ASW Conversations: Preparing, planning and selling, with Emily Chung

Selling an automotive repair shop is not an easy task, and one marked by careful planning, emotional ups and downs and a commitment to transparency.

Emily Chung shares her journey of becoming a technician, opening AutoNiche 16 years ago and the process of selling her auto repair shop earlier this year with Auto Service World Conversations.

Chung said she always had an exit strategy in mind, knowing that she would sell the business at some point.

“Now, what I didn’t know is when I would sell it. And I thought, ‘You know what, even if I was going to have my kids run it one day, I would still sell it to them,’” she explained. “Basically, the mindset was the get the shop in a place where it is sellable, and then whoever it is, at what price is.”

When the time came, Chung emphasized the importance of preparing both the business and her staff.

“I decided to tell the employees before I listed it for sale because I did not want them to be blindsided. That was just a personal choice for me,” she said. “I wanted to honour our relationship, because they’ve been with me for some time.”

Operational readiness was also key. Processes, training manuals for technicians, onboarding materials, phone scripts for service advisors and the like were all digitized and stored in the cloud.

“So when it came to the sale and transferring that over, that was relatively easy because I just needed to transfer the login for Gmail, and then they already had it,” Chung explained.

The process of a sale can also be an emotional rollercoaster, she warned, something she wasn’t ready for. But it wasn’t the emotions for the business, she pointed out. To Chung, the business was a business and she didn’t carry the emotional affinity for the shop like other owners might.

“But the emotional roller coaster of, ‘Is it happening? Is it not happening? Is it happening? Is it not happening? This constant two steps forward, one step back — I think prolonged [everything and] was very challenging.”

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