Transcript of Matt Ebert: Reveals the Leadership Secret to Scaling an Empire

Don't be afraid to give up the control. In my case, I wouldn't have been able to grow. I didn't come from money, so I needed capital to grow. The only way to do that is being willing to let investors partner with me. Welcome to Mic Unplug, the number one podcast for self-improvement, leadership, and relentless growth. No No fluff, no filters, just hard-hitting truths, unstoppable strategies, and the mindset shifts that separate the best from the rest. Ready to break limits? Let's go.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another exciting episode of Mic Unplug. And today, we've got a billionaire on the call. From a single shop in 1999 to over 600 locations Nationwide, he turned crash champions into a three billion with a B dollar powerhouse. He did it all without a college degree. But what he realized was that when you put people first, if you have a burning desire Great Things are going to happen. Please join me in welcoming the bold, the relentless, the visionary, My guy, Mr. Matt Ebert. Matt, how are you doing today, brother?

I'm good, Mick. Thanks. That introduction makes me blush a little bit, so appreciate that.

Don't blush, It is all you. It is all facts. I meant to even add in there Chicago's finest. I was just in Chicago a few weeks ago, and I wanted to hit you up, but someone, I'm not going to mention anyone's name, didn't give me your contact number, so I couldn't hit you up, man.

Too bad. Missed opportunity there.

But I'll be back in a few months, so we'll make sure that that happens. But Matt, man, been a huge fan of you, the work that you do. But more importantly, man, the human being that you are. You do a lot of good in the world, and you lead a dynamic team. I tell people all the time, You want to see a great culture? Just look at the team. Great culture doesn't have to speak. It's shown in the team and in what you have. When did you know that people in connection was really a thing for you?

It evolved, to be honest. It really became necessity just because what we do is a service, collision repair. You can't do service businesses typically without people. Just to have any leverageability where it's not my own hands doing it, you got to involve others. And so whether it's a team of two or three, or in our case now, almost 11,000, it It definitely requires teamwork. I think I didn't have a big aha moment where I'm like, oh, teamwork's where it's at. It really did evolve from, Okay, I can't do this on my own anymore. I need some help. Then the biggest thing is learning as we go as to how to keep that culture going when you get bigger. It's a lot easier when it's just face-to-face, but when you get more distant from the people as the organization grows. Those are the challenges that have been tough to meet, some creativity because you're depending on others to carry that same culture through.

Well, you do an amazing job, brother. Like I said, over 600 locations. You physically can't be everywhere all the time, but the culture is the same. You walk into one shop and it's like you walk into all of them. That speaks volumes of who you are, man. Matt, on our show, we like to talk about your because, that thing that's deeper than your why, that true passion that fuels what you do. A lot of times that can change from time to time, and sometimes it can be different at home than it is in business. If I were to say, Matt, what's your because? Why do you do what you do, bro.

Yeah, it's all about the people. At the company today, we say we champion people, and it's because we're helping people in a time of need, so we get take care of people. We also get to help people change some lives, both through some charity stuff and also through career paths as the company has grown. But that, too, has evolved. If I go back to when I was teenage years, when I first got into the collision space, it was out of necessity. I had wrecked my car and needed to learn how to fix it. And what I would say is it started from a place making things better. So I had a problem. I wanted to fix it. Even jobs I had as a teenager, from cutting the grass to painting a house, like getting to see something in the before and after. And then that evolved to just my attitude toward people, both in friendships and personal life and in business. It would truly be great at the end of this all for people to say that their life was better for having known Now, as through the company, we're able to do that at a grand scale where people are in a time of need, and you never want to talk to us at Crash Champions until you have a wreck car, but you sure do when you do.

We're able then to help people in a time of need because someday, odds are either you or someone you love is going to end up needing us. I appreciate the opportunity to do that.

