Building a Positive Work Environment With Al Pridemore, CEO and Co-owner of Pride Auto Care

Al Pridemore is the CEO and Co-owner of Pride Auto Care. He and his brothers became owners in 2005, starting with two shops before growing to six. Pride Auto Care is a full-service tire and automotive center focused on putting their employees first. Their philosophy is that building relationships and leadership within their ranks results in excellent service for the customer.

In this episode…

As any tire and auto repair shop owner knows, building a positive workplace culture can be challenging. What about turning a negative workplace culture into a positive one while keeping most of the same staff? According to Al Pridemore of Pride Auto Care, it can be done — his company purchased an existing shop with a negative atmosphere and completely reversed the culture. Are you curious how this happened? Don’t miss this episode of Gain Traction!

On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge welcomes Al for a conversation about building a positive culture in a tire and auto repair shop. Even if you have a lot of factors working against you, with a people-focused culture, Al says you’ll “parlay that thought and that feeling into the customers — they want to be where they’re appreciated, where there’s a relationship.” He shares how he’s built that type of culture in his company. Tune in!

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• Al Pridemore shares how he ended up in the auto repair business
• How Al and his brothers have grown Pride Auto Care over the past 15 years
• The biggest turning point as Pride Auto Center grew
• Changing a negative culture after buying an existing shop and retaining most of the staff
• Why it can be a gamble to try to change a culture
• Al’s favorite hobby outside of work

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Al Pridemore on LinkedIn 
• Pride Auto Care 
• Dwayne Myers on LinkedIn
• Brian Sump of LinkedIn
• Ratchet + Wrench 
• Mike Edge on LinkedIn
• Tread Partners

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast, where we feature top automotive entrepreneurs and experts and share their inspiring stories. Now, let’s get started with the show.

Mike Edge:

Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast, Mike Edge here. I am the host of Gain Traction, where I talk with top automotive business leaders about their personal experience in the tire and auto repair industry, as well as extract some words of wisdom once in a while.

Before we get started though today, I’d like to give a mention of gratitude to Tim Winkler, President and CEO of VIP Tires & Service, with 66 locations in the Northeast. I recently had him on the Gain Traction podcast as a guest to discuss a very important issue in our industry, which is right to repair; legislation that is being considered in state houses, as well as Washington DC, all over the country. Please be sure to get educated on this important issue and call your representatives and your state associations and just get involved. The very life of our industry actually depends on it.

This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners and the ReTread program. Tread Partners has a theory that your best audience to acquire additional revenue from this month, or any time, are customers that you’ve already done business with. Trade Partners has designed a product called ReTread that is a full-scale customer re-engagement program to win back a shop’s best lost customers. It is a one-time, 90-day program that generates a guaranteed 10:1 return on investment. That’s correct, a 10:1 guaranteed ROI. No tricks or gimmicks. These are customers that are already in your point of sale right now. So if you invest $10,000 today, you would get a return of $100,000. We think our 10:1 guarantee is better than any shop can do for themselves. So what’s the risk? Just email us, [email protected] or visit treadpartners.com to learn more.

I want to give a shout-out today and a big thank you to Dwayne Myers and Brian Sump, who have been previous guests on Gain Traction and they both highly recommended. My guest today, Al Pridemore, who owns Pride Auto Care in Colorado. Al is CEO in co-owner of Pride Auto Care in the Front Range area of Colorado. They’ve been in business as a car and light truck repair and service facility since the late 1980s. He and his brothers took over ownership in 2005 and branded it under Pride Auto Care. They started with two shops and have it scaled to six locations as of this summer. They’re pacing just north of 12 million this year. They are a full service tire and automotive service center, focused on taking care of their employees first and foremost, with the philosophy that building relationships and leadership within all of their ranks builds great customer service for those on the other side of the counter.

Al Pridemore, welcome to Gain Traction.

Al Pridemore:

Good to be here, Mike. Thanks for the invite, brother.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, you came highly recommend it so I was like, “Man, I got to get this guy now.”

Al:

It’s just not good judge of characters out there, I reckon. I don’t know.

Mike:

Well, we’re just desperate, right

Al:

One of those two, one of those two.

