We recently connected with Trevor Little and have shared our conversation below.

Trevor, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So, let’s start with a hypothetical – what would you change about the educational system?

-Young people should stay out of secondary education until they experience the world, have to pay their own bills, and be independent long enough to see there is way more to life than school. You grow up and change more between 18-28 than you did before or will after. An unfortunate fact is experience is valued more than anything in the real world, getting it before education will give you an enormous leg up.

-People should not try and force their careers to be what they love. Separate the two until you have financial independence and an ability to pursue your pet projects with love instead of a financial need. There is no shame in building a career to fund what you love to do at home, it will keep you from burning out your passions due to stress.

I lost a grandparent right after high school graduation who told me “Don’t make any promises until you know what forever means.” He spoke about the military, marriage, and a family. He didn’t regret his life but he wished he started a few years later with a better understanding of how things worked.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

The earliest photos of me were me rummaging through the lowest drawer of his father’s tool box, playing with valve springs and wrenches. Over the first two decades of my life, I developed skills as an automotive technician, but found my true strengths with automotive business management and customer service.

The garage was a repurposed brewery, we installed the lifts ourselves, bought and brought all the tools, compressed air, desks, even the wall outlets. Though the shop is small we use every bit of the space efficiently. We are even in the process of buying a larger location and opening a second location on the west side of Portland.

I opened Sumo Auto Repair to keep old cool and unique vehicles on the road. We specialize in Vintage Japanese & Japanese domestic market vehicles. That doesn’t mean we don’t work on the run of the mill Honda or Subaru, what it means is if you have your 30-40-50 year old Toyota or have a right hand drive diesel van that you imported and want to keep it on the road then you come see us.

If you ask someone we talk to or help with their cars, you will find a common word- care. No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care, and I have taught everyone who works here that just taking the time to care about someone and their property will make everyone a lot happier.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Mutual respect- I never tell anyone to do anything, I ask, and if they need something they ask me or each other. No one is too busy to come help them, and no one is above asking nicely.

Keep snacks and drinks for the team

When doing team meals, don’t special orders for an employees dietary restriction, make the whole team meal conform, makes them not feel like a burden and lets them know you care.

Always remain calm and make decisions when busy or during chaos, a lack of decision making is often worse than no action at all.

Never ask someone to do something you WOULDN’T do. I ask plenty of times for things I am incapable of completing due to my technical knowledge.

Remind people they do a good job, and do not remind people if they made a mistake. Reprimand in private.

We’d appreciate any insights you can share with us about selling a business.

I owned a franchise before Covid in Seattle. The owner of the company name and 50% of the stores agreed to sell then entire entity to a very large investment group. We had contracts that required us to sell under certain conditions, this being one of them. I was pressured to review and sign to accept my payment but I refused and hired a lawyer to review. Thank goodness I did. Always, Always, Always spend the money to have a lawyer present with you and review all documents. Whether is an agreement with a business partner, a large agreement with a vendor, lease, building purchase, and even something as trivial as a employee handbook. Get a local attorney on retainer and you will be glad you did.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sumoautopdx.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sumoautomotive
• Other: https://g.co/kgs/RnwTcRS