I love that, brother. Matt, we have something in common, right? You were 16 when you had a crash and you decided to fix your car. I'm going to tell on myself, my sister always tells this story privately, so I'm going to tell it publicly for the first time. I was 16. I didn't have a crash, but I backed into something, and my mom's car was white. I backed into an industrial trash can, trash whatever, and there's this big green mark on the bumper of the car. So me, at 16, oh, all right, I got to go figure this out. So I go to the local Lowe's, and Rochelle, I know you're laughing, but whatever. And it was at this point in time, Matt, that I realized all white is not the same. So I go grab a can of white spray paint thinking, I can just go spray over this green mark on the car. No, bro. It was an off-white that didn't match the car. So my question for you, Matt, is, Were you fixing your car because you didn't want anyone to know, or were you just truly intrigued that you wanted to fix the car?

Because me, I didn't want anyone to know. I went a good four days before my sister ratted me out, and so then I got in trouble.

Unfortunately, mine wasn't so minor, so there was no covering it up and hoping nobody would know. It had to be fixed and fixed right. I was afraid of making an insurance claim because I was afraid then I couldn't afford the insurance. For me, the car was not just cool, but it was also freedom. The first chance to ride around without my parents and getting to go wherever I wanted, so to speak, was something I didn't want to lose. I was determined to not make a claim and have the insurance get canceled to where I would lose that freedom that I had just gotten right away. It seemed pretty desperate at the time for me.

Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy, dude. That's crazy. I love that. I want to go to the journey of starting the shop then. When did you know that that's what you wanted to do? Then I'm going to have a few follow-up questions, but I want to start there. When did you know that, All right, this is what I want to do?

I always wanted to own my own business. Again, even in young years, I mentioned mowing the grass. I would push my lawn more around town and mow people's grass for a few dollars. I grew up in a small town in Illinois, and from that small town, I didn't really know anybody. So opening my own collision business, I was a little bit afraid of, Well, where would I get work? How would I have any cars to fix? So I opened some subway franchises at first as my first attempt in an official business. Didn't do so well there. Ended up going back to work in the body shop business managing another person's shop. He talked me into partnering up with him on a shop. This was all in my 20s. Basically, went from attempting something else that didn't work, coming right back to the collision business. The gentleman whose shop I was running saw an opportunity for us to partner together in one. That's how I ended up owning the first body shop.

I like that, dude. You start When you're the first one, walk us through the first couple of years. Because if you're like me, and I think we're a lot alike, when I started my first business, I wanted to be as big, and I'm using air quotes for those listening as big as I could, but I don't think I could fathom what that really was. For me, when I first started big was, I can go from one customer to 100 customers, and then 100 customers to 500 customers. For you, when it was like, All right, I've got one shop, what is it like to have two or three shops? I know that you said you were doing subway, so you understood the franchise concept and how to grow. But when did you realize, Man, this can really blow up?

Embarrassingly, it took a long time, Mick. I grew up in a small blue-collar town. College wasn't talked about. It wasn't an opportunity for me. Thinking big was nothing that was presented to me as a kid. I literally was just trying to survive, trying to pay the bills. In entering business, the goal was just to make enough money to live at first. Then I started to observe things that were happening around me. This industry is a very fragmented one, and people began to consolidate acquire other businesses, and grow big. As I was watching that, years down the road, I felt like there was a need That's where the industry was heading. To me, it was a little bit of survival instinct of if this is where the industry is heading and I want to be around the long term, I'm going to have to think about doing that. My partner was 20 years older than me and he wasn't wasn't ready to retire. So had to wait until 2014. So you're talking 15 years in the partnership in the one shop before I could grow. And during that time, I spent a lot of time reading, studying, expanding what I knew.

So I was a little bit handcuffed and then set free and ready to go pretty fast by that point in time. It's funny because I thought I had missed out on a lot of opportunity. Little did I know there's still a huge amount of opportunity out there. So it took me a while to think bigger. And then I used to think, and then it started with, okay, a couple of shops, and then, okay, let's be a strong regional player. And then COVID is where the whole national view came in, because that's when relationships like insurance partners that refer a lot of work, they change the game even more from it's much more efficient and easier for them to deal with national partners through a direct referrals, than it is, say, 30,000 individual shops across the country. And so seeing that accelerate led to, hey, I think being regional isn't even going to be enough. We really need to be a national player long term. And so that pivot came in the middle of COVID, just reacting to the marketplace in the world around us.

