Train People. Give Value Away. Outsell Everybody: The Unlikely Road from Service Drive to Berkshire Hathaway’s Portfolio.

In 2000, I read a book that most people would’ve put down after five pages. It was called The Experience Economy—and it laid out a prediction that the future of business would belong to those who could deliver not just products, but experiences.
‍

That idea changed how I saw everything. Two years later, I found myself in the middle of a franchise car dealership—of all places—realizing that this philosophy could transform an entire industry. What started as a simple training company would evolve into a product powerhouse, a national brand, and eventually a business that would become owned by the greatest investor in the world.

This isn’t just a story about specialty chemicals. It’s about how a pizza party reframed our value proposition, how training became the wedge no one saw coming, and how that same company was ultimately acquired by Berkshire Hathaway.

‍

Let’s start at the beginning.

‍

By 2002, I’d become closely familiar with the inner workings of franchise car dealerships. These aren’t simple businesses. They’re made up of multiple independent departments—new and used car sales, finance, insurance, parts, service, collision—and each of these runs almost like its own company under one roof. And that creates friction.
‍

The part that fascinated me the most wasn’t the glitz of the sales floor or the complexity of F&I. It was the service drive. The back end. The side of the dealership most customers didn’t understand—and most dealers didn’t invest in.

Here’s what I saw: A customer pulls in for a simple oil change. They’re met by a service advisor with a clipboard (today, it’s a tablet). The advisor barely makes eye contact. There’s no real conversation, no real trust, no real experience. Just a vague sense of, “Leave your car. We’ll call you.”

It didn’t feel like service. It felt like risk.

And to be clear—I wasn’t just analyzing this as an outsider. I was a customer myself. I’d been through the lackluster experience of waiting hours for updates, wondering if I was getting upsold, and feeling completely in the dark.

And I thought:

There has to be a better way.

‍

‍

That’s when everything I learned from The Experience Economy came rushing back. This wasn’t just a problem. It was a business opportunity.

I founded a company called CarXperience with a singular mission: help car dealerships create exceptional experiences for their service customers. It started with training. I developed programs for service advisors that covered the basics—how to greet a customer, how to communicate clearly, how to explain services in plain language, how to build trust. It wasn’t complex. It was human.

And honestly? The bar was low. Most of these professionals had never received formal training of any kind. I remembered my early Dale Carnegie courses and thought, If I just bring that level of effort here, I can make a huge impact.

And we did. But not in the way I expected.

As much as dealership leaders wanted to improve customer satisfaction scores, they didn’t want to pay for training. It felt intangible. It didn’t connect directly to a profit center.

That’s when I started paying closer attention to the economics of the service department.

Here’s what I noticed: nearly every maintenance service being performed—transmission flushes, coolant exchanges, brake services, fuel system cleanings—required a specialty chemical. A technician couldn’t complete the job without it. These chemicals came in small bottles, but they brought big value to the dealership.

That was the lightbulb moment.

‍

‍

I decided to shift my business model. In the early 2000s, I launched ZAK Products, a specialty chemical company that would sell professional-grade fluids directly to dealerships. But unlike most of our competitors, I didn’t walk away from training—I made it the core of our value proposition.

Our competitors offered product-specific training. We offered people training. We helped service advisors become better professionals—better communicators, better team members, better problem-solvers. We developed a national team of trainers who delivered in-person workshops, helped improve dealership culture, and taught life skills that stuck long after the sale.

But here’s the twist: we gave all of that away for free.

The products made us money. The training earned us trust. That was the formula.

Still, I knew we needed one more piece to make the whole system hum.

‍

Early on, we started giving dealerships a branded tool called the Preferred Maintenance Guide—a printed booklet we created that showed customers exactly what services their vehicles needed at different mileage intervals. It was smart. Simple. Beautifully designed. And… totally ignored.

Why? Because we made it. They didn’t have ownership in it.

That changed one night at home, when my wife told me we were hosting a pizza party for our nieces and nephews. I assumed we were ordering in.

“We’re making it,” she said. I looked at the kitchen—dough everywhere, ingredients spread across the counter. Chaos.

“These are your regular ingredients,” I said. “What makes this pizza different?”

She smiled. “The best pizza they’ll ever eat is the one they make themselves.”

That idea stuck.

So I brought it into the business.

‍

‍

Instead of handing dealers a completed guide, we started co-creating them. We hosted workshops at night after the store closed—full-team sessions with big whiteboards, sticky notes, and team discussions about what should go into the guide.

And you know what we found?

The content they created was exactly what we had been putting in the guides. But now it wasn’t ours—it was theirs.

They had made the pizza.

And suddenly, service advisors were handing the guides to customers with confidence. Customers were pulling up to their appointments saying, “I’m here for my 30,000-mile service,” because they saw it in the book. No awkward upsell. No debate. Just trust.

That became our game behind the game.

‍

We’d earned the trust of service advisors and created value for dealership customers. But we hadn’t done anything for the people actually using our product—the technicians.

‍

So in 2010, I reached out to the most respected name in automotive performance: NASCAR.

We went through a rigorous review process with their engineers, product teams, and leadership. Eventually, we landed a deal that made ZAK the officially recommended professional maintenance fluid brand of NASCAR.

But it went even further than a sticker.

We secured the right to co-brand our products. Our logo and theirs—side by side. To this day, we remain the only company in our space that has ever had that endorsement.

Why does that matter?

Because when a technician grabs a bottle off the shelf and sees NASCAR’s logo on it, they don’t need a sales pitch. They believe in it.

Over the next several years, ZAK Products grew into a category leader—partnering with the best dealerships in the United States, expanding into hundreds of product SKUs, and building a reputation for doing things differently.

But here’s what I always tell people: our business wasn’t built on bottles. It was built on belief.

We created tools that improved performance. We trained people to rise. We gave our best value away for free. And we tied it all together with purpose.

Even today, the business continues to grow—year after year. Not because ZAK has the best fluids in the world. But because we poured ourselves into our customers, gave them something to believe in, and let them make the pizza.

‍

‍

Before I share the phone call that changed my life, know this: ZAK was built by an extraordinary team—many still carrying the torch today—and by dealer partners who trusted us to build a business driven as much by heart as by product. In an industry that seldom leads with love, we proved it could be done.

In 2015, I received a phone call I’ll never forget. It was the kind of call every founder hopes for but few actually receive.

Berkshire Hathaway was acquiring ZAK Products.

For most founders and owners, that moment would have been about the check, the exit, the win.

For me, it was about something else entirely.

It was about my team—many of whom had been with me since the beginning—getting to see the ultimate business validator, the guy who only buys the best companies in the world, choose ours.

Today, every bottle we ever created still carries the ZAK name. But now, it has four new words printed right beneath it:

A Berkshire Hathaway Company.

And I don’t care how big NASCAR’s logo is—nothing compares to having the most respected acquirer of world-class businesses choose yours.

The real story of ZAK wasn’t just about chemicals, margins, or distribution. It was about people. It was about belief. It was about doing the little things so well—and so differently—that we created value no one else could replicate.

That’s how the business was built. And that’s the legacy I’m most proud of.

‍

‍

For every entrepreneur reading this, here’s the takeaway:

Your product alone won’t build your brand. Your margins won’t build loyalty. But the way you show up—the way you pour into people, elevate their experience, and create something they believe in—that’s what builds something worth acquiring.

Whether you’re selling software, sandwiches, or specialty fluids, the principle is the same:

Lead with value. Obsess over the details. Build with heart.

That’s what made ZAK work. And it’s what will make your business unforgettable.

❤️ - Vic