Collision Repair Growth: Matt Ebert Solves Scaling Culture to $2.8B, 650 Locations | Ep. 195
Episode 195 Frederick Dudek (Freddy D)
Collision repair growth gets a championship-level breakdown in this episode as Matt Ebert reveals how to scale culture, leadership, and operations from 1 shop to 650 locations without losing trust.
Episode Summary
Collision repair growth takes center stage in Episode 195 as Matt Ebert, founder and CEO of Crash Champions, shares how he scaled a single Illinois body shop into a $2.8 billion business with 650 locations across 39 states. This conversation tackles a major pain point for service businesses and trade-based companies: how to grow fast, modernize an aging industry, and protect the culture that made the business win in the first place. Matt breaks down how leadership training, acquisition strategy, trust-building, and clear operational priorities became the playbook behind Crash Champions’ rapid rise. For entrepreneurs building multi-location brands, this episode delivers a practical roadmap for scaling people, process, and performance without letting the locker room lose its chemistry.
Discover more with our detailed show notes and exclusive content by visiting:
Key Takeaways
• The SWAN Framework: Smart, willing, ambitious, and nice became Matt’s leadership filter for improving management quality before investing time and training into the wrong seat.
• The 5 Priorities Scoreboard: Fix cars right, make customers happy, make insurance partners happy, make employees happy, and make money created a simple operating system everyone could rally behind.
• The Leadership Bootcamp System: A three-part training model around culture, day-to-day management, and soft skills helped turn strong technicians into stronger leaders.
• The Trust Equation: In a business where customers may only need help once every 10 years, every interaction either builds trust or tears it down.
• The Expectation Management Method: Setting realistic timelines upfront prevents avoidable customer frustration and protects long-term brand loyalty.
• The Champion Circle Recognition Model: Highlighting the top 5% quarterly gave teams a visible standard for excellence and created momentum through recognition, not just correction.
• The Acquisition Integration Playbook: Rapid growth through acquisitions only works when leadership alignment and cultural clarity move as fast as the deal activity.
• The Winning Momentum Principle: Teams perform better when leaders create a sense of progress, appreciation, and shared victories instead of constant criticism.
Kindly Consider Supporting Our Show: Support Business Superfans® Advantage
Guest Bio:
Matt Ebert is the founder and CEO of Crash Champions, one of the largest collision repair organizations in the United States. Starting with a single shop in New Lenox, Illinois in 1999, he helped build the company into a national powerhouse with 650 locations, operations in 39 states, and roughly $3 billion in revenue. Matt is known for combining blue-collar leadership, disciplined acquisitions, and people-first culture to scale in a highly fragmented industry.
Episode
Freddy D’s Take
This episode plays like a playoff clinic on scaling a service business without fumbling the culture. Matt Ebert does not frame growth as luck or hype. He frames it as a leadership discipline. That is the big win here. He understood the collision repair industry was consolidating, saw the market shift early, and moved with conviction through acquisitions. But the real championship move was not just buying locations. It was building the internal muscle to unify them.
What stands out is Matt’s obsession with trust, communication, and leadership development. He makes it clear that the direct manager is the face of the company for most employees. That insight is gold for any founder trying to scale beyond founder-led operations. When the locker room expands, culture no longer survives on inspiration alone. It survives on systems.
This is exactly the type of strategy I help clients implement through my SUPERFANS Framework™ in Prosperity Pathway coaching within the Superfans Growth Hub. Matt’s approach proves that when you recognize people, clarify the mission, and train leaders to row in rhythm, your business ecosystem starts playing like a championship team instead of a group of disconnected free agents.
The Action:
The Action: Build your own 5 Priorities Scoreboard.
Who: Founders, operators, and multi-location service business leaders.
Why: When teams do not know the scoreboard, they cannot win consistently. A simple, visible operating framework aligns leadership, reduces mixed messaging, and helps every department row in the same direction.
How:
- Define the five non-negotiable outcomes your business must win every quarter.
- Translate each priority into 1 measurable KPI.
- Review the scoreboard with managers weekly.
- Tie recognition to the priorities your top performers are advancing.
- Use every new initiative to answer one question: Which priority does this improve?
Guest Contact
Connect with Matt Ebert:
Website: MattEbert.com
Company: CrashChampions.com
Social: @MattEbertCC
Resources & Tools
MattEbert.com: Matt’s personal website for leadership insights and connection.
CrashChampions.com: Learn more about the company’s services, footprint, and brand.