Yeah, Matt, I I love the vulnerability and honesty there. I think that's a great lesson for early entrepreneurs. A lot of times you're going to hear think big, grow big, and all of that is true, but it's got to be stages. Sometimes those stages are a year. Sometimes those stages take 5-10 years to get there. But I think the leadership lesson, the entrepreneur lesson, first and foremost, is make sure that you your employees can eat and do enough to make sure that that happens. When I started my first business at the end of the day, Matt, this was the truth, bro. I wanted to be able to get my kids McDonald's when I could But then take them the apple beans or Chilli's every once in a while. Exactly the same. So literally, those were the basic goals, and I didn't try to get outside of that until I knew, All right, I'm comfortable. Let's get uncomfortable so I can grow more. Let's get comfortable, then Let's get uncomfortable again so I can grow more. I'd love for you to expand on that for the viewer or listener that's an early-stage entrepreneur. How important it is to make sure that you and your team have food on the table before you really start doing anything else?

Oh, 100%. The thing is, you learn pretty quick that cash flow matters. One thing's for sure, I learned this in the subway business, if you have one that doesn't make money, two Getting to thinking that that's going to change your world isn't the case. You need to figure it out with the one first. But this goes back to my childhood, really. I wasn't naturally gifted at, I don't I don't think anything other than learning. So it didn't have natural athletic ability. Was the last picked in basketball, they picked the girls before me. They would say, Hey, we'll give you Matt. We'll play one We'll let you take Matt. But not being naturally gifted at things like that, I think, gave me the superpower of determination, of figuring it out. And so the ability to stick with something and learn, You learn first how to do it once and then twice and then three times. But I think that figuring it out is super important, especially if you're going to scale it, because then it has to move on beyond just your intuition, beyond just me being there at the counter talking to the customer, doing the right thing.

You have to learn how to manage other people into having them help you do the right thing as well. You need some systems, processes, et cetera, to do that. Once you figure it out, then you build those, and then you can try it a second time, a third, and a fourth.

The second lesson that you just talked about in there, Matt, is also something that I talk to leaders and entrepreneurs about, is you've got to understand your outside influences, meaning, Hey, COVID's happening. What's the world doing? My centers of influence, the insurance industry for you, probably some car rental industry has changed as well, too. Understanding that what happens today isn't necessarily the same thing that's going to happen next week. Again, I think a lot of times, entrepreneurs and leaders get so much tunnel vision that they're not paying attention to the market. They're not paying attention to what influences their business. Talk a little bit about why that's so important for the entrepreneur leader in this system.

Yeah, I think it's One thing I learned early on is somebody taught me, and it's probably in many books, but the way to get rich is find out what people want and bring it to them. It's a simple concept, but really, what is it that people want? Where does the business need to be tomorrow to meet people's needs? If you can do that, you'll be successful. One blessing and curse for the industry that I'm in is vehicles are changing so rapidly today. It's screamingly obvious. It's not even gradual. Cars five years ago compared to today because of the ADAS systems and the attempt to build them out to be self-driving. One day, all of that is happening so fast. It's clear to see that there's no way five years from now, the business can operate the same as it is today. Sometimes I think it's more gradual of an evolution than what I'm seeing in this rapid transformation. But recognizing where things are heading and then what will this business have to be to meet the needs of people five years from now is very much on my mind, and it seems should be on every business's mind.

I don't want to go the way of the dinosaur. So even from what we do as a core, which is fix cars that have been in collisions. They're trying to make cars stop having collisions. Now, there's 280 something million vehicles on the road. It's going to take a long time before that happens. But at some point in time, we'll have to do other services to these vehicles in order to continue. I happen to be an industry that's making it pretty obvious at the moment that you need to pivot and grow and change in order to meet the needs of the customer. But I think every business does. Sometimes the change isn't so obvious.

