The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 480: Matt Ebert—The Billion Dollar Car Wreck

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Matt Ebert didn't set out to build a billion-dollar business—he just wanted to fix cars the right way. Today, he's the CEO of Crash Champions, one of the fastest-growing collision repair companies in the country, valued in the billions and trusted to bring wrecked vehicles back to life. Mike sits down with Matt to unpack what really happens after a crash, why the skilled trades behind collision repair matter more than ever, and how a kid with no grand plan or college degree wound up leading a national powerhouse. Along the way, Matt tells how he got his start in the business, proving that sometimes the road to success begins with a single accident (or two) … and a desire to fix it. Many thanks to our excellent sponsors ZipRecruiter.com/Rowe to post a job for FREE. GoodRanchers.com Use code MIKE to get $25 off your first order and FREE meat for life. K12.com/Rowe See what's possible for your child with K12's Career and College Prep AuraFrames.com/Mike Use code Mike to get $25 off their best-selling Carver Mat frame.

The way I heard it, Chuck, it's entirely possible that a guy can just be driving down the road, you know, 17 years old, in his beloved car. Yeah. And lose control. 16, I think he was. Wreck it. And then be worth a billion dollars as a result. Is that what you heard?

That's what I heard. I heard the most profitable car wreck in the history of the world is the story we're about to share. on this episode of the way I heard it. Yes. It sounds exactly like the conversation that we just did, yes. Although I don't think we connected the dots. No? Not the way I just did.

I mean, I just talked to a guy named Matt Ebert. Matt Ebert is a guy who bought me dinner a year ago, and not just me. I was at Skills USA with a room full of people in a private dining room. I was speaking there at this thing, right? And they invited me in, and somebody picked up our whole tab. Right.

And then the waiter gave me a note. And it was a nice note from a guy named Matt who said he admired what we were doing at MicroWorks. Right. And he would love a chance to talk and share some of what his company was doing to help reinvigorate the trades. Yes. I Google him.

His company's called Crash Champions. Yep. Turns out this guy didn't go to college, just worked in an auto body shop. Yeah. Because he wrecked his car. and then he wrecked another one. Yeah, right.

It was the second one that led to it, right? And so he's suddenly like in the business of repairing his own cars and he realizes he kind of digs this. And so he finds a passion. And by his own admission, he wasn't very good at it. Yeah. Yeah. But the son of a gun sticks with it and flash forward a few decades.

And he's got a $3 billion company called Crash Champions. Yep. that is doing everything different in the automotive repair game. So I learn all of this kind of a year ago from a quick Google search after a stranger buys me and my friend's dinner. And I said to his CMO, I guess it is, some guy named Jan. I'm like, you know what, you let that Matt character know. If he's ever in town, I would love to talk to him.

Folks, that's what happened today. This is one of the greatest rags to riches success. story. I'm so happy for his success, and I'm so delighted to tell you that he's hiring to the tune of five or 600 people right now, AI proof, six-figure jobs. Yeah. I mean, it just checks so many fun boxes for me, and he just struck me as utterly authentic. Super authentic, a really sweet guy, really nice guy, and driven for sure. He wants to be bigger and bigger and bigger. And I think he has like over 650. Was that the number? 650 locations. Across the country, yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting too. You know, I've been talking to Damon John. Yeah. The shark. Shark tank. Yeah. And Damon, through

some weird circuitous connection, reached out to Matt a couple years ago and helped him grow. Like really through like rocket fuel on this thing. Right, right. And so this is really a conversation about connections and about patience and about diligence and about humor and about modesty, humility, and reward. When he talked about his first entrepreneurial job, really interesting, he said he'd never mentioned it before. I won't spoil it, but it's funny. Yeah. I mean, this is a conversation that I think will stick with you because we don't hit anything too square. on the head, but it all kind of adds up. And what you're left with, spoiler alert,

is just the undeniable fact that miracles can still happen in this country to people who put in the work and who are too stubborn to quit and too curious to do anything but. Yeah. Yeah. This conversation is right in your wheelhouse. It's called the billion dollar car wreck, because that's basically what it was, with Matt Ebert right after this.

The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play for sure, but if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level, we need more organizations like Skills USA making a real difference on a local level. These guys have been around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before, with hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country and hundreds of thousands of students participating and competing every year.

Nobody is doing more to train the next generation of skilled workers than Skills USA. And I'm encouraging you to at least consider being a part of this movement. Skills USA advisors and volunteers aren't just teaching trades. They're launching careers and strengthening the backbone of our country by mentoring the next generation of industry leaders. in high school, you could be among the people who are making this movement explode. Join the skilled trades movement. Support career and technical education programs through Skills USA.

There's no better way to do it. You can volunteer at a local chapter. You can start a chapter in your own town. Or you can just go to their website and see the impact for yourself. And see, too, how easy it is to get involved. Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely positively moving the needle. The goal is a million members by 2030.

I think it's doable. I'm doing what I can to help them. Learn more at skillsusa.org slash mic. That's skillsusa.org slash mic. I'm talking skills, U.S. Skills, U.S. USA.

Are you doing a podcast? Like, do you host one? Yeah. You want to come on it. I don't know. I'll see how this goes. Whenever you go. Are we good?

We're up? Yeah. Oh, fantastic. All right, you guys are welcome to hang, but you're going to get bored standing there. It's going to go for a while, so do whatever you want to do. They do it every time I do one. You want to talk about boring. Look, man, we've done hundreds of these.

Nobody's ever come in with cameras before. What are they doing? Is this an attempt to just accumulate evidence before the trial? It's great. It's an attempt from somebody who's not good at camera stuff to, follow me around at certain times and probably for hours to get like a couple minutes of usable stuff. Yeah. Well, look, man, I get it. Because you can't reenact it. Like, so you got to get it in real time. Well, the tragedy is you can reenact it, but everybody today knows it. People can smell

take two. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I just think authenticity is so in demand right now that people's bullshit meters are so finely tuned like they can see a performance, they can see a second take, they can see anything that feels deliberate? Well, especially from somebody like me because I can't act. And even the camera stuff is not my comfort zone. Probably, well, I actually know probably to it. Three years ago is when we started doing camera stuff.

Yeah. And that was just internal for our. own team. And Mike, I was so bad at it. We did like, seem like a thousand takes, but it was probably like a hundred. Yeah. And you know what they did? They took the audio and made a cartoon. That's how bad it was. Yeah. Or how good. It was unusable. Yeah. I mean, look, I think we're entering in this phase now where, you know, the more artificial, the more AI grabs hold everything. You know, the more suspect people are going to become, or the more curious they're going to be, or maybe skeptical. Like, it's going to be, I think it's going to be very refreshing to see people on camera who are uncomfortable or at least not terribly interested in doing it in a produced way.

That is you, man. There's people saying that, that however many years from now, people will pay you for, like, a real human experience. Which that's pretty wild. Transformation of the world. But like where you'll crave a human experience so much you'll pay for it. That's pretty wild. Yeah. No, it's, I think it's all coming.

Okay, so we met, where were we? Skills USA, about almost a year ago. And was that in Nashville? Was that? Atlanta. It was in Atlanta, right. So just some people. I remember because it was hot.

It was hot. And my guy, that convention center, went through several buildings and our guy there decided to show us the shortcut, which was around all the buildings. When it was clear inside, like, you know, the walkways over the roads inside, air-conditioned. And he thought the great was to run around the building. Well, look. I tease them about that all the time. Full disclosure.

People buy me drinks once in a while. Every now and then, somebody will buy me dinner. Nobody ever bought the whole room full of people dinner before. Oh, you're talking about how I actually got to meet you? Yeah. So yeah, great story on our side of that. We're sitting there at, obviously, because of your message, which you've been at for decades, like it resonates with us.

So you're on a list of people that I would have loved to meet. My team would have loved to meet because we're preaching the same thing only a few decades later. Sure. Right. And so we're sitting there kind of planning out what we're going to do tomorrow at dinner and in you and your group walks and walks right by us into a private. room and I look at Danny and I said all right well who's going in there which we do no etiquette like you're in a private room for a reason right so as much as I tried to force them to go in there like we

knew better so my game plan was all right I can't leave here and not try something so went up to the hostess and I said hey I would really like to buy I saw Mike Rowe walk through with this group I'd really like to buy him dinner if I can leave him a note And they said, okay. So, you know, we even took a picture of me, handwriting the note, gave you my, told you what I was up to, the contact information. And then that was that. And the next day, we're having lunch together.

So good old-fashioned kind of guerrilla marketing kind of still works. No, look, it was, it worked out for me anyway. Yeah, I mean, never mind the agenda. Like, from my perspective, it was brilliant. I knew a little bit about crash champions. I knew that you had exploded. And I knew that you... Well, that's cool that you even knew that.

That's awesome. I did. I knew it had something to do. Like there was a shark tank thing that had happened and there was some relationship. I didn't realize it was Dame and John at the time. But because I was at Skills USA and because I've been there many times,

you know, I know a lot of people who run companies like yours, they go there to recruit, not just to support. Like you're there looking for people. potential employees. Yes. Which, by the way, I mean, is there a better kept secret in the country than Skills USA? Like, in terms of youth groups, in terms of employer, employee readiness, you know, it just blows me away every year.

That was the national competition. So honestly, those are even your leaders. Yeah. Did you make offers on that trip? Did you hire to find people? Yes. Yeah. Now, I didn't meet them individually.

