How Real Estate Drives Collision Repair Growth with Aaron Zucker

Cole Strandberg: Looking forward to an awesome conversation before I dive in. A lot of things I’m excited to touch base on here. We just recently recorded and aired your podcast, the Limitless Podcast, where I had an opportunity to be a guest, so I will include that in the show. Notes. Love what you put together, love what you’re doing, and always fun to have a fellow SEC grad here on the podcast as well. I gave a little bit about your background at the top of the show in my introduction, but tell us in your own words, man. Who is Aaron Zucker?

Aaron Zucker: Who is Aaron Zucker? Wow, that’s a. That’s a deep question. I feel like I’m entering the first couple minutes of therapy. So what I would say is I am a person who is doing my best to embody our company’s core values and I translate that into my personal life. So we’re growth minded, resilient, integrous, positive and collaborative. And in doing so, I hope that it makes me the best entrepreneur I can possibly be in of even more importance, which is a close second, but of even more importance of the best father I can be to my two Kids Sophie and Ari, who I. You know, I smile even saying their names, and the rest of it fills in. So just want to be a great friend, father, entrepreneur, and, you know, and embody those core values that we take really seriously around here.

Cole Strandberg: Love it, man. Walk us through your career, because it’s a little bit different than most of our guests on the Collision Vision, but we’re going to tie this all back to the collision repair industry a little bit on. In our conversation.

Aaron Zucker: Yeah. I have never once operated a collision facility, so this is.

Cole Strandberg: Join the club. Same here, my friend.

Aaron Zucker
Yeah. So this is the part where some of your listeners may say, what in the heck is. Is Cole doing interviewing this guy? My background is. Is certainly unique, it sounds like, to your listener base. So I’m excited to share it. Hopefully not bore anybody with it. But as you mentioned before, I am an SEC grad of the Superior School of the two adjoining states between Mississippi and Alabama.

Cole Strandberg: Easy there.

Aaron Zucker: And that’s where I got my entrepreneurial start. As a junior there. My friends and I were drinking like college students do a lot, quite a bit of which in the SEC.

Cole Strandberg: After you were 21, of course.

Aaron Zucker: Yeah, exactly. Something like that. And we decided, just like other drunken male schmucks, that it would be cool to buy a bar. And the next. The difference between my friends and I and most other groups is we woke up the next morning and we’re like, hey, do y’ all still want to do this? And the answer was yes. So we took action, which I. I think is probably a good preview of the rest of my story. Just tried it and said, screw it. And so we started canvassing bar owners and just walking into bars in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as naive college students. And eventually, pretty quickly, actually, this is where we were sort of very lucky. One of the first owners we spoke to was willing and able to sell, and we did our first creative deal structure before I even knew what a deal structure even was. And that was him offering seller financing. I wasn’t. I don’t. I want to be very clear. We were not sophisticated enough to ask for it. He proactively offered it. And the reason why he did that is for obvious reasons, this group of four idiot college kids is like, whatever that. Whatever finance will looks like in the dictionary, if you look for the opposite right below, that was us. So we garnered enough money to provide the down payment, which was. Which was $50,000. I was going to say whopping to sort of belittle it, but at the time, it felt like 50 million might as well have been. And we each had to come up with $12,500. So, again, creative structuring. That’s not like the term that’s going through my head. But I called my dad, who I love starting my story with, thanking him because he’s. His parents were Holocaust survivors, and he took the opportunity of. Advantage of the. His opportunity, which is them just staying alive. Let’s, like, start with baseline. That which is. Sounds like not a big deal, except when you’re a Holocaust survivor. They ended up in North America, in Montreal. And he’s the first person in his family to go to college. He’s one of five. He was the third in order. And he became a doctor and moved to the States, ended up just outside of Charlotte, and. And really was. And so I’m forever indebted to him because I didn’t have to worry about my tuition. I mean, there was no, like, family business to go into or anything like that, obviously. Right. Which, like the stepbrothers, that movie where one of them is making a joke like, I’ll just go to the family business. Like, it doesn’t really work when you’re practicing medicine. So.

Cole Strandberg: Yep.