Yeah. Matt, I want to applaud you for something that you and your business, your company, do amazing. I like to say there's probably There's only three or four brands that really do this, but for you, I'm going to say McDonald's. When you walk into one crash champions, you've walked into all of them, meaning even down to floor mat placement. I don't even know if you realize that, bro. But where the floor mats are, what the lobby looks and feels like. Looking into the shop itself, seeing the brand, seeing everything that's uniform. You can't do that without something you were talking about earlier, systems and processes. That makes it easy to replicate who you are and not have to worry about, Oh, well, this branch or this store, this region does something this way, and this region does it another. Then there's no continuity. You can't promote, you can't scale humans when things are different. So one, I applaud you for that. Two, let's talk to the viewer and listener about why consistency, processes, and systems are so important when it is time to scale and to expand.

Yeah, because Because the results matter, because the perception matters. And I appreciate the compliment, Mick, but we're a work in progress, too. It's not to the degree that I would love it to be, which is perhaps what it never will. I'll always want things to be better and always want them to get there. But you need that consistency. The McDonald's is the perfect example. If you couldn't count on the same French fries at every drive-through you pulled in, you wouldn't you wouldn't treat it the same. And so I think that's pretty understandable to everyone that when you see that name, you expect it to be the same. And from our standpoint, our customers were a once in a decade event, probably. Unless you're in your teenage years, then we happen to be maybe more often. But for us, it's more of a, how do we get a universal result of a happy customer and a happy insurance partner and a happy employee? And that's the forever moving target and goal. Again, We look at it from a people point of view. So in championing people, it starts with our own employees, can't have a great customer experience without a great employee experience.

So how do we make sure that they have the tools that they need? How do we make that they have an environment that they want to work in? How do we make sure that we treat them well? You got people in the middle that varies a little, but as much as you can solve for variances, the more you know that your employees will be happy there, then you know that the customers will get the same experience and they'll be happy. It's really looking at it from a customer point of view, how do you get there? Consistency is definitely a key part of it.

Absolutely. Another thing that you've mastered really well that I don't think you get enough credit for, so I'm going to give it now because that's what I do, is mastering mergers and acquisitions. I tell people a lot of times, you can't scale without some type of acquisition. But in order to do that, you have to know what you're looking for. You have to have the ability to not just acquire, but in your instance, fold people into a culture which is darn near impossible to do a lot of times, especially with mom and pop acquisitions that sometimes feel like they're going into a corporate. There's always that little bit of tug, that little bit of friction. But you've really mastered how to bring people into your culture through acquisition. Talk a little bit about that, brother.

Yeah. Again, I would say, best thing to do is put yourself in the other person's seat. I remember early days, for example, the seller would be, Nobody can know until the money's in the bank. Then you're walking in, the deals close, the money's in the bank, and you're walking in to the employee's surprise. What a horrible experience. Learn very quickly. To this day, hundreds of acquisitions later, we still have to talk the sellers through it. No, we want to get the contract firm, get you comfortable, but we have to let the people know early. They're going to be upset with the seller because they're going to be mad that you didn't trust them. Adults don't like surprises kids do. So announcing early and having that month to sit down with each employee and talk through what this means for them and what it's going to look like going forward for them is just one avenue of trying to bridge that culture difference because it is going to be a bit different. So the sooner you can talk about it, the sooner you can start to get their buy-in and their willingness to give it a try.

And then you make mistakes and you learn from them. And that getting in there ahead of time so that their first paycheck goes well and all those things where people get nervous, you want to make sure to deliver the best experience you can out of the gate. Then the culture, one of the reasons why I'm on your podcast or even started doing of this is because it's not my comfort zone. I'm only a year in, but a year ago, probably a disaster, and I'm probably still closer to that than a master of doing these interviews and things. But it started from how do people get Because it's so many people, how do people get to know us or about us? Putting content online that anybody can check out is a great way for people to get to know us. That's how this all started.