The Service Provider Playbook: Freddy D’s free resource for businesses looking to escape turnover, margin squeeze, revenue chaos, and burnout. https://skool.com/eprosperityhub/about
Prosperity Pathway™ Discovery Call: Strategic coaching for leaders who want to turn their ecosystem into loyal business superfans. https://propesperitypathway.chat
This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.
Copyright 2025 Prosperous Ventures, LLC
Mentioned in this episode:
Ninja Prospecting
We help coaches, consultants, and service-based business owners start real conversations with their ideal prospects on LinkedIn… Without sounding like a sales robot. We focus on building relationships and adding value first. Our method leaves a positive impression – so even if the timing isn’t right now, the door stays open for future conversations. Think of it this way: You wouldn’t walk into a networking event and pitch someone before saying hello. So why would you do that online?
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcript
So every interaction that we have is either a chance to build that trust or tear it down.
Speaker B:But I am the world's biggest super fan.
Speaker A:You're like a super fan.
Speaker B:Welcome to the Business Superfans podcast.
Speaker B:We will discuss how establishing business superfans from customers, employees and business partners can elevate your success exponentially.
Speaker B:Learn why these advocates are a key factor to achieving excellence in the world of commerce.
Speaker B:This is the Business Superfans Podcast with your host, Freddy D. Freddy, Freddy.
Speaker C:Hey, super fans.
Speaker C:Freddy D. Here in this episode 195, we're joined by Matt Ebert, founder and CEO of Crash Champions.
Speaker C:Matt tackles a challenge many service and trade based businesses face.
Speaker C:How to grow fast, modern, and still protect the culture and values that made the business successful in the first place.
Speaker C: hop In New Lenox, Illinois in: Speaker C:His story shows what's possible when blue collar leadership, innovation, and investment in skilled workers all come together.
Speaker D:Welcome, Matt, to the Business Superfans Advantage podcast.
Speaker D:Great conversation we had before we started recording a couple of Chicago boys.
Speaker D:You're still there.
Speaker D:I left, so I'm not dealing with the snow, but welcome to the show.
Speaker A:Yeah, thanks for having me, Freddie.
Speaker A:And thanks for rubbing it in.
Speaker A:Perfect time of year where it's pretty cold here pretty early, so I like you rubbing in how you're in the sunshine right now.
Speaker A:It's great.
Speaker D:It's actually not that warm out today for us.
Speaker D:It's in the 50s, so at the moment.
Speaker D:So that's pretty ch for us because we're not as sturdy as when I lived in Chicago.
Speaker A:It's all what you're used to, right?
Speaker D:Exactly.
Speaker D: when back in, I think it was: Speaker D:I was living in Old Town and that whole Lakeshore Drive froze over and it looked like an apocalypse because they had city buses frozen and cars frozen.
Speaker D:I got pictures of that and it was wild.
Speaker A:I remember that very well.
Speaker A:Three feet of snow all at once is what that was, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:That was insane.
Speaker D:So I was living there for a couple years.
Speaker D:I moved back from Arizona and yeah, I went out there and took photos the next day and it was wild.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Now the crazy thing is that's not typical for us either.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So that's pretty rare for us to see.
Speaker A:And that's why you found it to be a photographic moment.
Speaker A:Because a normal winter is a lot More mild is pretty typical nowadays.
Speaker D:Right, Right.
Speaker D:So you started Crash Champions a long time ago, and it's grown to being a national chain because I think there's a couple of them here in Arizona, in the Phoenix area.
Speaker D:And you know what got you started into the auto repair business?
Speaker D:What's the whole backstory?
Speaker D:Give us a scoop.
Speaker A:Yeah, quick backstory.
Speaker A:I literally got into the industry by accident when I wrecked my car when I was 16.
Speaker A:I grew up in a small town in central Illinois.
Speaker A:I didn't want to make an insurance claim and lose my insurance and then therefore not have a car anymore, which I just had gotten, and value the freedom it gave me very much, so asked somebody to help me fix it.
Speaker A:He worked on cars after his day job as an auto body technician behind his house at night.
Speaker A:So I went there, and he taught me how.
Speaker A:So soon after that, right after high school, got a job with him at the shop he worked at.
Speaker A:Got to the point, you know, several years later, to where I owned a body shop with a partner.
Speaker A:And for 15 years, I just had the one body shop in a town in Illinois.
Speaker A:And really, from an industry perspective, it started consolidating a few decades ago.
Speaker A:There's benefits to scale in the industry, which really drove me to see the need to grow it.
Speaker A:It's a bit of survival instinct, even more so than, of course I want to grow it.