Aaron Zucker: And I called him and I was like, hey, how’s it going, dad? He’s like, good, son. What’s up? And I was like, well, I’ve got a deal for you so I can get my tuition reduced by $14,000. My tuition was just over $20,000 a year. And again, I need to raise my hand and say thank you because that, like, without somebody sponsoring that, like, I don’t get to go to a great school, like, Alabama, like, all that stuff. And so I said, hey, I want to. I want to cut my tuition by 14,000 bucks, but I want to borrow $12,500 from you. So even if I never pay back a dollar, I. You’ve already come out ahead 1500 bucks. But I’m telling you, I’m going to pay you back the 12,500. He’s like, okay, like, what do you want the money for? I said, I want to buy a bar with my friends. And this is where he is, like, the greatest guy ever for doing this. He was like, absolutely. I think it’s a great idea. And there’s a couple of things to add. I’m a junior as a communications major at Alabama. It’s very obvious I’m not going to. Go become a doctor. Like, everybody knows that. And the other component to that, in a more positive spin, is. Is of his family. You Know, I mentioned before, he’s one of five. His four siblings are all entrepreneurs. His, his father became an entrepreneur really by force and design. And so, you know, that’s just sort of what our family does. Like, it’s not, it wasn’t like, you know, any other kid who called their parents and say, I want to buy a bar while I’m in college. Like, that doesn’t usually get very high quality feedback. That’s usually a quick hang up the phone or, or a cussing out, or at least like, you need to present me with a full business plan, the whole thing. He’s just like, no, I trust you. Go for it. And you’ve done a good job of articulating, you know, what my downside is. Go for it. So, you know, that’s how I got my money. My partners did similar things or had, you know, whatever their arrangements were, they were. And next thing you know, we slap 50,000 bucks together and we seller finance this bar from this old guys. I like to use air quotes when I say it because I’m now older than the guy was, which hurts to say out loud, but that was it. And that was, I mean no disrespect to the unbelievable education that I had as a kid. I went to a great school here in Charlotte and went to, and Alabama was the best, single best decision I ever made as far as, yeah, single best decision I’ve ever made was going to the University of Alabama. I learned more in like three months of owning a bar my junior year than I did in all, I guess, 18 other years in a classroom leading up to it combined. It was really unbelievable. And one of the things that I learned was, was just based on an experience where it was my turn one day to take our rent check back when people still paid their rent with paper checks to our landlord’s office. It was for $3,200. I’ll never forget it. It was on a Thursday afternoon and I, it was my turn to do it that month. And so I walked over to the landlord’s office and because it was close enough to our bar, to where that was a possibility, and no one was there, knocked, rang, rang the little doorbell in his little old house or whatever, and no one’s there. So I walked back with this check and I’m like, kind of freaking out. It’s sort of like, you know, like, if you’re about to like, get engaged or something, like you feel like you just want to get rid of the ring and just like take it off your hands. I Had that same feeling as a 21 year old walking around with a 3, 200 check. And so I came back in and I asked my partners and some of our staff who were there like before we were going to open for business that day, like, what’s the deal? Like, I can’t. What’s going on? They’re like, hey, schmuck, do you not know what’s going on? And I was like, no. If someone could enlighten me, I would really appreciate it. And they’re like, that guy is on the golf course almost every day. And I was like, how does that work? Like, tell me about that. Well, you know how you have a 3, 200 rent check? And I was like, yeah. And he’s like. They were like, he gets 400 of those a month from different tenants for different amounts, which is how he’s able to play golf. And I said, so you know, here I’m using a basketball, 30 second timeout symbol, signal. Hang on, you’re telling me that we’re sneaking in underage girls to sneak in underage guys so they can buy their drinks with other people’s money, meaning their parents getting our floors thrown up on, stepping on broken beer bottles, potentially getting sued every night, all to work so hard to pay this guy rent and then he’s gonna take it and be on the golf course. And they’re like, yeah, that’s pretty much how it works. And I was like, well, I want to be the guy that collects the rent. So. So this was my. That epiphany was my junior year. I ended up getting an internship in Atlanta that summer. My business partner agreed to stay back and run the bar again. Very lucky and thankful for. And I got it. I bumped into a family friend who said, hey, you can know, crash with me. He’s like five, six years older. I got an extra bedroom. Like, you know, you can stay here. I’ll give you a pretty favorable rent deal. Which it was. So I get to this guy’s place, it’s gorgeous. It’s in the middle of Buckhead in Atlanta, which at the time, amazing neighborhood. And I just, second or third night crashing there, I was just like, hey, man, like, what do you do? Which was code for how the, how the hell do you have this kind of money at your age? Because he was like 26, 27, and he, you know, floor to ceiling windows and a high rise building in the middle of Buckhead. And he goes, you see those buildings out there? It’s like, yeah, he’s like the company I Work for, owns shopping centers like those. And they pay me a commission to lease the vacancies to anybody from a little nail salon all the way up to TJ Maxx or Whole Foods or whatever. By the way, I think you’d be really good at it given your personality. And if you decide to try to get into the business after college, like I can try to help you. It’s like, all right, that’s a piff because you know, I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Like they say, people who are in commercial real estate, it’s the best thing to ever happen to the BNC student. So I, you know, at this point I’ve been slapped this way and now I’m getting slapped this way. Like, wake up. This could be for you. Between my landlord and even just the employee, the 26, 27 year old guy making good money. So I decided at that point in time that was something I wanted to pursue. I moved. I took him up on his offer and moved to Atlanta, got a job as a leasing agent with a large shopping center. Owner had had some quick success there, moved back to Charlotte for a similar role but with bigger opportunity. And then at 27, I relocated to your neck of the woods. Boca Raton, Florida to work for a family office called PEB Enterprises for the Weiner family. And I’m forever grateful to them. And I want to specifically mention their names because they took a chance on an inexperienced 27 year old and myself and put me right there in the room. I got my MBA in owning and operating commercial real estate right there in real time and by the way, was making way more money than I’d ever made to do it. So they’re, they’re such a critical part of my story and it’s important that I share it and express gratitude for them as well. And it was great. So I had a really nice run with them. I mean, it was a great partnership. We. We got them, I got them out. I was helpful in helping them get out of some crazy situations in the on by leasing space and also made them a lot of money on some deals. And so after a couple years I approached them and said, hey, look, like, what do I, you know, you guys know I’m an entrepreneur. I used to own this bar. We sold it five years later, by the way. We, I used to own this bar. Like I’ve always known that I want to own properties. I think that was part of the reason why you were maybe interested when you interviewed me. And I ultimately decided to hire Me like, how do, how do we do that here? And they were as respectful as possible and just said, hey look, it’s a family business. It’s been that way for a long time and you know, we plan on keeping that way. I, I respected their answer totally. It also didn’t fit with my vision to. Pun intended.

