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Episode 242

Parham Parastaran

Left Lane Auto

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Parham Parastaran is the founder of Left Lane Auto, an automotive service company operating 40 brands across 90 locations in 20 states. His career began in his family’s Car-X shop while he attended the University of Illinois. He later expanded the business into a 17-location portfolio that included independent tire stores.

After selling the company he had built over 24 years, Parastaran watched nearly every employee leave within a year. That experience shaped his approach to employee retention after acquisition: preserve the local identity, protect established working arrangements, and earn the team’s support before introducing change.

In this episode…

Multi-location operators buy shops for their revenue, reputation, and experienced teams. The first push toward standardization often puts those assets at risk. Pay changes alter household income. Schedule changes disrupt family routines. A fast rebrand removes a familiar name that employees and customers already trust.

Each additional location increases the pressure to impose a single operating model. That is the central challenge behind employee retention after acquisition. Left Lane Auto protects continuity while its leaders learn how each shop works. Operational changes begin after the local team understands the reason and supports the direction.

Parastaran also explains how this philosophy shapes conversations with sellers. Owners receive flexibility in how they exit, remain involved, or retain a financial interest. The business follows strong shops and structures the transition around what keeps each operation stable.

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

[01:03] Parham Parastaran and Left Lane Auto

[01:37] Building an automotive career from one family shop

[07:40] Preserving local businesses after an acquisition

[13:16] Lessons from losing a long-standing team

[21:19] Balancing tire sales with mechanical service

[23:27] Evaluating shops and speaking with sellers

[26:10] Structuring flexible transitions for former owners

[27:38] Expanding deal options through Bertram Capital

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“It’s the blessing of having nothing, so you have no choice.”
“You know, you’re going to go backwards when you lose people.”
“The things that I learned from the failures was that I don’t ever want to put ourselves in a cash position where we’re going back.”
“We’ll follow good stores.”
“We’ll find a way to say yes.”

Action Steps:

Build an employee retention checklist after an acquisition that records each person’s pay plan, regular schedule, tenure, and responsibilities before the handoff.
Pause proposed compensation and scheduling changes until their effects on employees’ lives and store performance are documented.
Meet with the store manager and longest-tenured employees to identify the routines, relationships, and local practices customers depend on.
Keep the acquired shop’s local name while reviewing its customer recognition and community value with the existing team.
Write the former owner’s post-sale role, decision authority, and exit timeline into the transition plan before announcing the acquisition.

Transcript

00:00
You can be the greatest mechanic on earth, but if you don’t understand the people concept of it and what consumers are mindset is you won’t quite get all of the pack. This isn’t about cars. This is about like motivating your people. So I was like, all right, this isn’t really like a mechanical business. This is something very, entirely different.

00:18
Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast, the official podcast for tire business. I am Mike Edge, your host and I have the privilege of interviewing the tire dealers, shop owners, counter sales reps, technicians, industry executives and other thought leaders of our industry. This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. Tread Partners is the leading digital marketing agency that specializes in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. Tread Partners works with clients that have hundreds of locations, down to five locations. Get a professional, unbiased opinion and let Tread Partners review what you’re doing. It starts with a simple conversation. To contact tread partners, visit treadpartners.com so let’s get started. Hey folks. Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast, the official podcast for tire business. My guest today is Param Parastar, the founder of Left lane Auto.

01:07
With 40 brands and a total of 90 locations in 20 states. Param, welcome to the Gain Traction podcast.

01:14
Thank you. Glad to be here.

01:16
Did I say your last name right?

01:18
I usually don’t listen when people get to that part of it. So as I hear the parm and I just kind of let go so. Because it can be anything, so there’s just no reason to listen to it.

01:25
I felt like I nailed it. I just wanted a little.

01:27
Say it again, say it again.

01:33
You did.

01:33
You got a B minus.

01:34
B minus. Okay, so I didn’t fail?

01:37
No, it’s Parasteron.

01:38
It’s Perastron. Okay, thank you. I want to get it right because look, when people read things or whatever, I think it’s important that they show how to say it and in their own mind and. All right, so perestron. I got it.

01:54
You got it.

01:55
All right, so you’ve got a great history in this industry. You’ve been in it over 34 years if I remember correctly. That’s great. But you’ve, you’ve had a. I mean, you’ve had an incredible journey and it’s really exploding even right now. I mean, into the 90 stores, 40 brands and what you guys are trying to accomplish. But just for the sake of our audience, would you back up a little bit and tell them about your journey and just the 10,000 foot view, you know, just where you started in this industry and how you’ve gotten kind of where you’re at today.

