# What the Top 10% of Auto Repair Shops Are Doing Differently — And What the Bottom 10% Refuse to Fix [E227]

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/business-by-the-numbers-5045738/what-the-top-10-of-auto-repair-shops-are-doing-differently-and-what-the-bottom-10-refuse-to-fix-e227
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/business-by-the-numbers-5045738/what-the-top-10-of-auto-repair-shops-are-doing-differently-and-what-the-bottom-10-refuse-to-fix-e227.md
Podcast: [Business By The Numbers](https://stenobird.com/podcast/business-by-the-numbers-5045738)
Published: 2026-06-18T04:15:00+00:00
Episode link: https://automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com//hunt227
Audio file: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/a000fc4f-378e-4e8c-99e7-72c373f6a1e5.mp3
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Duration seconds: 1748

## Resource

Thanks to our partners Promotive, WickedFile, Maverick Shop Owners, and Overdryve Is your shop growing in revenue but shrinking in profit? Are you convinced that raising your labor rate is the fastest path to the bottom line — only to discover that your highest-charging competitors are losing money? And what if the real difference between a shop that keeps 35 cents of every dollar and one that loses money has nothing to do with location, specialty, or size? In this solo deep-dive, Hunt Demarest, CPA at Paar Melis & Associates, walks through the 2026 Auto Shop Benchmark Report — specifically, what separates the top 10% of shops from the bottom 10%. It's about the metrics that actually matter: how much of every sales dollar ends up in the owner's pocket, why overhead is silently eating 42 cents on every dollar in struggling shops, and why the shops doing the most are almost always doing it with the fewest people. Hunt strips the report down to what you need to know — and what to do about it. Whether you're a two-bay shop trying to crack profitability or a multi-location owner wondering why growth keeps outrunning your margins — this episode is essential listening. What You'll Learn... (00:01) Why Part 2 shifts from industry trends to what separates winners from losers (04:01) How Paar Melis defines a "top shop" — and why net profit alone doesn't tell the whole story (07:37) The sales volume surprise — why bigger isn't always better, and smaller isn't always a disadvantage (10:56) The metric top shops don't even know they're winning — gross profit per square foot (14:56) Why the Midwest lost all its top shops this year — and who's to blame (19:31) The labor rate myth, debunked — bottom shops charge more per hour and still lose (23:16) The 12-point overhead gap that ex…

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## Transcript

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