Cole Strandberg: Yeah.

Aaron Zucker: Of what I was looking to achieve. And so at the end of 2018, I took a leap of faith. I was married at the time. My then wife and my six month old daughter left our beautiful home in Boca Raton, Florida, this great future with this great company and had no income. No, no. I mean I had a plan for sure, but no track record or anything. And moved into my parents basement here in Charlotte and started buying properties myself, specifically in retail and with a value add strategy. The way I described the business plan at the beginning is we were doing the same thing that the company I was working for was doing. But instead of doing 30 million dollar deals, maybe we’re doing a 3 million dollar deal.

Cole Strandberg: Sure.

Aaron Zucker: So that’s, that’s where my commercial real estate angle and, and is sort of like the, the hub to the spokes that I work off of in the different businesses that I’m involved in started simultaneously.

Cole Strandberg: Cool.

Aaron Zucker: Yeah.

Cole Strandberg: Oh yeah, go ahead.

Aaron Zucker: Oh, simultaneously with that. And then I’ll promise I’ll shut up with that. You know, because I wanted to mitigate risk. Right. Like I got a newborn baby, got a wife who’s not working at the time, and I’ve got a cup, I’ve got a couple bucks saved and no income. No, no. Really plans for any income. So I thought, you know, I gotta de risk this thing so most people would get a job. I, my version of de risking it was starting another business at the same time.

Cole Strandberg: Of course.

Aaron Zucker: Yeah, of course. So my friend and roommate, one of my closest friends and roommates from college and I had always talked about doing something. He came from an operations background, working for his family business. And we obviously stayed in touch because we were, you know, in each other’s weddings, you know, just, just close, whatever. And the, the, the, the, the drinking, golly, this is not a good thing. But the over drinks conversation. I guess every time I have drinks with my friends, it starts a new business.

Cole Strandberg: So maybe inspirational epiphanies.

Aaron Zucker: Yeah. Anyway, Liquid courage as they say.

Cole Strandberg: There you go.

Aaron Zucker: The, the, the conversations that we had had were sort of, hey, I’ll find it. Find the right location to make us successful and grow it and you run it. And so we always had that night When I, when I knew I was leaving South Florida, I called and I said, hey, look like if this is going to happen, now’s the time. I don’t have a company that I have to report to. The only person I’m letting down is myself. Let’s get serious about this. For the year of 2018 and by before the end of 18, in I think it was October, November, we executed our franchise agreement with American Family Care, which is an urgent care brand. And so that was my exposure. That was the beginning of my education and exposure and experience in operating businesses. So I promised you before I was, I would shut up. But sort of seeing these two worlds colliding of. Of retail, real estate and operating businesses.