Speaker A:But to think about going from one shop to a national chain is really looking at where the industry was headed, where the customers would be, and trying to get the company to serve that need.
Speaker A:So kind of rapidly grew here in the last five or six years.
Speaker D:Similar background, in a sense, because my neighbor across the street, I grew up in Warren, Michigan, and a neighbor across the street was always into hot rods, and he worked for Chrysler in a carburetor lab I was tinkering around with.
Speaker D: My first car was a: Speaker D:I was working on it and go across the street to get advice on how to do stuff.
Speaker D:And then he started having me help put in spark plugs and all that stuff.
Speaker D:Taught me about carburetors.
Speaker D:I, too, wrecked the car.
Speaker D:And a friend of mine worked at Chrysler at the time, and so he got me at discounts, body panels.
Speaker D:And so I would fix the car myself, and then I got it so far, and then I took it to a body shop to finish it off.
Speaker D:But I did all the heavy lifting, so I can relate a little bit.
Speaker A:It was a different time back then as far as that.
Speaker A:You kind of grew up wanting to Work on your car.
Speaker A:Cars were simpler than they are today.
Speaker A:Today it's kind of scary to think about for even for me to open a hood on a car and want to tackle it.
Speaker A:There's so much electronics in today's vehicles.
Speaker A:When we were growing up, technology was you leave the keys in it or the lights on and a bell would ding.
Speaker A:And that was about as fancy as it got.
Speaker A:So much more complicated today.
Speaker A:So it's been fun because it really has driven a lot of change in the industry too.
Speaker A:As complicated and technical as the cars have gotten.
Speaker D:Oh sure, because I remember I had a Dodge something and it was a four door green.
Speaker D:My friend Bill got me an engine for $75, was a 383 and I ripped out the engine and in one night took out the engine, put a new engine in and by about 5 o' clock in the morning I was driving it around, making sure it was all good.
Speaker D:Didn't even have a hood on it because I couldn't put the hood on by myself.
Speaker D:I needed two guys to help the guy to help lift it.
Speaker D:So let's talk a little bit about how did you scale that company?
Speaker D:What made you guys different than all the other collision repair shops?
Speaker A:A lot of the growth came through acquisitions.
Speaker A:So a lot of work is referred by insurance carriers in the collision repair industry because from a consumer perspective, people have an accident once every 10 years or so.
Speaker A:And so it really is hard to create and like top of mind awareness advertising to have your name out there where people think of you automatically because it's just such a rare event to have an accident.
Speaker A:And so insurance companies are often asked by the consumer, okay, I had an accident, what do I do?
Speaker A:And so from a bigger national company, for them they get a lot more consistency.
Speaker A:They have a single point of contact to affect change across how they want their claims processed.
Speaker A:And we're able to deliver a much more efficient, consistent result, consistent, high quality, and save them quite a bit of money administratively in the claims process.
Speaker A:And so that's really what kind of drove a lot of the industry consolidation.
Speaker A:Private equity entered the industry and gave some of the companies that were growing a lot of horsepower to acquire and grow.
Speaker A:The other backdrop is a lot of the body shop owners across the country are baby boomers.
Speaker A:And they're at that age where they're thinking about retiring.
Speaker A:The kids aren't interested in the business.
Speaker A:So there's really an environment where there was a need for bigger companies to come in and consolidate it and a benefit to the consumer for it as well.
Speaker A:So that's really what led to not just growing and becoming a regional player in the Chicago area, but wanting to meet the need of the industry and grow the company pretty rapidly to a national footprint.
Speaker A:So the way to do that quickly is through acquisition.
Speaker A:And that's what we did.
Speaker A: We exited: Speaker A:So it was pretty rapid.
Speaker A:And there's a lot of challenges that come with doing it through acquisition when it comes to building a united process and culture, et cetera.
Speaker A:But it was the way that we were able to do it pretty rapidly.
Speaker D:Well, I mean, that's a huge growth from under 20 to over 600 locations in what, six years?
Speaker D:That's a huge, huge increase.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker A:And the way that I went about it is really people have been the key to it.
Speaker A:So leadership and surrounding myself with people smarter than me has been kind of my hack to success in this whole rapid growth process.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker D:There's always a saying that if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
Speaker A:So get out and find a room
Speaker D:where you're the least smartest and you'll learn a thing or two about a thing or two.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker D:So talk about how did you get that culture?
Speaker D:Because that's really important to align with the company's vision.
Speaker D:Because I always talk when I was in Chicago, especially in a Lincoln Park, Old Town area.
