so when I said, Hey, I'm going to buy a shop.

I just think we should and I miss it.

And she said, Okay, I don't want anything to do with it.

And I said, Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm going to need you there.

I love that proof of concept where having heard the scripts and heard the processes for

years, I literally threw on the counter.

She sells, like, amazingly, she's amazing with people.

And she loves it.

Like, why did you buy me a job?

She's fantastic.

Did you hear what you said?

I threw her on the counter.

Yeah.

Just threw her on the counter.

You know, she said, you had a role as a husband.

You're the primary breadwinner and I is this sponsored wife and the primary bread loser.

We've changed that.

So she comes to work with me.

It's fantastic.

Brian, what was your biggest surprise?

Wow, I tell you, my biggest surprise was not being able to take care of myself as much

because you know, one of the things I was doing when all I was doing was my coaching company

was I had time to go to the gym and I could prepare my meals.

And so that was probably the biggest thing that I had to just to was carving out the time,

putting on my schedule to hit the gym, to eat rides real easy to, oh, you know, let

me get something quick and fast that's terrible for you.

And so that was the biggest, probably, transition for me.

The biggest struggle was fitting that into my life when I added on the shop and like

Clint, you know, I'm in the trenches pretty much a lot of the time.

My office, this is my office at my shop right now.

I'll still do some coaching from the home office, but that was probably the biggest surprise

for me was like, wow, I don't have a lot of time.

I really have to be very structured to get everything done.

You know, I find this discussion amazing, Chris, what would coach Chris do?

Would you ever get in a moment that you're now the, you have your business man's head on

and you'd say, what would coach Chris do?

Yeah, I mean, I have to do that right because you have to pull yourself back out of the

shop and be like, what's the right thing to do?

Because when you're in the moment and emotions are tied to it, that's what we fight as coaches

all the time, right?

As people's emotions and, oh, I've had this employee that's been terrible for five

years, but they've been an employee for 20 years and I'm not going to let them go.

You got to pull the emotion out of it.

So, you know, you have to keep your coaches hat on and coach yourself through those situations

and the same thing with Kimberly, Kimberly's heard me talk to enough people that, like

we talk about this constantly, everything business wise, but I'll be talking about something

and she's like, was that how you would handle it?

And then I would tell her what my thoughts are and she's like, well, I heard you talk to

so and so on.

That's not how you told them to handle it and I'm like, I thought you weren't going to

get involved.

Oh, a conscious check.

So be careful what you say about around Kimberly.

Right.

Yeah.

She'll use it to beat you with lately.

Clint, you're finding it easy to walk your own talk?

I would say 89.6, 312% of the time, yes.

Overwhelming majority of the time, yes, walking the talk, practicing what has been preached

is just second nature.

There are some things that I struggle with and it has made me, I think, a more,

more vulnerable and valuable coach to be able to tell my client, hey, listen, I struggled

with this exact same thing today.

That's again, hoping to make me a better coach.

So I think it gives you more powers of coach.

People are like, oh, it's slow.

It's this or that and you're like, no, it's not.

I'm doing fine.

Like I don't know what your problem is.

Like we just doubled down on DVIs and everything else.

Like I think it gives you more power and I was in the, the circumstance where I was the

only coach that works for my company that didn't have a shop.

All the other coaches do and they could use that all the time and now I can be people

up with it.

Yeah.

Things happen daily.

That's a call.

Do you know what?

This would be a great meeting topic for us to discuss, you know, with a group meeting

or even one-on-ones AI, the hot thing right now, right, and how everybody's utilizing

it at their shops to help their shops.

And so that was something that's like, hey, I can talk about this matter of fact and not

just in theory because I'm using it to get to, you know.

And so it's things like that that I think help to become a better coach, to better serve

my clients.

I'm like, hey, let me put on the pads.

I'm ready to go in.

You know what I mean?

And so that's what I certainly enjoy that there.