02:29
Yeah, I mean to tell you where I started the industry I have to just go back slightly prior to that is we, you guys hear a lot of stuff with Iran. So we fled Iran when I was 9 years old and my dad was an engineer in Iran, actually studied and got his degree in the U.S. so went back to Iran. Then the revolution happened and so we had to escape and we had to flee. My dad was never able to get a job here once he, once we fled, even though he had an engineer who is a mechanical engineer, was never able to get job. So he was just working on stuff, I mean from driving buses to trucks to working at a convenience store, all these different type of things.

03:08
And then we own this little hamburger shop and next to it was a muffler and brake shop and a guy that happened to own it was Middle Eastern. I think it’s for Pakistan. But like my dad didn’t speak very good English. So my dad thought oh, I’ll put, since I don’t speak good English and I’m a mechanical engineer, I should be able to do this automotive business. And so that’s really how it started was my dad decided he’s going to do a muffler shop. And so we moved to Champaign, Illinois. That was like my 11th move since I came to the US and we moved to Champagne and then he opens up a Car X which was a franchise where Chicago. They’re at headquarter out of Chicago is a Midwest regional sort of a franchise. Anyway, it was muffler business.

03:50
So we started a five day muffler shop and that’s where it started. And so that’s really where my journey started was In college going to University of Illinois which was here as well. And I was teaching tennis and coaching tennis and so I had some money saved up. My dad quite frankly is an awesome businessman and a very smart guy. But just like engineers, the business of automotive isn’t the nuts and bolts. The business of automotives is people and then people you know that I don’t care how you want to slice it, you can be the greatest mechanic on earth, but if you don’t understand the people concept of it and what consumers are mindset is you won’t quite get all of the package. You can be mildly successful.

04:28
My dad struck, so bottom line he struggled a little bit and I Knew nothing about the car business, and. But I did have $70,000 saved up from when I was in college. And so it was my senior year in college, and then I decided that we’ll help out the family and just kind of dive in and just, you know, at first it started with financial help, and I was like, I got involved and realized, okay, this isn’t about cars. This is about, like, motivating your people, which I was good at because I was college. I was a tennis pro, and I was a teaching pro. And so I was good at teaching kids and motivating that. And the rest was just being friendly with customers and just getting them to trust you.

05:02
So I was like, all right, this isn’t really like a mechanical business. This is something very entirely different. And ultimately, I mean, grew it methodically going to the bank. And the banks were pretty liberal during the 90s, giving out money even though the interest rates were high. But, you know, just went to store number two, store number three, eventually grew it to like, 17 Carx locations before I exited that one because of Monroe had just purchased. Monroe had purchased Carx and became the franchisor. And it wasn’t just that I had a loss in the family. One of my best friends, boys drowned while were on spring break. So I decided it was a perfect storm. And I got out, sat out for four or five years, and then that’s when I started left leg in 2020.

05:45
Man, that’s fantastic story. And. And I love the fact that you guys, you got over here and obviously it was. It’s always difficult, but you. You kept pursuing. I mean, you just kept saying, you know, just. Just grinding it out, you know, like your dad did. And it’s a great American story. And that immigrant mentality.

06:04
It’s the immigrant mentality. It’s the blessings of having nothing. So you have no choice.

06:10
Yes, That’s.

06:11
That’s exactly what really, you don’t. You know, you really don’t have a choice. I don. Assuming you’re semi motivated to do something in your life, kind of didn’t have a choice. You know, when you reflect, you’re like, I don’t even know how you did it, but I don’t ever remember at that time thinking there was another alternative.

06:27
Right. I mean. Yeah, exactly. I have a. I have a. I have several friends that had grown up difficult backgrounds. But one of them in particular, his dad used to tell him he’d be a kid, and he knew his dad’s struggles, and he was like, 13 and be like, dad, what’s going to happen? You know, he goes, son, don’t worry about it. They can’t eat you. It’s all right.

06:51
And I’m assuming to the day he still hasn’t been eaten, that’s it.