Speaker D:There's Lincoln park.
Speaker D:And I use the example of the racing rowing team, where you've got people with one oar, not two oars.
Speaker D:They got one oar and all those people in line and you got the coxswan, you know, leading them.
Speaker D:You gotta get everybody in sync so that that boat will actually start flying.
Speaker D:Because if they're not in sync, it's not even going in a circle.
Speaker D:It's just wobbling, going no place.
Speaker D:Because everybody's independent.
Speaker D:The oars are not synced together.
Speaker D:They're individual people.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker A:Smiling.
Speaker A:Because I use that boat illustration to my team all the time.
Speaker A:It's amazing how powerful a united team can be.
Speaker A:It's almost unstoppable.
Speaker A:But if everybody's not rowing in the same direction, it's just going to be stuck.
Speaker D:Yeah, it's not going to circle.
Speaker D:Because it can't.
Speaker D:Because if you're pulling this way and that guy's pulling that way, it's just wobbling.
Speaker D:So what was.
Speaker D:What was the secret sauce that you used to Kind of get everybody aligned and especially across the country, I mean that's a whole nother dynamic.
Speaker A:Yeah, our concentration has really been on the leadership team and we've learned a lot of lessons along the way.
Speaker A:So when you first start acquiring businesses, you're trying to keep everybody on board, tell them you're not going to change too many things and the typical things that people want to hear.
Speaker A:In reality, what we learned is the best thing is be transparent, let people know where, where you're headed.
Speaker A:For us, a big key to success as I mentioned, has been the management team and the leadership at a shop location.
Speaker A:Now it's so big they might not ever meet me in person for a few years before I get around.
Speaker A:So it's the person that a shop level report to, their immediate manager and maybe the individual above them.
Speaker A:Really key to whether or not the team in that shop likes crash champions, whether they want to work for us or not, or whether they think we're a good company or not, all depends really on their experience with that direct manager.
Speaker A:So how we went about it looking for and trying to spot the talent in the acquisitions, trying to recruit the talent of those who have done things at scale and then train it.
Speaker A:Because a lot of our industry in a service business, they came up through the shop.
Speaker A:So our team knows how to fix cars, they know how to take care of customers, but it doesn't necessarily make them a good manager or leader of people.
Speaker A:And so we've had to build training programs within the company to teach it because again it's just not the world that we came from.
Speaker A:So we start with first spending a week sending the management team to really I call the first week of training kind of the culture.
Speaker A:Build what we're all about, what the company's why is a lot of how we we talk is look, we're here helping people in a time of need.
Speaker A:Our why is we believe the difference is trust.
Speaker A:It's very much an industry where the customers need to trust us, the carriers need to trust us, team needs to trust us.
Speaker A:So every interaction that we have is either a chance to build that trust or tear it down.
Speaker A:So we pay close attention to that.
Speaker A:Then we teach a boot camp on how to do the day to day management of the job.
Speaker A:And then the third one is the really the hard part, the soft skills which is the people part of it, communicating and motivating people.
Speaker A:And how do you do that and keep people engaged?
Speaker A:So we went about it through training it internally and it's evolved and will continue to evolve from here.
Speaker A:But it really is trying to do our best to pick the best leaders and then train them.
Speaker A:Then comes the development of process and other things that you probably want to ask me about.
Speaker A:But really it starts with us for the people, because there's such a key to it.
Speaker D:Well, that's your growth engine.
Speaker D:People are the I want to really emphasize here, Matt, is the fact that you talked about training the leadership.
Speaker D:Because a lot of companies that I've seen over the years promote their best person, best sales guy, best something, whatever, and best auto repair guy.
Speaker D:And poof, they're now a manager and they have no clue how to manage.
Speaker D:And so they come across a little bit inappropriately, I'll word it that way.
Speaker D:And so that alienates people and that can really, really destroy a momentum in a company.
Speaker D:So what you guys are doing is you're really helping that individual that gets put into that position the ability to succeed because they understand that their role is different.
Speaker D:And to become a leader is very different than being the best at what you do.
Speaker D:Because one of the things I've learned in leadership is a leader is a facilitator.
Speaker D:His job or her job is to make sure you can do your job, you can be successful at your job and get the heck out of the way.
Speaker D:That's empower the person.
Speaker D:And then you're the conduit between executive management and the team.
Speaker D:And you've got to be the backstop to protect your team because sometimes things get misconstrued and you got to be able to step up for your team.