How do your people react to the fact that they know you're a coach?

Do they expect something better, different?

Are they open?

Are they reactive?

Anything?

As far as like your employees, the technicians, yeah.

They know you're a coach.

They know you're an expert.

I think it was helpful for me.

We just hope we're still inside of our first 90 days, it will be three months old, middle

of this month.

You know, so I had to do quite a bit of interviewing, quite a bit of recruiting and so forth to

build my team from scratch.

We're the only ones out here, you know, there's no other, we don't have another brand like

this in this whole state.

And so no one ever heard of us.

So I think it helped me with some credibility when I'm doing my interviewing and bringing

you on talent, you know, bringing on great people.

So I think for me, it was helpful that I do coach as well as opening a shop.

Several of my employees listen to the podcast every week, so if I say something in there

and contradict myself, then they're like, hey, you know, what the hell?

The other thing that's been really interesting is we have a better staff now than we did

a year ago.

The staff is great and we're doing some great things.

But I've had a lead technician stop in the middle of the meeting and be like, you young

guys don't understand how good this is and how great we have it here.

And then he'll be like, listen to what he just said and it'll be something that I was

talking about.

He's like, you know, I've worked at like 12 other shops and I've never heard an owner

say that, talk to us like that or include us like that ever.

And so that's been pretty good and pretty big.

And that's the other thing.

I would say we have a name for in the community now for having a great shop that people

want to work at.

We covered this already, but that's how we ended up opening seven days a week is because

we had enough people that wanted to work for us that were like, well, I want to work

for you.

Let's figure out how to do it.

I'm like, okay, the only way to do it is to be open seven days a week and there we

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On the web at Piccrew Loyalty.com, how much of this guy's is a learning lab for you?

All of it.

Yeah.

All of it.

Yeah, everything.

Yeah, absolutely.

You're running everything through the litmus test, the proof of concept, the things that

you thought you knew that you didn't know, and every single day, there's something that

I grow from, I gleaned from, I learned from, and I would prefer that way.

Yeah, I think I'd be bored if I walked in, and everything was just perfect, and I know

what I'm doing.

I don't need any training.

I don't need any.

No, I do.

I need to learn.

Absolutely.

And if you were coaching me, Chris, don't ask me why, but I think I would be excited

to spend my time with you each and every month to not only have you continue to guide

me, be my accountability partner and all the great things that coaching relationships

have, but me sitting on the sidelines and says, what's new with the shop, Chris?

Right.

And to go into what Brian was talking about with AI, we tried some stuff and was hopeful

that it was going to work out and it just really didn't, AI is not to the point yet,

or people are not to the point yet to where they want to just be contacted through technology.

They want a phone call, they want to talk to somebody, and I think that was interesting

because we're going to have to see how that plays out.

Being the absentee owner, I don't get any softballs.

Like the only stuff that makes it to me is the hard stuff.

Like I have a general manager, I have people there, they take care of 99% of the stuff, but

the 1% that does get to me is usually, hey, I want to fire this somebody or I want to

do this or we had this situation or we got a one-star review, how should we reply to

it?

I don't know the downside of it, but when you get to the point to where you're an absentee

owner, you have to really think about that for what it is and be like, hey, you're going

to get the hard stuff.

That's what you're there for.

I'll say about the AI deal, so I wouldn't use it either, Chris, to answer my phone to

ever.

Nobody wants that car as much as this guy, so we answer our own phones, but we'll use it

to help build smart jobs and things like that.

Maybe some SOPs and things of that nature that it can put together information.

I've used it to help with training material, what are the benefits of service in your

power steering fluid system right, and so we could use that as training material.

I could write it, it might take me half the day, this 30 seconds later, there it is.

That's how we utilize that tool over here, but yeah.

I've heard the phones are still a little glitchy, so I'm with you there.

To my point, I was basically talking about your clients, you're approving lab for them,

and they probably want to, not only are you working closely with them, but they probably

want to know, what are you discovering?