Cole Strandberg: Yep. OPCO and propco. And a theme that’s going to continue here for the rest of our conversation before we dive into Zucker Investment Group Zig. For the remainder of our conversation and what it is today, I’d be remiss not to point out, you know, you had some great educations in your background. You know, obviously Ole Miss is the Harvard of the south, but Bama’s, you know, a Princeton or Dartmouth of the south. And you don’t need to disparage yourself. But, man, I, I think the consistent leaps of faith in your story are stories that do resonate with our listeners here. These are, in a lot of cases, leaders within companies and entrepreneurs who, in some cases technicians, took the leap to create some really, really cool businesses. And you miss the shots you don’t take. Right. So really, really cool. Talk to us about Zigzag and what you guys do. We’ve had private equity groups, we’ve had family offices on the show or folks working with those. So the concept of financial partners is not unfamiliar. But you guys do things a little bit differently. Talk to us about that.

Aaron Zucker: We sure did. We sure do. And that that recipe ultimately was reverse engineered based on challenges that we had had and opportunities that we’ve seen. And so. And really just collaborating. I mean, I think one thing that I can appreciate about brick and mortar freestanding operating businesses like collision centers is the operators who are in them don’t claim typically to be the Mark Zuckerbergs or the Jeff Bezos of the world. Like collisions, collision restaurants are restaurants, urgent care facilities or urgent care facilities. There’s different variations that can and should be put on that make sure great operators stand out. But ultimately, like, we’re not talking about creating AI, but hey, I’m incorporating AI into my business or whatever that may be. I mean, you get the point. The people who are probably listening to this show that are operators take a tremendous amount of pride in even working toward or are actually executing doing something that other people are doing, but just better. And I have a lot of respect and admiration for that because I certainly have never claimed to be smart enough to come up with the idea. An original idea that is like transformational or a new category. Yep. So that, that alone, I know we resonate with our operating partners. The, the, the original strategy at Zig still exists, but it’s not something that we’re as hyper focused on. We used to buy the real estate and just figured we can add the value to it. And we do that here and there in the, in the automotive and restaurant and healthcare space. But. And another just retail that kind of comes across our desk. But our real bread and butter here. And where we’re spending the lion’s share of our time is by helping owners, operators grow and scale their businesses to the level that they want to get to. So as a, as an example, let’s say Cole owns 12 collision centers and Cole’s goal is to get to 25 units. What we do is we partner with Cole on a strategic basis to provide both the site selection and capital to allow you to grow with as little or in most cases, no equity or debt off of your balance sheet, to allow you to grow your EBITDA and your store accounts to either get your business to a point to where it’s worth a gazillion dollars and you can sell it, or to where your business is so valuable that it can afford to bring in a CEO and Cole can step into more of that visionary chairman role and work when they want. Cole can work when he wants to, as opposed to having to be in the business. And it’s been really, really fun. And, and it’s been something that we’ve been working on here for about 18 months. We have 15 operators in different sectors that we work with on an exclusive basis across the country. And, and so a lot of people after hearing that will say, well, tell me what’s off about it? Or what’s, what’s sort of the issue. That’s where the reverse engineering comes in. When we crafted the plan, I was putting on my operator hat. Why would an operator not want to do this? Or why would we want to do this, this. So the pros of private equity are growth capital, but the con is maybe they want majority stake. We don’t require majority stake. The another con may be you’re going to dictate when I have to sell the business or that you only have a five year horizon period. Our engagement letters and our agreements that we have with our operators, we don’t care if they sell in six months or 60 years. We do not care. And so that, that sort of was like, okay, we’re going to bring the benefit of private equity but try to remove potentially some of the hurdles from a real estate side of it, which is a big component of what we do. You know, we are putting up and by virtue of the real estate being available or we make it available, that’s what you know. You know Sam Gallardi on our team, our automotive platform, I mean he’s our team. They’re amongst the best in the business on the phone from a effort and relentlessness standpoint and from a mastering of skill set to try to get the right information in order to convince a property owner or operator to sell their business and or real estate. And so what are the other value proposition is we help them find deals that they wouldn’t otherwise have to find. So while Cole is at 12 units and still really in the weeds of his business, he may not have a ton of time to go focus on growth and certainly not the resources and the technology that we’ve invested in here to go find those opportunities. Like that’s why you work with us and it doesn’t cost you anything to do that until we successfully open up a unit with you. So the bandwidth and the accessibility to deals that you wouldn’t otherwise see was a critical component which is sort of like our real estate value added component if you will. And we have real risk and equity and skin in the game. I mean we’re putting up all the capital, or most of the capital depending on the circumstance for the operator at a grand scale.

Cole Strandberg: So I want to peel back some layers here and get this across in as much plain English as we can. The first is a super quick piece, but I think it in M and A, in real estate acquisitions there’s this temptation to look for the lowest hanging fruit which is not going to be the best quality. What percentage of your deals are found off market versus on, on LoopNet or.