Mike:

So talk to me, you told me you were born and raised, or not raised completely, but born in Maryland, lived there. And then you ended up moving to Colorado and had a little time in North Carolina. So how’d you end up in auto repair business and why?

Al:

It’s funny, we moved out here in ’72 to Colorado. And it was much smaller. I mean, this place has grown up probably like y’all’s area, like seems like all over the country anymore, but just kind of got into it by accident. I’ll be honest with you. We were pumping gas and busting tires back in the eighties and back when those two things went together, a big Exxon station big in terms of volumes.

Mike:

And when you say we, you and your brothers?

Al:

My brothers, yeah.

Mike:

Okay.

Al:

My kid brother Darrell, actually was the youngest Exxon dealer in the country at the time at 23 and I worked with him and then broke away. We went different directions for a little bit, but stayed in automotive and then kind of regained traction again in 1999. Late nineties with Great American Tire and Auto, worked with them, became part owners, minority owners, and then broke out on our own in ’05 and with a couple of the original stores and then have grown to six locations now.

Mike:

That’s fabulous. So all four, well there’s three other brothers, there’s four of you total, correct?

Al:

Four total, yeah. We lost my middle brother Darrell, to cancer, sadly six years ago this past summer.

Mike:

Wow.

Al:

 And the three of us carried on the tradition, so to speak, in the family. And we added what we call our surrogate or our adopted brother, Ty Ragsdale is our, he’s our COO, but he’s also one of the owners now. We made him sweat equity ownership, two years ago, a little over two years

Mike:

Oh, that’s fabulous. So do you guys have kids coming up in the industry as well?

Al:

We do. My brother Vince, his daughter is our marketing director and our controller, she’s left brain, right brain, pretty balanced and kind of carrying 15 different hats in those two categories. And then my son Kermit is our area director and then the three brothers. So that’s our board of directors so to speak.

Mike:

That’s fabulous. Well, just going on your personal journey or whatever, what’s one of the biggest professional influences on your career since you took this trajectory and got into ownership?

Al:

There’s a probably a lot of mentors over the years in terms of people that affected how I thought and directionally where we headed. Even back to my big oil days, which goes back seems like a hundred years ago now. But I think at least in recent times, our affiliation with the Transformers Institute here in Colorado has been huge. They’ve been like that missing brother, so to speak. We literally started with them as original crew, the OG as we call ourselves, platinum multi-store operators back in, let’s see, tailing 2016, early 2017. They’ve just been an amazing group, not just from leadership training and sales training and things we utilize for our staffs and each other, but just to get together once every quarter with like-minded men and women that own multiple operations.

We kind of problem solve a lot of critical thinking. It’s essentially, a leadership level think tank of multi-store operators around the country and it’s grown leaps and bounds since then. We have the original group, I think there’s three multi-store groups now, two or three single store operator gold groups and a lot of in interim groups for COOs, individual store managers. But it’s been a tremendous partnership.

Mike:

Now, that’s fabulous. And that, that’s Greg and Fernando, correct?

Al:

Yep, yep. Greg Bunch and Fernando, Fernando Miranda, we’ve known him in previous careers with our parts distributors and stuff, so we’d go way back. In fact, we had dinner with him and his wife three nights ago, four nights ago.

Mike:

Excellent.

Al:

Yeah. Yeah, he’s an awesome guy. Awesome people in that group.

Mike:

Next time you see him, tell him I said hello because I haven’t run into him in a while.

Al:

I will do it. Absolutely.

Mike:

What’s big turning point that you had maybe in your company as you grew? Because obviously it’s not perfectly smooth selling unless you’re an anomaly to get to six stores.

Al:

Right.

Mike:

Did you have any big moments where you’re like, man, I think we’re going to make it or …

Al:

We’re going to figure this thing out? It’s funny you asked that Mike. 1999 we started with the contract with a Fortune 10 company, Texaco Oil Company to build these multi-store operations across the country. 50 of them actually. Texaco was building a big convenience store, gas station, quick serve restaurant right next door. Usually I would say 10 to 14 fueling positions, I mean a big gas station. So it’s a big convenience store. And then we were building a 10 or 14 bay car care center adjacent to it and that’s when my brothers and I bought minority ownership in the group, Great American Tire and Auto. That point was, we were on a trajectory for 50 stores, we got 18 built. Shell came in to shorten the story up. Shell Oil came in, bought out Texaco, downstream operations did not want to operate anymore. Automotive service that wasn’t in their bailiwick, they were about quick-serve gas stations, QSRs, that kind of stuff and move on.