Speaker D:And that's how you build what I call super fans of the team of you as a leader.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:Agree.
Speaker A:100.
Speaker A:The thing where we've made a lot of mistakes along the way, trust me, like not getting it right.
Speaker A:And even as much as we tried trying to make sure that we put the.
Speaker A:The best managers in the seat, that's what continues to be a challenge, because you have a certain percentage that excel and a certain percentage that don't.
Speaker A:So along the way, we've gotten a lot better at identifying and assessing do they have the right skill set in order to succeed at management?
Speaker A:We can give them the opportunity.
Speaker A:We can teach them.
Speaker A:But if they don't have the right skill set, it's not going to work anyway.
Speaker A:So now we kind of test for it before we put a person in the seat.
Speaker A:And that's evolved over the years.
Speaker A:It started with just a simple, like four categories.
Speaker A:We called it a swan test, which looked at four things.
Speaker A:Are, are they smart, which means are they able to take information and put it into action?
Speaker A:It's not just information and knowing things for the sake of knowing it, but can you turn it into actionable results?
Speaker A:The W was for willing to work hard.
Speaker A:The A was for ambitious.
Speaker A:And then the N is for nice.
Speaker A:Nice to work with or nice to work for.
Speaker A:And in particular like the, the smartness and the niceness, those are kind of the head and the heart.
Speaker A:And if those two qualities weren't there, you're probably not going to work well with people and you're not going to be able to strategize and help the people do well.
Speaker A:So it started with that, but now we literally have developed testing to where we try to better our chances at somebody being successful in a management spot before we go put them through a lot of training that isn't going to end up working and being effective anyway.
Speaker A:Because again, to your point, we know that it's our management team and whether or not individuals like them that creates the fans in our company.
Speaker D:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker D:Because the guys that are in the gals that are working on doing the actual ripping off body panels, putting it in, fixing all that stuff, they've got to feel appreciated.
Speaker D:They got to feel that their work is meaning something.
Speaker D:And a good leader knows how to elevate and recognize and pull those people up versus chastising.
Speaker D:Hey, how come this is late and this is not?
Speaker D:Completely different dynamics.
Speaker D:I worked, as I mentioned before we started recording, I worked with the language services company and there was a gal that was dealing with depression and she couldn't make it to work a couple of times because she was just that bad.
Speaker D:I took a completely different approach and I started empowering her and giving her more responsibilities and kept telling her, I need her, she's important to the team, changed her mindset and she took a department that was doing under 100,000 and doing document translations and we grew it to $225,000 in one year.
Speaker D:So $125,000 in small chunks of cash is a lot growth.
Speaker D:But she completely transformed because of being able to pull her up.
Speaker D:So I want to just emphasize what your guys are doing is very important because a manager can make a huge difference in an individual's life, plus or minus.
Speaker A:See it every day.
Speaker A:Exactly what you're saying, what you saw in that individual and what she could do.
Speaker A:We can put a great manager in a box, a shop that isn't that nice and with a team that's struggling and they can turn it around pretty Instantly.
Speaker A:And we can take a bad manager in a beautiful brand new shop with a great team and they can ruin it pretty much overnight.
Speaker A:So just like just that important that one individual.
Speaker A:It's amazing.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:So you alluded before into a little bit of the processes because when you're running that many locations, you've got to have it systematized and leveraging technology and all that stuff.
Speaker D:So what'd you guys do to kind of get everybody on the same page and running in the same playbook?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So part of the learning curve on it for us has been to really get more consistent with messaging and what's important in more detail than the vision and where we're heading.
Speaker A:Because otherwise as you roll out process, it can seem like the next new thing after the next new thing, after the next new new things.
Speaker A:So we went from here's what we want to do and kind of over leveraging, overemphasizing this one thing to.
Speaker A:It had to get to much clearer.
Speaker A:There's five things we're concentrating on and everything that we do fits somewhere in those five things.
Speaker A:And so our ability to communicate what we're doing from a process perspective or a change management perspective has gotten a lot better as we've been able to clearly identify for the team what we're trying to accomplish, where we're headed.
Speaker A:Everything that we're doing fits into these five big things, which is fix cars.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:For us, because that's what we do.
Speaker A:So we have to fix cars.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We have to make customers happy, make sure our insurance partners are happy, make sure our employees, our team is happy, and then in the end make money.
Speaker A:So those five things, everything from a process perspective or a new technology perspective is going to help us be better at one of those five things along the way.
