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Nashville Business Journal
02/14-18/2005 by J. Holly Dolloff


 Finding The Saab Shop (Eurofix) is akin to gaining access to a secret society.

 For starters, proprietor Aaron Stokes says, he advertises very little. Phone books and online directories make up the bulk.

 The physical site isn't all that easy to find either; It's tucked behind Gracweworks Ministries in a Franklin Industrial park.

 That's fine with Stokes, who has built a loyal clientele since he launched his business in a friend's garage in 1998.

 "I never spent a dime on advertising until about six months ago, and we had more than 650 clients when we moved into our new space two months ago," Stokes says.

 The Saab Shop services Saab and Volvo automobiles, (now Audi and Volkswagen as well) with six employees working in a 22,000-square-foot space.

 Stokes and his brother, Joseph, have trained with a Saab master technician in North Carolina. Joseph Stokes is a chief technician and Aaron Stokes is the administrative face of the business. Another brother, Jon, is also on staff; and Aaron Stokes' wife, Lydia keeps the books.

 Stokes began working on Saabs after he bought one

 "Everyone made fun of me when I first bought one," he says. But "no other car gets 30 miles to the gallon and runs for 200,000 miles."

 Then working in construction, Stokes was engaged to be married and decided he needed to pick up some extra money. He began purchasing used Saabs, rehabilitating them, and selling them to buyers who wanted Stokes to continue servicing their cars.

 Eventually, Stokes quit his construction job, recruited Joseph, and moved the budding operation into a barn on the outskirts of town.

 "It had no electricity and no water," says Stokes, who keeps pictures of the barn in his new digs.

 The transformation from mom-and-pop shop to a bona fide business has required some adjustments.

 "How have I learned? The hard way," says Stokes.

 He's learned, for instance, to seperate his emotion from business decisions - a tough chore for the empathetic Stoeks, who also serves as youth minister for Grace Center in the Grassland area.

 And a shop management seminar taught him how to move from crisis management to a system-based operation.

 "It's transformed the shop," he says of the new systems. "Morale is through the roof. The technicians say they enjoy coming to work."

 Since his humble beginnings, Stokes has learned a few things about running a business, but sticks to time-honored secrets for success.

 "Your time to shine isn't the first time you service a car - it's every time after that," he says. "We tow cars for free. We don't argue with a customer, and we fix it every time.

 Bill Lee, president of Lee Co., is one of Stokes' mentors. Lee says Stokes's sincerity is central to the Saab Shop's success.

 "Personally, he has a real strong, value-based philosophy, and consequently, he's very honest," says Lee. "Those aren't characteristics that typically line up with public perceptions of his business."

 Tenacity is another central facet of the Stokes brothers' business philosophy.

 "We don't believe in rejection of cars," says Aaron Stokes. "We can fix anything. We got a flood car in here, and didn't even know it had been in a flood. It took us four months to figure out, but we fixed it." he adds.

 The business is a welcome option for Saab owners seeking a service alternative to Thoroughbred Motors, the area's only Saab dealership.

 Gary High, a retired human resources executive, appreciated the convenience of Stokes' operation.

 "I had a good expreience with Thoroughbred, but I live in Franklin," High says. "It's great to not have to drive into Nashville and figure out how I would get home."

 And, says Stokes, the recent expansion is just a taste of things to come.

 Soon, The Saab Shop will offer used autos - Saabs, naturally - for sale.

 His long-term goal is to become a warranty service point for Saab, a venture that requres hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase all Saab brand equipment.

 Lee is confident Stokes will succeed.

 "People have to believe that what they are doing is going to work," says Lee. "He's one of the more optimistic business people I know; he believes he's got an edge.

 "Keep plowing, and you'll break through," says Stokes. "If you do it better, you will become unstoppable."


Williamson AM
01/11/2007 by Mitchell Kline

"Finding his niche in Saab repair found Aaron Stokes the good life."

 A car crash helped put Aaron Stokes on the path to owning a successful business.

 Stokes now 28, was driving his first car, a Saab on a flooded road 10 years ago in Charlotte, NC. Seeing traffic stopped ahead, he hit the brakes. The car spun toward a ditch then flipped. Inside the twisted metal, Stokes and his wife, who were dating at the time, were unharmed.

 "We were just scared," Stokes said. "I thought my whole world was coming to an end."

 The Saab was nearly totaled. Stoke said it would have cost more than $7,000 to fix.

 Without money to cover the repairs, Stokes was stranded in North Carolina. A man gave him a job in a body shop for $8 an hour and allowed him to work on the Saab at night. Stokes lived with his wife's family for six months until he repaired the car and was able to drive back to Williamson County.

 "That experience got me rolling in the right direction," Stokes said.