So we ended up pulling out the original two stores that weren’t uncovered by that Texaco, Shell deal and started our own brand in ’05, and that was the Pride Auto Care brand, and it was at that point that we literally sat down in a room one afternoon and we’re going, okay, it looks like we’ve got all these are going to get rebranded, everything is getting moved over to getting sold off, the assets rather. Shell wouldn’t take on anything. So we had to sell off 16 of the assets and two were left over, that’s the two my brothers and I bought. It was that point we go, look, you know what, we can’t screw this thing up any worse than these guys have and we get paid a whole lot less. So, I think we could pull this together, and the six years and then the 10 or 15 years prior to that, a lot of learning from the grassroots up.

I mean we knew what it felt like to be a technician in the base and what made our working environment better and really focusing on the people side of it. And I think, I mean there’s been logistical improvements we’ve made in our operations from the standpoint of a good SMS system, we use Shop-Wear. There’s a lot of several really good ones out there. I think Shop-Wear is one of the better ones. Different things, process and procedurally that we’ve done. They’re just to fine tune and efficient way to get your store to capacity. And then just seeing the acquisitions or the opportunity for acquisitions come down the pipe, has been a big change for us over the last five, six, seven years. We picked up our first store in ’08, our second one. First one after the original two, the second one in ’12, one in ’20 during the COVID, which was exciting. And then one this summer, which is really one of our big hitters in Denver Proper, an old 80 year old building that’s just an amazing historical place and I don’t have time to explain it here, but …

Mike:

 And it’s known, is it known automotively speaking?

Al:

Oh yeah.

Mike:

Yeah.

Al:

It was Kearney Garage for I think at least the last 40 some years, and it’s just in a really cool neighborhood, old South Park or South Park Hill, they love us down there. They love the store and they’re glad to see the new ownership, the old ownership retired and we’ve had a great run down there. This is our fourth month and there it’s already just …

Mike:

That’s awesome.

Al:

 Gangbusters. Yeah.

Mike:

Now did you guys rebrand it to your brand or did you leave it?

Al:

No, we didn’t. That one we kept as Kearney garage powered by Pride Auto Care. I mean the old signage is there from the sixties and seventies and it’s patina finished and we’re just sealing it up and just keeping it as is. It’s just a cool old place, but it’s a 12 bay, it’s actually an old parking garage that was converted 40, 50 years ago and then an old Conoco that was debranded and they combined the buildings with the little breezeway and it’s 12 bays and it’s kicking butt and it’s going to Pride pace, God, I don’t know, two and a half I would reckon this year by itself and probably three and up from there. I mean it’s just a lot

Mike:

Of fantastic. Yeah, that’s fun. And I’ll ask the question about branding because I mean we’re in that business a little bit and there’s always that question of whether you do it or not. And I’m always leaned to the side, hell, if I bought the dag-on business, I mean I bought the end.

Al:

Right.

Mike:

 I don’t want to change it. What was working?

Al:

Yeah.

Mike:

Especially one, it sounds like that is, with just so much nostalgia, I mean for the area.

Al:

Right? Well, and we had one up in Longmont that we opened up two and a half years ago. And I take that back two, it’d be two years ago next month. And it was kind of on the decline, it was an older guy that was going to retirement, great guy, great family. His daughter stayed on for the better part of a year during the transition and she was just fun to work with, then her and her husband got transferred out of town. But it’s in a good growing pattern, a good growing area demographically of the front range here, we call it front range here, going to Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, everything in between. And it’s just one of those things where it was on decline and that one we did rebrand from the original family name to Pride Auto Care.

 But Kearney garage is, it wasn’t the Kearney’s, it’s actually on Kearney Avenue, and it’s just a cool little place, it’s got lots of little shops right next door, restaurants and bakery and it’s a snapshot into a kind of Hallmark movie, if you will, just in the downtown area, off the downtown area. And it’s …

Mike:

That’s so cool.