Amen to that, dude. Amen to that. Earlier, you talked about not being a dinosaur. And your industry, just like many, are seeing a ton of innovation, which means I know you're a great learner. That's your thing is to always learn and to always do some self-knowledge. How has innovation in the automobile industry impacted what you all have had to do? You've got electric cars that are coming in now, some self-driving cars. Is it becoming Is that more of a challenge to stay up to date with everything?

Oh, very much so. It's both tooling and training. Then it's a bit of a research paper before you repair a vehicle because there's so many different type of metals and the technology. I describe it when I started, you would get in the car and if you left the keys in it when you got out, it would ding, ding, ding. If you left the lights on and the keys in it, it would ding faster. That was the technology, that in the AM, FM, cassette radio. Nowadays, we know the car helps you park. It helps you not change lanes. All this technology is crazy to the point of, look, there's, I think, about 15 million lines of code in a 777 airplane. And in today's modern vehicles, there's 150 million lines of code. So if that gives you an idea of the complexity of today's cars. It really is a chase to keep up with where they are. It's a challenge for the industry, especially when it's shorthanded anyway, which is why we do so much talking about what a great opportunity there is in blue collar work, not just ours, but other trades as well. But there's abundance of opportunity for people because there's so much new to learn and so much new to do on these cars.

It's what you imagined it to be 20 years ago.

That's a great point because there are a lot of industries that are struggling to get new talent, but you're saying that you have a ton, not just you, specifically, but your industry has a ton of opportunity for people coming in. What is unique about the collision business, the automotive side, that should be attractive to people? I'm not just talking young people. I'm just talking people in general.

I think the technicians get paid better than people think. That, I don't think was always the case, but it finally has gotten to a respectable wage. Our average technicians make six figures now. It's just something that I think young people should know as an opportunity because there's stereotypes and stuff that have come with our industry for so long. Sometimes it might sound anti-college, which I'm not at all, but it's not for everybody. If that's not a path that you can take and working with your hands is something you love to do, there's nothing greater than watching a car transform from wreck to back to new. After just a couple of days, you get to see a big transformation. I just view it as it is a great opportunity that people should be aware of. There's many other opportunities in the world for sure. I just I think this one has been stereotyped in a wrong way in decades past.

I get it, man. I get it. You talked a little bit ago about always wanting to improve. For the listeners and viewers, how does a How does that $30 billion company improve? Where are you looking to improve on?

Yeah, all those systems and processes are always a work in progress. The culture, it's always a work in progress. First, I think you want to be the best, and then you continue to grow, and being the biggest is a cool thing to shoot for one day. But that work, to continue to work at being the best is what I think consumes the day-to-day, and then the growth comes naturally as part of the business plan. Even though you do it intentionally, it's concentrating on making sure you're the best that you can be, makes the growth possible. That's how I view it. An industry under consolidation, from what I've read and observed and studied, we'll continue to consolidate till it's 65, 70% consolidated. Consolidated, and our industry is, say, 30% consolidated today. So it's not quite halfway there. I see once that happens, then there ends up being maybe one, two, or three three national players, probably. And so I want to make sure that Craschamp is one of those two or three left standing. So that's what I see as the next phases of continuing to improve. And you never know. There's other services we can perform.

There's other geographies we could look at. There's all kinds of opportunity out there as long as we continue to do things well.

I love that, dude. I want to get your I want you to give advice to the listeners and viewers, especially those founder-led business owners that are trying to balance control and growth. What's the piece of advice you have for that? Because, again, you've mastered that as well, too.