I had a whole team there. So what came out of it, I can report back. But, yeah, we're there to recruit and hire for sure. So it was, and that clearly wasn't your first trip. No. It was mine. My team goes all the time. It's getting to be such a big deal that I decided to make the trip myself that time

and just see the potential there. Yeah. So I'm with my team. You're with your team. You buy us all dinner. You leave a note. I call some guy named Danny answers, I think. We have lunch the next day.

And we say, look, at some point, somewhere down the road, let's pick each other's brain and see, like, if it might make sense to do something together. Because I didn't know your story then. But part of the reason I wanted to make sure we had a chance to do this with microphones and cameras is because I think your story is really important. I mean, it's entertaining as hell. It's interesting.

You basically built yourself an empire. if I remember, right, as the result of an accident, like a literal accident. Yeah. I wrecked my car when I was 16. It was actually, like, the more details of the story, which I haven't told before, it was really my second accident, my second car, and the first one totaled. And so I had already had one insurance claim and scared to death to make another because as a 16-year-old kid, I probably wasn't going to be insured anymore.

And for me, at that time, the car was more than a car. It was freedom. I still remember the first time getting in a car by myself and realizing like this could take me anywhere, right? What was the car? It was the one that I wrecked and fixed was a Chrysler Laser, which is like a Dodge Daytona. That's the one that I fixed.

I don't know how many of them they made, but it's basically a Chrysler version of the Dodge Daytona. The one I wrecked and totaled was a Ford EXP, which was like a two-door escort kind of bird. A little sporty escort kind of version. Where do they get these names, man? I don't know, right. And an escort.

Yeah. I mean, that goes straight into the oldest profession in the world. At least they're creative, though. I mean, it's not like it's, you know, the model one or two or three or... No, no, that's for sure. A or B or C. So at least there's creativity to it. You remember the probe?

Yeah. I don't know if that's the best name. I mean, if you get the probe together with the escort, you know? You guys putting that together now. It's not a great name, is it? What about the dart, man? I remember that that was one of my first ones. My granddad had a Dodge Dart.

Okay. And it had, my dad was a big Dodge guy. Yeah? Well, the dart, I think it was like in the Swinger. They had a, it was a Slant Six. Okay. Engine, right? And the things, like, they ran.

Like, you didn't have to change the oil. They'd run 350,000 miles. And the bodies would, like, literally fall apart around these things. I was going to say, if it was a Dodge, something had to go wrong. Oh, yeah, but it was never the engine, you know. AMC, like, I remember the, remember the javelin? My stepfather was into the AMCs.

Yeah. Those were ugly cars. They were hideous. But 390, big block, absolute garbage frame. And, you know, Bob. But they also made like the Gremlin, right? Like the Gremlin, the wainsworld car. The wainswold car.

Yeah. Yeah. Horrible. Man, it really is amazing. When you think about the way style, and fashion impacted the automotive industry and the look. You're talking about freedom, you know, the thing that the car represents. But it all, it's just everything about it, the look and the name and just like I'm,

I don't describe myself as a car guy. I know a lot of them, you know. Let's kind of go there. How do you become a car guy? Well, you know, I happen to grow up in a time when cars were cool, too. Like, as a kid, you couldn't wait to drive, or at least I couldn't. And I also couldn't wait to open the hood and take it apart or put a jack under it and take the wheel off of it. It was a lot simpler back then. Now it's a little scary if you don't know what you're doing.

Where'd you grow up to jump into it? So a few towns throughout Illinois. My mom and stepdad moved me first in... I don't know, I must have been about four or five, or even younger, actually, three or four, to a town with 150 people in it, literally, 150. And then for eighth grade, they moved to a town with 1,400 people, so big city. Sure. Hated all of it, and then came running up and live with my grandparents right after high school.

But you had nothing to compare it to. It's not like you left a big city for a small town. That's all you knew. That's all I knew, right, yeah. Okay, so now the freedom thing starts to make sense. how are you going to get out of these little vills, you know, you need wheels. Yeah, that's right. And my stepfather credited him.

He raised the family on the, he was a rural mail carrier, but like big ambitions weren't, weren't part of the family language, right? So you said there's a mail carrier? Mm-hmm. So he traveled extensively with the government. Yeah, right. Oh, same route every, thousands of miles, right? Same route every day.

What did you take from that? I'm only asking you this because you're, I mean, I'll clear this up in the preamble, but you're like you're an entrepreneur's entrepreneur. You built something out of, I don't know what exactly. I guess we'll find out. But to have a front row seat to a guy in your life who does the same thing every day, day after day after day,

you know, did that inspire, impact, motivate, frightened, cautionary tale? How did you think of work at that age? Yeah, so I, viewed things completely different. I saw like so much opportunity out there and I don't know if I was like why not me that probably maybe came later. Yeah. But I did see an abundance of opportunity. Maybe was jealous of it. Maybe craved it. I don't know. But it seemed like in that small town, the whole goal was maybe like retirement. And I don't, however I'm wired, it's not that. Yeah. So hence the reason why I right after high school and didn't want to stay there.

So a very different mindset and probably felt like nobody really related to the way I was thinking. Yeah. I don't think I felt that way. I think it was that way. Like most of the people around me did not relate to the way I was thinking at all. How'd you wreck the first car? I love stories like this. Seven years ago, a guy named Ben Still was a musician.

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E-Haul. Fell asleep. I don't remember what story I told. I probably lied about it and said I'd swerved to miss something, I'm sure. Oh, sure. Yeah. Like an orphan. Yeah, yeah.

I had left it, right? Or some animal, right? Yeah, yeah. But I was in high school and I was working after school every day. Would work until about midnight one in the morning. What were you doing? Work on the weekend. Working at McDonald's.

I didn't mind that job, actually, is a day. as a kid. Really? Yeah, I mean, and I also did like entrepreneur stuff like mowed grass all around the town and things like that. So a lot of working, not much sleeping, had drove up to see my grandparents and my dad

and then was on the way home and on the way home middle of the afternoon, just on the way because I needed to work that night. Actually, it's all sleep and rolled the car over. By yourself. Yeah. Lucky? Yes.

Yeah, lucky, because those were the days where you didn't wear seat. belts either. So actually it came to like hanging out the sunroof and the car would the car would have flipped over one more roll would have been way worse but it had been two mats yeah right wow so how old were you? So thankfully it wasn't 16 then and which car was that again that was that 40 XP okay so you total the expe you're 16 yeah how long until you get your next ride oh good question some months because I needed to save some money Yeah, so then I think I got a car in the middle that wasn't a car that I wanted. I think it was an AMC, actually.

I don't think I know it was. Remember, I told you my stepdad was into those. Yeah. And then... Could have been a PACER. Could have been a Gremlin. Right, right. Then I bought that Chrysler.

Right. And now you're 17? Yeah. So I always tell the story. I was 16 and wreck my car. Now that we're getting really accurate with it, when I really learned to do bodywork was 17. Okay. So we just cleared that up on micro TV.

We are here. Look, this thing is called The Way I heard it. So you can tell me any story you want, but people do watch this. That's great. You have to live with it. Yeah. What was the nature of the second? Was that just a fender bender?

You didn't total it? Yeah, of course, teenager. Heading to work in the morning, snowy day. Bridge. You know, it's always slick around a bridge, winter past somebody on the bridge and kissed the guardrail. Round around you went. Yeah.

Well, I didn't go around. They just kind of raked the side and got to still drive to work and then just had to look at my car, not looking like I wanted it to. So where did you take it? That's where I knew the gentleman in the town that I worked in that did body work. He had a job during the day, did body work in a garage at night. What was his name? His name was Ray. Heck, I haven't talked to him in maybe 30-something years.

So I don't know where he's at today, but he showed me how. To fix that car and then and then started working with him on other cars. My senior year, I would go to school for half a day. I was in a work release program. Went to McDonald's and worked, say, from noon to like six. And then went and worked on cars with him from like six to midnight. Got up in the morning, did it all over again.

So you're cutting lawns, you're slinging fries and you're pounding out, you know, fenders and whatnot. Yeah, all that for probably a few hundred bucks a few hundred bucks a week. What did you like, you know, as a teenager, what made sense to your brain about working on a car? I mean, specifically, I guess, body work, right? That was your thing. Well, it's rewarding because you see the transformation of something. So I've done a lot of construction in my life, too, you know, as like side, you know, real estate investments and stuff.

And some of my favorite parts about that are say landscaping because, like, overnight, you take what's just dirt and you make it beautiful. collision works pretty much similar. Like it might not be overnight, but within a matter of a couple days to a few weeks, you take what's a disaster and you transform it. It's pretty rewarding to seeing like work of your hands come together. Well, people ask me all the time. You know, what was it about dirty jobs?

Why do so many people on that show seem to be having such a good time? And I can't speak for anybody but me, but it sure seemed like over the years that the thing they all had in common was that they always knew, how they were doing in the course of their work. Because you can see it. Yeah, you didn't need a supervisor to tell you anything because you're the progress. You can see it.

You can touch it. And you're your own evaluator, essentially. So that made, I mean, that was going on. So you saw that over and over and over. I saw it constantly. But you know what? I mean, what is cutting the lawn but for constant feedback? You know, it's tall.

Now it's short. You see the grass blowing outside. The lines look like this. The lines are straight. I'm doing it. Like I'm doing it. I can see that I'm doing it. I just think that's such a simple thing.