Speaker A:When we can communicate that way, it allows the team to get behind and rally and become a cheerleader of where we're headed and what we're trying to do, rather than frustrated by the new latest, greatest idea that they're not quite sure where that piece fits into the whole puzzle.
Speaker A:So that's evolved over time and our ability to do that and my ability to do that is getting better and better.
Speaker A:But that's the thing about scale that I had to learn and had to bring in people that could also tell me what, what they've learned from the organizations that they came from.
Speaker A:Otherwise it became very tactical, let's fix this problem, let's fix that problem.
Speaker A:Rather than overall, what are we trying to accomplish with our processes and getting Everybody doing the same things has been a lot easier when we communicate overall what we're trying to accomplish.
Speaker D:Yeah, you hit a point right on the money.
Speaker D:And I want to kind of emphasize that is tactic is one thing, but getting everybody on board into the mission becomes the bigger thing.
Speaker D:It's just like a championship.
Speaker D:Chicago Bears, their goal was the super bowl.
Speaker D:And I was fortunate.
Speaker D:I've twice drank beers with Walter Payton at a place called the Snuggery in Schomburg, Illinois, so.
Speaker D:And yeah, it was cool.
Speaker D:Still fond, fond memories of that.
Speaker D:But they had a mission, they had a vision of where they wanted to go that got everybody aligned back to our racing rowing team.
Speaker D:And everybody was going, if you were busy on the tactics and not the big picture, there's no way they'd win a championship game.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That's what I've learned over time is especially in my role that I have to be.
Speaker A:The details matter.
Speaker A:Like I have to be able to paint the picture of the vision with a lot of detail so that people understand it.
Speaker A:And then keeping all initiatives under certain buckets that feed overall, what we're trying to do is a much more rally cry, something that people can get behind.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So can you share a story with us, Matt, of a customer that came in that had a bad situation and how you guys turned that around to where they became your biggest advocate, your super fan of how you handle that problem, Whether it was a combination of insurance parts and the whole aspect, because I know that that stuff happens.
Speaker A:Yeah, it sure does.
Speaker A:Every day.
Speaker A:And I view that as honestly, that is where your best fans come from.
Speaker A:Because they were unhappy, they've expressed that they're unhappy and now you have a chance to make it right or fix it.
Speaker A:And it's really.
Speaker A:That's all about being responsive because again, it's a team of people across the country.
Speaker A:People will make mistakes.
Speaker A:There will be things that are out of our control.
Speaker A:You mentioned parts might be on backorder.
Speaker A:There's very much items that we can't control and there's items that we might have made a mistake.
Speaker A:But when someone is unhappy and has expressed it, I view it as there's an opportunity to win a fan for life because you just need to go address their concern and make it right.
Speaker A:I view it as we're here to help people and they've expressed to us what a concern is.
Speaker A:Now's our opportunity to win them over and to get it right.
Speaker A:And I'm super thankful for those opportunities.
Speaker A:Really is valuable because you can convert them to fans, if you just can pay attention to what their concerns are and fix it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:One of my sayings is the little things are really the big things.
Speaker D:And once you transform a customer or an employee or a supplier into a super fan, they're going to stick you thick and thin.
Speaker D:And that's also your biggest growth engine that people don't realize because they're going to tell everybody.
Speaker D:You take someone that's had an issue, the insurance was going to cover something, and you guys help negotiate to get it covered because of the relationship that you have.
Speaker D:Because again, it's all about people.
Speaker D:And all of a sudden, hey, we got that covered.
Speaker D:And that person's gonna go, holy cow, these guys are great.
Speaker D:They went to bat for me.
Speaker D:And now you've got that person, as you said, for life.
Speaker D:And they're gonna tell everybody that they know what you did and how you transformed and turned a bad situation into a good situation.
Speaker D:You can't buy that kind of priority.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker A:And I think from we're talking right now about where something's gone wrong.
Speaker A:But even when things are going right, I find that the biggest thing that we are constantly working to improve is our communication.
Speaker A:So the world just doesn't communicate that well.
Speaker A:It seems we have something that's routine for us, that's really unique.
Speaker A:Just a couple times in a lifetime experience for the customer on what's usually a pretty important asset for them and a pretty big investment for them.
Speaker A:And so our ability to communicate expectations and set the right expectations is key to a lot of times customers happiness.
Speaker A:So for example, just simply like, how long will it take?
Speaker A:Like if we tell them a date that's sooner than it can really be done, We've shot ourselves in the foot because the customer honestly didn't know.
Speaker A:They just asked the question.
Speaker A:We thought we gave them an answer they wanted to hear.