06:55
I mean. And he went on to be a very successful businessman himself now, and his dad struggled, but his dad was kind of his rock, you know, and he says, I can. I always fall back on any troubles I’ve got. They’re nothing compared to what we had growing up. And he’s like, you know, and my dad was always so cool about it. He’d just say, hey, they can’t eat, you know. You know, and we’d always find our way through it. But now he’s big time property manager and he’s got a lot of stuff going on or whatever. But, yeah, I mean, you know, it just. But, you know, I think it’s all perspective. And when you come through something like you did, I mean, you know, it’s like, I’m not. You just, you don’t sweat it. You just, you know, it’s.

07:35
But so where is. So Left Lane’s been around for six years, basically. Almost six.

07:40
Yeah, I mean, really, our first acquisition was April of 2021. So we just. Okay, so it’s been just a little over five years since we made our first acquisition.

07:50
So where do you want to take Left Lane? I mean, because one of the things that I admire about what you guys do is you acquire stores, you’ve talked about acquiring all these locations, but you’ve only lost seven employees through, you know, after acquiring these places, which is incredible considering all the employees that you guys encountered. But, you know, I’ve got some notes here that basically you guys leave the same brands, you value the local brand and you really want to retain that former ownership and management, correct?

08:21
We do. We do. And so this came from a lesson I learned when I sold in 2016 to early 2017 to Monroe, which I, you know, I had the 17 locations and. And really about a year later, there was not a. Except for one person was remaining from my company that I had built for 24 years. There’s nobody remaining. And so obviously outside of the part that it was very personal and that hurt, I decided when Left Lane was going to start, you know, I wanted to. Writing down on napkin kind of ideas, but some of the foundational values really had to do with why did all those people leave? And you know, and why? That’s a bad business, in my opinion. So obviously the bad business part is pretty easy. You know, you’re going to go backwards when you lose people.

09:07
You’re going to, you know, you got. Now maybe they want to go backwards and then go forward. You know, they’re publicly traded company, sometimes they like their comps to go down. And now if they go down 30% right off the bat and now they start growing at 3%, the comps look pretty good. That’s my, that’s my theory. But regardless, outside of that, it’s just bad business losing people. And then, you know, the community goes to those stores for the people. So that was, that was a big part of it just not being good business. And then I looked at really, what was it that they did? Well, it was kind of simple. They came in and changed everything and, and there’s nothing wrong with change. I’m a big fan of change. I’m a. You have to change, you have to adapt.

09:41
Like there’s, you know, I don’t want to do the same things I did three years ago. But right off the bat, the biggest thing that they did that I think were the two most important things was they changed the pay and they changed the hours of that store. That’s where it gets to people’s personal lives. Right. So for whatever reason, Mike Smith is over here and he’s used to working Monday through Friday and does not work weekends because maybe he’s a single dad. They have an arrangement with his partner and that’s just the way they manage their families and they work in a certain way. Right. Well, you come in and you have this one size fits all model that just gets plopped down onto here. You’re gone. Mike Smith is no longer there. He just can’t do it.

10:16
Not because he doesn’t want, he just can’t do it on top of it. If you change his pay now, it’s a whole restructure of his pay now there’s that unknown. And now they’re going to go and look elsewhere because now you’ve disrupted two really important things. So really that was the essence of it. And then the third part was changing the brand. The changing the brand was just, I just found no value in it. It wasn’t, that wasn’t so much about retention of employees. It had somewhat to do with it, but changing the brand, I just don’t see a value in it. There’s no, there’s no economies of scale. You’re going to generate. Unless you’re going to have a thousand stores, you know you’re going to be a giant national brand.

10:48
I just don’t see any economies of scale from marketing standpoint that could influence that. So for me, it was really able to maintain some consistency after that initial sale was so critical. And then you can come in there and massage it and then, and then look collaboratively with that group and say, all right, here’s some weaknesses you have. Let’s try this, let’s try that. But then we’ve done it where we’ve been ultra patient. Like, there’s a low hanging fruit, like, and I’m just like, my God, I can’t believe we’re not doing this. But we’re not going to do it until they’re ready because they’re not going to buy in anyway. So like buying in is half, you know, is selling it.

11:21
But then they’ve got to believe why it works for them as opposed to being like, Mike, I’m doing it this way because I know. So the reality is my idea is a better one. But if they don’t believe it’s not going to work anyway. So if it takes six months to get that buy in, that’s fine. If it takes nine months, that’s fine too. There’s, there’s no gun to our head. The key is sustainability. I, I, I went broke a couple of times throughout my journey that we didn’t discuss to get to where were at. Meaning, like I had a lot of failures and so people don’t talk about all of that part of it, but I had just as many failures as if I had successes.

