Two years ago I started Max Q Automotive with one premise: most of the profit a dealer needs already exists in their store. It's being obscured by loose process, misaligned management, and expense structures that never got properly examined. The work since then has been straightforward — go inside the store, find what's hiding, and stay until the changes stick.
Today I'm formalizing something that's been operationally true for a while: Max Q Automotive is the automotive division of Carbacio Group LLC, the consulting firm I co-founded with Jeff Hatfield.
Why The Structure Matters
The operational discipline that fixes dealerships works just as well in other industries. Same principles, different vocabulary. A trucking company bleeding ten thousand dollars a week in unfilled cargo capacity has the same kind of structural blind spot as a service drive losing fifteen thousand a week in unbilled labor — they just call it different things. Once you've been inside enough operations across enough verticals, the patterns become obvious.
Jeff and I built Carbacio Group around that insight. The firm exists to apply the same in-the-business, hands-on operational consulting model to privately held businesses across industries — not just automotive. Logistics, manufacturing, professional services, multi-business owners running portfolios. The common thread is operators who want help finding profit they know is there but can't see.
What This Means For Max Q Clients
Almost nothing changes inside your store. Same team, same framework, same engagement model. I still work personally with every Max Q engagement — that's not changing, and that's not going to change.
What does change, in a way you'll benefit from but rarely see:
- More resource depth. Carbacio Group has the operational infrastructure, recruiting capacity, and technical resources that wouldn't exist under a single-vertical consultancy. Max Q clients benefit from that without ever seeing the org chart.
- Cross-vertical pattern recognition. Some of the best dealership operational insights come from outside automotive. Carbacio's exposure to other industries means Max Q catches patterns that pure-play auto consultants miss entirely.
- Continuity for multi-business owners. Many dealer principals also operate real estate, restaurants, trucking, or other businesses on the side. When those need the same kind of attention, Carbacio Group is the relationship that extends naturally — without you needing to find and vet a second firm.
What's Next
Max Q's existing client work continues exactly as it was. maxqautomotive.com remains the home for dealership-specific content — the framework, the services, the talent and recruiting work. /carbacio-group on this site covers the parent-company story in more depth. carbaciogroup.com is the full home of Carbacio Group and covers the broader service mix.
If you're a Max Q client wondering whether anything's different about how we work with you — it's not. If you're a Max Q client with a non-automotive business that needs help, you now have a more direct path to that conversation.
Either way, the in-store, hands-on, paid-on-real-outcomes model isn't going anywhere.
— Nick
