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- How family turmoil—and a patriarch’s dying wish—sparked a bold new chapter for Crain Automotive
How family turmoil—and a patriarch’s dying wish—sparked a bold new chapter for Crain Automotive
Featuring Christian Crain, VP of Operations at Crain Automotive
Welcome to another edition of the Car Dealership Guy Podcast Recap newsletter.
Recently, I spoke to Christian Crain, VP of Operations at Crain Automotive—a 16-store dealer group based in Arkansas. And we dug into a story that’s both unique and all too common in the car business—generational turmoil, how control can divide a family, what it takes for the next generation to rebuild, and much more.
1. Success can cause some family stress.
Crain Automotive has endured some very challenging family dynamics—after growing and buying more franchises.
“In about 2018, my dad decided to leave the company due to just some strife between him and his father…Also, that led to my uncle leaving a couple of years later…We just had a really bad family dynamic because of the large success that we've seen in operating.”
It essentially boiled down to an issue of control—both personally and professionally.
2. Value all the knowledge gained on the journey.
Christian, who grew up in dealerships, credits his grandfather—the founder of Crain Automotive—for turning him on to the business.
“I remember one time, I think I was probably eight or nine, and…I said something along those lines like, ‘I'm going to be a quarterback in the NFL,’ and he just shut me down and said, ‘no, you're going to be a car dealer.’ I knew what a PVR stood for before I was even playing with action figures.”
3. Keeping things in perspective.
Christian’s grandfather unexpectedly died of cancer in 2023 without their family issues being resolved—which has prompted some deep reflection.
“I, unfortunately, witnessed my grandfather…only have me by his side whenever he was sick…And I think now if he were able to go back and do it, he would choose relationship over profit or relationship over control.”
Life is too short to let the business divide the family.
4. Mending the wounds to mend the business.
Right before Christian’s grandfather got sick in 2023, the COO who was running the organization decided to quit out of nowhere—throwing their entire operations for a loop.
“It was a really weird dynamic because a lot of it had been just directed straight towards me; a little bit to my dad; a little bit to my uncle. We got that resolved now to where the ownership is how it should have been—which is my dad and my uncle, full owners and full operators of this company.”
Christian, however, insisted on playing a major role in running the business—but there were a host of challenges.
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5. Facing the challenges head on.
The day after Christian’s grandfather passed, he learned that Kia was threatening to pull their franchises for poor performance.
“We were not sufficient in new car sales. Our CSI scores were terrible across the board. And they were not satisfied with the way that we were performing due to this strategy of, ‘let's make as much money as possible.’”
Christian took that meeting personally with Kia and other manufacturers to address their concerns.
6. A turnaround that started with people.
One of the first things Christian noticed about their operations was that the business was seriously lacking a human connection—and addressing that has been central to the turnaround strategy for Crain Automotive.
“Our motto has been, let's restructure the way that, that our business Crain Automotive in Arkansas is perceived by customers and even more employees who swore the last time that they quit from a Crane Automotive dealership that they would never come back.”
The first step Christian took to address that issue was to hire the “best general managers that money could buy.”
7. Talent is worth the investment.
Christian believes that investing in building a strong team is money well spent.
“We knew that we were gonna have to pay people and we knew that we were gonna have to guarantee it over a long period of time because the pay lines, the service gross, the parts gross, wasn't anywhere close to what they needed to be making.”
There’s a cost to rebuilding—and those costs start with the people that make up your team.
8. Customers are spokespeople for the dealership—for better or for worse.
Christian sees improving Crain Automotive’s fixed ops as one of the most pivotal steps to improving its operations.
“Customers know exactly which service department they need to go to, which one treats customers poorly. And that has been the hardest thing to rebrand in the past two years because of how bad, how poorly our name got and how bad our customer service was.”
Crain Automotive is putting a lot of time into getting back the customers they’ve lost over the years.
9. Leveraging partnerships to maximize business recovery.
Repairing Crain Automotive’s reputation with manufacturers has been challenging, but securing partners that believe in the vision has helped with the hurdles.
“We've had a really fortunate deal with who we've been able to employ and who we've been able to partner with in order to be successful…in the eyes of the manufacturer.”
Crain Automotive uses an Arkansas-based company called LTD Connect to do all their marketing which has really helped to improve the dealership group’s image—putting customers first.
10. Preparing for the big win.
Now that Crain Automotive has successfully addressed some of its most pressing challenges, the goal is to build on the bigger vision.
“We've proved to ourselves that we can grow very quickly. In 2023, we sold 20,000 total vehicles. In 2025, we're going to sell about 45,000. So, we've built our accounting staff. We've built our corporate support up to be able to operate about 30 to 40 franchises.”
Crain Automotive is now well-positioned to be able to grow and take advantage of opportunities in the business.
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