Feb 23, 2022
Brian Beers is the president of the Prenlyn Automotive Group. It’s a successful family-run business that operates 24 franchised auto shops in the Philadelphia and New Jersey region. With his podcast (Business with Beers) and coaching business, he seeks to inspire entrepreneurs to massively grow their income and contribution by investing in people, process, and technology. Today he’s talking about his strategies for building generational wealth.
Most businesses don’t survive past the first five years, but Brian’s is in its12th year. He says the key to longevity is to hire great people and give them the tools they need to be successful. Once he has a well-equipped, talented team in place, he makes sure he holds them accountable to high standards. To keep the best talent long term, Brian thinks it’s important to build a culture that focuses on positivity. He does that through using technology tools like slack, where they celebrate birthdays, collaborate, and share wins. They have weekly virtual meetings that begin with good news. Training is also an important piece of the puzzle too. Training team members helps build confidence in their ability to provide service to their customers, and you’re more likely to keep the best talent on your team. Culture, training and technology.
Though Brian is in his 12th year running the business, he inherited it from his dad, who’d started it with one shop more than 30 years earlier. Brian came in and breathed new life into the business, growing it from 6 to 24 locations. He did that by being intentional about growth and always reinvesting in the business. He strategically puts money into different accounts with the intention of reinvesting it back into the business. There’s a lot of discipline that comes with it, but it pays off. He runs his personal finances the same way. He has his emergency fund, an investment fund, and he budgets the day-to-day money. He resists lifestyle creep and intentionally directs money into the appropriate places. After a good quarter, instead of rewarding himself with a raise or buying a fancy watch, he’s focused on putting his money to work and investing it to create generational wealth for his family.
In his coaching business, he
advises people it’s best to keep it simple for the investor. ’ If
something sounds flashy and you don’t understand the investment,
stay away from it. He believes in the power of compounding and
continuing to put every dollar to work. He has personally chosen to
get out of the stock market. Instead, he’s focused on syndications.
He partners with operators who pool together time, money,
experience and resources to invest in big real estate projects. He
does his due diligence before investing, looking at the opportunity
like a business. Does he like the team, the cash flow, the risk,
the reward, the liquidity? Do they have a solid business plan
appropriate to the geographical location of the project? Once he’s
decided to partner, he writes a check, gets a distribution, and
someday down the road an even bigger payday comes. He says private,
non-market correlated real estate investments like these provide a
lot of opportunity for wealth. He tracks every investment and sets
monthly goals for growth. It’s not sexy or fast or exciting, but
it’s a slow growing snowball of generational
wealth.