Aaron Zucker: Something From a real estate Most. Most are off market especially we see massive opportunity and we have been succeeding and executing which I’m really proud of Sam and the rest of our team for doing so and procuring off market deals. We’re finding that there’s a lot of baby boomer owners or close to it, close to retirement age that don’t really have a legacy or an exit plan for their smaller operations in the automotive sector. Whether it be not just collision, which we have, by the way, we have some spaces available in the collision side. We’d like to, we’d like to penetrate it further, which is why I’m super thankful that you, you’re having me on. But for example, in the auto repair space, like in the Midas and mighty keys of the world, some of the operators that we’re working with, we’re picking off sites left and right where the operator, the seller is just giving us a net number. I want a million bucks because they own the business in real estate now. Their business might be worth 200 grand and their real estate might be worth 800 grand. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. They need a check for a million dollars to go away. And that also gives us an existing customer base, an existing building that’s got the equipment in there, whatnot. And so that allows the operator to enter in at a lower basis. And even if that operator needs to convert it from a cold shop to a Midas or from a, you know, XYZ collision to an ABC collision, we have the ability to incorporate that capital into the stack. So that way you’re getting from 12 to 13 units. Guess what you haven’t done? Deployed a dollar of equity or taken on new debt. So it’s good you’re going to grow your EBITDA assuming that you’re a quality operator. And because you’ve got multiple units and. You’Ve already proven that you are, and. Your debt service coverage ratio on your existing balance sheet improves and becomes even healthier because your top line income and revenue is going up, but the amount of debt that you have in your business stays the same. So it’s, it’s been something that we’re really, really bullish on and having a lot of success with in the automotive space in particular and can’t wait to double down on it because we man going away anytime soon.

Cole Strandberg: No doubt. Super cool. And, and this is where I want to get really plain English. So you are buying in, in this example, a million dollars of total spend, 200k for the business, 800k for the real estate. And obviously you’re not a nonprofit. So how you recapture and how this has a good ROI for you is adding that to the lease essentially and making sure a lease is paying you back. Am I understanding that correct?

Aaron Zucker: Yeah, that’s correct. The way that we ensure that our capital is protected is through the rent the way that the, the operators that we partner with that align with us in the best ways, value. Understand that if your rent 8 bucks and your debt service is 5 bucks, that’s $13 a month going out on the piano. So if your rent goes to 12, which is bad because it’s up four bucks, but you don’t have any debt, your net cash flow out the door improves and they value net, excuse me, they value the net cash flow going out the door quite a bit and they value that. No, no new debt is coming out of the business or no, no, no equity has to be deployed because last I checked, a lot of banks on operating businesses aren’t doing 100% financing or anywhere close to it. And so they’re saying, man, if I really want to get from that 12 to 25 stores or whatever that looks like, I value that more than, you know, owning the real estate forever or, you know, whatever other objection that they would have toward that business plan and model.

Cole Strandberg: Makes total sense. And I pulled this quote off your website, something about Zig is operating and I quote at the nexus of real estate development and growth equity. And so I think it is a heck of a unique combination. Typically when we talk real estate in the collision repair industry, it’s adding value through a triple net lease with potentially a national credit tenant. And so I imagine, again, not speaking for you, but correct me if I’m wrong, the reason you don’t really care about how long someone holds onto this property is a, if they sell it, chances are it’s to a bigger operator. Cap rates improve to your favor, increasing the value of the property. If they hold on to it forever, they’re paying you rent. It’s kind of a win win. Your risk is mitigated, everyone wins. Is that a fair kind of breakdown real quick of that aspect of it?

Aaron Zucker: That’s right. That helps play a role in the flexibility that we’re able to have as a partner to our operating partner. Right. Like we understand that their business could change and our ability to need to change with them on what their hold period may or may not look like is evolving. And we get that and that is just an inherent positive to what we can provide.

Cole Strandberg: Makes total sense. Last kind of super basic question around the real estate, specific side of how we should view this universe, what do you look for in a good location, specifically with automotive services, collision repair? What metrics are you taking and telling your operating partners? We love this one.

