In July of 2016, Frank O\u2019Regan was hired by Balise Motor Sales as the Business Manager for their two Mighty Auto Parts franchises.\u00a0 When Frank arrived, the two franchises were under performing and operating at a profit loss.\u00a0 The sales were historically stagnant, the gross margin was low, they had low inventory turns and poor team morale.\u00a0 The two franchises were almost completely dependent on the internal customer base, the Balise dealers.\u00a0 Over 90% of their total sales volume were to the Balise dealers, internal customers.\u00a0 Their external customer count was very low in both franchises.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Within just a few months, Frank had rebuilt both his sales and operational teams and within 6 months, the sales and margin were on the rise.\u00a0 Frank had hired a new salesperson, reassigned an existing staff member into sales, training both within the first 6 months.\u00a0 In Frank\u2019s first full year of business 2017, the operational loss disappeared, and the race was on towards growing sales, margin, and profitability.\u00a0 At the same time, Frank changed the entire stock-ordering process.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI developed a return process for \u201cdead\u201d inventory to the vendors and significantly increased the inventory turn ratio from 2.2 turns per year to 4.8 turns per year,\u201d said O\u2019Regan.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

$\"Frank$

Frank O’Regan, Business Manager<\/p><\/div>\n

The second full year<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a02018<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0sales grew by over 21% versus 2017,\u00a0margins\u00a0grew by over 300 basis points and<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0for the first time in the company\u2019s history, both franchises were profitable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>During 2018,\u00a0I focused on\u00a0internal customer sales. I emphasized\u00a0working closely with all the dealer\u2019s parts managers.\u00a0\u00a0What excited me\u00a0was the amount of new external customers that came on board.\u00a0 In 2018, the Mighty franchises\u00a0I\u00a0managed were nominated as Franchise of the Year from Mighty Corporate.\u00a0 This is quite an honor as Mighty has over 100 franchises across the USA and they only nominate 5 each year,\u201d said\u00a0O\u2019Regan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2019, Frank\u2019s third full year at the helm of Mighty, the franchises growth even surpassed their 2018 results.\u00a0 Frank had very low employee turnover and his team was maturing, and their confidence was growing.\u00a0 Their continued growth\u00a0was due to additional product lines being brought into inventory and these high volume and very profitable product lines.\u00a0 The permission to invest in more product lines was made because of Frank\u2019s ability to manage his inventory dollars so well and increase his turn rates.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The year 2019 was also influenced by the fact that Frank had to relocate one of his warehouses.\u00a0 This was a massive project that took almost two months and Frank managed every aspect of the move on his own.\u00a0 He did this faster and cheaper than expected.\u00a0 In 2019 Frank changed his salespersons pay plan to a more commissioned based plan and the sales team really performed well.\u00a0 2019 was another record year of profitability for these 2 franchises beating the previous year by over 90%.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was very pleased when my\u00a0two franchises were once again nominated by Mighty for the Franchise of the Year award.\u00a0 They also won the prestigious Summit Club award given out by Mighty.\u00a0 The Summit Club is a yearlong contest for Mighty franchises where you earn points for sales, margin, inventory turns and participation of Mighty corporate driven programs.\u00a0 This was the first time this franchise won that award,\u201d said O\u2019Regan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2020, COVID happened.\u00a0 It started to impact\u00a0Frank\u2019s\u00a0business\u00a0around\u00a0April.\u00a0 Prior to that, sales were up 30% over the previous year.\u00a0 Frank reduced\u00a0his staff\u00a0from 12 team members to just 3, including Frank.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>Putting the 9 team members on furlough was especially hard for\u00a0me\u201d Accordingly,\u00a0sales suffered due to the pandemic<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0but\u00a0no one\u00a0missed a day of work.\u00a0 For the year, sales finished down 20% but amazingly, profitability was up over 50% compared to the previous year.\u00a0\u00a0My team\u00a0did a fantastic job\u00a0of\u00a0working\u00a0as a team throughout\u00a0the pandemic<\/span>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2021, Frank\u2019s team was almost completely back to work.\u00a0 All team\u00a0members\u00a0that were asked\u00a0returned from furlough.\u00a0He did not lose 1 employee through the pandemic.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>Through May of 2021,\u00a0our\u00a0sales were up an 80% and profitability was up over 50<\/span>%,<\/span>\u00a0again<\/span>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In just 5 years Frank almost doubled his sales volume from where he started, fixed the inventory overstock problem, grew his customer sales from a 90\/10 ratio internal to external customers to a well<\/span>–<\/span>balanced 50\/50 ratio.\u00a0 More importantly, Franks two franchises were generating net profits that placed his franchises in the top quartile of the Mighty network.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n