The question of what to do upon retirement is a vast one, no matter what the career. After years of dedicating oneself to an industry, there is an opportunity to take some well-earned time off or perhaps try something new.
Tom Tobin is a retired occupational therapist turned Grease Monkey franchisee, and Joe Marconi is a business development coach with Elite Worldwide and a former shop owner.
Tobin shares with NOLN what drew him to shop ownership and later Marconi outlines what shop owners from outside the industry should know about leadership and success for their next-chapter career journeys.
A True Occupation
After serving in the Army, Tom Tobin dove into the field of occupational therapy where he practiced in total for almost 35 years, and took a special interest in occupational medicine helping to, in his words, “prevent employees from becoming patients.”
He and another therapist started a private practice in 1998. After 20 years of growth and achievement within the private practice space, Tobin and his business partner were ready to retire. By the time they were fully retired in 2019, the company had 11 partners and around 2,400 employees across the country.
“I always loved occupational therapy because ... our motto was, ‘a focus on function,’ and so, it looked at therapy not as the end goal, but that therapy was just integrated into helping people achieve what’s called activities of daily living,” Tobin says.
Around the time of Tobin’s retirement, his son Brandon graduated from a vocational school with a degree in automotive technology and mechanics. Tobin, a self-proclaimed “entrepreneur at heart” with a master's degree in business administration, wanted to build something with his son.
He says the two of them spent a lot of time in prayer and researching what might be the right fit in the automotive franchise space. Culture was a big factor of consideration.
During his time in private practice, Tobin and his partner worked to establish a “positive conscious culture” that focused on honesty, integrity, and communication.
“Your leadership has to drive the culture,” Tobin says. “I always say that corporate cultures are like a garden: You can either plant the plants that you want and nurture them and kill the weeds (weeds are like gossip, etc.) or you can just let it grow wild. One way or the other, a corporate culture will develop. So, then you have to decide: Do you want to keep weeding, or do you want to grow a healthy one?”
When he and Brandon flew out to Colorado (where Grease Monkey’s parent company FullSpeed Automotive is headquartered) they were able to spend an entire day having conversations about the opportunity.
This experience stood out to Tobin because the interactions were genuine and Brandon, as a young person with goals in the industry, was included as an equal during the discussions.
Tobin says they felt supported. It was an encouraging experience that led him to open a Grease Monkey franchise in Cibolo, Texas, in July 2021.
“It all is about culture and customer experience, not smoke and mirrors—legitimate,” Tobin says. “This is what we want you to experience because we want to change the way that oil change is being done.”
As much as Tobin admires the Grease Monkey brand, the now 25-year-old Brandon is who truly played the biggest role in Tobin opening the shop.
Tobin says Brandon has always had a passion for cars and helping people. From a young age, people would ask Brandon to look over their vehicles. Opening the shop helps Brandon continue to do the work he’s great at, and Tobin was happy to support it.
“No question, I would not be doing this if it wasn’t for Brandon and his passion for cars and our love for working together in that arena,” Tobin says. “I wouldn’t be a Grease Monkey franchisee but for that.”
Driving Forces
It was a transition for Tobin to go from running a large company to overseeing a shop, but he’s been able to apply experiences from his healthcare career to a shop setting quite fluidly.
He says the basics of running a business—finances, marketing, and management—are leadership components that work across careers.
“The part that’s never easy but the most fruitful is the relationship building and changing culture and ... exceeding customer expectations,” Tobin says.
In his previous career, Tobin explains he was selling a form of prevention to business owners. He says he worked with people who were used to a healthcare industry that constantly billed them, and that’s what he was selling against.
Now, he’s working with preventative maintenance and car care in an industry that he notes is not always well trusted. But his career experience sets him up well for the challenge.
“So, you take that kind of a situation, and you think well, how could I do this differently? So, the preparation for what I'm doing now came from all of those bad experiences and bad relationships that industry had with healthcare,” Tobin says. “And now I just translate that into what are people's expectations when they walk into an oil change place, and how can we change those expectations and reset the bar for them?”
He says the shop team focuses on educating (not selling) customers about what’s needed and what’s not, encouraging them to continue to keep that bar high wherever they get service done in the future. It comes down to making that person’s day better, despite what’s happening outside of the bay doors.
“I tell my guys, ‘Our guests pull up, and then they leave. And in that 20 minutes the bar is very low for success. Whatever is going on in their life when they pull up is still going on when they leave,’” Tobin says.
The importance of a solid communication approach is something Tobin learned about during his prior career.