Speaker A:And rather than doing that, we could have done a lot better job of setting the right expectation.
Speaker A:So we created an upset customer just from the expectation we created.
Speaker A:And so there's an example of a communication mistake that happens sometimes that I would love to eliminate from ever happening, and that is from not wanting to right out of the gate, give the customer the realistic expectation.
Speaker A:You're trying to keep them happy for the moment and then disappoint them later.
Speaker A:That's definitely not the way to go about it.
Speaker A:So a lot of times it's just being transparent and being clear in setting the expectations.
Speaker A:And it will go a lot better for our team when we do that well.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:And it goes back to taking care of your team because you can also recognize the team members that go above and beyond people.
Speaker D:One of my quotes in the book Creating Business Superfans is people walk through broken glass for appreciation and recognition and unfortunately, it's not given enough.
Speaker D:But if we do give it and do it right, it's transformative.
Speaker A:It is one thing that we've done.
Speaker A:We redid this and set it up real recently, and I'm excited.
Speaker A:The competitiveness that it's created and also the ability to recognize who's doing well is.
Speaker A:We call it Champion Circle.
Speaker A:But again, take the five categories that are most important to us and recognize the top 5% across the company on a quarterly basis.
Speaker A:And what that's done for us is not only recognize those that do really well, but it's let the rest of the team know what good looks like.
Speaker A:And so a lot of times, if you don't have a clear picture of that, the team thinks they're doing great.
Speaker A:They might be the bottom performing shop in the whole company.
Speaker A:And if they don't know that, how are they going to know how good or bad they are?
Speaker A:So our ability to highlight what great looks like has been a real kind of immediate success across the company because it also helps us to not just talk about what's going wrong.
Speaker A:It creates an environment where we're doing a lot more talking about what's going right and then here's what's working.
Speaker A:Let's all imitate that.
Speaker A:It's a lot better environment and conversation than always kind tend to on a spreadsheet or in a performance situation, navigate to what's wrong and try to fix it.
Speaker A:Where the real thing to do is highlight what's going right and teach people to imitate that.
Speaker A:And then the whole company rises.
Speaker D:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker D:I mean, that's when I was managing a distribution channel around the world.
Speaker D:You know, people ask how did I get Mind Share?
Speaker D:And people in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, Germany, France, England, Spain, Brazil, etc.
Speaker D:They're thousands of miles away.
Speaker D:The Internet was starting, this is in the late 90s, and when we would recognize who sold the most of our technology, most people recognized the agency because they were separate agencies.
Speaker D:And that's wonderful and that's nice.
Speaker D:But I went one step further and I recognized that the sales individual and the tech that sold the most of my product within that agency.
Speaker D:And so what I did is I recognized the actual people that were actually doing the work, selling the stuff.
Speaker D:That's who I recognized.
Speaker D:As well.
Speaker D:And that leveled up everybody because all of a sudden he says, well, wow, you know, everybody else is recognizing the agency.
Speaker D:This guy is actually hanging out with us, drinking the beers at the trade shows, et cetera, building relationships.
Speaker D:And that's how I got mind share.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's great.
Speaker A:Do the same things.
Speaker A:Individual contributors are recognized and kind of where they rank too.
Speaker A:So it definitely works.
Speaker A:Everybody.
Speaker A:Everybody wants to do a good job and wants to be proud to some degree of what they do.
Speaker A:Now, some will work harder than others and some will excel more than others, but to some degree, people aren't trying to be bad at what they do.
Speaker A:And so being recognized is very important to most everyone.
Speaker A:So you.
Speaker A:You want to look for occasions to do that.
Speaker D:Yeah, because like I say, people crawl through broken glass for that recognition and appreciation.
Speaker D:You're thinking too, that is gratitude.
Speaker D:Part of the conversation is really important, is expressing, hey, thanks, John, for going above and beyond and putting in some extra hours and getting this thing done.
Speaker D:Really appreciate that extra effort.
Speaker D:That's huge to that person.
Speaker A:Exactly right.
Speaker A:Biggest bummer of like becoming so big is I'm not able to know all the individual.
Speaker A:I remember the days when I knew everybody in the company, and now it's so big I can't possibly do that.
Speaker A:But I know that the rest of the team with me is recognizing individuals and the better we get at it.
Speaker A:It's super important to the culture build.
Speaker A:You want people to have a sense of winning because that creates the momentum to go out and get the next win.
Speaker A:If all it is is criticism, it's the opposite effect.
Speaker A:You feel like you're losing every day.
Speaker A:So it's that sense of winning.