Aaron Zucker: Good question. A lot of that really comes. So we only work with operators typically that have at least five units or more and a five million dollar net worth or greater. And that’s intentional because what. While we’re unbelievably well equipped to find the locations, we’re also not in the business of telling an operator who’s built their business to such a successful level how to run it either. And so what we’re able to do, and we partner up with that operator and say, let’s talk about your existing stores because you’re obviously here and ready to grow for a reason. And if you’re ready to grow for a reason, your existing stores are probably pretty good. If you have eight of them, let’s take your top three or four and figure out what the same metrics are on a scorecard in comparison to your bottom two or three that may not be quite as good or as exciting for you. In addition, when we sign the engagement letter with the operator, we actually require that they fill in. It’s a very basic form, the whole engagement under two patients. But a nice chunk of that is saying how many traffic, how many cars per day you want to see, what tenants do you want to be near, what other traffic drivers that are mission critical to be successful for your business. How, you know, how do you value visibility vis a vis access? You know, so they’re, we’re listening to what they’re telling us and then we’re seeing how that aligns with their existing locations that are, that are successful. And then once we know that, and then of course, understanding where geographically they’re interested in going from, you know, whether that be a couple of counties of the state or four states which some of our engagement letters take us, you know, all over the place. Which is great because we’re able to own and operate and execute on real estate almost all over the country. We just bought yesterday, this recording is on Halloween. We just bought yesterday in our 22nd state so far. So we don’t, we don’t use a generic approach of what works and just apply it to everybody because not everybody’s business is the same. And it’s about, we’re not here to reinvent the wheel of what made the operator successful. We’re here to take what the operator says, qualitatively turn it into a quantifiable thing. And then in addition to that, do our own analysis against what we’re told makes a good site versus what’s actually performing well within their portfolio. And then, and then it becomes a science. And that’s where we’re really dangerous in a good way for the operator because we’ll just pick off every site that’s available and try to uncover every rock that can possibly be. And we’re held accountable to either a weekly or a bi weekly teams call, which we love. We love that accountability because it’s like that’s holding us to our end of the deal. And obviously the operator, if they’re for some whatever reason turning down every site that makes sense and it hits all the check boxes like we have to be able to question like is this, is this a group that’s serious about growing? Because if the operator doesn’t grow with us, we don’t make any money, which is a problem.

Cole Strandberg: I want to dive deeper into that and shift gears here toward the operator piece of the puzzle. And I want to talk about that relationship. But before I do, I want to talk about how those partnerships come together. I’m sure you’ve spoken with many great operators across numerous industries, but they may or may not have been a fit for one reason or another. What from your perspective and your angle, makes a great operator.

Aaron Zucker: Yeah, so we talked a little bit about the things that are easy to figure out. How many units they have, you know, are they financeable, you know, because even though we’re not requiring them to put out capital on each and every deal, we are, we do need to make sure that we have the ability to collect the rent on the lease. That’s, that’s a pretty important thing. Oh yeah. A major stickler in our business model. No different than if a collision facility wasn’t able to collect the money from the customer. The other component too is we only work with folks that we believe are integris people which we talked about our core value. And it’s also critical that there are either the decision maker or one degree of separation away from it. So what makes us unique in comparison to a lot of other real estate investors that we often get categorized with, I think incorrectly, is we are actually not chasing investment grade tenants. My peers do that. They want to go after, you know, the biggest collision facility or the Starbucks and restaurants, or the hospital assistance and healthcare. We sort of say you guys go hang out with them and commoditize yourself. We want to get with the 5 to 75 unit operator over here and court them. And one of the advantages of that is like if they, they’re going to shut down their development and their store growth, like one of the first to know about it, as opposed to a large corporation who’s got a real estate manager and then a director of real estate and then a VP of real estate, and then that’s VP of ops and then the COO and then the board and like, it plays the game of telephone seven times until the next thing you know, we’ve tied up a site for, you know, 30, 60 days and put up a ton of money and wasted a bunch of time for something that wasn’t going to get approved or done at the finish line, no matter how good of a deal it was. So I think it’s just about knowing that we’re principal to principal, even though we’re able to scale them to the levels that they can only dream about, which is really exciting and like, gives me goosebumps to even think about and talk about being a part of and helping them get to their exit. Whether it be to the next generation or, or to a larger group or whatever it may be. We still operate in a lot of ways like a small business. I mean, you can see I’m wearing a T shirt and Jordans today. Like, that’s status quo. We, we do things pretty informally. We’re bringing our operators to the waste management Open on the 16th hole in February. Like, love it. That’s more of our speed as opposed to, like the really buttoned up five course meals with, you know, nobody getting really intimate and deep. So, you know, people that we just feel like. I think I’m a big believer that people like doing business with people that they like. And so I don’t know if everybody likes me or not, but if they don’t, I’m certain they would like Sam or his counterpart Kendall, or teammates.

Cole Strandberg: And, and if they don’t, they weren’t.