What's going on at your shop?

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely daily.

There are things that we encounter that we're all in this together.

We don't have the, I guess, the same challenges and struggles and whether you're present

every day, whether you're absentee-like, Chris, I still write service, I still sell, I

still answer phones, and I'm able to, with my coaching clients, tie those together literally

on the daily, I find it actually, it's fun.

In years past, I'll just say as an example, I log in with an advisor client, as we do

it check in, and we look at wins and losses, and how are things going, and what's the vibe

in the shop, how's our culture feeling, and it's just a standard conversation, and I get

that bounce back now with clients, hey, how's the vibe in your shop, and then what are

your wins and losses?

They want to know, where am I struggling, and where am I winning?

We meet on this mutual ground, and it's fantastic to see the growth from that.

Well, you're still on here with me, Clint, any big surprise of late?

Big surprise.

I would say handling some of the volatility, when you become a coach, and that's all you

do as a coach, it's very easy to say, you're having a slow down this week because of something

you're not doing.

This is on you.

We don't look at environment, we don't look at economy, we don't look at anything.

This is obviously something you're not doing right as a coach.

It's easy to say that.

But when you're in the trenches and you've got a day, why the phone stopped ringing?

That was weird.

We've been crazy busy.

And then I know I'm not doing something wrong, I think, let me go back and reevaluate,

but experiencing those true life crash and burn days, how did that happen?

That for me is huge.

And I will tell you, one thing, we're using this as an experiment to see what works.

One of my other coaches and one of our clients switched to the hard plastic.

Mailer cards.

And I've been against mailers forever because the return on investments is just not there

and it's hard to track and everything else.

And they started having some success with it.

So I started sending them out and it's been amazing.

Now we recommend, like if you want to do direct mail, do direct mail, but use the hard

plastic ones, don't use the paper, the old school ones.

And then two, for what we do, we don't specialize, we're general repair and tires, but like

the Google local service ads was huge.

Like we started that in September of 2024, right when it was turned back on to us.

And what we've been able to do is crank that up and then reduce our spend on Google ad

words and some other stuff.

So we're spending less money now than we are or we were, but we're having a bigger impact

on our marketing.

We've been able to use those marketing dollars better.

And so things like that, that's the reason why I wanted to do that.

We find things like that about once a month, like, oh, you know, I would have never done

this before.

And now it's something that I would recommend.

Brian, seven days a week, maybe?

Well, we're six.

I think six is good for me at this time.

I also plan on opening up more locations in the future, but for our model, we're going

to stay with six days.

Would you be an absentee owner?

I mean, come on, Chris is absentee.

How about you?

I think it's, there's a shift, you know, I'm in my first 90 days.

So I need to be here.

I need to make sure we're taking off and things are in the right place.

I'm grooming somebody that could run the business.

When I open up the second third location, of course, that's going to change the dynamics

in my role.

My son works for me, which is something, you know, he's 22.

Maybe he's coming up, you know, that's the future as well.

So that's something that, you know, it was a big part of my decision as well.

It's like, well, I think there's a big future for him, but what I could teach him and

train him and develop him out as well.

So it's definitely got his challenges, but I do enjoy it.

Thank you, Brian.

I can find it so interesting that Chris, you, I believe, were absentee within the first

couple of weeks, right?

Chris?

Well, when we bought it, the plan was to be an absentee owner.

So there was never any thought in it to be in it, like more than a couple hours a week

or full time.

And this was part of like Kimberly's thing too, like, I told her, if I have to be there

every day, I've done something wrong.

That's what I took into it.

But okay, so Brian, I'm going to coach you through the open seven days a week.

First of all, you're paying rent seven days a week.

For us, it was interesting.

We're in a tourist area.

And if you're in our area and you break down at noon on Saturday, you can't even get a

phone call through until Monday morning at like 9 a.m.

