148 - Succession, Stewardship & The Real Numbers Behind a Winning Shop with Greg Buckley
September 18, 2025 - 00:47:43

 

Show Summary:

Jimmy Lea chats with industry veteran Greg Buckley to pull lessons from decades of shop ownership. Greg shares the Wilmington shop’s history with a shiplap ceiling, a former diner footprint, and a community effort restoring nearby family graves. He traces the business back to 1966 and his father’s fearless promotion and racing roots, then explains how he took the reins. A central theme is succession planning with a five year runway, clear roles, and keeping property as a retirement asset. Greg warns buyers to fix their own shops first and to do deep diligence on targets. He shifts the focus from vanity revenue to net profit and cash, and urges coaching, masterminds, and continuous education. The conversation explores bridging the labor owner divide with transparency and respect, plus raising professionalism through higher standards and possibly licensing.

 

Host(s):

Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development

 

Guest(s):

Greg Buckley, President of Buckley’s Auto Care

 

Show Highlights:

[00:00:00 ] - Jimmy and Greg open with stories about the past and future, then spotlight the only shop bay Greg knows with a shiplap wood ceiling and why you preserve unique character, not paint over it.

[00:01:30 ] - The Wilmington shop backstory includes the first California Ranch style Shell station in Delaware, a former hamburger stand footprint, and a community project to honor a neighboring family cemetery.

[00:04:51 ] - Heritage matters. Greg reflects on Native American roots while Jimmy shares a Cherokee family story, showing how lineage shapes values and leadership.

[00:09:06 ] - Origin story. Greg’s dad starts in 1966, blends Firestone experience with fearless local marketing and drag racing credibility to build a neighborhood institution.

[00:13:26 ] - Succession in practice. Retain property as a retirement asset, define roles for the next generation, and commit to a five year transition plan.

[00:18:41 ] - Before buying another shop, fix your own operation and perform deep due diligence to avoid sellers with poor records, erased tickets, and no reinvestment.

[00:24:55 ] - Expect chaos when launching additional locations. Stabilize with process people and written playbooks.

[00:29:23 ] - Get a coach and accountability. Revenue is vanity, net profit and cash in the bank are sanity.

[00:33:19 ] - Bridge the employee owner perception gap on pricing and margins by educating teams on the true cost of running a healthy shop.

[00:37:57 ] - Masterminds turn mountains into molehills. Elevate professionalism with ongoing education and stronger standards, potentially licensing.

 

In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.

 

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Episode Transcript Disclaimer

This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.

 

Episode Transcript:

Jimmy Lea: Jimmy Lee with the Institute, and this is the Leading Edge podcast coming to you live. Via recording. Greg Buckley and I are sitting here. Just gonna have a good old chat and talk about the good old days and the days that are ahead. This is gonna be an awesome conversation and Greg, thank you so much for joining me today.

Jimmy Lea: How are you?

Greg Buckley: My pleasure, man. Jimmy, when you, when I got the phone call and the invite, I said, I gotta hop on with my good friend Jimmy, you know, and you know, let's chit chat like you just said. You and I, we could talk for days, weeks, months.

Jimmy Lea: Right. And never repeat the same story

Greg Buckley: and never repeat.

Greg Buckley: Right. So we, you know, to, to our audience, we are going to be disciplined this time and hopefully get in, get out, say what we need to say. And all within what, Jimmy? 30 minutes. Oh yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Good. Good luck with that. So, I was blessed to be able to travel all across North America and visit shops in their shops.

Jimmy Lea: I was able to see what makes shops unique. Amazing, and to date, as far as I know, you are the only shop with a. Shiplap wood ceiling in the shop in the bay. Yeah.

Greg Buckley: Yeah. Yes. Isn't it crazy? Every time I wanna redo the, think about redoing the bay and we actually did it, but we kept the ceiling. We weren't really we weren't gonna get rid of it, you know?

Jimmy Lea: No. And you can't paint it. You can't paint. ITT can't. It's so beautiful. You can't cover it. You've gotta beautify it, magnify it, and it's an absolutely gorgeous location. You've done so much in that Wilmington. That's the Wilmington location, right? That's the

Greg Buckley: Wilmington location. Yeah. And the dumpy old equipment barn, but it's, but it serves a purpose.

Greg Buckley: So, but the the Wilmington location a little history on that ceiling was in that location. That was the first Shell Oil company gas station service station in the California Ranch model. So, you know, you have the sling it roof. And you had the wood the two bay and it was, that was the model back then.

Greg Buckley: And that was the first one in the state of Delaware when shell came in. And it lasted for approximately maybe 18 to 24 months, was not a longstanding unit. Traffic was, yeah. Someone did. I don't think someone did. This wasn't right. Work. No. And before that behind the building and the three bays you see exposed, facing the highway behind that Yes.

Greg Buckley: Was an original hamburger stand called Greenhill green Hill Hamburger. I think it was Greenhill Diner or something like that. Okay, anyway. Okay. And when we moved in, sure enough, we saw the footprint of the old hamburger stand, you know, the whole hamburger drive-in which was unique. So there was a lot of history to that location, you know, and then down here.

Greg Buckley: The history of our location here. The families are all Native American, the Harmon, lingos, Norwoods, and the streets great family. They're interconnected through marriages and relationships, and in fact, they're one of the family graveyards is right next to the shop, so, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

Greg Buckley: So we have spirits in and out, you know, spirits in the bottle and spirits. That's amazing. Yeah. And you know, we actually had a, when we first moved in. Down here in Millsboro we had a little get together, the community we came to. I got the community together to actually rehabilitate the overgrown plots.

Greg Buckley: We learned the history of everybody and we we dressed up the the markers, the gravestones and all of that. It was really exceptional. We got some print got, I mean, it wasn't there to do, you know, promotional, but it came in and the community came together around it. And so now we have taken it on to where we maintained it to the best we can.

Greg Buckley: I mean, it's really a bugger, but there's I think there's nine or 11 family members. From the 18 hundreds through the early 19 hundreds that are resting there. And yeah it's really cool. It's just unique situations that you know, you find out about, and again, the families are amazing.

Greg Buckley: I mean, they're, yeah. You know, so we're fortunate and just little quirky stuff you find out about everything, so,

Jimmy Lea: well, that's a unique stewardship that you have elevated. Greg, thank you. Yeah,

Greg Buckley: you welcome that.

Jimmy Lea: That is sacred ground. That is family that is resting and

Greg Buckley: yeah,

Jimmy Lea: It allows you to educate the community as well as.

Jimmy Lea: Give honor to those that are there.

Greg Buckley: That is super cool. Well, yeah, it's pretty cool. Thank you. And we appreciate it. That was really the true mission. I, my, my mom was Native American and you know, she had some bloodlines. I can't, I don't think she was a hundred percent. I don't think that at all.

Greg Buckley: But my grandfather, I. Her father was. And there's just something there with, you know, the heritage part of it. And plus, like you said, honoring the family that's there and it's, it is special. You know, and believe it or not, you know, when I pull into the lottery, I walk over, I'll say, Hey guys, how you.

Greg Buckley: You know, y