Brian Barber

CEO Capital Auto Parts. 8-figure Auto Parts, Tire and Wheel Distributor. Private Label Brands. 4th Generation. Building From Winchester, ON 🇨🇦

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

@claudeai New FABLE 5.
Get ready to spend all the moneys. Token usage is wild.
I did give a broad prompt.. But wild. I am on the Max plan

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

The thing that holds it together is clarity. Honest about who owns what, who decides what, what each business is trying to do. Two family businesses. One family. It works. But it takes more intention than most people realize.

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

🧵 I'm inside two family businesses at the same time. Most people don't know that.

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

And then there are Sunday dinners. Where both businesses are in the room. And nobody's fully off the clock.

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

Most competitors find opportunities after they've already missed them. This agent finds them before they're even opportunities yet. That's the difference between reactive buying and real purchasing intelligence.

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

🧵 Most sourcing teams order what already sells. We're finding what the aftermarket doesn't carry yet. That's a completely different problem.

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

With an 85-day lead time, you don't get to react. By the time demand shows up at your door, it's too late to order. You have to find the gap, source it, and have it in stock before the market knows it exists.

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

Not every customer is a good customer. In B2B, the wrong customers don't just cost you margin. They cost you the time and trust you could be building with the right ones.

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

There's a type of shop I no longer work with. I call them parts cannon shops. They don't diagnose. They throw parts at a problem until something works.

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

These shops were consuming 40% of our service resources and generating 12% of our revenue. When I cut them, we didn't lose 12%. We recovered capacity that was hiding better business.

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

🧵 Ive fired B2B customers. Most parts suppliers wont say that out loud. I will.

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

My grandfather pumped gas. My dad built an auto repair business.. still knows every customer by name, some for 30 years. I built a distribution company. 40+ containers a year. AI running the back end.

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

🧵 Only 12% of family businesses reach the 3rd generation. We are building the 4th.

[Brian Barber @BrianRoyBarber]

30% make it to the second. 12-13% reach the third. Most die from poor succession, internal conflict, or a market that changed faster than the family did. By the numbers, we should not still be here.