I have always been a car guy and grew up in the corporate world. And as I was trying to think about how I want to spend the rest of my career. I wanted to get into back into auto repair, to connect my passions of cars and helping people so I opened a Rad Air franchise eight years ago, and two years ago was approached by the franchise company about coming on board to help with marketing and franchise development. And it’s been great because not only could I help people with their cars, but now I can help people get their business dreams rolling.
Most franchise owners want to be able to grow a business and have it be there so they can have the freedom they are looking for in life. And that’s exactly what I did. And as I was looking for additional units to open, the opportunity came to join with the franchise company. I did and it’s been great ever since.
Rad Air started off in 1975, as a radiator and air conditioning shop and grew to a second location, and then started franchising in 1999. And over the years, we’ve had to pivot. As the industry changed, so did we. Now we do complete car care. Everything from regular preventative maintenance, like your oil changes in your filters up to engine and transmission replacement. As we adapted and change with the industry, we’ve also gotten into hybrid and electric vehicles. Many of our locations have what’s called a certified hybrid technician on staff. That person has gone through the training and the necessary certifications to be able to handle things as simple as diagnosing a hybrid vehicle replacing the big drive battery to even rebuilding the drive battery in-house. We can handle anything that the client needs down to a simple tire repair.
Believe it or not, back in 2005, we had the first hybrid Ford Escape that was delivered in the Ohio market, we had it delivered here in Cleveland and our CEO, started investigating the car and playing with it and entered a driving competition, a gas mileage competition from here up to New York. His love of hybrids started there, and he realized that this is something that we had to embrace. And that’s something our industries always had to do. If you go back, not to get too technical, but there’s always been components on cars that have improved and become more computerized and more electronic over the years.
Our ideal franchisee, be that man or woman, maybe in the corporate space right now. They’re just sort of thinking about what’s their next step, they want a business that they can really get ingrained within the community. They can lead a team, they can grow a team. Maybe even a corporate job change or someone says, alright, I’m being phased out, my departments being downsized, I don’t like this working from home thing, whatever it might be. That would be the ideal candidate for us, someone that’s had a little management experience, perhaps marketing experience. But the one thing I really love about our shops is it’s, there’s a very neighborhood feel and the franchisees that embrace that have really done well. Getting involved with the schools picking a local charity, getting involved with the Chamber of Commerce, maybe like a BNI networking group or something like that. It’s really fun to watch the franchisees become part of the community.
Locally here we have the radio rising stars, which is a racing program that’s partnered with the Painesville Speedway, which is a speedway that’s pretty close to the Cleveland market, and our employees will go out to the speedway and will work with the students. The program is, it’s designed to get kids aged 12 to 16, behind the wheel of a racecar, and in a safe, controlled environment. But beyond that, we’re able to work with high school students that are interested in things like marketing, graphic design, travel, and tourism, and maybe accounting and finance, because those are things that the student race teams need as well. They need to understand how to go and attract sponsors how to design the lettering for their car. It’s really been embraced by local schools and local businesses.
Our franchisees can take a couple of different paths. They can be owner-operator, or they could be a semi-absentee owner. The owner-operator is going to be at the facility from eight to six. And then on Saturdays open from eight to two. They’re going to be answering the phones, are going to be leading their team.
One of the ways that we help the owner-operator get into the community is we help develop a number two person with them in the store. They have their lead technician who can run the counter when they’re out so they can kind of balance, they’re not tied to the phones or tied to the counter all day.
The semi-absentee owners will be checking in a couple of times per week. They still have a full-time corporate jobs. This is a little bit of a side business for them. When they’re not at the shop, they’re probably doing something in the community. And that could be again, the networking, the chamber, getting involved with the schools, and I’ll tell you greatly, it’s one of the big things we get right now is how can we get involved with the schools. We just had a conversation the with the Akron Public Schools last week. They have 700 students over the summer who get part of the soapbox Derby program. And they’re asking us how can we, as automotive professionals help get involved in that program?
Greg Mohr is the Wall Street Journal Best Selling author of “Real Freedom, Why Franchises Are Worth Considering and How They Can Be Used For Building Wealth”, and has managed restaurants, been a micro-electric circuit engineer, owned and operated dry cleaners, storage units, rental properties, and franchises. Greg has helped hundreds of people invest in a few hundred franchise units. Greg is also the podcast host of the Franchise Maven Podcast. Contact Greg at 361-772-6401 or greg@franchisemaven.com