11:53
And the things that I learned from the failures was that I don’t ever want to put ourselves in a cash position where we’re going backward. It’s really difficult to turn around stores. We can do it, everybody can do it. You got a good mind, you got the will, you can turn around a store. But it’s difficult and very big distraction, so why mess with it?

12:10
That’s awesome. I think it’s interesting. Like my big takeaway with you is that, I mean, from what you’ve learned and your own pain experience is, and then watching other people in pain, like, I know that was probably hard to know that man, I sold my company and I expected or I hope for stability for the people that I had hired all these years and then all of a sudden their lives are disrupted, you know, and you seem to really, you have a great attachment to the value of people and their lives and you recognize the hardship in your own life. But you also recognize, you know, after the, the opportunity you had when you sold the first time. And I know you had personal things that helped drive that decision.

12:53
But looking back, you were like, man, I didn’t want this to happen to all these people. And you realized all that turnover that happened, I think it says a lot about what you’re trying to do and it’s got to make people when you approach them feel very comfortable. Because I, I feel it from you. I mean you’re contagious in the fact that you genuinely want the best interest of your people. I do.

13:18
I’ve always been that way. I always been a people oriented way. Obviously I’m also in business and want to make smart business decisions as well. But, but it’s true because one of the things that it, that was easy for me to, you know, that’s very easy for owners that I’m talking to right now that are potentially thinking about selling to empathize is that I went through it. So I wasn’t, you know, some finance guy from Wharton School of Harvard, whatever that is. But you know, that came in here and is engineering numbers and doing financing and buying stores. I was a one store and I did it and I went through a sale myself. That, that at the time was really painful because it was like orphaning a hundred and some people that were. That were on my team and it was really.

14:02
I mean I’ll never forget the night before. I’ll never forget telling the. I’ll never tell you. I don’t forget that feeling what it was the night before where I couldn’t sleep and I always had to tell the people. I’ll never forget that morning. I’ll never forget the week later. I have all these memories etched in that I will never ever forget of how powerfully in an unbelievable experience was and how it was a challenging experience and what it meant to some people that were with me for a long time. I mean there was people that with me since I started 24 years from the beginning and having to tell them that, tell the younger people that was very, very difficult.

14:34
So I can empathize with the sellers right now and I think it helps that I can almost play and I really do it play like a consultant for them. Like how can I help you make this a better experience for you? Because for me if it was all about the money and it was all about, you know, all of those things, then it’d be a really cold environment. If there wasn’t the people connection part of, if it wasn’t the, the, the random owner that three years later that calls me and we’re still staying in touch and just says thank you know, for making that. And me and my wife and our family having such a great experience. Right?

15:08
To me, if you don’t have a bunch of those little things and you just have a bunch of money or a bunch of successful things that the world, the way the world thinks is successful, I think it’s a cold place.

15:19
100%. 100%. I mean, I’ve heard former owners, the one thing they miss about their business and I think this is neat, they go, look, I don’t miss all the day to day headaches and whatnot, but I do miss the people that I would see and help on a regular basis. Even go to lunch with those relationships you just had in the day to day. And he goes, you know, some of them told me, you know, just looking forward to seeing certain people. Heck, there’s people you just get to like, you know, and when they come in your store, you just, they’re kind of like the sunshine. Sometimes they just, they brighten your day. You like seeing them and that’s hard, probably walking away from that.

15:52
Sometimes it is. And the employee part of course was rewarding like you said. But when I ran the store, so I used to run the stores too, you know, go in and put the key in and make the coffee and do all that. But the interaction with the people selling jobs on the phone, customers walking in, you got them out of a jam, you’d go home feeling great. You know, you’d go home feeling fantastic because you just help somebody or you know, a mother and a child that were stranded and what, you know, you have these, you have so many opportunities to fill your heart in this, in our business that people don’t really, they don’t. I think they know it, they just forget to appreciate it.

16:27
They need to just sit back and be like how powerful a role you play in this industry for a lot of people.

16:33
So you got me thinking about you personally. I always got a couple questions I like to ask people. What’s your favorite movie? Scarface. Is that because he was an immigrant too?

16:47
When you sat in that tub and you know, he was, he wanted everything right? He was. And, and you know, he, I want,.