Don't be afraid to give up the control. In my case, I wouldn't have been able to grow. I didn't come from money, so I needed capital to grow. The only way to do that is being willing to let investors partner with me. It's really about what each individual is trying to accomplish. I started to think pretty big at the time that I brought in private equity investment. For me, a smaller percentage of something much bigger was the path I wanted to go. I probably could have had a much easier life if I just stayed in a regional play and did it through debt and let the business finance its way to maybe, say, 20 shops or so over the next so many years. But I also looked at it as like, Okay, then what? Because I was always putting all the money back in the business, still am. If all the money keeps going back in the business, what would be the plan to maybe get paid one day. And I viewed that as a risk for me because it's a consolidating industry. By the time I was ready to sell, would they already be done and would they want to buy and pay a good price for it?

So it was just looking at maybe working backwards from the end game of, Yeah, if I want to just do this, and I'm not worried about an exit, and I'll run it forever, then great. Or if I want to do this, and this is my exit point, just knowing that, I think you just need to know where you want to end up. For me, it was looking at meeting the needs of the industry, not being able to do it on my own. Letting a partner in has been a great thing. And transparency, I'm very much a cards on the table guy. So being very transparent with the partners as to what I was wanting to accomplish, keeping the relationship in perspective has been great. I view it as the investment is a tool for them to grow their money, and they're a tool for us to grow our business. And keeping it in perspective has been great because then I don't get any delusions about what the relationship is about. If the business quits making them money on their investment one day, then the money is probably going to go away. I think, again, the transparency builds trust between you and the partners, and it's been a great relationship for me.

Not everybody has had that experience, but I think the best way to set yourself up for it is to be honest and open about your goals and theirs at the outset and work toward them together.

Love that, dude. Love that. Matt, you've been so gracious with your time, and I know how busy you are, so I appreciate you doing this. I want to end this with our quick five. I ask you five rapid fire questions. You ready?

Yeah, sure.

All right, let's go. So you're a Chicago area guy. What's your favorite Chicago food?

Oh, food. Man, we got great food here, period. But pizza, I guess, comes to mind right away.

Deep dish, thin.

Thin.

See, I tell people all the time, Chicago pizza is actually thin. It's not the deep dish that everybody promotes.

Yeah, that's more like a casserole. You'll have that every once in a while, but thin all day.

There you go. What was the biggest lesson you learned leaving Subway?

I didn't like the business for one, so don't do something you don't like. But also, again, cash flow matters.

Love it. I love it. What is a car in the shop that you love just seeing come in?

Oh, anything high-end is cool to look at and see. We've got some lot of shops now where you see some pretty unique vehicles from Lamborghini's to Rolls-Royce's to McLaren's to any of those. They're pretty impressive cars. Okay.

All right. Now, the flip side of that, what's the car that comes in and everybody in the shop is like, Oh, man, here we go?

Oh, I don't want to say that. We'll prejudiced people against it. I would say anything older because older gets rusty or gets more… Anything Older is less appealing than Newer.

Okay, I dig it. Three words that define Matt Ebert.

Transparent, Trustworthy and ambitious. Confident. You asked for three, I gave you four.

See, there you go. Four words. That is where I'm at even. I love it, dude. I love it. Matt, man, where can people follow and find you? I'm going to make sure that we have links to the main site so people can see the crash champions near them, too.

For me, Matt, Ebert CC is all the social media, any of them. Matt Ebert CC. Crashchampions. Com is the company website. Then there's also matebert. Com. Any of those avenues, reach out.

I got it. Matt, I'll make sure we have it there. Brother, it was an honor to spend time with you. Thank you for letting me pick your brain personally because I asked you questions, honestly, that I wanted to know. So thank you for being authentically you. Thank you for being transparent. And just thank you for the soul that you are, Matt. I appreciate you, brother.

Hope it was helpful to the listeners. It was fun. Mike, thank you.

It totally was. And to all the viewers and listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Mic Unplug. If today hits you hard, then imagine what's next. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and share this with someone who needs it. And most of all, make a plan and take action because the next level is already waiting for you. Have a question or insight to share? Send us an email to hello@micunplug. Com. Until next time, ask yourself how you can step up.