But for the last 30, 40 years, so many good jobs, you don't have any visual cues to know when you're done or how you're doing. This place looks pretty much the same. You know, 10 at night as does it 10 in the morning. No matter how many people I interview it, it always looks the same. It's a good insight. Yeah, a lot of people are looking at a computer screen. Right? Oh, well, for now.

Or spreadsheets or you name it. So it's tough to, you know, you see it maybe in financial performance or efficiency, but you don't see the product of your hands. Well, I definitely want to get into this with you vis-a-a-I and what it's going to do to your industry. But I kind of want to walk my way toward it a little bit because right now I'm thinking of a guy named Ray. Was it, you remember his last name? Lazzaric.

Ray Lazzaric. I don't want to make a meal out of it necessarily, but I mean, you're not sitting here without him. Yeah, that's probably very true. That's not probably true. That is true. Yeah. There's no crash champions without him. No.

Now, interesting, why I clarified that is it's really probably a unique scenario. I ended up working at different body shops, but the one that I ended up partnering with and open a body shop, his name was Ray also, and his last name was Zerick. Now, pure coincidence that the name, like two totally different people, not even similar at all, but the names were pretty similar. So funny. I don't even know if either one of them know that. Now, the Ray that I was a partner with, like, we're still friends. I'm so busy, I don't see him much.

Yeah. But the gentleman from a teenager's, I'm not sure where he is. So how long did you work with that Ray, Lizaric, Fixing Carr, is under his tutelage? Just a couple years. All right. So it's pretty quick. What did you learn during that period that, you know, informed whatever was next? I learned enough to love the industry.

So from really like not just the reward of seeing it, but I love the smell of a body shop, which people walk in there can probably be revolted like, oh, what's the smell, right? Describe it. It's paint. It smells like paint. Less today than back then. Back then, you didn't have boosts that filtered. the air. I mean, you were hanging fans outside. You were hanging fans in the window and blowing it

outside and doing it without a mask and picking whatever color paint boogers out of your nose for the next couple days. Like, that's literally how it was. I never thought about that. Yeah. Honey, look, it's purple. Yeah. Purple snot. But I imagine there was probably a little bit of a buzz to it. Sure. So you felt that and saw the reward. And it was a little bit of a high for a teenage kid. So under Lazzaric, you learned to love the work. Yeah. You learned to appreciate it. Now, I wasn't, to be clear, I wasn't good at it.

I was a teenager. Like, if I saw the job today, if it looked good, it was because he cleaned up after me. Like, you know, he would spend 10 minutes fixing whatever I did and probably made it look great, whereas my work in itself probably wouldn't stand the test of anything good. I just think that's important. I mean, I was a dumb kid. I made dumbest mistakes. Like the first job he got me,

that shop did a lot of, like, big equipment, too, not just cars. But I made dumb mistakes. Like, they sandblasted there. And so picture a tow truck with the boom on the back, right? Which would extend way out. They had sandblasted it. And now it was my job to go and bring it in the shop and sand it. And I mean, I had 300 feet to walk out and get in the tow truck.

The boom standing straight in the air. You don't put the boom down? I don't put the boom down. Drive right into the building. I mean, I did all kinds of dumb kid stuff. Well, I mean, I think that it's really. I still remember the front of the truck. I still remember the front of the truck pops up in the air.

Everybody's looking at me like I'm a idiot. Like, how does he? Oh, I'm sure he was. He wasn't happy. Like, I embarrassed him, right? Because he's the one who brought me in there. But he kept you? Well, I was beyond him.

He wasn't the employers. Oh, okay. But I don't know if he said. He might have saved me. I don't know. I had to go in the next day and apologize. Oh, I guess. Yeah, but the important thing in all of this is what you did.

I mean, it's literally a confessional. To be clear, I wasn't good at it. No. No. And I mean, not to belabor the point, but I'm so sick of books and autobiographies and, you know, people looking back. You know, because a lot of people are, I'm sure they've already asked you, but you're going to spend a lot of the rest of your life telling people how you did it. Because people are desperate to understand the playbook.

Oh, you think so? I mean, walk through. I guess you've been telling people's stories for a long time, huh? I've been telling a lot of stories, but I'm talking more about the questions. Like the, as you succeed. And all you have to do is walk through a Barnes & Noble if they still exist and just go down like the self-help aisle and find. and find the how I did it section.

And it's going to be filled with books by billionaires. Who tell you? You know, this is, you know, and they're going to say things like, oh, yeah, I followed my passion. Or I knew early on that I was good at this. I took my competency and I leaned into it. Okay. You know, and it's all the same freaking story.

I love the idea that you wrecked two cars and you say, look, I learned to love working on them, but you weren't good at it yet. I didn't want to lose a vehicle. I didn't want to lose the freedom. I was, you know, a pretty restricted childhood. We didn't have any money. The last thing I wanted to do was lose the freedom.

So I was desperate to make sure I could still drive that car the next day. So I don't know if I was leaning into any passion or anything I was good at. It was not wanting to lose the freedom. And then, like, but I did love the product of the business. I mean, you're a teenager with a short attention span who stayed there under Rayla's Eric for two years. Yeah. presumably getting a little bit better at what you do when you're not driving tow trucks with the boom extended into the bay. Yeah, good enough. Good enough. So where do you go from there? Did you work

that job through high school? So the job came right after high school. And then I moved to my grandparents, which was, so picture central Illinois, the town that I worked in was 45 minutes north. And like south suburbs of Chicago is another hour north. So from where I was living, got the job with him pretty quickly within months, went to live with my grandparents and just flipped the commute from heading north to work to south to work, got tired of the drive and got a job at a body shop closer to my grandparents. So I worked there for a handful of years. That's where I lost touch with the gentleman who introduced me to the trade because I had moved away and then I had gotten a job, you know, as a not so good.

auto body technician and a small body shop by where my grandparents were and ended up kind of growing a little bit of my skills and ended up that's where the owner there introduced me to the office where I started to interact with the customers right estimates etc no college do do do do do do my guest today Tom Albanyes is an American giant and I'll tell you why Tom understands on a fundamental level, that the business of mining is a non-negotiable prerequisite of our civilization and our economic independence, just like the business of making things. American Giant knows this, which is why they committed themselves 16 years ago to make all their excellent clothing right here in this country. It wasn't easy, but they did it. They sourced locally grown cotton,

and they built factories in towns across the nation where they could hire hardworking locals who cared about making a quality product. And then they went about the business of gently reminding people that when you buy a piece of clothing from American giant, you're not just buying a high-quality sweatshirt or t-shirt or another pair of jeans. You're investing in a local supply chain. You're supporting communities from the Carolinas to California. And you're getting a piece of clothing that won't just survive things. the wash, you're getting a garment that'll get better with age.

Check out their high-quality staples, hoodies, teas, denim, built to be worn year after year at American-giant.com slash mike. It's quality you can feel and a true American success story that you can be proud to support. Use code Mike. Get 20% off your order at American-giant.com slash mike. American Giant, American Made. Giant American Made. No college.

No thought of it? No thought of it. Remember, from the family I grew up and it wasn't really ever set as a goal. In fact, it was probably more frowned upon from my family arrangement to go to college. So there was never ambition to go to college. I did really well in school

from a, say, grades perspective. perspective. But by senior year, I just wanted to make money. So that's why I was in that program to get out of school half a day and go to work. What did you learn from interacting with customers? Again, I'm an awkward little kid from small town, Illinois. I learned I wasn't good at that either. But what I did learn is when the owner, because again, so picture the situation, a small shop, say there's five or six of us in the back and there's the owner and his wife in the front. The owner had given me that opportunity and whenever him and his wife could go on vacation, all I knew is I wanted to do better than he did when he was there. And I'm just a kid and

there's no way he's going to think I did better. But in my head, I'm going to do better than he did when he was gone. So better than he did means get work out and get work in. So I was pretty stoked and pretty motivated to get that customer to trust me and leave their car. to let us fix it. And I was pretty motivated to get the few guys around me in the back to let's get some cars out and clean up. I want to shop empty and spotless and a whole bunch of new work sitting outside for when the owner gets back.

Like that's the way I always thought. I always felt I wasn't good enough. So I was always, I think, a little bit in those days trying to prove it. I would do stuff like punch out. Like I was on hourly pay then. So I would work late, say I'd work to like. like seven, I'd punch out and work another three hours thinking that I'm going to look a lot better than I am because I knew I wasn't that good.

So my method of looking better was I'm going to get, you know, another three hours worth of work in and only get paid for the couple so that I look a little better than I. So you're outwork them. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So you're not good with people. I wasn't naturally good at much of anything. You're right.

You have no appreciable talent at all. Thanks. Thanks for pointing out clearly. I didn't point it out. I'm just repeating it. But here, Mike, what I do tell my team, what that did for me is create what I think is my superpower now. And that's the persistence and the will to figure it out. Because I know if I stick with it long enough, I will get good at it.

I won't be great at it the first time. I won't be great at the second, third, or fourth. But I know that if I stick with it long enough, I can figure it out. So we offer work ethics scholarships through my foundation. Yeah, that's what we call them. I didn't know that. Yeah. I knew about like your sweat.

Yeah, we do a sweat pledge. That's that thing on the wall over there. Yeah, yeah. It's great, by the way. Thanks. Thanks. You don't know that for me. No, no.

