Carbacio Group is an operational performance and AI-era growth consultancy serving privately held businesses across industries. Max Q is the automotive specialist within that family — built to bring the same operational discipline that turns around six-figure-leak dealerships to a single vertical that needs it most.
Carbacio Group was founded by Nick Carbacio and Jeff Hatfield — two operators with combined decades in the trenches of retail automotive, B2B sales, and operational turnarounds. Nick has spent years running dealerships from the floor to the executive suite, watching otherwise healthy stores lose $40,000 to $80,000 a month in profit they didn't know they were losing. Jeff has spent over twenty years in B2B and B2C sales leadership, building revenue functions across multiple industries.
What both of them kept seeing was the same thing in different industries: the operational discipline that fixes a struggling dealership works just as well on a struggling logistics company, a struggling professional services firm, or a struggling small manufacturer. Most consulting firms approach those companies the same way they approach the Fortune 500 — reports, frameworks, and recommendations. Carbacio Group was built to do the opposite. To go inside the business and fix what's broken, not to write about what could be different.
Max Q Automotive exists inside Carbacio Group because automotive is its own world. Dealerships have their own systems, vocabulary, manufacturers, and constraints. Trying to retrofit generic consulting to a franchise dealership doesn't work. Max Q is the auto-specific surface area of Carbacio's broader operating philosophy — purpose-built for the vertical, applied by people who've actually worked inside it.
If you're a dealership working with Max Q, almost nothing about how we engage with your store changes. Nick is still the founder. The Dealer Efficiency framework is still the framework. The hands-on, in-store model is still the model. What changes is the resource depth and the longevity of the relationship.
Nick still works personally with every Max Q engagement. The shift to a Carbacio Group structure doesn't move work to junior associates or remote advisors. The in-store model is the model.
Carbacio Group provides operational infrastructure, technical resources, and recruiting capacity that wouldn't exist under a single-vertical consultancy. Max Q clients benefit from that depth without ever seeing the org chart.
The most valuable insights in dealership operations frequently come from outside automotive. Carbacio's exposure to other industries means Max Q sees patterns that single-vertical consultants miss entirely.
Many dealer principals also own real estate, restaurants, or other operating businesses. Carbacio Group is the relationship that extends beyond the dealership when other ventures need the same kind of attention.
Carbacio Group's work spans privately held businesses where operational discipline drives meaningful profit recovery — typically $5M–$100M in annual revenue, owner-operated, in markets where competition is real and margins are tight.
Nick spent years operating at the highest levels of automotive retail — from the sales floor to the general manager seat to the executive suite of multi-store groups. He built the operational frameworks that underpin both Max Q and Carbacio Group, and he still works personally inside every engagement.
Jeff brings over twenty years of B2B and B2C sales leadership across multiple industries. He leads business development across the Carbacio Group portfolio and runs the sales-training and digital-infrastructure service lines that complement Carbacio's operational consulting work.
If your business isn't a dealership but you're dealing with the same operational discipline problems — eroding margin, drift in process, sales teams underperforming, costs that nobody is auditing — Carbacio Group is the place to start the conversation.