Aaron Zucker: The right fit doing this because this, this is fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Cole Strandberg: If they don’t hit it off with who you are transparently, then they’re probably not the right fit and who your team is. Love that approach. Right. Don’t need to. Don’t to hide who you are. Double down on who you are and, and, and go from there for sure. And I think that speaks to your entrepreneurial mindset too. You’re doing deals that may be beneath that, that investment grade type that the others are going around, but that means you can have more of an impact. That’s really scrappier. It’s more entrepreneurial, it’s more fun, it’s more catalyst driven where you can add value beyond what the macro says that specific company’s property is worth. So to me, that is fascinating. You mentioned a little bit about what it’s like to work with you guys as an operating partner. But tell me about that relationship and how that evolves. Once that engagement is signed or once that partnership agreement is signed, what does that look like for the operator?

Aaron Zucker: Accountability. So we try to blend with you, work with us. Part one of the hopefully many, but at least several reasons that an operator would work with us is you don’t have to focus so much on your growth anymore and finding those locations and doing everything that comes with executing on that location. That’s. That’s what we’re for. That’s why you work with us. The only thing we really need from them is accountability. Just doing what they say they’re going to do and when they say they’re going to do it by. And the biggest thing as crazy as the sounds, Cole is just show up to the weekly or bi weekly teams call that we have. It’s on the calendar. Show up. We’re gonna have deals. Give us feedback or you know, a lot of the times our best operators, they have great relationships and we know that they know everybody in the space. Like we don’t work. Sam and I and the rest of the team, we’re not naive enough to think that we’re just gonna come in and blow up the collision world and everybody’s gonna know us faster than our operating partner who’s got 12 units and has a great reputation and been around doing it for 25 years. So that. So we’re hopeful and optimistic. We don’t depend on it. This is critical. We don’t depend on the operator bringing his deal flow. But it often does. Times happen because you know, Jimmy knows that John may sell and John may tell Dave and Dave tells our operating partner Cole and Cole brings the call and say, hey look, I heard this one may be available. Sam, you know, I’m not. I don’t know. We should be. And it’s not a good use of my time to call it. Go call it though. It’s. It’s the It’s Johnny’s Collision store at 123 Main St. And in Boca Raton, Florida. Go figure it out. And we will figure it out. We may not buy it every time because the economics may not work or. Whatever it may be. But I guarantee you we will uncover whatever information there is to uncover or let you know. Here’s why we couldn’t uncover it.

Cole Strandberg: Love it, love it, love it. And a great segue into. We’ve talked about it. You guys are not heavily in collision repair to my knowledge have not identified that right operator. But there is interest. Why what do you like about it?

Aaron Zucker: Well, we like any business that is recession proof and E commerce proof, that’s freestanding, brick and mortar and fragmented like Collision down the fairway in every way checks all those boxes. And given the success that we’ve had an auto repair and convenience store so far, it’s a natural progression for us. And you know, we’re doing it already in healthcare, we’re doing it in different restaurants, verticals. It’s just the right time. We have the bandwidth and we will inevitably identify one or multiple operators. You know, we don’t compete like we have a non compete. We have an exclusive arrangement with our operating partner. So if you have 12 collision stores in Georgia, we’re not going to work with another collision store operator in the same parts of Georgia that you’re working in because we don’t expect you to be working with another group for your site selection and grip capital. So we, we offer the same reciprocity but we have. So our bandwidth is absolutely 1000% there in the collision space. Which is why I was really excited to, to jump on this show because you never know who you’re going to meet as a result.

Cole Strandberg: Absolutely, man. I think the you’re gonna have some folks interested in learning more about what you guys are, about what you have to offer, albeit setting a great foundation here right now in our conversation. Every time I talk to somebody who gets exposure to entrepreneurs and more specifically growth minded entrepreneurs, I like to ask something along the lines of what separates the best operators from everyone else. It may or may not have anything to do with your relationship at zig, but man, I know when I speak to great entrepreneurs I learn something every time you get a sense of who’s great and what makes them great. What’s your take on that?

Aaron Zucker: Yeah, I’m pretty passionate about this. I’m actually thrilled you asked. So I’m in a group called ypo, which stands for Young Presidents Organization. And it’s alarming how many groups are on an operating system and the most common one by a wide margin is one that we run all of our businesses on is eos, your operating system. The best entrepreneurs that we work with in any space typically, and the ones you know. I have a very close friend and mentor who sold his business to Flynn, which is the largest franchisee in the world and his business, not so coincidentally, is on EOS and what EOS does. And again there’s other systems. There’s Make Big Happen which is run run by a guy named Mark Moses out of Miami who’s wonderful there’s there’s different operating systems I think any the best ones that I’ve found the best operators are on an operating system because what they do is what operating systems can do particularly EOs in my at least in my shared experience.

Cole Strandberg: Hey I endorse as well we were EOS for many many years right?