But it is great. From all people, I mean, look, we talked to a lot of different people here. But the thing I like about you most is that it's, I don't think work ethic is enough in and of itself. At some point, you need a mix of competency, charm, creativity. You can't just, nobody wants to spend their life making little rocks out of big rocks. And so you need these other things. But there's a column of things you can't choose to do.

It's just a card you get. And then there's a column of things that are absolutely in your control. and shown up early, staying late, taking a bite of the shit sandwich when it's your turn, right? These are choices. You know, gratitude's a choice. You can choose to be grateful. You can choose, right.

So I'm always interested in finding people who, A, agree with that, but also, you know, how did you figure that out? Like, how did you get to that place? And that's obviously what we're talking about now. Yeah. So, I mean, your team, today knows it but at some point in young matt ebert's life probably in his early 20s he starts to

realize i know i can out think you can out test you can out competence you maybe i can outwork you yeah i i think there was no like gift coming my way there was no um even though there was right like somebody actually showed me a trade so in hindsight like there were but i didn't understand that at the time. I was a 16, 17-year-old kid. Yeah. Like, and I thought I was working for him for free, right? And I was, but I was also learning on his dime.

And I got my car fixed. So what it was for me is like there's no savior coming to like deliver the lottery ticket. If there's people around me doing better than me, there's people around me in different circumstances. How do I go create those circumstances? So funny, you put it that way. You literally use the word lottery. Very first tenant on the sweat pledge says, I believe I have hit the greatest lottery of all time.

I'm alive. I walk the earth. I live in the United States. Above all things, I'm grateful, right? For sure. Just think of how lucky we are to have the health we have, the live in the country. We live with the opportunity we have.

I just, yes. A thousand times, yes. The problem is, you know, not to go off on a tangent, but how do you, like nobody wants a lecture, nobody wants a sermon, you can't tell people, think about how good you have it, now feel good about it, you know. Sometimes you got to wreck a car or two, or three. I was my own best customer for a little while, not going to lie. All right, so get me to the place then where, like, when does the entrepreneurial thing afflict you?

Because it must have, you, right? I mean, at some point, you're not, you're sick of being hired. So when do you? Oh, I always had it. I always had it. I don't know why or how. Like I said, I was pushing a lawnmower around town when I was 12, 13 years old, getting paid five bucks to most somebody's lawn in that small town

because I knew that was a path to get money. I was delivering papers, which was effectively buying papers from the newspaper, paying them a couple months from now, collecting the money from the people now. Keeping the difference. Keeping the difference, spending the money in the meantime, just need to get it back before I got to pay the bill, right? Carrying those papers around heavier than I could carry, hide them in the bushes in the halfway point and get it done.

A little embarrassing, but you want to know what my really first entrepreneurial thing was? Take a wild guess. This is ridiculous. Yeah, I do. Of course. This is ridiculous. I would, from my buddy, buy a, like, a naked girl magazine for, say, a dollar. And then I would tear out the centerfolds and try to sell the centerfolds for, like, 50 cents.

And there were, like, three of them in the magazine. I'd make, like, 50 cents, right? This would have been as a super young boy. It's ridiculous when I look back on it. And it didn't last long because I think a buddy ratted me out, like, after, like, two weeks. So my very first ridiculous entrepreneur venture was going to be some kind of porn king of this small town, like ridiculous. Five-year-old porn king. Great.

Great. But so look, I only told that dumb story to say, I don't know what was in me somehow. Like, I think, and it's that risk gene. Yeah. And look at it. Like, I knew if I got caught doing that, there was nothing but trouble to come from it. Right. But I saw the money opportunity and I want me some money.

And I didn't believe in stealing it actually. Not that pedaling porn was any better, but... But reselling a thing. I mean, actually, you know what? It's the newspaper model. I didn't know it worked that way. I never had a paper route. But you're basically buying wholesale from the company.

As a 12-year-old kid, I didn't know that's what they were teaching me. Right. And now I think looking back on it, the newspapers, They get pretty good advantage of some 12-year-old kids. Well, think about, I mean, to bring it back to your world now, like the original taxi model. Like that's what that is, right? I mean, my buddies in New York,

they would, who drove a cab, you basically rent the thing for $200. Okay. And you drive it all day. To pay for that medallion to use it. The first 200 is for the company. Yeah. Yeah.

And then you keep everything you make after that. So how long is your shift? Well, How long you want to drive that thing? Hey, it's the same thing in the business I run today. The first X amount goes to pay everything else. Yeah. If you happen to do over that, you get to keep it.

That's the way it still works. So what the hell happens, man? You're just, you're, I mean, right now we're halfway through your 20s, and it's pretty clear you're in the vocation you want to be in. Except for the problem with collision repair and a kid from a small town, like, how am I going to get anybody to come and, if I open up, Matt's Auto Body, how am I going to get a customer? Right.

Because there's 10 other body shops in this small town. And there are 1,400 people living there. How many actions can there be? Well, I had moved up to a little bigger town by my grandparents. But still, like, my real thing was I don't know how I'll get any customers. I can't go into, even though I'm half like an assistant manager at this one shop. It's not, I didn't have the boldness yet to think that I could get any customers to come. I was confident I could run one.

I didn't know how I could finance one. or get customers. And I really wanted to own my own my own business. So I kept studying like franchise magazines. And Subway had a very small franchise fee for a reason. It's not a business you want to be in. Sorry for any Subway franchise owners out there. Jersey Mike's is killing it on the other hand.

And this was pre-Jarid before Jared was a child molesterer. Yeah, yeah. That was an unfortunate turn. Then he was a health guy. Before they got excited about the Jared, lost a bunch of weight eating turkey sandwiches. Early Jared. So I had saved up a bunch of credit cards with cash advance ability.

Never used them because I someday, I had no money. How am I going to get money? So I cashed advance $100,000 on credit cards and grabbed a partner and opened a subway business, which wasn't making money. And then opened a second one. a third one and a fourth one. And ended up having to, at the same time as keeping those businesses, I had to go back to work to actually make money and got a job at a body shop.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, minute. You had 100 grand out on credit cards and you're buying subway branches? I don't know, Mike, if I could do that today. Like, I don't know if I have a limit on a credit card that would allow me to do that today. But I didn't use the debt. I just kept applying and increasing the ability to get it. and kind of wrote all those cash advance checks all on the same day, hit them all at once. God.

So you had four subway franchises at one point? Yes. But you're not, are you making money? You're not making money. I wasn't making money. And so I went and got a job running somebody else's body shop. And then Jared came along and actually started to make a little bit of money. And I told Ray, the gentleman I was working for running his body shop, that, hey, I've got this business.

I think I should go run it. It's starting to show signs of making it. money and he basically convinced me like what are you doing how much money you're going to make making sandwiches anyway why don't we open a body shop together and so and now you're what 20s it would have been mid mid to early 20s 23 to 26 somewhere in there do do do do do do do do do dumb is it weird to love people but despise human resources if so well color me weird it's not to say I don't respect the millions of people who work in HR departments and companies all over the country. I do. It's just that I don't envy him. That's why MicroWorks doesn't have an HR

department for better or worse. And it's also why I use ZipRecruiter whenever we need to expand. ZipRecruiter has proven themselves a million times over by helping countless employers get through the hiring process faster and more effectively than ever before. And now they have a new feature that instantly shows you the most interested, the most passionate, and the most qualified candidates first. This is a huge time saver, hours and hours of save time. And it helps people like me find the people who can function in a non-traditional work environment like MicroWorks. In other words, ZipRecruiter works for me, and they'll probably work for you too. Post a job for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash row. And watch what happens.

Odds are, you'll find a human resource that just happens to be a great fit for your company in 24 hours or less. ZipRecruiter.com slash row. ZipRecruiter.com slash row. The smartest way to hire. Okay. Then what? We partnered up on a body shop together. So he had two at the time.

This was number three. So I had 45% of one body shop with a gentleman that owned two other ones. He had opened a third one as well. And you were getting the business, though? Well, he was getting the business. Like, you need a partner for two reasons. You need somebody to run it or you need money. He had the money, and I could run it because I had been running his.

But he also had the context to be able to. But what about the other problem? It's like the curse of retail, especially for an entrepreneurial hustler, who's willing to tear the centerfold out of a girly magazine and sell it at 2X. I've never told that story, by the way. Well, yeah, believe me, it's going to get past. around now. Retail is so passive.

Like you have to wait. Yeah, you got your brick, you got your mortar, you got your service, you got your four walls, and then you sit there. In your case, like Subway, you wait for somebody to get hungry. That happens all the time, three times a day at least. Here you've got to wait for somebody to roll their car over, you know, unless you're you, that doesn't happen all that often. Create your own business.

Yeah. Well, so because accidents are pretty rare. So it's really like a once and every 10-year event, probably for average consumer. A lot of times when they're calling their insurance company, because that's the first thing you do when you have an accident. And the insurance company asks, you know, do you know where you want to fix it? Most people don't. And so the insurance company will make suggestions to repair shops.

So my partner had those connections and did work with those carriers. So he was able to then say, hey, I'm going to open another one. And he got one or two insurance companies to recommend us when people would have an accident. So there was a source of work to get it started. So when do you go out on your own? 14 years. Remember, I was the minor partner. He was 20 years older than me.

