By Jen A. Miller, special at Mines Magazine
When the brothers Chris Saykally ’11 and Derek Saykally ’14 bought AC Total transmission because Care, a Denver -based transmission repair workshop in 2020, they joined a trend for entrepreneurs of their age.
With nearly 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day, many of their small businesses change hands, the younger generations constituting the majority of small businesses today. Boomer generation entrepreneurs do not want to close the businesses they have spent building their careers to retire or be forced to work during their golden years just for this company to take place. Now they are looking for someone again to enter the place not only to continue the inheritance of their business, but to help this business continue to develop new ways.
“They wanted to sell to another family that would mainly keep employees and maintain the store,” said Derek about the previous AC transmission owners.
From layoff to the opportunity
The Saykals have both started their career in the petroleum and gas industry. They worked for the same company in different roles – and in different states – but the two were dismissed in 2020. It was the second time of Derek on the cup block, which made him realize that he wanted to work in a less volatile industry. He spoke to his brother to own their own business to control their careers.
“We were both in the same house trying to regroup and see what we were going to do,” said Chris. They struck an idea: why not get into business for themselves?
They connected to a business website for sale and examined everything, from a hair salon to a brewery. The description of the AC transmission was vague but the financial figures listed seemed good. When Derek read the description of the company aloud, their father heard it and said that he had known the shop since he had worked at a Cadillac dealership in Denver. The brothers decided to take up the challenge.
A new generation providing cross -skills
Although he has no experience in the automotive industry, the Saykals have transformed a stable but not growing company into a booming business. They have doubled the shops of the store in three years.
“It was a huge learning curve,” said Chris. “But we have implemented what we were doing in oil and gas, just on a smaller scale with our own money. It works very well.
Chris and Derek changed the sales strategy, the parts system, learned to digital marketing and explained how the company was managed.
“The optimization of goods did not only collect data and did not distribute the reports. We were literally modified operational procedures on the drilling platform to save millions of dollars in time of time, “said Derek about his previous oil and gas role. “We were able to do it on a smaller scale for our own business.”
For example, transmission jobs take a long time, which meant that technicians would be very busy or not at all busy. They worked on a performance -based remuneration structure, which means that their income has often fluctuated. To make things smoother for employees and for company cash flows, AC transmission has started to add other types of services, such as general repairs and updates, which now represent around 10% of their income.
A large part of their success has been due to the conclusion of a balance between the maintenance of employees and existing principles of the store while implementing new practices and commercial tools.
The brothers see it as their mission to maintain the same culture, the same quality and the same AC transmission standards. They knew they would take control of the inheritance that the previous owner had worked hard to build and maintain. But they also knew that they could acquire refined skills in their engineering careers and provide new strategies to a small business to manage different economic factors and commercial trends.
Derek said: “Add a little technology, data -based decision -making and a little optimization and you will certainly increase any business.”