“In my last life when we would walk in and speak to somebody in their cubicle, we would get on one knee, or we'd squat down so that we weren't towering over the top of them,” Tobin shares as an example.
He says standing over someone creates an unwanted power dynamic, and by simply meeting the guest at their level it automatically neutralizes that interaction. It makes guests comfortable, he says. It shows respect, which is something his team takes to heart. This inspires the kinds of compliments to the team that come up in Google reviews of the shop, Tobin says.
The recognition has even gone beyond that, as Tobin received a Franchisee of the Year award from the International Franchise Association earlier this year. It was an honor, Tobin says, especially when he thinks about the mentors he’s had along the way who have invested in him as a person.
He describes the Grease Monkey franchise system as family-like, making everyone feel welcome and supported. Tobin accepted the award with his wife Sherri and son Brandon, bringing the feeling full circle.
This stood out as something especially impactful to Tobin, who says that in his previous career any accolade that came was something he accepted by himself. Now, successes such as this one can be shared.
“Underlying all of that, to be blessed to be able to take it, receive it, as a family and on behalf of our crew who work really hard to make all that stuff happen ... a blessing is an understatement,” Tobin says.
Transferable Skills
What do U.S. Steel’s Andrew Carnegie and Charles M. Schwab have to do with auto shop ownership? They set an example of recognizing skills that stretch across industries, according to Joe Marconi.
Marconi explains how, in the 1800s, Andrew Carnegie, (the leader of U.S. Steel at the time) appointed Charles M. Schwab as president of the company. Schwab wasn’t hired because he had experience in steel—he was hired for his people skills.
“That type of transferable skill—understanding people and employee management—(is) crucial to running a successful automotive repair shop,” Marconi says. “So, we gotta take a page from Charles Schwab and not worry too much about the technical aspects, but about the people aspects and finding out what the goals are of the individual because when you align the goals of the individual, you also align the goals of the company.”
Those soft skills are important. Marconi says successful shop owners prioritize their teams and develop leadership skills and people skills in conjunction.
“When you talk about leadership and personality, they’re almost one in the same,” Marconi says. “And if you think about it ... all of us could get better and can get better at leadership because leadership (is) essentially people skills like empathy, learning to look at someone else’s perspective, (and) humility. Those are all people skills—personality traits—so, they’re one in the same.”
What kinds of personalities or professions transfer well into a next-chapter career of shop ownership?
“I don’t think industry matters as much as the person,” Marconi says.
He says, “great leaders come from all walks of life,” and in the automotive aftermarket, there is excitement to be found in how each day is different. It can be a great fit for the right person who is retiring from elsewhere.
“I think it lends itself really well to someone who really wants to not fully retire but get their juices flowing in such a different area,” Marconi says.
For example, people who are retired from a different career field may have an interest in shop ownership because they have a passion for cars that they want to do something with, Marconi explains.
“(There are) so many opportunities out there, after their No. 1 career is over, to follow their passion,” Marconi says.
If they have a background in management, operations, or finance—all the better. Marconi says there are situations where a shop that’s been around for decades may have an owner who is looking to retire themselves—which opens the door for someone else to step in.
“The transition to take over—whether a quick lube or a small repair shop—I think it’s very lucrative at this point,” Marconi says.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges. Marconi says there’s a lot to learn when someone is getting into the field for the first time, as may be the case for someone who is retired.
To gain knowledge, he emphasizes subscribing to trade publications, networking with strategic partners, learning about all the various roles in a shop, and potentially enlisting a mentor or business coach.
While it may be overwhelming at first, Marconi says due diligence will set someone up for success. He’s a staunch believer in lifelong learning and encourages newly minted shop owners to look into industry training opportunities from technical to management, as well as spend time with books about leadership from the likes of John Maxwell and Dale Carnegie.
“But when it comes down to it, like I always said when I was in business, ‘We work on all makes and models, but we really what we really specialize in is people,’” Marconi says. “So, I think that that's what it takes.”
Marconi says the COVID-19 pandemic proved the resiliency of the automotive aftermarket industry. People are understandably interested in exploring how viable it is in their own lives, including those who have retired from other careers as well as young people.
He’s excited about the notion of diversifying the aftermarket and seeing how people run it like a “true business.” He says as we look ahead in the next five, 10, or 15 years—an already amazing industry has the chance to become even more amazing. But ultimately, it all comes back to people.
“Most importantly, (learn) that you need to listen more, talk less, and just be humble enough to take in everything and learn from everywhere and anyone—and that’s the best advice I can give just about anybody in this industry,” Marconi says.