Speaker 4:

Pretty cool stuff. Yeah.

Mike:

Nah.

Al:

Took us two years to land that dude.

Mike:

Did it really?

Al:

 Yeah.

Mike:

Well persistence pays off. Well, I mean on that branding thing, like you said, I mean when you’re dealing with, you’re acquiring something that’s on the down slope, then it’s not necessarily a bad thing to change the name, give it a fresh look. That…

Al:

Right.

Mike:

New paint, all that good stuff. But I do appreciate the fact that you kept one that’s 80 years old and it’s got that, I used the word nostalgia for the area and people would hate it to see it go probably too.

Al:

Right? No, and it’s funny because they come in and everything, at least to the eye, appears to be the old store until they get in, they see the Pride Auto Care banners and stuff. And the things that we’ve done and a couple new people, but we kept 80% of the original crew because they were great guys. It wasn’t until we took over that we realized their culture, their work environment was not good, not as good as it could have been, let’s just put it that way.

Mike:

Yeah.

Al:

And they were very accepting of us, I mean they were scared to death we were going to get rid of them. And I said, “Look, I don’t have a hangar full of techs back here behind me, we want you guys here trust me”. We sat down, had a little come to Jesus with everybody. We bought them dinner, broke bread with the brotherhood, so to speak, and just put our arms around and say, look man, we’re going to get through this. I think, you’re going to be better off, we’re going to pay you better, you’re going to have better benefits and you’re going to have a work environment, you’re going to go, “so this is how you really run.” And I’m kind of bragging a little bit on it, but we really focus on the people. Because you can’t find them, you’ve got to develop them inside, you’ve got to support them inside, and then really everything else falls into place once you start taking care of the people.

Mike:

So speaking on culture, I’ve done a couple interviews and it seems like owners are really dialing into the fact, that my culture’s important because turnover, bottom line is expensive, and it’s just no fun. So what are some of the things that you do to enhance that culture and then keep that retention rate that you have?

Al:

That’s a great question, Mike. In fact, if you’d attended Ratchet and Wrench, I spoke on it last year and I put it in some of my seminar material this year. But one thing is to look at the individuals and start from the very beginning, even in the interview process to say, “I want to understand where you want to be, where you’re going.” And to let them know there is a path, whether it’s a general service apprentice, moving on up into the Master Tech ranks, which we’ve had many over the years, that we’ve been blessed to culture into that and get them into the Master Tech ranks that are making an amazing income for themselves and got a great work environment. The other piece of it is just giving them a good workspace, keep it safe, keep it equipped, keep their training and development on track, including other than just tactical.

I mean there’s a lot of technology out there. We utilize a lot of different players, CTI, CarQuest Tech Institute and Chris Chesney and his crew, earlier on repair findings with now. But there’s a lot of opportunity out there to keep their skillsets in intact. And then getting the tooling to take care of the cars today, the vehicles today. But also to say, “Look, you know what? You need to take care of your family. We want you to have good benefits, we want you to have a 401k.” We do a profit sharing with all of our employees at the end of each year. And that’s a big chunk of change that goes in their 401k, and just building a culture that’s people focused.

The other half of it is obviously they parlay that thought and that feeling into the customers. And customers want to come back. I mean, they want to be where they’re appreciated, where there’s a relationship. And today, man you can’t even, we ate we dinner out the other night and my wife and I we’re probably the worst for customer reviews of a place. And it’s like, you just can’t find great help in some places. It’s like …

Mike:

Yeah.

Al:

 Even if you’re mediocre, I think you would excel. So anything beyond that, I think you can write your own ticket in any retail industry, let alone car care.

Mike:

No, I totally agree with you. It’s interesting, because you’ve got to, I think as an owner, there’s somewhere along the way where you’ve got to decide, hey, this is our philosophy, this is what we’re going to live by and this is what we’re going to bet on in a sense. I don’t mean bet necessarily gamble, but it is a gamble in the sense that if you fundamentally believe in a certain way of doing business, you’re saying, “Hey, we’re going out there and we’re going to change this culture. It may cost us up front a little bit because profits may not be at the exact level we want them at, but we’re going, this is a long term plan.” And then when you do that, I’ve seen it just talking to folks like yourself, it seems to pay extraordinary dividends, but it’s like you got to make that big leap of faith to say, I’m going to trust my people. I’m going to, I’m going to put my trust in people and I’m going to invest in them.”