Aaron Zucker: With yeah is is it allows the entrepreneur to be cavalier, to be bold, to think big but also hold the entrepreneur him or her and their specific team by virtue of a great accountability chart extraordinarily accountable which leads to this is the most important component only focusing on what matters and I’m so guilty of this and I was guilty of this prior to being on EOS and say yes to everything. I found myself way busier as I used air quotes and having a ton of time bogged down and there was the audit of my time would have been done. I’m very I’m terrified to see what that would have resulted in terrified whereas today I’m I’m carving out more time for things that move the needle as we like to call it or help us make traction, which is where us comes from a book called Traction by Gina Wickman. And it is a complete game changer. Like we have prioritized doing more things like this because as the visionary of our company is my job to help build the brand so in doing so in a way that is tactful and strategic in a great way with this free and awesome podcast. So there’s no better use of my time than doing something like this to whereas before you know, I could have been doing something and spending hours on end that just like for what like it seemed important in the time where somebody asked me to do it. But why am I doing it? So I would say the best operators that have the clearest vision and the clearest vision coupled with great execution typically is aligned with an operating system.

Cole Strandberg: Could not agree more, man. I’ve become very vocal about my support of eos. But to your point, any operating system it just gives you parameters to operate. You know, dream as big as you want while keeping these silos in check where you’re making sure nothing’s falling through the cracks, you’re making sure your team is aligned in your goals. So many healthy things came from my family businesses, a entire management team reading Traction and implementing eos. Great experience and so happy you brought that up, man. You’ve been very generous with your time here. As you mentioned on this Halloween afternoon, a couple questions just as we wrap up the first is and because I’m fascinated by you as an entrepreneur. What are you looking forward to in 2026 and beyond for Zigzag? Where’s this thing going?

Aaron Zucker: Yeah, we’re striving toward our BTO to get EOS nerdy. Our vision traction organizer. You know, we’re, we’re hiring, we’re building our team out, which is exciting to attack the different verticals that we’re currently in, as well as get into new ones. And. But most importantly, and what really is the best source of oxygen for me as an entrepreneur is helping our teammates and partners grow. And oftentimes like 97.6% of the time, as I make that figure up, that’s like directly correlated together. And so it’s allowing us to keep the main thing, the main thing working with the likes of Sam, who I keep mentioning on the show, because he has up our automotive platform to help him grow, to be able to have the right conversations and identify the right operators to work with. And then once we get those operators, you know, we’re only able. Each teammate is only able to take on so many because we are the essentially outsourced chief growth or chief development officer. Whatever it is for these companies takes real work and it takes real commitment to unlocking every opportunity in the markets that they’re looking to be in. And man, that, that collaboration with that owner and operating partner of ours is really cool because it’s allowing us to play what I believe is certainly a role in helping them achieve, like their why and their dream. And ultimately when you look. And then this comes full circle back to our bto. Our, our. Our mission here is to help our teammates and partners fulfill their lives.

Cole Strandberg: Love it, man, Love it, love it. Well, fired up and excited to keep this conversation going.

Aaron Zucker: Legacy of my grandparents who were holocaust survivors. You know, I don’t want to identify.

Cole Strandberg: Sorry, we had some technical difficulties right now. You were, you were delayed, so didn’t mean to speak over you there. Hold on one, Aaron, man, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Every time we connect, I’m fired up what you’re building, how you’re going about it. The way you view things is really, really cool. Yeah, let’s go find some brick walls to run through and make it happen. How can people listening today, operators within collision repair who are interested in learning more about you, interested in learning more about Zig. Where can they do that?

Aaron Zucker: Yeah, so our website’s a great place. Zucker. IG.com or I’m on LinkedIn. My name is Aaron. Like a. A Ron from the Keen field skit and zucker, which is spelled like sucker or a bad word, but with the Z as a zebra at the end. I’m, you know, I’m easy to reach. I know if you’re listening to this, you’re probably a big fan of Coles, like I am. Cole can gladly connect us, like whatever. Whatever we need to do. We’re active on Instagram, Twitter, I guess. No, sorry, it’s called x now. And LinkedIn and our website and would love to, even if it’s just general catch up and idea sharing. Great. We haven’t really had too many conversations where one or both groups didn’t walk away with something of material value and, you know, you could lead to a partnership. You never know.

Cole Strandberg: There you go. Love it, man, I. You mentioned Twitter versus X. I think I might actually be the last man standing with the Twitter. I have yet to update my app. I still have that little blue bird on my phone showing up, which is.

Aaron Zucker: I feel like. I feel like you gotta. I feel like you just gotta rock with it at this point.

Cole Strandberg: I realized how late I was at the party. I’m sticking with it. We’ll see how it goes. Aaron, an absolute pleasure, man. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Collision Vision.