Speaker A:Really important.
Speaker A:The great thing about the rapid growth is it brings along a sense of accomplishment and winning too.
Speaker A:Now kind of slowed down because we wanted to get the company a lot better over the last couple years, which we had.
Speaker A:But we're ready to start growing again, and I'm excited for that because it does bring a new level of energy.
Speaker A:The growth.
Speaker A:You just.
Speaker A:Growth can hide some sins sometimes too, so to speak.
Speaker A:So there is a point where I always viewed time to make sure the company's in a solid spot for the next stage of growth as well, and not just keep disguising it.
Speaker A:So we spent some time getting a lot better over the last couple years to kind of go at rapid growth again.
Speaker D:I got an idea for you.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:Love it.
Speaker D:I would send a birthday card from you to team member that's their birthday and express that you appreciate their Contribution to the team.
Speaker D:That's a nice way to cut through the noise.
Speaker D:And it's mailed.
Speaker D:Not email, not a text message.
Speaker D:Send them a real card.
Speaker D:Just a little something to recognize that individual on their birthday.
Speaker D:You appreciate their contributions to the company.
Speaker D:You'll make that person's day and you'll create a super fan out of that person because it came from you of that idea.
Speaker A:We go another step further with it and we send little $5 Dunkin Donuts gift cards to their kids on their birthdays.
Speaker A:So like me giving an employee a $5 gift card, they'd be insulted.
Speaker A:But like, we can afford to give their kids a $5 gift card and it's a whole different story.
Speaker A:So try to recognize their family's birthdays too.
Speaker D:Oh, yeah, perfect.
Speaker D:That's one of my chapters in the book.
Speaker D:I call it birthday marketing and people overlook it, but that's a really very powerful marketing mechanism because it's all goodwill.
Speaker D:There's no downside.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker D:So as we kind of come towards the end here.
Speaker D:Great conversation, Matt.
Speaker D:How can people find you?
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:So Mattebert.com is a website to find me at.
Speaker A:I'm on all the social media platforms under MattebertCC is the handle.
Speaker A:You could direct message me there.
Speaker A:Company's website is crashchampions.com.
Speaker D:okay, we'll make sure that's in the show.
Speaker D:Notes and great conversation.
Speaker D:You and I could talk about this for at least another minute.
Speaker A:So much to share.
Speaker A:I hope it was helpful a little bit to the listeners, but in 45 minutes or so there's only so much you can fit in, but hopefully some of the things I've learned have been helpful.
Speaker D:Great insights for our listeners.
Speaker D:So love to have you on the show down the road again.
Speaker A:Appreciate the time.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker D:All right.
Speaker D:Thank you, Matt.
Speaker C:What a strong conversation with Matt.
Speaker C:His story is a reminder that real scale doesn't come from growing fast just for the sake of growth.
Speaker C:It comes from building trust, developing leaders, and creating a culture where everyone is rowing in the same direction.
Speaker C:For service based business owners, that matters because growth will always expose the gaps in your business.
Speaker C:And if your people, your leadership and your communication aren't aligned, momentum can stall fast.
Speaker C:That's why these conversations matter.
Speaker C:Because building a business that lasts takes more than hustle.
Speaker C:It takes clarity, systems, and leadership that people believe in.
Speaker C:If you enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss future episodes.
Speaker C:And if this episode got you thinking about where your business could be, not just this year, but three years from now.
Speaker C:Don't let it stop here.
Speaker C:Too many service based founders get stuck in feast or famine, revenue marketing that doesn't convert and teams that depend on them for every decision.
Speaker C:You don't have to build it alone.
Speaker C:Join the Entrepreneur Prosperity Hub on Skool.
Speaker C:It's free to join and it's where I mentor founders who want predictable growth, stronger teams, smarter AI driven systems, and a business that actually scales.
Speaker C:You also get the Service Provider playbook, weekly growth strategies and direct access to other growth focused entrepreneurs inside live virtual sessions designed for real collaboration, not small Talk.
Speaker C:Go to schoolskoo.com eprosperityhub and step into
Speaker D:a smarter way to grow.
Speaker C:Be sure to subscribe to the show.
Speaker C:We've got another great guest coming up and I'll talk to you in the next episode.
Speaker C:Remember, one action, one stakeholder, one superfan closer to lasting prosperity.
Speaker B:We hope you took away some useful knowledge from today's episode of the Business Superfans Podcast.
Speaker B:Join us on the next episode as we continue guiding you on your journey to achieve flourishing success in business.
