Repair Shop Reckoning

Every shop owner has invested time and money to make the phone ring. But what happens when it finally does? In this episode, Kevin Brown and Jason Tracey tackle one of the biggest profit leaks in the automotive industry: what happens at the front counter. From the very first phone call to the final repair order, they break down how service advisors either create confidence or create chaos. Through...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin sits down with Isaac, owner of Diesel Dynamics in Texas, to talk about what really changed after six months of focusing on the fundamentals of running a better business. Like so many shop owners, Isaac wasn't afraid of hard work. He was working seven days a week, putting in 15 and 16 hour days, doing everything himself, and still wondering why it fel...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin starts with a debate that lit up social media:Should technicians be helping pay for scan tools? But what starts as a conversation about equipment quickly turns into something much bigger. This episode is really about control. Control of your business. Control of your customer experience. Control of your processes. And ultimately, control of your futu...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin takes on one of the most controversial topics in the collision repair industry: Who decides what a repair is worth?  Too many shop owners have accepted the idea that an insurance estimate is the final word. Kevin argues that's exactly the mindset that has created what he calls the industry's "Race to Zero"—a constant push toward lower labor rates, re...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin tackles one of the most damaging beliefs in business: "The customer is always right." For years, shop owners have been taught to bend over backward for every customer, absorb every complaint, hand out discounts, and tolerate behavior they would never accept from employees, vendors, or even friends. Kevin argues that mindset is destroying shops from t...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin tackles a reality every shop owner will face sooner or later: What do you do when the phones slow down, the bays aren't as full, and the panic starts creeping in? Too many owners react by cutting marketing, slashing prices, taking bad jobs, and making emotional decisions that create even bigger problems. Kevin argues that slow times aren't what destr...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin breaks down one of the biggest problems killing repair shops right now: Owners are doing the work… but they are not controlling the money. What starts as a conversation about cash basis vs accrual accounting quickly turns into a much bigger discussion about billing discipline, cash flow, overhead, collections, labor rates, and why so many shop owners...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin gets personal. Before the shop ownership. Before the buildings. Before the consulting. Before the success. There was a broke mechanic blaming everybody else for problems he created himself. Kevin opens up about the years he spent buried in debt, falling behind on tool payments, living paycheck to paycheck, and constantly thinking the problem was his...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin sits down with Anthony Rendino from A/R Customs and Collision to talk about the reality of running an independent body shop in today’s insurance-driven world. This conversation goes deep into what most collision shop owners are struggling with right now: Insurance companies cutting rates. Short pays. DRP pressure. Paint material costs exploding. And...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin breaks down one of the biggest reasons shops create their own chaos… poor communication and broken expectations. Most customers can handle bad news. What they can’t handle is silence, vague answers, missed promises, and feeling like nobody knows what’s going on. Using his own recent experience dealing with a dealership after the engine failure in his...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin takes the conversation beyond numbers and into what every shop owner is really chasing… freedom. Freedom from chaos. Freedom from bad customers. Freedom from living week to week. Freedom from having to say yes to things you know are wrong. Kevin breaks down why knowing your numbers is about far more than spreadsheets and reports. It’s about building...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin breaks down the part of the business most shop owners either avoid or don’t fully understand… the balance sheet. You can be busy, profitable, and still not actually getting ahead. This is why. The balance sheet shows what you truly own, what you owe, and where your money is really going. And for a lot of shops, that picture isn’t as strong as it feel...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin takes the conversation beyond just understanding your numbers and gets into what actually separates profitable shops from the ones constantly feeling the squeeze. Most shop owners look at their P&L like it’s the finish line. It’s not. It’s the scoreboard of what already happened. By the time you’re looking at it, the money’s already been made or...

In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin breaks down the difference between knowing your numbers and actually running your business with them. Too many owners look at their P&L at the end of the month and treat it like a report card. By then, the money is already spent and the decisions have already been made. This conversation is about taking that back. Kevin walks through how to use l...

Most shop owners don’t have a pricing problem. They have a numbers problem and it’s costing them more than they realize. In this episode, Kevin breaks down what actually happens to every dollar that comes into a shop and why so many owners are busy, working nonstop, and still wondering where the money went. Because the truth is, you can be doing millions in sales and still be losing money if you d...

Everybody keeps talking about how this industry is broken. How it sucks. How you can’t make money. How technicians are leaving and shops are struggling. Here’s the truth. Yeah, there are problems. But that’s not the whole story. Because there are shops out there winning. There are technicians building real careers. There are owners creating teams, culture, and systems that actually work. And the d...

Everybody keeps talking about the technician shortage like it just showed up out of nowhere. It didn’t. We built it. For the last 30 years, we told kids not to go into the trades. We stripped hands on training out of schools. We pushed college as the only path. Then we built workplaces that burn out the very people we depend on. And now everyone’s asking where all the good techs went. Here’s what...

Most people know Kevin Brown as the guy who tells it like it is. The shop owner. The operator. The guy calling out the chaos, the excuses, and the bad decisions that quietly kill shops. But this episode is different. This is the beginning of the story. In this remastered episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin sits down with his mom and dad to talk about where it all started.  The learning struggl...

Flat rate worked in Kevin’s shop for years. But the world outside the shop has changed. Parts backorders. Fleet approval layers. Training the next generation of technicians. Jobs sitting in bays waiting on things nobody inside the shop can control. And when that happens, flat rate stops rewarding productivity and starts punishing the wrong people. In this episode of Repair Shop Reckoning, Kevin ex...

Marketing can build your shop or quietly bankrupt it. In this episode, Kevin breaks down why most marketing promises are smoke and mirrors, and what shop owners should actually measure if they want booked work, not “impressions.” What you’ll hear in this episode • Why “impressions” are the most abused metric in marketing • The tracking question every shop must ask on every customer • Why Google Bu...

If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t control your business! In this episode, Kevin sits down with Maria Montie, partner at Shindel Rock and a key resource inside the Repair Shop Reckoning network, to talk about what most shop owners avoid their backend.  Cash flow. Oversight. Internal controls. Tax structure. And the dangerous assumption that “my accountant has it handled.” We break down: Why...

Because being good at fixing cars isn’t enough anymore... This episode is for shop owners who are tired of chaos, thin margins, and feeling like they’re constantly putting out fires. Kevin breaks down what it actually takes to build a disciplined, profitable shop in an industry that’s getting tougher by the day. We’re talking real systems. Real structure. Real leadership. Inside this episode: -Why...

In this episode, Kevin breaks down his exact service advising system step by step from the first phone call to after-hours pickup. This isn’t theory. It’s a process built from getting burned, plugging holes, and tightening the operation until the front office actually controls the day. We talk about: -Why most shops lose trust on the phone in the first 10 seconds -How “free estimates” screw your t...

Featuring George Ryan, Body Shop Manager at a Mercedes-Benz dealer in upstate New York, this episode is a straight-up masterclass in why shops are sick of getting jerked around by insurance companies—and what it looks like to push back with facts, laws, and zero fear. George’s perspective hits different because he’s lived both sides of the table: he grew up in a body shop, worked as a tech, then s...

This episode of Repair Shop Reckoning didn’t end the way we planned due to technical difficulties, but the conversation was too real not to release. Jessica shares her story of starting in the trade at 16, helping build a successful mobile operation into a shop, and then watching it fall apart because of bad leadership, flat rate abuse, unpaid labor, and broken promises. From 1099 misclassificatio...