And he didn't have to run it, right? And we didn't make a lot of money. You don't make a lot of money. On each car, we only make a couple hundred bucks. So, you know, we make money now because we fix a whole lot of cars. So, you know, that business for him was, you know, something he started. I ran. It wasn't trouble for him.

And he wasn't ready to retire. So it was really 15-year partnership. And probably the last few years, I was kind of getting to where I hope he retired soon because, you know, I was watching other companies around me. The industry started to consolidate. And in fact, at the time, Chicago was the most consistent. consolidated market in the U.S. So I thought I was missing all this opportunity where everybody around me was

starting to build big companies. And my partner didn't want to grow anymore. He didn't like the industry anymore. So you're what, 40? Yeah. 2014 was when I bought him out. So, yeah, trying to think, 72 to 40. I would have been 42, right?

42 years old. Yeah. That's funny. That's what I sold. dirty jobs. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Okay. I only pointed out, you're a very different person at 42 than you are at 22. Yeah, you've learned some things. Yeah, I had done a lot of book reading. I had done a lot of going to, you know, seminars to learn. My partner would give me a hard time. I didn't have to do that to do okay. Like, well, I need it. You wanted to. Yeah.

Were you doing it because you thought you wanted to arm yourself for prosperity reasons, or were you curious fundamentally. Both. Curious. Knew I wanted to do something bigger. Even for a time, maybe thought collision repair wasn't going to be it. Yeah.

Yeah. So I was searching. Okay. So you buy them out. You've got a couple of shops now under your name that you wholly own. I just had a half of one. You had half.

Now I had a whole one. And then I started growing. Yeah, but how do you start growing? I mean, would you? One shop at a time? One by the time. What's it called at this point? What do you call?

Well, it was New Lennox AutoBody, so I had to rename it. So hired a couple ad agencies to give me some name suggestions, went through hundreds of them, hated them all. Yeah. And then the one agency came in and interviewed me and I only had a handful of employees, but interviewed a couple of us to see what we're all about. And so they came up with, like, what we're really doing is helping people in a time of need. So they came up with this concept of, hey, you're kind of a hero in a time of need for a customer. the logo's a cape. We give away capes to all the customers' kids,

which is like a 10-year marketing plan for, you know, every kid wants a cape and then 10 years are going to drive. Let's give them. That's a long tail, but that's smart. Hope they remember us. So it was an agency who had the Crash Champion idea? Yeah, they came up with it.

And as soon as I heard it, I loved it. And I had asked my wife now who was my girlfriend at the time, all our customers, all, everybody was doing little surveys on what would be a great name. Yeah. And then threw away what every feedback gave me when I heard that name. I said, that's the one. Which now makes me sound really smart for starting our conversation with the probe and with the pacer and with the gramer.

Like names matter. They do. And I thought, this is a name that I could be proud of. And I thought it was a name that stood out. So surveys say, actually, when it comes to vehicle service, a year later, the consumer doesn't remember the name of the place they had it done. you'll remember the person that you dealt with you'll remember i dealt with mad or i dealt with joe and you'll remember it was the building next to macdonalds but you won't remember the name of the service facility only 1% is what data says unless it's a franchise maybe even then so i thought crash champions was unique enough i had a chance now from 1% to 100 no way but i felt it was unique enough that if i heard it it wasn't a generic name. That's interesting. I certainly wouldn't want to put it on an airplane. No, but where did Midas come from? I mean, I know King Midas, but how does Midas become

ubiquitous for mufflers? How does Jiffy Loeb? Like, I mean, I can't believe the word Lou. Maybe the biggest in the first. Right? Maybe. Maybe. How big are those companies today? What, Midas? Yeah. I don't know. I've very much sometimes still too much focus on what I'm doing rather than what the others are doing. But they're big enough to be a household name where Crash Champions is not. Yeah. How come?

What are you waiting for? Well, we don't have the money to advertise. So, especially when you think about a grudge purchase and an every 10-year event, like the odds of, like, putting your name out there enough for people to know it and remember it when they actually need it are pretty slim, and advertising is pretty expensive. So that's one of the reasons why putting me out there

the founder and social media is our effort to be able to afford to get our name out there. Smart. Or even doing this. That's why you got a guy following around with a camera. Yeah, just for those two minutes of like footage out of a whole day. Yep. I love that. But, you know, I think people, I don't, how many locations now?

650. You have 650 locations all over the country. Yes. But advertising is too expensive. Yeah, we're a single-digit margin business, so there's not much to spend. Back to the point where the average repair is a few hundred dollars, and the only way to make... The repair is a lot more, the profit is just... The profit is a few hundred dollars.

Yeah. So the only way to make a bunch of money is to fix a lot of cars. So I say you've got to fix more cars next year than this year to make more money than this year. That's the only way it works. So... But I mean, there's a lot of high margin businesses out there, but there's a ton of businesses just like cars that are low margins. Lots of volume. Okay. I mean, we don't have to go through.

It's the way you make money, right? You got two levers, more revenue or cut costs. Right, margin or volume. So when do you decide it's really going to be a volume game? And how do you, like, how did Shark Tank fit into this? And where does Damon John fit into this? Oh, great question. It actually came in way later. So size came in because, remember, I said a lot.

of the work that we got was recommended recommendations from insurers because consumers just don't know where to go. And so I had just two accounts at the one shop that were insurance companies that referred work to me because there was those bigger company around that surrounded me that had already got like the referrals from all the other companies. So they didn't need me. And then Chicago was the most consolidated from what I would call national. companies. And so they would also get the referrals from the insurers. And so I was just the one shop

with two accounts and then grew to like eight shops with two accounts. And I was nervous that, for example, one of my accounts was Geico. And I was nervous literally that one lunch or breakfast presentation to Warren Buffett from a big national company of how much better they could do for them than all the little guys across the country would take away like half of the business that I have. And so it was a little bit survival. When a little bit survival, it was pure survival. And then the other component was the vehicles were starting to transform. So for decades, like vehicles were the same.

I mean, we added, you know, a third brake light and we added airbags. but now, like, the technology, when I started, I tell the story at the time, when I started, the technology was you had an AMFM radio with cassette. If you were really fancy, you had some digital dashboard, LED digital dashboard, right? Like, not LED, but like the alarm clock kind of LED dashboard. And you had, if you left a key in it, it would ding. And if you left the key in it and a light on, it would ding louder and faster.

Like, that was the technology. Yeah. today, you know, there's, to put in perspective, there's like 14 million lines of code in a 777 airplane. There's 150 lines of code to power an automobile. That's how crazy complicated they've gotten. Now, this would have been, it was 2019 when I went and sought money to grow it. But I saw that coming. And I knew that as a small guy, like investing to keep up with equipment.

the technology to train it was going to be hard. And I was literally, again, worried about what happens if the big guy makes a better offer than I have. And then interestingly enough, I watched at the same time while I'm debating this, I watch a mini series on Netflix called Peaky Blinders. Sure. I don't know if you've watched it. Oh, yeah? They were like gypsies, kind of gangsters, right?

in the head. In the one season, they had run a gambling operation, and so they had a rigged fight going on upstairs, and a character named Alfie Solomon's downstairs talking to Tommy, the lead character. Sillian Murphy. Yeah. And he's got cancer, right? And so he's sick, and he's telling Tommy he needs some time. He's going to take some time. And he talks to him about how the world really works and what's going on upstairs. He says, sentence and he says you might have to beat this out but this is what he says big small and he says a few more sentences he says big small always I don't know about you but I don't like getting so it's a little bit like I felt it as necessary

to survive this is where the world is going this is where my industry is headed there's no way I want to stay small because it could be gone tomorrow. Well, the way my mentor put it, who happened to be a music teacher, Chuck and I both, we went to high school together back in the day. Yeah, that's Chuck.

Yeah. Fred, Fred King used to say, here's the thing about size. A good big man will beat a good little man any day. It just simply doesn't matter. Yep. if the basic talent is the same, then it does come down to size. You know, Goliath would have beat David if everything else would have been equal.

But it wasn't equal. It wasn't equal. But because your industry is so teachable because it's so tactile, you know, there's no great mystery, right, in repairing an automobile. The mystery is in the willingness to do it. it consistently again and again and again and again until technology man it's actually a mystery now it's really hard well that's what i want to get into now so it's like okay the rules change but now you're big enough so you know do the rules impact you differently when you're big and don't forget about damon john he comes in here somewhere yeah great um so literally though that's why i went i had just

gotten rid of a partner right even though we're great friends i had just kind of got free from the partner fell a little bit caged. Now I'm growing, but I had maxed out like the SBA and any other way to continue to grow my business. And so I looked for an investment banker. I had three shops I wanted to buy and looked at all the options. And because of all those things, private equity was the route for me because I figured like this is going to need capital. I need to grow. And so that's what really started it. And just to be clear, like we didn't just grow a little. Like we were 13 shops heading into So January 1st, 2020, 13 locations. By the end of 2022, over 550.

So I'm pretty proud of that. It's an industry record. It'll never be touched. And I'm pretty sure most industries. So you're talking maybe like a $60 million business to a $2.5 billion business in three years. It's pretty great, pretty great, like, business kind of high. It was, it's, I mean, now we had to take a couple years and we didn't talk about that,

maybe more. Since then, we had to slow down the growth a little bit and get better. And we've spent the last few years getting really, really good at being big and implementing processes, etc. Damon came in because of, again, can't afford to advertise. When I recruited Danny, my CMO, my interview with him was... Wait, can you really not afford to advertise or are you just cheap in that way? No, so, okay, here. single digit profitability, and to be a reason, our target is 10. So if you're at 8 trying to get to 10, what kind of money would we have to spend in 38 states to get like household name recognition enough that the one in every 10-year event,

the person comes our way? 100 million a year. Yeah. There would be half of our profitability gone. Okay. And by the way, it's not like the profitability is going in my pocket. pocket, remember advancement in the vehicles, and we're trying to make the body shop stereotype of old.

