He Was Nearly $1M in Debt — Then He Finally Faced the Numbers
When Ryan Hillenbrand started running his parents’ shop, he thought the money was being handled. The bills seemed to be getting paid. The shop was busy. The business had been around for decades.
Then the IRS showed up asking for $160,000. And that was only one piece of the problem. Between taxes, equipment, and other obligations, Ryan had inherited somewhere around $1M in debt.
Getting out of that hole started with one thing he could no longer afford to ignore: the numbers.
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The Guesswork Had to Stop
The IRS visit forced Ryan to see what the day-to-day had hidden. This was not just one unpaid bill or one bad surprise. It was the realization that he could no longer run the shop from assumptions.
Ryan had to know what cash was coming in, what was going out, and what it would take to survive the next day.
For a long time, that meant tracking the numbers every day, sometimes on a window with a dry erase marker, until he knew exactly what the shop had to produce. From there, he focused on creating more consistent cash flow by improving productivity, setting up payment plans, and making tough decisions about who was moving the shop forward and who was holding it back.
But Ryan didn’t just need more effort. He needed clearer targets for where the business was supposed to be.
Clear Targets Changed the Game
By the time Ryan found Shop Fix Academy, he had already learned how to survive. But survival could only take him so far. What he didn’t have yet was a proven standard to measure the business against.
Through Shop Fix, Ryan started seeing the business in a different way. Parts, labor, overhead, marketing, and gross profit per hour all started to connect. The targets became clear and so did the next steps.
“All I needed was somebody to tell me where I was supposed to be, and I can go get it done.”
Clarity gave him a path out of survival mode. Now he could stop measuring the business by whether it was still standing and start building toward real growth.
A Stable Business Needs a Stable Owner
The targets gave Ryan direction. Now the business needed stability, and it had to start with him.
Good days could not send him too high. Bad days could not send him too low. His team needed steadiness from him, because the way the owner shows up affects the way the business operates.
But staying steady didn’t mean standing still. Ryan still had to act on what he was learning while the business was moving around him. That’s why coaching during the workday became so valuable.
“My best coaching calls came in the middle of the day, because I could walk right back into my store and do the thing that I just committed I was going to do.”
Ryan could step away, get focused, and walk back into the shop ready to implement. That kind of follow-through helped turn stability into something the business could build on.
Know What You’re Fighting For
When the debt was heavy and the path was hard, Ryan needed more than numbers to carry him through. He needed a reason to keep showing up.
He says if it had only been about him, he may have walked away. But he was fighting for his parents, their business, and what they had spent decades building.
“If you’re gonna fight, you gotta have a pretty clear understanding of what you’re doing it for.”
For Ryan, the struggle became part of the leader he is today. It built resilience. It gave him the ability to look another shop owner in the eye and speak from a place of true experience.
He doesn’t tell this story because it was easy to survive. He tells it because hard seasons change when an owner faces the truth, gets clear on what has to happen next, and refuses to give up.
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