So there was a big void in our area for people traveling through and whatever.

We kind of leaned into that.

And then we had the opportunity to hire on these extra people.

So all my people worked four days on three days off.

They worked for tens, I pay them for lunch, even though they're allowed to take a lunch,

and then boom, we're off and going.

I hear people all the time like, oh, we can't do that or could never do that.

There's always a way you just have to figure out how it works for you.

So back in the day, man, we did it for years.

I mean, I'm very used to the Sunday deal, but it's probably more for me than anything

else.

So if somebody called out sick and I'm on my way up there, maybe in the future, but right

now we're...

Yeah, everything's on the table.

I believe it.

What I'm hearing from you all, Clint, absentee ever some day.

Do you think of that?

Yeah, absolutely.

That's something that we have a three shop goal in five years.

So not as aggressive as Chris, but we're going to get there.

And absolutely, there will come a point in time where my plan is to be able to mentor

teach, train, groom, my replacement.

It's just a concept in life.

You should always be looking to train your replacement.

We have a little bit of a different model with ours, and Brian, I could coach you through

on a four-day work.

If you'd like.

Chris got you on a seven.

We do four days.

We do four tenths.

And my mentality is a little bit different.

And again, this is this kind of this experimentation of, could we be open seven days a week?

Yeah, sure.

I don't need the money.

I'm not worried about it.

I'm here to facilitate.

And again, it's more so for what we wanted to do.

I wanted to have a shop that was the go-to shop to be hired at.

And the four-day work week is one of the pinnacle of one of the reasons why I was able to have

my pick of the litter.

Now shop two, very likely, will be open many more days than that, and why we'll do the

split shift rotation like you guys are doing.

But for this one here, we're doing four tenths with an absolute love.

Well, always more than one way to skin a cat, right?

Right.

Exactly.

And that's the thing.

And for us, it wasn't a money grab either.

Like, it'd been easy just to been open four or five days a week.

But when I planned it out, when we wrote our core values and everything else, and when

we did the copy for the website, one of the things we wanted to do was be able to help

the people that traveled through our community, because people spend thousands of dollars

to come here and go snowskeeing.

They spend thousands of dollars to come here and go rafting.

People ask me, was winter busy or summer, and I'm like, yeah, there's not a downtime.

And the other thing is like, okay, dealership suck.

You call a dealership on a Monday morning, and you're broken down in town.

They're like, oh, it'll be three weeks before I can get your brakes done.

Like are you freaking kidding me?

Like this is just insane.

And so it was more to help the community than anything else.

I don't know how many people, like I'll go up on a Saturday and help the guys out mostly

getting the way.

People stop me.

Hey, you know, thank you so much for being open on the weekend.

Like this was, you know, you provide a great service, and we would have either had to wait

to turn the week or something else.

And for us, we're only four days.

So we are like, pressed hard for space and time, and being open on the weekend kind of alleviates

that.

But also, there's a lot of times we're walking on Monday morning, and our techs have like

six things to die ag because it got dropped off on Sunday, and we're trying to get it in.

We did that to serve the community, and it served us well.

So my original model was to have six employees now have 10 full time employees.

Nice.

Chris, let me assume general manager of the shop, whatever the title is, are you coaching

that individual as if he was a client?

Honestly, I could probably be doing a better job of that.

But yeah, we have a lot of one-on-one sessions where we're talking about things, and I tell

them all the time, I'm like, make sure the customer's taken care of, and then let's get together.

I might have handled it a different way, but number one, as long as the customer's taken

care of, perfect.

If I can have people that do it 80% of the way I would want it done, and I can coach the

other 20, then I think that's great.

Brian, is your son, your GM over there, or a manager?

No, he's taken a little bit of a different path than myself, and he's on his way to become

a certified technician, so he's going to be a specialist.