Like, we want our shops to be beautiful and inviting and well-equipped. Surgical base. Yeah. It is a heavy capital intensive business. Like, no money leaves the business. Everything that we make goes back in, everything we can borrow or raise goes back in. So, yeah, there isn't money. It would be hard to justify and hard to, like, give it enough run.

way to show the return on investment to make it make sense. Were you nervous about taking that large of, what do you call it, a loan, or that much of giving away that much equity or whatever you had to do, did that feel like, all right, it's a big step. And remember, I came from nothing to me. It's go bigger, go home. Well, the big, small. I remember. Yeah. But I'm thinking more in terms of the guy who borrows 100 grand on those credit cards

right I don't think I could have done that I take different risks I look at the world a little different every now and then you know you got to go all in but I'm I'm so debt adverse

I read that in your I can't look at that's number six yeah I'd rather live in a tent than eat beans than pay for a lifestyle I can't afford. Live in a tent and eat beans. Yeah, yeah, what I say. Then eat beans.

I'd rather live in a tent than eat beans. Well, you know what, to be honest, I don't really like beans anymore. And the tent thing, it was great while it lasted, but the Boy Scouts are behind me. Okay, can I tell you how I think? I prefer to keep this on me for a bit. All right, let's do it. No, man. Tell me how you think about debt.

I'm already in a tent eating beans. Okay. So, yes, could the debt? honestly what's the worst that can happen that that's going to lead me to not making it going bankrupt and living in a 10 eating beans so honestly my route just gets me to where you would rather be in the first place that's how I view it now I'm not saying that's the right way to view it but I see it like in a 10 eating beans because of this or in a 10 eating beans because of that why don't I go for the reward why not okay all right so my mind works so you make the big deal

you grow like crazy and today as you sit here, you've got 650 of the, are you in every state? Yeah, but I thought you wanted to make about you for a minute. What were you going to say? I was just kidding. I'm so sick of me, man. I wanted to hear you're going to say. There I am. No. No, no, look, I'm kind of an open book with all this stuff. I'm very curious to know, like once you commit to growth, because look, man, you look around, I struggle with the same thing. I've got a core group of half a dozen people. Yeah.

And that keeps me up at night. I worry to death about that. And so I'm constantly given opportunities to, I mean, bigger must be better, right? I mean, if you can help, you know, 2,000 kids last year, wouldn't it be great if you do four or eight or 16 or I'm worried that the, you know, it's got to be more than size. There's nothing inherently good or bad about big. but that's my world, that's my business.

I think yours is different. I think you were right when you said, unless you want to be Ray, either Ray, you know. Well, the one did pretty good for himself and the other one may have two. Sure, that's really the point. Like, you get to decide what success looks like. Yeah.

You've decided. Yeah, my partner definitely was a success. Right. He just decided he was done. So what does success look like for Crash Champions now. Do you get to $1,300? Great question. She only kind of ask. I'm like, I really got to pee. Can we edit it? Yeah. I don't want to do the potty dance. No, no, no, we don't edit. Just go right around that corner right there. No, no, look, man.

Hey, Danny, Danny, come in here for a second while he pees. Yeah, yeah, come in. Yeah, this is Danny. Danny is the, the CMO that was. You've been replaced, Matt. He's. He's, he, he, he I'm a younger. Yeah. And I got more here, Matt Ebert today. Well, look, he mentioned your name earlier. So how long have you been with him? Early 21.

Early 21. Where are we now, 26? We're in 26, yeah. You come from a more traditional business background? I actually started fixing cars right out of high school. What? You're the same people? I am the same people, yeah.

How did he find you? So he found me, I worked for at the time, it was like the second largest collision repair shop. Yeah. It was called Service King. I left there in 21 and I went off to go build my own agency. So I was doing marketing, advertising. I left. And at the time, Matt had a C-O and a chief client officer that had worked with me at Service King that are not working at Crash Champions.

And they're like, hey, Danny's a free agent. You should have a conversation with him. So Matt's like, I don't know this guy from Adam. He calls me up on a random day. Comes into Dallas, we have dinner. It was supposed to be a 45-minute dinner. And it turned into like a four-hour drink session. That is unbelievable.

And at that point, I remember going home that night. Well, during our dinner. Matt, take a load of him. I'm going to talk to him for a minute. At that point, I remember Matt asking me, like, hey, I want to grow my business. Again, he's like 60 shops at this point. Yeah. I'm coming from a collision repair company that has 350, right?

350 locations. Right. Two billion dollars or whatever. And he's like, hey, I want to grow my brand and I want to do all these things. And again, I'm trying to connect with him, much smaller collision repair shop to where I came from. And I gave him the pitch of like, if I was 60 locations, this is what I would do with your business. And I remember him stopping me in my tracks and says, Danny, you're not thinking big enough. And I said, Matt, you're insane.

Like, what do you mean I'm not thinking big enough? 60 shops. You're like fifth or sixth, you know, in the ranking of collision repair companies. There's no way you can grow as big as you're saying unless you're going to grow at, you know, just massive scale. Yeah. So he's like, again, I need you to think bigger because I want to do bigger things. Again, I walked away from that conversation. I remember going home that night and my wife asked me, well, how did it go? And yeah, my immediate words to her is this man's insane. He is literally insane. There's no way he's going to get from here. And my wife, he's going to get from here. to hear. Right. So yeah, two days later, Matt, you know, gives me a call, make sure, you know,

the date went well or our interview went well, and I was super intrigued. And he sold me on a bigger vision than I'd ever thought about or been part of it. I get it now. The guy who can't afford advertising hires an ad man. Yeah, 100%. But his goal there was, again, I was running advertising at a much larger scale. But he's like, Danny, I need you to take your skill set and flip it on its head. And what that meant is like, I need, because we're, when you're growing at the rate Matt was growing, you're acquiring legacy, you're acquiring cultures, you're acquiring all these different things from all these businesses. So he's like, I need you to take your skill set and not put it external to consumers, but I need you to advertise to our own people and build awareness, talk to them

about the vision, the mission, the why, the how, what we're trying to accomplish. So that's what I did. I took my external advertising skills and I placed them inward. Absolutely, yeah. Was it your idea to get the cameraman to follow him around? Well, it was his idea originally. So, well, the idea was to grow to do advertising a little different. So we do well, we tell a lot of stories from our team members, right? So we realize quickly we're a grudge purchase, right?

Nobody plans for collision repair. Yeah, he used that expression before, and I didn't want to sound ignorant by saying, what are you talking about? talking about. What is it? That means the transaction is rooted in some level of pre-existing resentment. Well, let me ask you this question. If you got an accident tomorrow, would you know where to take your vehicle? If you've never been in one before. Oh, no, of course not. Absolutely. I don't even know where to get an MRI. My knee hurts and I got to do research. Well, that means you're just, well, you've been healthy this long. So good for you. It's all falling in. So yeah, nobody plans for calizure repair. You only need us when you need us. And typically a consumer will,

call an insurance carrier. Yeah. And at that point, the insurance carrier will make recommendations. You have A, B, and C shop. Now, to be on that A, B, and C shop, you have to be pretty good with quality

and, you know, metrics and taking care of customers and so on and so forth. But, yeah, it's like nobody really plans for it. So, and when you think about the auto body shop of old, like you're thinking of somebody who's, you know, busted knuckles, smoking a cigar, you know, fixing cars. And so there's a big trust factor when it comes to doing, to doing business or choosing to do business.

To say it plainly, you know you're going to get ripped off. You're just not sure how bad. Absolutely. Because they got you. They got you over a barrel. Absolutely. And they're going to tell you you can trust them, but you can't, not really. Yeah.

So somehow or another, you've got to build a reputation. Yeah. What do you trust more? Do you trust a brand or do you trust a person? You trust a person. Nielsen says that 88% of the time a consumer is more likely to trust a person over a brand. So what we did is extend, you know, we talk about collision, the pair, we talk about what we're doing, we talk about our technicians, but ultimately, if we

could put a human face in front of the brand, we're going to win. Nielsen also says that you're 44% more likely to engage with a human over a brand. So you're a data guy. You look to the data. Absolutely. Is Matt a data guy too? Oh, he's a 100% of data guy, yeah. He's a numbers guy. Because he's going like, he's hitting me with this all shucks kind of thing. I'm just a simple boy from a small town, but it can't be, it can't be that. It can't really be that. He's very humble in his approach. And he's always been like, he mentioned his superpower. His superpower is connecting with people.

You think about a technician, I was a tech for, shoot, 10 years. I worked on cars for 10 years. I don't know anything outside of my bay. I know a car is coming in. I know I'm going to fix a vehicle, and at the end of the day, I'm going to feed my family. That's it.

The faster I fix the car, the more money I make. And so when you think about connecting with a CEO, who's too big or too much or doesn't think about, you know, the overall business, I can't connect with a person like that if I'm a technician. Again, all I know is my location and all I know is the next vehicle coming in. Last question, because he's off the bowl now and I don't want to get you fired. For you, you went home, your wife asked you, you say, look, I think this guy's crazy. Insane, yeah.

