For owners who built their shop from the ground up, the hardest part of growth is often stepping out of the daily work. You know every customer, every technician, and every repair order, and the business depends on you for all of it. Mike Bennett believes that is exactly what holds most shops back.
In episode 3 of Maximum Octane, Kim Hickey sits down with Mike, an ATI Automotive Management Coach and co-owner of Mike’s KARS, to talk about the shift from shop owner to CEO. Mike explains what a CEO actually does, why the transition is so hard for operators, and how to start making it.
What You Will Learn
- Becoming a CEO is the evolutionary step for business owners
- The key pieces of our business we miss as entrepreneurs
- The importance of providing structure and direction to our companies
- About the primary responsibilities of every CEO
Questions Asked in This Episode
- What is the difference between acting and thinking like a business owner and acting and thinking like a CEO? Could you talk a bit about that?
- What are some tips that you have for business owners that want to improve themselves?
- What’s one unproductive habit that most business owners have?
Shop Owner vs. CEO: What Actually Changes
Mike describes becoming a CEO as the evolutionary step for business owners. A shop owner reacts to what happens each day: a technician calls in sick, a part arrives wrong, a customer is upset. A CEO is focused on where the company is going and what has to be in place for it to get there. Both roles matter, but a business cannot grow past the point where the owner is the only person who can handle decisions.
This is not about job titles. A 4 bay shop can have a CEO mindset, and a 20 bay shop can be run by an owner who is still stuck at the front counter. The difference is where the owner spends their time and attention. ATI’s The CEO Commitment and Coaching CEOs to Their Next Level describe what that shift looks like in practice.
A helpful way to picture the difference is to look at how each one spends a typical Monday. The owner arrives early, opens the doors, answers the first phone calls, checks on a car that came back, and spends the afternoon at the counter because an advisor is out. The CEO arrives with a plan for the week, reviews last week’s numbers, meets with the service manager about staffing, spends an hour on a marketing decision, and checks progress on a goal set last quarter. Both work hard. Only one is building something that can grow.
Making that shift does not happen overnight. Most owners move gradually, handing off one area at a time while learning to trust others with the work. The key is to keep moving in that direction rather than slipping back into old patterns every time the shop gets busy.
The Pieces of the Business Entrepreneurs Miss
Mike points out that owners who come from operations tend to overlook the parts of the business that do not show up on a repair order. Strategy, culture, financial planning, and leadership development often get pushed aside because there is always a car that needs attention. Over time, those missing pieces become the reason a shop plateaus.
Common blind spots include:
- No written plan for where the business should be in three to five years.
- Core values that exist in the owner’s head but are not taught or reinforced.
- No second in command who can make decisions when the owner is away.
- Financial reports reviewed only at tax time instead of every month.
These missing pieces tend to stay invisible until something goes wrong. Without a written plan, the shop drifts with the economy. Without taught values, culture forms around whoever is loudest. Without a second in command, the owner cannot take a vacation or get sick without the business suffering. Without regular financial reviews, problems like rising parts costs or slipping labor margins go unnoticed for months.
The fix is to set aside time for these areas on purpose. Many successful owners block a few hours each week, away from the shop floor, to review numbers, work on plans, and think about people. That protected time is where CEO work actually gets done.
Why Structure and Direction Matter
Around the 11 minute mark, Mike talks about providing structure and direction. Teams do their best work when they know what is expected, how success is measured, and who is responsible for what. Without that structure, people default to waiting for the owner, which pulls the owner right back into operations.
A simple organizational chart, clear job responsibilities, and regular meetings with measurable goals go a long way. The SBA’s guide to writing a business plan is a good general framework for putting direction on paper, even if you never show it to a lender.
Structure is sometimes seen as the opposite of flexibility, but in practice it creates freedom. When everyone knows their role and the standards they are expected to meet, they can make decisions confidently without checking in constantly. That frees the owner from being the answer to every question and lets the shop move faster.
Direction matters just as much. People want to know where the business is going and how their work contributes. A shop with a clear goal, whether it is reaching a certain level of customer satisfaction, adding a service line, or growing to a second location, gives everyone a reason to push in the same direction.
The Primary Responsibilities of Every CEO
Mike outlines the core work of a CEO: setting the company’s strategy, developing and shaping its values and culture, and assembling the right leadership team. Each of those responsibilities is something only the person at the top can own. You can delegate the brake job and the parts ordering. You cannot delegate the vision.
Tom Grady goes deeper into these roles in Four Things You Need to Know to Become a CEO, and ATI’s How to Hire the Right Second-in-Command covers one of the most important leadership hires a growing shop will make.