But he will, he does have the ability, he's been to some of my service advisor classes

in the past, so that side of it's more natural, but I think that'll be an advantage for him

when he does come up, is having that background knowledge in the shop.

I never had it.

So, Brian, you're doing coaching calls, it doesn't matter if it's one hour a day, or three

days a week, and the shop is there without you.

Who's in charge?

Ah, so I got my right hand man Tim, Tim's in charge, and it is sometimes just crazy.

You got to run it there, pull off the suit, throw on the cape, you know, I keep my, hanging

right on the old filing cabinets with the change up, right?

So there's this guy, and then there's this guy, so let's look.

Let's go.

You know, it's like, hey, man, I really need you, can you help me?

Give me 15 minutes.

I'll be right with you.

Change shirts.

You know, fire up and zoom and let's go.

Imagine hearing the Batmobile pull-ups, changing hats.

That's it.

Yeah.

Well, and I tell my people all the time, like if you need me, call me, but try not to

need it.

You know, I did that previously with the other shops, like I'm here if you need me,

but you know, we're all adults, you all have the authority to do what you need to do.

And one thing, Carm, is I just thought of this, something that, you know, Clint said

he had like a five-year plan, Brian's got something in mind.

But I think we should always start something with the end in mind.

So I'm going to ask the rest of you guys, what's your exit strategy?

10 years private equity.

Okay.

Yeah.

Mike's not that firm.

You know, like I said, my son's involved and my goal is that he can eventually, I want

to grow it, you know, all operated kind of like a multi-unit, which I've done in the

past.

And so that's kind of my goal.

And then one day hand off the baton to him.

I mean, let's face it, I don't think any of us really spring chickens.

And so that's my goal is to have it that in the family and be able to hand off the baton

to him.

And also my daughter, who's, she's, I can't afford her yet, right?

But she's got a lot of business smarts.

And so she does quite a good job of herself in her world.

And so when the shops are thriving, then I can make her an offer and get on board.

She needs to make you an offer.

Well, maybe she's one of the big insurance companies.

So.

Well, and I think, you know, to Clint's point, there's so much private equity ridiculousness

right?

Like they like it is.

People are just throwing insane amounts of money around.

And the path to selling is sure you can sell one shop, but you can get big bucks for

the three, four, five, yeah, three or more.

Yeah, I've already been propositioned as we've been open a year and a half, and I've

had literally someone to stand in front of me with a checkbook and like, what's your

number?

And so you can't afford me.

And I'm not done yet.

Go away.

I don't want to say anything bad, but they're just like fleas on a dog.

They're everywhere trying to buy everything up and they have no idea what they're doing.

Some of them have no idea what they're doing, unfortunately.

And Chris, if you think about the levels of it, right, like we are like at the lowest level

possible with minimal amounts of funding.

Now I do know that the government was looking at redoing some SBA stuff for us.

They were going to raise it to where from where you can buy it, borrow $5 million to

$10 million and then change the down payment for like 15% to lower it.

I haven't heard the last week or two of that got through or not.

But you have us that are single unit operators, two, three unit operators, and then you have

a private equity group that's willing to go by 3, 5, 10 shops and they're willing

to do that three or four or five times so that they have 20 shops.

And then their payoff is selling their group of 20 shops to somebody that has three more

groups of 20 shops.

So at every level, people are just stacking cash right now, it's just crazy.

And I lived through that.

It's crazy.

It is nuts.

But they're out there.

And you write, you know, when you have more of a group of shops in a marketplace, it's

more attractive to the bigger guy.

Attorney's fees are pretty much the same.

It's just your multiplier goes way up.

Right.

Yeah.

And I've got a secondary plan.

So I'm cloning myself.

Everybody that I interview and hire and send everyone I have on staff is I want you to

be like Mike.

I want you to be able to be a ASC certified master tech.

I want you to be able to sell like there's no tomorrow.

I want you to be able to manage like gets off the, you know, water off of ducks back.

