He Was Holding The Shop Together - But It Was Pulling Everything Else Apart
After buying his shop in 2014, Kevin Roth quickly learned what many technicians-turned-owners discover the hard way: being great at fixing cars doesn't mean everything will be easy.
He was working 100 to 120 hours a week, seven days a week, with no time at home and no room to breathe. In his own words, he “missed everything.”
But the first thing that had to change was not the shop. It was the mindset that had him resisting direction, blaming the team, and carrying the business alone.
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The Truth He Almost Walked Away From
Kevin admits he was stubborn. The first thing he had to learn was how to take direction. His coach would tell him what to do, Kevin would agree, and then turn around and do something else.
Then one moment at a Shop Fix conference forced him to see things differently.
After most of his staff called out, Kevin was ready to go back home and fire everyone. Instead, a coach pulled him aside and told him a hard truth:
“This is your fault. This is what you allowed to happen. This is your leadership and this is what caused it.”
At first, Kevin was angry. He packed his bags to leave early, but then he heard something from the stage that stopped him: Lessons not learned will be repeated. So he stayed. And things started to shift.
“Once I stopped looking for who to blame and started looking at everything as my responsibility, that’s when everything changed.”
The Owner Cannot Be The System
Once Kevin started taking responsibility, he also started implementing. But it didn’t happen all at once.
At first, even simple systems felt unnecessary. Kevin thought that since he knew every car that came into the shop, he didn’t need a physical board to track vehicles, technicians, and workflow in real time. Until he stepped away for five minutes and everything turned into chaos.
So he tried it. The board worked. Then came the workflow. Then came more structure. Each small step proved the same point: The owner cannot be the system.
Kevin had to swallow his pride, admit what was working, and keep building the structure his shop had been missing.
Better Employees Start With Better Leadership
As Kevin put better systems in place, he started seeing his team differently too.
For a long time, Kevin’s drive came from being the best technician in the room. Other shops brought him vehicles they could not fix, and that ability became part of his identity.
But the same confidence that made him a strong technician created challenges as a leader. The goal could not be making everyone else operate like him. The goal was to give people the leadership and support to grow into the roles the shop actually needed.
Growth became less about guesswork and more about clarity.
Today, Kevin sees training as one of the biggest ways to build stronger employees and stronger shops.
“I just believe people are products of their leadership. So you could take somebody that’s a problem [there] and bring them [here]. With the proper leadership, structure and guidance, they turn into great employees.”
Better employees do not happen by accident. They are developed through leadership, clarity, and consistent training. And for Kevin, that shift changed more than the team. It changed what the business was able to become.
Growth That Gave Life Back
The results followed the leadership shift. Kevin’s shop grew from a three-bay converted gas station into a 13,000-square-foot facility. But the bigger transformation was not just the size of the shop. It was what the business gave back.
Today, Kevin does not have to be at the shop every day to keep everything moving. He has structure, leaders in place, and a team that can continue growing without every decision running through him.
After years of missing nights, weekends, and moments with his family, the shop now supports more than his work. It supports his life, his team, and the impact he gets to make beyond his own walls.
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Kevin’s story is just one example of what can happen when an owner starts leading differently. New episodes launch every Monday at 8:00 AM CDT. Click here to watch the latest episode.
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