 A year after the accident, Stokes decided to open an auto repair shop for Saabs in a one-car garage. Today, he owns and manages Eurofix, a garage housed in a large warehouse with six employees, eight car lifts and a barrage of tools, parts, and computers.

 His shop averages $75,000 a month in business, and Stokes said he wants to own 25 locations by the time he's 40. He's convinced it will happen, and has good reason to be. He's gotten this far on an eighth grade education, determination, faith, and the help of family.

 Stokes said he came from "humble beginnings." He's one of six children who moved from place to place. He developed a talent for mechanical repairs while tinkering on dirt bikes and small engines as a teen.

 "We couldn't affored to pay someone to fix our cars," said Aaron's brother Joe Stokes, 26. "Troubleshooting came natural to us."

 Aaron Stokes said his formal education stopped at the eighth grade. His mother tried to home-school him, but Aaron said he wasn't interested.

 At 18, Aaron was working in construction, unsure of what he wanted to do. He knew he wanted to own his own business, a nice house and land. He started buing old Saabs, fixing them up and selling them. People kept asking him to repair their Saabs because many shops in the area were unfamiliar with the Swedish cars. Six months after repairing his car and returning to Williamson County he rented a one-car garage on Battle Avenue for $100 a month, bought a $19 jack from Wal-Mart, and picked up a handful of tools.

 "I don't know how I did it," Stokes said. "I had all these cheap tools that would break as I worked on a car. It was hard, miserable work. I was naive, and didn't realize what I was getting into."

 After four months in the garage, Stokes moved his shop into an old tobacco barn. He moved his bride ino a singlewide trailor next to the barn, on eight acres that he rented. He repaired cars on a dirt floor until he got enough money to pour gravel and later put down pavement. He hung plastic to block the wind.

 Working beside him on blistering summer days and cold winter nights was his brother Joe. Aaron said he made about $16,000 the first year. Joe often went weeks without a paycheck, but stuck by his brother's side.

 "It was miserable," Joe said. "There would be puddles on the floor. You always got muddy. One Christmas Eve it was 9 degrees and parts of the floor were iced over."

 The shop did about $120,000 in business the second year, which, after paying for parts, labor, business fees and taxes, brought a meager salary to Aaron.

 "I could have gone and waited tables and made twice as much," Aaron Stokes said. "I was stupid. I hadn't been burned by the world yet. I was getting ripped off, but we felt bad for people and wouldn't charge them what we should have.

 Aaron's wife, Lydia, got pregnant shortly after their one-year wedding anniversary. Lydia said she thought they'd only be living in a trailor for a short amount of time.

 "It ended up being longer than we planned," Lydia said.

 It was commin to see dozens of cars parked beside their home. Lydia remembers people knocking on their door on Christmas Eve, asking if Aaron would fix their car. She said one good thing about living next to the barn/shop was that she could walk over or call to Aaron when she needed him.

 "There were times when I thought it's never going to happen," Lydia said. "I thought we'd never leave."

 But the business kept growing. Aaron names it The Saab Shop and soon had five employees. As profits increased, it became clear that things were going to work out. He had enough money to relocate. In 2004, he moved to a warehouse off Southeast Parkway in Franklin's industrial corridor, where he remains today. He said the space is bigger htan he needs, but it allows him to park customers' cars indoors. That's proved to be a perk for attracting new business and keeping clients.

 "That move was scary," Aaron said. "It felt weird to drive to work."

 Along the road to financial success, Aaron and Lydia worked as yoth pastors at their church, Grace Center in Grassland. Aaron said he sought advice from other Christian businessmen. He's also consulted with other auto mechanics, which he said have given him endless ideas for running a better business. One such idea is that staffers in the front of his office, including himself, always wear ties.

 Aaron said he has "blind faith" and has followed the path God laid in fron of him, and he soon had enough money to purchase the eight acres he'd been renting and built a six-bedroom house to replace the trailor. He's been able to provide work for his brother Joe, as well as their younger brother Jon, 20.

 The brothers enjoy riding motorcycles and four-wheelers together. They spend holidays together and recently celebrated Christmas at Aaron and Lydia's house. Jon, who is also a mechanic, said it's hard to escape the family dynamic at work. He said Aaron is his boss, but also his big brother.

 The brothers get along well, but occasionally butt heads, especially Joe and Aaron.

 "The other guys think it's fun to watch," Aaron said. "We get into arguments all the time. It's usually over the right way to fix a car or the price."

 Joe and Aaron shared a room growing up and have always been close. Joe is the head technician at the shop. Aaron handles the front office, but still rolls up his sleeves and works on engines when he needs to. Joe said he'd like to manage a store if they ever open a second location.

 "We have different ways of thinking," Joe said. "We're both extremely competitive. We;re always arguiing about who can fix a car faster, or what's the best way. It can be pretty colorful."