I think when people see that, it’s just like customers, I mean when we see a building that’s getting dilapidated and it nobody seems like they’re taking care of it, then you don’t want to go there. But if you see a business that’s constantly moving, updating training, it’s just your employees feel it too. And they want, I mean I think they want to be involved. Right?

Al:

Absolutely. Well, and I think it helps too when they know there’s a kind of people focused environment, you get that discretionary effort from your people. It’s just a, I guess the most scientific version of that I can come up with, they get a give a crap meter that’s actually off zero. I mean they really do, they work with each other. We work between the stores, if somebody’s sick or on vacation. And we have a lot of guys that have been with us a long time, so vacation is exponentially increased over the years. We’ve got floaters, that from a tech to a service advisor that can get and cover gaps between the stores. Our COO, will jump in when he needs to be. But we can get online, especially with our software and take care of each other and just know that you’re supported, it’s not just you on an island, you on an island, you on an island. It’s a true say team effort, but you got to say that.

Mike:

I like the way you said, the give a crap meter because I used to say that with some folks that you can’t necessarily train, I care, I can’t train you to love or I can’t train you to have that golden rule principle in your bag. But if I find that I’m interested in that person, because I feel like I can teach you to do something else.

Al:

Right?

Mike:

Skillset. But if you come in and you’ve got the, I care mentality, man that is…

Al:

You’re in.

Mike:

I feel like it’s 90% of the battle. I mean.

Al:

Oh, absolutely, yeah. You can actually have a lot of things going against you, whether it’s an older building, maybe your tools are not up to speed like they should be, and work through a lot of challenges. But if you don’t have people committed to that mission, of just looking after each other and then in turn looking after the customer in this day and age with the cost, and I mean I’m sure you’ve heard from other interviews that you’ve done, the cost of operations, has gone through the roof, you’ve got to move your labor accordingly. But people will pay.

The demographic profile of customers that we attract are the ones that understand, you can’t do this for free. If you want a Walmart version of what we’re doing, then there’s a Walmart version out there and I got nothing against that. But if you want good quality service with good techs and high integrity, honesty, and really with not just a automotive focus, but a community focus, people will come to you and pay a little bit more.

Mike:

Yeah.

Al:

 And I think that’s the edge that some of the stronger business owners, players out there have realized. And it starts with people, no, you know you can read a whole aisle’s worth of motivational material at the library or online or wherever the library, did you hear that? That’s a little dated. Yeah. Walk in the library and pick up your Encyclopedia Britannica, but.

Mike:

Pick up your, hey, pick up your Google at the library, right?

Al:

There’s a lot of information out there, but what it dials down to is just taking care of people and doing a pretty good job of that.

Mike:

Yeah.

Al:

And it’s harder than it appears. But once you start that culture, it’s almost self-perpetuating, it’s self-policing too, I mean, we bought a company with a top performing technician last year, great guy. Anybody would give their eye teeth to have one of him in an organization, let alone the five or six that we have, one in each shop, at least as a foreman. And just was toxic, was belittling to the apprentice techs and the C and D level techs, that he should have been mentoring. And we talked to him and I mean, this guy’s flagging, I mean on an off week, he’d be at 60 or 70 hours and that was when it was dead. He’d be at 80 or a hundred hours a week, otherwise, he was just a wizard and top producer in our company.

And we had sat down, we had some counseling and I don’t know why we couldn’t ever get to the bottom of why he went south on us, but we gave him a 30-day window to work through it and let’s do it. We’ll coach, we’ll hug you, we’ll get you through this thing, and he came in the next day and turned in his notice. And I think he expected everybody to literally go, “Man, I can’t believe, we can’t lose you. We can’t.” And literally to a man and a woman walked up to him and congratulated him and wished him the best with his future, they were so glad to get his arse out of that system and the production in that store, I swear Mike, went up from there, the Middle Line Techs could cover the gap.