16:54
I want the world isn’t that what he said?

16:56
A blonde. I married a blonde here. I come from Iran and then I marry a blonde. You don’t think that’s a coincidence? You know, I wanted to. To go as far away from being this Iranian immigrants to being an American. And so I married a blonde. I did the, you know, I played football. I was a quarterback. You know, I did all the American as American. That was soccer player, obviously in Iran and they come here. I never touched a soccer ball when I came here. So, yes, Garface was. And it was just that rise. The only thing that. At all that I, you know, I connected with so many things of that character in a bizarre way. But. Except for like killing people apartment.

17:34
Or. Or having. Or having the people chase you down. Right.

17:38
Yeah. I personally don’t like him, but his ambition. It was his ambition. He was. His ambition topped everything. Like it was so meaningful because he was so insecure. I mean, I wrote a damn, you know, book about this, but he was so insecure being an immigrant that he wanted to fit in and have all those things. And the only thing you can think of at that time, and this was for me too, was money and fame. You know, money and being popular. Like that was it.

17:59
Yeah. No, that’s an interesting take. I. I did always like the scene when he went down to. Was he in Columbia and they were with the. The guy and the guy. Well, he’s. They’re both working. They’re both working for Frank, but he’s not in charge. He’s down there with the guy that he’s.

18:16
And they hung him from a. From a helicopter.

18:19
Yes, but before that they didn’t know it, but they were being listened to. And the guy went in and acted like he was. Had to take a phone call or whatever. Heard them arguing about negotiating price. And Tony was like, hey, you know,.

18:32
I’ll pay to it.

18:33
Yeah.

18:35
One.

18:35
He was right. I mean, he was more honest and direct. And that’s what that guy picked up on is the fact that’s. He. He was more straightforward than the other dude that worked for Frank. And it was. That’s right.

18:46
And that’s where he appreciates.

18:47
It was a cool scene, though. I mean.

18:49
And he also noticed. He also noticed the hunger that he had and the grittiness that he had. He had. Oh, yeah.

18:56
And he wasn’t afraid to say something like.

18:58
And he wasn’t afraid to say it because it was real.

19:00
That’s what made it interesting too. But I mean, there’s a lot of. Who would have thought that Michael Corleone would have been Tony. What was his last name?

19:10
Montana.

19:11
Montana, yeah. Yeah. Oh, Al Pacino has played some really cool characters, you know what I’m saying?

19:19
I have framed Al Pacino characters in my office at home that I framed a long time ago. There’s one where he’s holding a lot of cash and there’s. There. I have, I used to. And then I had some hand painting ones of, of Scarface in my previous office. I’ve, I’ve shed those since I’ve grown up a little bit. But yeah, man, they were inspiring for me.

19:39
Well, I’m going down another rabbit hole here. But the, the other one, you probably familiar with this one that he’s in, and I think it’s a movie that gets overlooked is. Did you ever see Heat?

19:49
Oh, yeah, of course.

19:51
With him and the dueling characters, him and De Niro. But you had a ton of people in it. You had Val Kimmeler and a ton of other people. I mean, it was a well written movie, but it was truly a good guy.

20:06
What’s your, what’s your favorite movie?

20:08
Man, I’ve got a lot. Honestly, I, I can go from, I love western, so I can go from a Godfather to Lonesome Dove to A Brave Heart, a, A Gladiator. I like those that have characters that, you know, do something beyond themselves, you know, but yeah, kind of along that line. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Lonesome Dove, but that’s a great epic.

20:34
I’m assuming that’s a western.

20:36
It is.

20:37
I hear.

20:38
Good thing was it’s got Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones and a few other. Some major characters that. And it’s a long movie. I mean, you got to watch it in parts, but it’s, it just, it’s a great story and it’s not like feel good. Like, I mean, it’s got some hard realities to it. And you’re like, oh man, I like that guy. I can’t believe he died. You know? You know, so there’s like, you lose people that you like in as character, as the movie develops.

21:05
It’s going on my list.

21:06
Yeah. Check it out. It’s, it’s an investment of time, but I’d love to know your opinion of it. But getting back to the, the business. Have you ever been in the tire side? Do you guys sell tires?

21:19
Oh, yeah. We’re, we’re about 40% tires.

21:22
Okay. Because your name, I didn’t know that with your name. And it says auto repair, but I didn’t.