Insane is what I said, yeah. And yet you go to work for him. So, like, did you surprise yourself? when you made that call? Or was, what quality does Matt have that actually trumps his clear insanity? So I would say he challenges you to think bigger every day. So whatever number you have in your head, he's going to challenge that by 10x. And he pushes you, make sure that you complete that goal overall.

So again, I've never saw myself where I currently am working for a $3 billion company. Again, 25 years ago, I was turning wrenches, Mike. It's $3 billion. $3 billion today. And today I'm the CMO of the third largest collision repair shop in the country. All right. Get out of the chair. All right.

He's back. Matt, come back here, will you? All right. I'm going to use the restroom now. You know what? He warmed it up for you. So do whatever you need to do. I thought for sure you'd edit that out. I'm good with not.

Let me tell you something. I didn't see any point in finished in the interview uncomfortable. No, no. And see, Chuck, that's how you get some camera time. That's exactly. Yeah. You just got to feed Mike a lot of water. That's it.

Yeah. Like you had me into it. No, look. I mean, look, very few, like, okay, that's instructive. I mean, lots of people have sat here and talked, and lots of people have had to go to the can who never say anything. They'll sit there with their bladder distended. Yeah.

And they'll do the best they can, right? The minute you got to go, you just say, I got to go. You just get up and go. I mean, this is, so that's worth pointing out if I could bring it back to me again for just a moment. You know, we did the same, like the big construct on dirty jobs, and my listeners are probably sick of hearing about it, but we, you know, I insisted on a behind the scenes camera. Okay. I called it.

Was that unique at the time? Yeah. Yeah. Well, some productions would have one, like on HBO would always film the making of the show. So later they could show you after the Sopranos was a big hit, what it looked like when they were shooting it. Yeah, I watched the show. I just didn't remember if it was unique or whatever at the time. Well, what was unique was we cut that footage.

Like, we weren't getting footage from that camera to use in a later show. We were using that footage in that show. Yeah. And so what you got... Maybe the first reality TV kind of. Honestly, yeah. Because the only reality shows that were on at the time were Survivor, which was a competition show,

and Jesse James, who was building motorcycles, right? his garage. Yeah, that's right. Monster Garage. That was it. So I thought that, well, hell, I mean, if it's really reality, let's let the viewers see what it looks like to make the sausage. Because my crew was going headfirst into the same pits of despair I was. Yeah. I wanted people to see the truth of the thing, is my point. Do you do that as a CEO? And do you, like, welcome your customers in? How, are you as transparent? Are you as transparent? parent with your customers as you were with me just now when your lower GI track demanded attention. I'm very much a cards on the table guy. Maybe, or an earlier life, I tried to outthink it or

try to do it different. But what's worked for me for a long time is just, here's where I'm at. Let's talk about where you're at. How can I, and here, maybe it's because of the collision repair industry that helped me to get there because I'll be honest, like customers aren't honest. So, like, patients aren't honest with their doctors, even. Yeah, which is crazy to me because that guy's going to help me get better. If I'm going to tell anybody what I'm not doing right health-wise, I should tell him, right? And it's a secret between us, like, why not tell them? But customers will be like, all this damage happened in the accident.

And there's the golf, you know, there's the grocery cart that hit it and the curb they hit. And my conversation started as simple there as, telling them look like... The antlers and the grill. What happened here? I don't know. What deer? Insurance companies are really smart.

Like, they're only, you know, maybe if you got a story, they're going to believe, because they're going to ask you. Like, how did this all, how did the back scratch on the bumper happen from the tap in the front left, you know? So I really had to have those conversations

at early stages with customers about, like, what are you trying to accomplish? I can probably do some work for free or discount some work while I'm at this. But like this whole scam you're trying to run probably isn't going to be successful. Right. And it happens often, very, very often. Just to be clear. Like, I don't think customers think anything of it because they think it's their insurance.

That's how the game is playing. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So just so people following, the cost of the work you do is often borne by the insurance company. Yes. Right? Other than the deductible.

Other than deductible. So an adjuster might need to come in and weigh and measure the value of the claim. They assign a value to it. And you have to work within that parameter. And now the customer would maybe like some extra stuff as a result or this and this. And so here you are fixing cars with a unique perspective to the human condition. Yeah, which is like, hey, how about we talk about what I'm? I can do for you. Do that, either throw it in or do it, you know, for a great price. But like,

the whole kind of racket you're trying to run here is not going to work. They're really, really smart at not paying more than they need to. So let's... So maybe that helped me with the whole transparency thing. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know how you get to where you get sometimes. Well, you know, since he's not sitting here anymore, let's let's talk about Danny for a minute. Like, let's talk about your team. Let's talk, like, Like, how do you assemble? Because clearly, I mean, you couldn't have done this without some key people. Without the team, without my wife, without people around me for sure.

Tell me about your wife first. All right. Yeah, very supportive. Wishes I were home more, but for the most part is supportive. That's any natural thing, right? Like you're married because you want to be together and your husband's gone all the time. But beyond that super supportive. of. So that's great. And then the team, I mean, my hack has been bringing people around me that

have been where I haven't been or that are smarter than me. So my, you know, I recruited a COO when I needed one coming from a few hundred shops and I was only going to, I was going to be 39 and recruited him to come in at 39 when he had already run a few hundred. Danny told the story about what he was running when I recruited him. So a little bit of the, Like the cheat in how our success was recruiting people who had been there done that. It seemed to be the smart thing to me. Sure. How many do you employ now?

Almost 11,000. Jesus. How crazy that is. 11,000 souls. Yeah. Danny said that part of the advertising plan was to turn it inward. That was the the plan when I recruited it. So explain that a little bit.

I think I know what you mean, but you're a consumer-facing business, and you depend on the consumers for your business, but most of your marketing is geared towards the people who work for you. Yeah, because we're only as good as my team. I can build the most beautiful building and put a bunch of people in there that don't know how to fix cars and treat customers like crap, and it's going to fail. So it's very much a people. It's a service business. It's all about the people. So we need our team. The differentiator for us is the team to be awesome.

And so when I was one shop or even a handful of shops, I knew everybody. I could go in there and talk to them and tell them what we're up to and, you know, keep them engaged, let them know they're cared about. Whatever interaction should exist to, you know, for the team to be. happy in Excel. As it got bigger, I couldn't touch people personally. And we were growing really fast. So sometimes people were getting promoted before they were ready. And so now you have a management team that's coming of age, so to speak, that's not so great at the things you need, communication, sense of urgency. You need a culture. Culture trumps a lot of things. That's upstream. Right. And I can't go to all these locations on the daily and do it.

So that was my pitch to Danny. Like what I need to succeed is the team to be awesome. What I need is the team to be engaged. I need your help to help me get my thoughts and message to the team so that we can build this culture and get everybody engaged. So interesting. Make the case for the job itself. Talk to the 17, 18 year old today,

who really doesn't know what the future holds. but is open to the idea that working on cars might make sense. What's the business case for doing that? How many could you hire right now if they showed up ready for work? What's that job look like? Yeah, we could easily hire 400 people tomorrow.

I say 600 probably in a short amount of time. Danny, is he serious? Five, 600 people right now, over 650 locations. Yeah. And the pitch, look, I, use, I steal from you a lot in using the stereotype scenario. So we're not what we're stereotyped to be from a business from decades ago. The sophistication in the cars has, has demanded that we get more sophisticated. So it's not the image of the auto body shop of old. It's,

you're just as likely to be holding a tablet today as you are a paint gun or a welder. In your world, a dirty job. It's not easy, but it also pays. way better than the world thinks. And so the reputation for decades has been you got to go to college to get good jobs. People don't want those jobs of fixing cars. And maybe that's true. There is some physical effort in it. But it also pays a lot better than why I think people think. Six-figure job? It's a six-figure job. And can be a six-figure job with a two in it if you're really good. Sure. And so you can do that without any college debt, without four years in So actually, like talking about numbers, there's some that get where you think about a decade

after school, after high school, compare a doctor to a collision repair tech, a doctor who's went to all this school, all this debt had a few years of earning. The collision tech is ahead of a doctor 10 years in. Now, where they end up four decades later could be argued. But still in all, it's a decent living. It's way better than the average American salary across the U.S. And part of this initiative is just, and look, collision repairs obviously self-serving, but all trades, which is what you've been saying for a long time.

They reward better than I think people thinking. People should know that because college isn't for everybody. AI threatens so many white-collar jobs. The future is uncertain, but I know this. Robots won't be fixing wrecked cars anytime soon. Do you feel like in the near term anyway, what you've got here are AI-proof six-figure jobs? For the foreseeable future.

Now, whether robots can do it someday or not, anything is possible, right? You know what Elon said the other day? Yesterday, he said he thinks, and I'm not going to argue with Elon Musk, but he thinks in three to four years, there'll be more optimist robot surgeons. But he always over-properienced.

I mean, I got respect for all the disruption and the way his mind works and the amazing things he's accomplishing. But he always over promises. So, do you worry? What else is he going to say? Well, okay. And I'm not challenging the man. I'm just saying like he does put really, really ambitious deadlines on things. And look, I was at CES, the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

And not his robots, but other robots were there. And, like, they're far from prime time. I mean, they can dance, but ask them to go get a shirt off of a rack. And we literally did it. And they bring back rags. 20 minutes later before you're still waiting for a shirt. So now I get it, like, it's going faster and faster. But there's so many models of cars on the road.