Setting strategy means deciding what the shop will and will not do. That includes the types of vehicles and services to focus on, the customers you want to attract, how you will price, and how you will grow. Shaping values and culture means defining how people treat each other and customers, and then hiring, training, and recognizing based on those values. Assembling the leadership team means finding and developing the people who will run the day-to-day so the CEO can focus on the future.
These responsibilities are connected. A strategy is only as good as the team that carries it out, and the team is only as strong as the culture that holds it together. CEOs who neglect any one of the three tend to see the others weaken over time.
Investing in Yourself First
When Kim asks for tips for owners who want to improve, Mike returns to self-development. He and Shelle invest in their own growth and in their team’s growth because the business can only rise to the level of its leaders. Reading, coaching, peer groups, and conferences all help an owner see beyond the daily grind.
Mike recommends Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, a book about taking full responsibility for outcomes as a leader. Its core message lines up with the CEO mindset: if the team is not performing, the first place to look is at leadership.
Extreme Ownership, written by former Navy SEAL officers, makes a simple but challenging argument: leaders are responsible for everything in their world. If the team fails, the leader looks first at what they could have done differently, whether that was explaining the mission more clearly, training people better, or making a different decision. Applied to a repair shop, that mindset stops owners from blaming employees, customers, or the economy and puts the focus on what they can control.
Self-development also includes surrounding yourself with people who are further along. Peer groups, industry events, and coaching all expose owners to new ideas and accountability. Many owners say the biggest benefit of a peer group is realizing that others have faced the same problems and found ways through them.
Breaking the Unproductive Habits
Kim also asks Mike about the most common unproductive habit among business owners. The answer connects back to the theme of the whole episode: staying involved in everything. Every time an owner jumps in to solve a problem that someone else could handle, they reinforce the idea that the owner is the only one who can. Breaking that habit takes discipline and a willingness to let others learn, even when it is uncomfortable.
A useful exercise is to track every interruption for a week. Each time someone brings you a question or problem, write down what it was and whether someone else could have handled it with the right training or authority. Most owners are surprised by how many interruptions fall into the second category. That list becomes a roadmap for delegation, training, and documented processes.
Replacing the habit takes patience. Expect the team to keep bringing problems for a while, and gently redirect them each time. Over a few months, the interruptions drop and the owner gains hours back for the work only a CEO can do.
Next Steps for Owners Ready to Make the Shift
- Track your time for one week and sort each task into “only I can do this” and “someone else could do this.”
- Write down three priorities that only a CEO can own, such as strategy, culture, and leadership hiring.
- Block time on your calendar every week for those priorities and protect it.
- Choose one book or training to invest in for your own development this quarter.
Mike later returns to the show in Set Your Business in Front of the 2023 Automotive Industry’s Trends. If you want structured help making the jump from owner to CEO, ATI’s coaching support pairs you with coaches who have made the transition themselves.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a shop owner and a CEO?
A shop owner tends to react to whatever happens that day: a sick technician, a wrong part, an upset customer. A CEO focuses on where the company is going and what has to be in place to get there. The title itself does not matter. What matters is where the person at the top spends time and attention. A small shop can be led with a CEO mindset, and a large one can still be run by an owner stuck at the counter.
What are the main responsibilities of a CEO in a small business?
The core responsibilities are setting strategy, shaping values and culture, and building the leadership team. Strategy covers which customers and services to focus on, how to price, and how to grow. Culture covers how people treat each other and customers, reinforced through hiring, training, and recognition. The leadership team is the group that runs daily operations so the CEO can focus on the future. These are the areas an owner cannot hand off to someone else.
How much time should a shop owner spend working on the business?
There is no single right number, but the key is that the time is scheduled and protected rather than squeezed in when the shop is slow. Many owners start by blocking a few hours each week, away from the counter and the bays, to review financial reports, work on plans, and think about their people. As leaders take over more daily work, that time can grow. The important part is consistency, so CEO work does not disappear every time the shop gets busy.
What is the most common unproductive habit for shop owners?
Staying involved in everything is one of the most common. Each time an owner steps in to solve a problem someone else could handle, it reinforces the belief that only the owner can solve it. A practical fix is to log every interruption for a week, noting what it was and whether someone else could have handled it with training or authority. That list becomes a roadmap for delegation, documented processes, and the training your team needs.
Resources and Links From This Episode
- Mike’s KARS website
- Book: Jocko Willinck, Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win
Connect With the Guests
- Mike: LinkedIn