21:26
Yeah, no, we’re, you know, and it’s just a function of the stores we buy. I mean there’s. There’s stores that operations that we bought that were about 75% tires that we, you know, moved over to more service. And then there’s stores that we buy, they’re 90% mechanical, the 10% tire. So we, we, we like to keep a pretty good balance at one of the tail ends of my, my career with my first part of. With Carx was if you haven’t heard of Carx. So Carx was a start as a muffler break. They’re a regional franchise. Carx. And so basically they were just like a Midas or a minor keep. Just smaller. Okay. And those heavy repair 9 tires. I was the first car X dealer. I was on board, of course.

22:04
And so it was a small group, but I was the first one to do it to Carx Tire Center. I started buying tire stores even when I was a franchisee. And I wouldn’t even change their name, even though I had to. But I just didn’t because I knew I had to get into the tire business. And the car X model or the Midas model, those models were going to be very difficult to break into that unless you bought independent tire stores for whatever reason. I done this for a while, studying this. It didn’t matter what I did now. I did build a car next door that was. Has a big tire on it. The first one in the country. That’s a tire store and that was a good amount of tires, but it was still only like 25% tires.

22:40
But to get to that 40%, there’s this just thing with people that they associate tire stores and independent stores very differently than they do a Midas or a mighty key or that those guys have had a hard time cracking into. The tires stores aren’t set up for it for starters, you know, from an inventory standpoint. But I just really wanted to be in tires towards the late part of my. I would say starting in 2012, I started buying independent stores and I was buying tire stores. I got you higher that were very much doing tires more than ever I did as a car X. So like I bought Fast Tire. I bought Davis Tire. I bought. I bought Beaumont Tire. I bought so these that’s. And they were all part of.

23:19
When I was part of those 17 stores that I said I just didn’t I didn’t change their names. And that’s when I learned I don’t want to change their names to Carx.

23:25
Yeah, no, I love that. Let’s say for instance, somebody’s listening to this right now and I mean, are you open to just general conversations with shop owners that just want to say, man, I like the dialogue with this guy. I like the sound, the way he approaches things.

23:38
I probably do two calls a day with owners.

23:41
Okay.

23:41
I, I easily double digit calls a week.

23:47
How would somebody contact you right now if they want to? What’s the easiest?

23:51
Oh, I mean the easiest is my email. It’s, it’s my, it’s basically my first name. Parm.parastron@Left Lane Auto LLC.com. I don’t know if you can post it up there, but Parm Paras at Left Lane Auto llc. Oh, you can also go to our website and there’s a general inquiry part and that’ll come to me as well. But I handle all of it, Mike. I, I mean I try to meet with every owner. I don’t say I try.

24:16
I do.

24:16
I mean if there’s that first intro, I meet with the owners first.

24:20
Well, what I liked you told me that you’ve been to every opening. I mean, you know, every acquisition, I missed one.

24:25
I was wrong on that. I missed, I missed one. One dinner. So we do a dinner the day before every single time and I’ve missed one. And out of the acquisitions, but I go to everyone. We’ll be at 1 this Sunday and we’ll be at 1 the following Sunday.

24:37
That’s beautiful. Is there any particular part of the country that you’re looking?

24:42
We continue. I mean, you know, if the size is big enough, it’s a multi store. We’ll go anywhere. One of the reasons, I mean you mentioned we’re in 20 states that was lured by design. And as I build, not the platform that the thought was, don’t want to just be geographically blocked. If there’s a good operation in Colorado, let’s go do that operation. We’ll build around it. If there’s a good operation in Arizona, let’s do it and let’s build around it. If there’s a good one in Wyoming, let’s build it and do around it.

25:06
Right.

25:07
It’s turned out that it’s become more like, you know, the Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, you know, that whole south, middle Southwest. You know, we’re Texas, Illinois and then. But now we’re in Maine, you know, now we’re in Pennsylvania now we’re in Delaware actually. Now we’re in Delaware. So we’ll kind of go, we’ll follow good stores. We do have some minimum requirements. We like higher volume stores. Yeah. And so that’s a little bit of a, you know, that’s a little challenge because our model is just not suited for that. And now if it’s a store doing 1.2 million in our footprint, that’s fine, you know, but it’s tough to go somewhere for 1.2 million to start with.

25:48
Right.

25:49
And so our typical store is around 2 million.