Mike:

Amazing.

Al:

Yeah, I mean you wouldn’t think of especially that kind of gap, that was a huge gap. And it gave us an ability to get a young man in that we have, that is just an amazing young man, Master Level L two. And we’ve wanted to find a slot for him and just didn’t have one for years. And we got, right now, we’ve probably got three or four in the wings that are just, you know kind of faded breath waiting for the next thing, I guess we don’t have a lot of turnover when we do, boom, we’ll get you in. And this cat came in, he’s been great, he’s got a great sense of humor. He’s a team kind of guy, the guys love him, he just jokes around, but he produces like there’s no tomorrow. Well, we couldn’t have done him with a toxic guy in the system taking away from our other guys.

Mike:

It says a lot about you and your brothers and probably the way you’re raised and everything as well. I mean, it goes deeper than people realize sometimes. I mean, it’s stuff that you can’t just learn in a book, but you guys have that philosophy and it pays off, but it’s kind of ingrained in you. I mean, you know you guys, you kind of know what you want. I mean, you can get it out of a book, I guess. I think a lot of times books polish up what we already know sometimes or we feel.

Al:

Sure. Yeah.

Mike:

But for you guys, I think what’s complimentary is when you show your employees that, hey, we’re not going to keep the toxic guy around or we’ll give him a shot, we’ll give him a shot down that hole. But we don’t really, then it ended up being his choice. And then like you said, the people we’re almost celebratory that he left because it was like, oh man, we can relax a little bit.

Al:

We can breathe, yeah.

Mike:

We don’t have the drama or whatever you want to call it. And I think when your staff and employees trusting you for that, I mean it, that’s part of that whole culture. I mean, it’s like you’re protecting the good ones.

Al:

Yeah. Well, and I think they obviously since that, but they know that you got to put your money where your mouth is too. And when I say that, it’s almost a oxymoron. We’re not really putting the money, we’re taking the money out, but we know that the production will be there.

Mike:

Yeah.

Al:

I think when you get so focused on revenues, I mean, you have to have a good business model. You have to pay attention to your margins and how you’re doing things, I mean, that goes without saying. But right now we’ve got a composite margin between 58.7 and 60.2, so that’s where you want to be.

Mike:

Yeah.

Al:

You read a lot of books and hear a lot of people, but if you’re 50:70 and you come in at about 60 between the labor and the parts, you should be right on, on your money and being able to put money in the bank for the next investment, for the profit sharing or whatever. But yeah, it’s about taking care of the people, I think first and foremost.

Well Al, I’ve enjoyed this conversation, but we’ve come up against a hard stop, but I’m going to ask you one real tough question on a personal level here at the end.

All right.

Mike:

What’s your favorite hobby? What do you love to do outside of work?

Al:

Probably RVing with my wife. We’ve got two dogs that are little RV troopers and we’ve got a big old fifth wheel. We like to drag around the country and see places and do things. And that’s probably my number one. Golf and guns thereafter, it’s glamping, golf, and guns, the three G’s. And then my wife is Gail, so there’s four G’s involved there, so.

Mike:

Way to throw her in there at the end.

Al:

Yeah, you got to brother. We don’t do this thing without somebody amazing as she is and as our wives or significant others are on the backside supporting us, otherwise we’d be in trouble.

Mike:

Amen. Well, Al, thank you for being part of Gain Traction. It’s been a pleasure.

Al:

Thank you, man.

Mike:

Yeah.

Al:

Thank you, Mike. I appreciate it.

Mike:

To all our listeners out there, thank you for being part of the podcast. I don’t ever tell you all this, but somewhere along the way you guys are downloading these podcasts around 350 a week now, and we just got those numbers maybe a month ago. So I really appreciate it and appreciate you guys tuning in. And if you’d like to recommend a guest, please email me at [email protected] and we take all nominations seriously or anybody that you want us to consider. And till next time, be safe and have a great day.

Announcer:

Thanks for listening to the Gain Traction podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to quick subscribe to get future episodes.

• Al Pridemore
• Gain Traction Podcast
• Mike Edge
• Pride Auto Care
• Tread Partners

Transcript