I want you to be able to run and or own a shop effectively and profitably.

And every single one of my guys has that capability.

They're not there yet, but that's my plan B private equity doesn't come through.

And I don't know what the world's going to look like in 10 years.

I've got guys that'll buy these shops and just continue the legacy.

So either one way or the other, we're good.

You're building talent, Clint.

That's the plan.

So let me share with you something that happened to me just two days ago, local news channel,

in a heating vent HVAC, you know, they go around plumbing furnaces and everything.

I've never seen more ads for that industry than ever.

This ad came on and it said, did you know that some of your favorite HVAC businesses are

no longer owned by the people you think they're owned by?

Interesting.

Yeah.

And the ad said because private equity is coming and buying them up and they're just not

the same company that you were used to.

I'm local.

I've been here.

I was blown away by the possibility that some of those PE businesses now aren't doing the

kind of great work that and believe you me, I know a ton of people in this industry that

are inside of private equity and they're doing really good.

I know a ton of them and I'm not being political.

Am I saying anything negative here?

I was blown away by hearing an ad like that, guys.

I think it's interesting.

I also think that not all private equity are bad people, right?

There's an economy of scale.

Those people are able to buy shops and businesses, but they also do it really, really well.

You know, Starbucks, I can go anywhere and get a cup of coffee.

But if I want the same cup of coffee everywhere, then I go to Starbucks because the processes

and procedures are dialed in and everything's correct.

I can go in somewhere and get a cup of coffee and who knows if it'll be what I want, but

I can pretty much go to any Starbucks across the United States and get the same cup or if

I order it the same way.

It would probably also shock you, Carm, how many dealerships own independence.

So they own the dealerships, but they also own Brian, Chris and Clint's auto repair down

the corner.

They just don't tell anybody that.

That's right.

I know.

Guys, thank you so much.

We struggled for like three months to pull this team together because of your very difficult

schedules.

That's hard to do because you guys are so busy.

You're running multiple businesses and they have great, great clients.

And I appreciate each one of you to come on.

I want to give each of you a final word about this, about the fact that you made this big

move in your life and it's been fun and exciting for you.

I'm going to go around the room.

I'll do Brian, Clint and then Chris, Brian Gillis from, he's chief new net result strategist,

younetresults.com.

And what's the name of the business?

Chloe's auto repair and tire.

Cool.

Final word, sir.

Yeah.

Well, first, you know, thanks for having me on here.

And again, you know, just kind of like I mentioned at the beginning, it's, I felt like it was

a great opportunity to help me become a better coach, a little bit more in tune as to what's

going on right now.

Keep up with the right now.

I love it.

It keeps me busy and that's what I prefer just kind of being on my toes, you know?

So I love that beyond my toes, Clint White, coaching with integrity, coaching with integrity

dot LLC.

Chris or Clint, what's any of the business?

Integrity auto service.

Why change things up?

It just works.

So Garma, appreciate you having me.

And I think I'll throw this out here to the listeners.

There's probably somebody that's watching this or listening to this that has been on

the cusp of potential shop ownership.

And so they actually get asked that question quite a bit is a, you know, what do I need?

What do I have to have?

What should I do?

Should I do what I'm scared?

It's big.

I encourage people that have that dream and that vision to pursue that if, you know, it's

so easy.

A caveman can do it.

If I can do this.

Right?

Yeah.

Sorry.

He says the word caveman and okay, I get it.

It's cotton auto fixed auto shop coaching.com and the weekly blitz podcast on our automotive

repair podcast network.

Chris, final words are the big thing is there's tons of opportunity out there, right?

There are shops that are overpriced in your area and there are shops that are underpriced

and then there are shops that people just want to get the hell out of their business.

And they ran it the same way for 40 years and they just want out.

So you know, those opportunities are out there.

You just have to be looking for them and you have to be open to it.

Don't be afraid to walk into somebody's shop and say, hey, I'm interested in buying

you out.

