Shop Succession Without Retirement: How Three Employees Became Owners [RR 1114]

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This is The Automotive Repair Podcast Network.

Carm Capriotto (0:06)

Hey, everybody, Carm Capriotto, Remarkable Results Radio. Good to have you all here. You know, we always want to thank all of the great guests that we've had, the entire Automotive Repair Podcast Network. Appreciate you giving your all to share your thoughts and ideas in all the shows, and including my next guest. And I actually counted the number of times he's been on my show since I started. And it is a startling number. It could very possibly be the largest number of all the people I've ever had on. And I will share with you who that is in about a sec.

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Hey, welcome back. I just want to remind you all of the listening app, ARPN.app. You're going to find the QR codes there on that website. Please get it down. I hope by the time you hear this, version two will be out. You are going to so love this because you know I'm a deep thinker and I'm a creative person. And wait till you see what's going to be on there next. Okay. As I promised, I'm going to introduce Andy Bizub. Hello, Andy.

Andy Bizub (1:46)

Hey, Carm. Good to be here.

Carm Capriotto (1:47)

Glad you're here, man. Midwest Performance Cars, European Auto Repair. Been in his place in Chicago. He's got three locations, Chicago, Northbrook, Westmont.

Andy Bizub (1:57)

Yes.

Carm Capriotto (1:58)

How long ago did the third store come in? A couple years ago?

Andy Bizub (2:02)

July 1st, 2023

Carm Capriotto (2:03)

2020 So three years. Wow. And so the reason we're here is Andy has created a succession plan with three of his people.

And succession today is huge. Selling is huge. The graying of all of our owners is huge. And I don't think we can talk about this enough. Why? Because there's so many unique and interesting stories because deals are shaped and made of all kinds. But Andy, I think, is going to share with us and tell me if I'm wrong, that it's got to be good for everyone in order to go forward. And if not, you're going to be right back in the saddle.

Andy Bizub (2:41)

I like win-win deals. Those are always the best. And I wanted multiple reasons for putting together the deal that I did.

One of them was to get myself, I was already pretty much out of day-to-day operations, but to really be able to step away from the business in any given time and know that it was still being operated the way that we wanted it to be operated, taking care of our clients the way we wanted them to be taken care of. But the other thing was really to, I had three key individuals and being able to provide them with an opportunity to build wealth, but also a little bit selfish, putting the golden handcuffs on them so I wouldn't lose them.

Carm Capriotto (3:28)

Okay, stop right there because I think one of the keys to what you're discussing, Andy, is that as you were hiring people and watching them and seeing their performance and watching them as leaders and deeper thinkers, you would have to be in the back of your mind. That could be a great person inside the succession plan. And so you've got to be constantly aware, learning, watching in your intuition at heightened levels.

Andy Bizub (3:57)

So it started with one individual.

For me, when I saw him doing his job as a manager, as if he was already an owner, taking that kind of care, and also the fact that he was almost half of my age. At the time that we affected this deal, I was 58 He was in his early 30s, married a couple of kids, you know, building a life, but I wanted to get him in a position where we were, and we were already very aligned, but where we are 100% alignment. We both have skin in the game. Provide him with an opportunity, but also make sure that he wasn't going to be looking to leave because he was my key number two guy.