We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Robert Cohen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Robert, appreciate you joining us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?

I was being offered my first CEO position, running a division at a Fortune 500 company. The Chairman of the Board looked at me and said “Rob, would you rather be slow and wrong or fast and right.” Neither seemed like a good option, and not knowing the answer, I thought I might loose the job before I even started. Thankfully he jumped in to offer the answer before I made a fool of myself. “If you are slow and right, it won’t matter that you were right. By the time you have implemented the solution, many things may have happened that now make you wrong. The economic environment may have changed, capital may have dried up, or more likely, the competition got there before you and beat you to market. But if you are fast and wrong, you have a chance to course correct and make incremental improvements along the way. Monitor the project, see what works and doesn’t, and remain flexible enough to make the changes needed to get you to right. More likely than not, you’ll find the right answer along the way and have implemented the solution with significantly more speed.” I took this to heart and this simple lesson has helped steer my decision making ever since, both professionally and personally. My advise to others – be decisive, take CALCULATED risks, and don’t be afraid to execute. Pull the trigger and go. Know what the leading indicators of success are, monitor them religiously, and trust your ability to process improve your way to success. Better yet, if you can teach your entire organization to have this courage, accompanied by the discipline needed to catch mistakes early, you’ll be unstoppable!

Robert, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a car guy. While I was building my career in the more traditional sense, working my way up through Corporate America, I began racing sports cars. Regional circuits led to national events, and eventually a professional license. So when it was time to ‘do my own thing’, I knew it had to be in the automotive space. It was then that I discovered a local tire business that was struggling but had ‘good bones.’ They had a loyal customer base but their service offering was limited due to restrictions in the lease and the talent they had on hand. Additionally, they had supply chain and inventory issues that were weighing them down but I thought could be easily fixed. I purchased this business and began a multi-year journey to transform this shop from from a low end retail tire installer and wholesale distributor into what it is today – 4 Corner Tire Shop & Auto Repair, proudly serving families, fleets, and fanatics since 2009.

Today we are a full service auto repair business with ASE master mechanics and a very diverse customer base. We’ve assembled a team that can work on nearly any vehicle, and is backed by what we believe is the best customer service in the business. On any given day we may have an SUV in one bay, a box truck from one of our fleet accounts in the next, and a Ferrari or other exotic at the other end of the shop. All work is done in our state of the art location in Fort Lauderdale, across the street from the InterMiami CF soccer stadium. Purchased in 2018, we gutted and renovated this 13,400 square foot building in 2019 to provide a luxury car service experience for EVERYONE, no matter what you drive.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

About 30 days after purchasing the business, I had an opportunity to meet with one of the country’s largest rental car companies to discuss supplying tires to their Ft. Lauderdale maintenance facility. The volume potential was enormous, far larger than anything our company had done before. At our first meeting, I made no attempt to sell anything or attain their business. I simply asked the most important questions and listened. How do I help you lower your costs? What does superior service look like? If you had that, could you turn your cars faster and put them back into service? What is your current supplier doing extremely well? What about doing business with them frustrates you? Once armed with a good understanding of their wants and needs, I was able to come back a few weeks later with a proposal that hit all of their hot buttons and solved their most important issues.

Honestly, we didn’t have the infrastructure, purchasing power, or support functions to supply them at the time I made the sales pitch. I had a plan to get it in place, but we’d be implementing those changes in real time. We’d be fast and wrong (today) on the way to getting it right!

We won that bid and launched less than 30 days later. The early days were a struggle operationally, as I personally made multiple box truck deliveries each day to their yard. But that was in the background, the customer only saw the superior service that we promised. And as expected, every day got a little easier and eventually it just blended into the day to day of or normal operation and provided the cash flow we needed to expand the business into other areas.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

The auto service industry ranks among the lowest with regards to trust, and unfortunately, there are enough bad actors out their that this negative perception has probably been earned. We think we do things a little differently at 4 Coner, and in fact, building trust is the cornerstone of how we do business.

Our service advisors are not on commission or bonus. Our mechanics are also on salary, they have no financial incentive to perform work that is not necessary. Our customers know that we will never sell a part that is not needed, provide a service that is not required, or put something on their bill that was not performed. And if we make a mistake, we own up to it and eat the cost to correct the problem. We play long ball and are not focused on the profitability of any one particular transaction. Instead we believe if we do the right thing, everyday, then the business will come. Quite simply, in a very skeptical world we have built trust.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.4cornertireshop.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/4cornertireshop/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/4cornertireshop
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxwr-olzEnEUsCXpedE7xsw