Like, is that something you're interested in?

And or go into your, it's kind of like finding technicians, right?

Like you ask your tool truck driver, hey, who in town is struggling and wants out?

Ask your commercial parts people, hey, who's for sale and wants to move on?

In the town that I live in, we've been here five years.

There's probably been six shops that have been sold in that amount of time.

I wish maybe I would have been in the buying move back then to scoop those up,

but I wasn't.

But it is what it is.

I'll also tell you guys like our number two shops four hours away.

So there's no way I can go help bail them out.

Why?

So just tons of opportunity is what I would say, everybody.

Like it's out there.

You got to go like little bunny foofoo.

You got to scoop them up and bop them on the head and put them in your basket.

Wow.

An absentee owner four hours away and a startup in a different state.

Oh, my God.

Yep.

Wow.

No wonder why you've lost 30 plus pounds.

I didn't, you know, I worry less.

No way, but it's not exercise.

It's worrying.

Stress.

I don't, I worry less about that shop than I do the first shop.

It is what it is.

They handle it and they do pretty good.

And the other thing is like, you know, shop management systems are cloud based.

I can go on my phone and look at the cameras and tell you everything everybody's doing.

I don't want to say it's so easy.

Caveman could do it, but maybe it is like the other thing I would say is like,

just like anything else, if you know the rules, if you know the game,

if you know how to play the game, you can win.

Monopoly, baby.

Hey, thanks, Chris.

Clint, Brian, appreciate this.

This is great.

Thank you.

It's a good scene, everybody.

Thank you.

Thanks for being on board to listen and learn from the premier automotive aftermarket podcast.

Until next time.

Bye.

About this episode

A lively discussion with automotive coaches Chris Cotton, Clint White, and Brian Gillis explores the trend of coaches returning to shop ownership. They share personal stories about their motivations for buying shops, the challenges of balancing coaching with hands-on management, and the evolving landscape of the automotive repair industry. The episode highlights the importance of staying current with industry changes, leveraging technology like AI, and the value of building strong teams. Insights into market opportunities and the impact of private equity on the industry are also discussed.

Honda Prelude

Original notes

Thanks to our Partners, NAPA TRACS, Today's Class, KUKUI, and Pit Crew Loyalty Watch Full Video Episode

Three industry coaches, Chris Cotton, Brian Gillis, and Clint White, are redefining leadership by returning to shop ownership. They chose to re-engage, believing that staying in the trenches keeps their coaching grounded and relevant in a rapidly changing industry. They view ownership as a “learning lab,” testing strategies in marketing, staffing, and technology firsthand, then bringing real-world insights back to their clients. As they plan for the future, each is focused on sustainable growth, exploring private equity opportunities, and developing strong succession plans, all while keeping culture and quality at the core of their mission.

Chris Cotton, AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching, and the Chris Cotton Weekly Blitz Podcast Brian Gillis, You Net-Results Clint White, Coaching with Integrity Thanks to our Partner, NAPA TRACS NAPA TRACS will move your shop into the SMS fast lane with onsite training and six days a week of support and local representation. Find NAPA TRACS on the Web at http://napatracs.com/ Thanks to our Partner, Today's Class Optimize training with Today's Class: In just 5 minutes daily, boost knowledge retention and improve team performance. Find Today's Class on the web at https://www.todaysclass.com/ Thanks to our Partner, KUKUI Stop juggling multiple marketing tools. KUKUI’s integrated platform delivers 4x better website conversions, automated follow-up, and real-time ROI tracking. Get industry-leading customer support with KUKUI at https://www.kukui.com/ Thanks to our Partner, Pit Crew Loyalty You’re probably tired of chasing new customers who never return. We understand. Pit Crew Loyalty ends the one-and-done cycle, turning first visits into lasting, reliable revenue at https://www.pitcrewloyalty.com/ Connect with the Podcast:

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