Every accident is different. Robots can build cars today because it's the same thing over and over and over. Everything we do is unique to that one event. It's going to be a while. Yeah. Okay. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. Yeah, absolutely, because the whole notion of an assembly line is built on a predictable series of events and plans.

It's the ultimate, it's a love letter to imitation. I say this all the time. Like, the innovators get all the credit. Whoever came up with the innovation behind the iPhone gets the credit. But like the genius is in making this thing. 10 billion times the exact same way. That's what the automotive manufacturers. That's what Henry Ford really gave us. Yes. Your point is a wreck is utterly unique. Random. And so the fix is equally unique. That's right. And that's interesting. Do you worry about back to Elon,

what if he's never, never mind the robots, what if he's right about autonomous driving? What if, you know, what are the unintended consequences somewhere down the line. I don't know if it's three, five, 20 years, whatever it is. But when the fat part of the bat is autonomous vehicles on the road, it sure seems like accident rates go down.

They do. What's that due to insurance companies? What's that due to your business? Yeah, the problem is, is the technology on the cars costs so much more to fix. So, you know, like how big is the industry dollar perspective?

we will be fixing less cars 10 years ago for more money because... Ten years from now. There's going to be, say, 30% less accidents, but it's going to cost more than 30% more to fix each accident. So we'll be fixing... It'd be a bigger dollar industry, fixing less accidents. So maybe less locations. Maybe you have to pivot.

The industry number of locations will definitely shrink because there's 30,000 of them today. another reason to be big because I feel like the industry will be served by two or three national companies and then every industry that consolidates consolidates out to about 65 percent and we're less than halfway there but another 10 years it's probably there do you feel like you're in a race yeah doesn't every business um I suppose I suppose so I mean you're a competitive person by by nature It's going to be an evolution, not a revolution, but accidents are shrinking, like, at a certain percent, you know, one percent a year or so.

So, like, go long enough out. Like, that's not a good scenario. Like, we will have to figure out other services to perform on vehicles as a company, but we'll do that in the appropriate time. So I do feel that threat is there long term. How do you stay in front of it? I'm just really curious. Like when you and Danny are just out to you, just looking at the whole industry,

having a couple of pops and trying to stay ahead of it. Like, what do you see that you can talk about that other people are missing? Yeah. Well, again, a number of accidents will shrink, but I do feel that one or two or three national companies will service the industry other than, you know,

the 35% remaining independent shops because of small towns or unique. dealer relationships or whatever the niche that they serve. So I intend for us to be one of those last one, two or three survivors. So that's kind of center field what we got to do, which means we need to continue to grow and expand because we even at 650 we don't have the footprint today that we need. And then in a few years there's what other services can we perform in. There is a buffet of them. Like I have a small towing company. Cars will always need towed.

And I'm starting to grow that now, too. But my main concentration is by far crash champions. But there's windshields. There's servicing the vehicle from a maintenance standpoint. There's the calibrations that we have to do to realign all the cameras and sensors and radars and stuff to make sure the vehicle can in effect drive itself. Now, is that

something that has to be done in a maintenance or routine basis going forward? Maybe, I mean, if I'm going to trust it to drive me around, I'm going to want to get it checked out every now and then, because I sure know my phone and computer don't go without a reboot every now and then. Who's King of the Hill in the windshield space? Is that safe flight repair, safe flight replace? Surely is, but... Can advertising works, dude. But Safe flight's a friend, so I'm not, and I have zero class business, so, like, I'm not

a threat to them, but when you're on the top, there's only... Business is a roller coaster, right? Sure. Like when you're at the top, there's only four places to go. Forgive me for this. We've got to start to land the plane, but I think we ought to kind of like... And by the way, that's not where I think we'll go. There's all kinds of, there's upfitting, changing a regular car and a police car, an ambulance, a fire truck, a handicap service vehicle.

There's so much vehicle services to enter. It's not going away. Look, you feel, I mean, basically, and I know this is silly. The core of what we do today might dwindle, but. There's plenty of vehicle services to do. And again, the advantage of, you know, BF and small is because you'll be able to pivot. That's right. If you have the footprint.

Back to Skills USA. Back to recruiting. Like, what is your strategy? Because you, I mean, at some point, like, if you've got five, six hundred openings now, I mean, does that keep you up at night? I mean, is there a bigger challenge for you right now than recruiting? training because here's how the collision industry has survived up till now you had say that in a shop of a handful of technicians you had the one technician that fixed the hard stuff yeah he was the guy yeah he was the guy like if you wanted your car fixer if it was really hard he's the one

and the others were good too but like the really tricky stuff the problem today is everything is getting tricky. In a five-year period, the car park is completely transformed. So now, you know, what I described is 20% could do the really hard stuff. You've got the other 80% of the industry that's to some degree got to catch up on training. And so you've got all the new people we're trying to attract to it and train and the existing workforce that needs to learn more. Like, so training the people because I want to make sure the car is fixed right. I don't want anybody to get hurt. Like it's a major initiative and it's a not a crash champions thing. It's an industry thing. That's my well so can do to what extent do trade schools train for this work

or at least pre-trained or pre-apprentice out of yeah they do a great job at pre-training is exactly what I would call it because you learn a little about a lot and now you've got to learn the details about a lot and so that takes some time we have our own apprentice program which trains people from scratch. What's that called? It's called the step program. We'll take a technician from beginning to where he can stand on his own and then he still needs a couple years to learn more. But same thing a trade school would do, but they actually get the experience of working in a shop. And the trade schools are great. The issue is in our industry alone, there's a prediction of $100,000 needed in the next seven to 10 years. And that's because we're already $30,000 short,

hence the reason why I need 600 people. And then a lot of the techs are. of baby boomer age ready to retire. So the numbers are about 100,000, and the trade schools are graduating about 3,500 a year. It's just math. The bigger companies like ourselves have to build our own programs and train, which we'll gladly do.

But that introduces a whole other problem, which is the mentor part, because we've got so many guys great at fixing cars that aren't great teachers, don't want to be bothered, just want to be... Now they're grumpy old men, want to be left alone and do what they do. Like, so the mentor problem, as much as like us trying to draw attention to the industry at the same time, we're trying to solve the mentorship and how to really convince people to take a look at it, train them to be good mentors as well.

It's a big problem. You know, I'm convinced the solution, because, as you know, the skills gap is a thing. It's not a myth. People talk about it like it is sometimes. Like, oh, all you have to do is pay these more and they'll come. It's like, no, man. five retire to come in, five out to one year after year after year in virtually every industry in the trades.

Jim Farley over at Ford told me last month they had 6,000 empty bays, not for lack of cars that needed working on. Lack of people that know how to do it. Yeah. I think, I don't think you'd mind me saying this because I've heard him say it publicly recently, I think they're going to open trade schools. within Ford, like Henry Ford used to do.

I think that's awesome. Alex Karp over at Palantir. You know what that guy's up to? He's taking kids right out of high school, smart kids. And within Palantir, he's teaching them like Western Civ. He's giving them a liberal arts background while he's putting them on big engineering projects. These kids are coming out of a two-year broad-based educational, slash apprentice program making $25,000

with no debt. And so, you know, I think you're on the right track. I think it's going to fall to every serious company that's run by ambitious people to create something internal. That's why you should probably keep that Danny guy. I think he's right about marketing to your own people first. I think companies mess that up.

Caterpillar has, it's called Think Big, internal program, you know. And, you know, they're at Skills, USA. And Kamatsu is there. And, I mean, it's standing on that competition floor and looking around at the companies who come to that event to celebrate skill, that's hopeful. And that's why it was really great to meet you there, of all places. you didn't have to buy me and my friend's dinner. I'm glad you did.

Well, I didn't want to be rude and barge in the room. No, no. No, but for the record, this settles the score. We're even. All good. Okay, all right, good. Danny, you actually owe me a little bit on this. I didn't even know there was a score.

It was glad to do it. No, man, look, I think this is, I love this country, and I love it because it still affords people, you know, who wrecked two cars, two cars, and shake their head at college, but who are ambitious and curious. You know, it's still a place you can build a $3 billion company from the ground up. It's freaking awesome, dude.

Yeah, land of opportunity, for sure. Where are you going now? Like right now, where's, we're going to jump on a plane and go to Dallas for a meeting in the morning. All right. Well, that's Matt Ebert. He's got a meeting in the morning. Danny, it sounds like his job is safe for at least another year. You're going to read it.

It's safe for a long time. Does you have a contract with you? How's that work? Oh, he's a free agent? Is he a free agent? try to chain people to radiators, but that's frowned upon. Do they still have radiators in cars? I don't even know anymore. I open up the hood. I don't have radiators, but I'm at the old radiator. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, I get it. I get it. Well, the image. Even the electric cars need to cool

cool stuff down. Yeah. Yeah. Pleasure, getting to know you. Thank you for making the time and coming by. Thanks for having me, Mike. This is great. All right. Adios. And if you need the bathroom again, you know, Mikaase, Sue Casa. Appreciate it. If you leave some stars, could you make it fine? And before you go, could you please subscribe? If you leave some stars, could you make it five? And before you go, could you please subscribe? If you leave some stars, could you make it five? And before you go, could you please subscribe?