25:51
No, I got you. That makes sense.

25:53
But that’s, but we’re not married to it.

25:55
Yeah, no, it’s, it’s probably on a case by case basis. But ultimately, do you want the owner or to remain involved or the. And then also, are you, are you buying a, you know, the majority percentage or all of it? Typically, yeah.

26:11
Two good questions. I’ll answer the first part. So owners, it all depends on the owner. If I’m talking with an owner and they’re like, hey, I don’t, I got a few years left. I want to take some chips off the table. But I got a few years left and I still want to run it, we’ll say no problem, we’ll find a way to say yes. Vendor says, I want to completely get out and just rent my real estate. We’ll find a way to say yes. Owner says, I want to sell it all with the real estate. We’ll say, find a way to say yes. So it’s like literally find a way to say yes to whatever it is that’s going to make that transition. We have an owner, for example, right now. He’s an amazing guy.

26:44
We bought a three store operation in, in Arkansas. Grizzle. I’ll tell you what it was. It was Grizzle family owned for a long time. Father, he was only going to be involved for six months or so. And now three years later, he’s running states for, he’s a regional. You know, six months after that he emailed us and said, hey man, I kind of like this. And we’re like, for sure, we’ll make some happen. So now he’s a regional runzo store. He has more stores. He keeps getting aga stores. His sister is still with us. So we have these wonderful stories like that people are. So we have several owners that are absolutely involved.

27:17
Well, I like your attitude too. I know, another guy in business, and he says he’s in real estate development, but he says to anybody that comes to him and goes, look, if you bring me a deal and if we can make it work, he goes, I don’t have a hard line in the sand. If the numbers work for both of us, I’ll make it work. And it sounds to me like you’re open to that kind of conversation.

27:38
We are. And your second part was, do they retain ownership? We, we now as you know, I think you know that. So we. We partnered with Bertram Capital. So now we have a partner at Bertram Capital out of California, very large private equity and a great private equity. Been a great relationship working with them, and it’s just been great. Anyway, so we’re about six months into it, and as a result of that partnership, we now have even more flexibility or I should say more. More things available from a transaction standpoint. Meaning, for example, that owner wants to stay on, but then also wants to have some piece of something for that benefits and potential in the future if the value of our company goes up. We have products like that, let’s call it. So, so now we have that.

28:27
And we have a few deals going on currently right now that do have this hybrid version of the owners. Not necessarily staying on. Maybe one of them. Yeah, we have like one staying off, but then they’re retaining some money into the business.

28:40
What’s a. I always like to give out phone number, too. What’s a good phone number? Something, not directly if they don’t want to give it your direct line, but if there’s a number that they call, I don’t mind at all.

28:51
Yeah, I mean, just call. I don’t mind giving you my cell phones. 217-621-9700.

28:59
Perfect.

29:00
But that’s only for sellers that they’re allowed to call. Nobody else. No vendors.

29:07
Hey, man, I hear you there. Yeah, we get a lot of vendors for Gain Traction. That of course. But I, I really appreciate you coming on and telling your story, and I think it’s very inspirational and I love what you’re doing, and I wish you the best of luck.

29:22
Thanks, Mike. I appreciate you.

29:24
Hey, folks, Mike Edge here with the Gain Traction podcast. Real quick, we get a lot of people ask us, they know Gain Traction, but who’s Tread Partners? Well, Tread Partners is our parent company, and they’re a marketing agency dedicated strictly to tire and automotive repair shops. Anywhere from five locations all the way up to hundreds of locations in primarily one field that is always a pain for most people is paid search or PPC or Google Ads. We see enormous amount of waste in it and we see inefficient spend in it. You want to know if you’re doing well or not? Give us a call. We’ll help you. We’ll audit your account. We’ll look under the hood and tell you if you’re doing things the right way or the wrong way and help you optimize that spend.

30:03
You can reach me and I’ll direct you in the right [email protected] or feel free to go to treadpartners.com the website. To all our listeners, thank you for being part of the Gain Traction podcast. We are grateful for you. If you’d like to find more podcasts like this, please visit gaintraction podcast.com if you’d like to make a guest recommendation, please email [email protected] this episode has been powered by Tread Partners, the leader in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. To learn more about tread partners, visit treadpartners.com.

Contents hide

1 In this episode…

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

3 Resources mentioned in this episode:

4 Quotable Moments:

5 Action Steps: