Culture, clarity and consistency drive lasting success for leaders who want to scale smarter — not faster. 

In today’s hyper-competitive landscape, scaling a business is not just about expanding locations or increasing revenue — it’s about creating a repeatable model that preserves quality, energizes culture and withstands the growing complexity of operations. At The Car Wash Show 2025, four seasoned leaders shared firsthand experiences of building, breaking and reimagining their businesses through growth: Geoff Karas (CEO, El Car Wash), Gary Dennis (founder, Mammoth Holdings), Zane Roper (owner, Time to Shine Car Wash) and Jason Baumgartner (chief strategy officer, Summit Wash Holdings). Their insights form a blueprint for scaling smarter across four foundational pillars that were presented in an intentional order: culture, corporate structure, operations and marketing. 

Quick Clips 

• Strong culture doesn’t just survive growth — it enables it. Geoff Karas emphasized the importance of aligning people with purpose: “It’s how do you get more sites while staying good.” Culture must grow with the company or risk being lost along the way.
• Scaling successfully requires evolving leadership. Gary Dennis urged founders to recognize when to step back.  “At some point, you’re going to go from being the owner... to a minority partner.”
• Operational consistency becomes harder — and more critical — with each new site; it’s what sets you apart in a competitive market. Zane Roper stressed that staying aligned across teams and regions is the only way to scale without slipping.
• Brand and customer insight matter, but only “if you’ve nailed culture, corporate structure, and operations,” Jason Baumgartner said. Marketing only multiplies what’s already working.

CULTURE: Scaling the Intangible Engine

“The challenge of growth isn’t necessarily just getting more sites,” Karas said. “It’s how do you get more sites while staying good?” That framing reveals an essential truth: Scale is not merely quantitative, it’s qualitative. Culture isn’t a byproduct of growth — it’s the foundation.

El Car Wash, which grew from four to more than 75 locations, calls its people-first approach the “El family.” Karas outlined four pillars of their cultural strategy: 

• Mission and values — Their purpose, to build one of the most admired hospitality and retail brands, serves as a shared North Star.
• Intentional communication — Leaders reinforce values through channels ranging from WhatsApp to hand-written notes.
• Talent management systems — Even with over 1,500 employees, Karas personally interviews every site manager hire.
• Incentives — Equity sharing and performance-linked rewards turn commitment into ownership. 

Culture, in Karas’s view, needs to be experienced, not just talked about. Communication — especially with front-line associates — must be proactive, strategic and relentless. It’s not enough to send a message. Leaders must ensure it’s received, understood and repeated.

Karas emphasized the importance of creating shared meaning through the mission statement. The words “admired,” “hospitality” and “retail” are chosen with purpose, he explained — conveying both business excellence and customer-centricity. The culture becomes not just something employees experience, but something they build. 

The M&A Challenge

Acquisitions often test a company’s cultural core. According to Karas, alignment of values is non-negotiable — but hard to preserve in acquired organizations. In many cases, El Car Wash has replaced most of the existing team to reset the cultural standard. It’s a difficult, human-centered decision, but one made in pursuit of long-term quality.

Dennis agreed. “If you make a bad acquisition and get a bad culture, it can really poison the well,” he said. Mammoth Holdings adopted a simple rule early on: “No jerks allowed.” This filter helped protect their team chemistry and values as they scaled primarily through acquisition.

It’s a process, Dennis said, “of being very thoughtful, very methodical on the front end, and then just being very intentional of bringing these partners together and blending these cultures.”

Despite the challenges, both leaders emphasized that when cultural fit is achieved, it can accelerate performance dramatically. The risk is high — but so is the reward.

CORPORATE STRUCTURE: Building a Scalable Backbone

Dennis offered a sobering observation — scaling a car wash platform is uniquely hard. Unlike restaurants or traditional retail, the car wash industry didn’t have a developed pipeline of middle managers. “Five or ten years ago, regional managers with multi-site experience didn’t exist in this industry,” he said. That void meant Mammoth had to grow its talent from within.

Also, the car wash business is a blend of various types of businesses, giving it a wider expanse of skill sets needed to excel in it. Dennis related it to a manufacturing business, a processing business and a production facility, all in one. “And that production facility is very difficult to operate at times. And we happen to have a production facility with a retail wrapper around it where we're inviting the customer into that production process each and every transaction,” he said. This sometimes equates to leaders misunderstand the nature of the true operating side, especially as the business scales.

He broke the growth journey into three tiers: 

• 1–15 units — Family-style businesses dominating a single market
• 15–100 units — Regional platforms that require new layers of leadership and systems
• 100+ units — National platforms needing professional management, private equity alignment and formal infrastructure 

At Mammoth, as their footprint expanded, so did their organizational demands. Owners and founders shifted from operators to system-builders. It wasn’t just about opening stores — it was about building a corporate structure that could sustain them. “Typically, as you scale, unless you've got a really, really big checkbook, at some point you're going to go from being the owner of the company to being a minority partner with a private equity group or some other investment partner — and that's going to change completely the way you look at the business and your involvement,” Dennis said.

For Dennis, self-awareness was key. “I don’t like doing those things that are necessary to scale,” he admitted. He knew his strengths as a founder didn’t translate into being a large-scale operator.  

You have to think about your role, he said. “I'll never forget when our lead investor — right before we closed the deal — asked a very important question: ‘What makes you and your partner think that you can run a couple hundred units, or what evidence do you have that you can run a couple hundred unit chain? And our response was, ‘Well, there's no evidence whatsoever. And if I said so, I'd be lying to you. And you know that, and I know that. If we get to the point where I can't continue to scale this business, then please fire me and protect my investment. Because I've made this huge rollover of equity and the last thing I want to do is to be the guy who thinks that I have to be in charge and I have to scale this.’” Dennis shared.

“You have to be honest with yourself,” he said. Do you want to be in control and in charge or are you willing to acknowledge that you might not have the skill set or the interest in filling that role?

The Cost of Complexity

Growth doesn’t become easier with size — just different. Scaling from 15 to 50, then 100 to 150 units, each introduced new challenges. Things like tracking property taxes, locating building plans or even renewing business licenses suddenly required departments, not just reminders.

Karas added that the shift from 15 sites onward was when operational oversight could no longer be manual. At that point, “processes and people need to be driving the business,” he said. That shift turns entrepreneurs into organizational architects.

At scale, even simple administrative tasks can reveal operational blind spots. Business license renewals, real estate documentation, insurance compliance — these were once informal and manageable. Now, they require dedicated systems, automation and accountability.

Dennis emphasized that the transition to private equity funding creates new expectations. Investment timelines, reporting standards and return pressures reshape decision-making. “Once you’re not the sole owner, everything changes,” he said.

To solve these challenges, both leaders stressed the importance of building scalable infrastructure early. Technology systems, centralized back-office functions and clearly defined organizational charts should be built not for where the company is today, but for where it will be three to five years from now.

OPERATIONS: The Challenge of Consistency

Time to Shine Car Wash has grown and sold multiple times — and rebuilt again. Roper’s insight: Growth is a reset, not a reward. “You’ve got to be able to deliver a consistent result — and do it as you scale into different regions, with different talent,” he said.

What worked for two locations won’t work at 12. Communication becomes exponentially more complex, not just marginally harder. Communication doesn't get 10% harder when you go from one location to two locations, it becomes 100% harder because you can't be there anymore. Now you have to be in two places at once,” Roper said.

Because communication is critical, “you've got to figure out ways to communicate… and be consistent and methodical.” The team at Time to Shine established a well-defined cadence to ensure communications stayed strong: 

• Daily check-ins between managers, regionals and corporate ops
• Weekly team meetings focused on membership sales and operational issues
• Quarterly in-person leadership summits to realign vision and expectations 

“You have to keep the communication going forward. As you grow, your communication has got to get better and better as you go,” Roper said.

Strategic Hiring Milestones

Each stage of growth required new hires and new roles. While staff responsibilities and needs differ from site to site, at Time to Shine these were some of the new roles they added as they grew: 

• 5th site: Added a technician.
• 9th site: Brought on a marketing lead and an electrician/technician.
• 12th site: Promoted a standout manager to a sales trainer and added an installer/technician. 

As Roper put it, “You either have to be a technician or a manager — you can’t be both anymore.”

Scaling also meant building around what worked. One high-performing manager who excelled at membership sales became a company-wide trainer — turning local success into organizational lift. These adjustments, though tactical, preserved consistency during rapid expansion.

Staying Local to Stay Competitive

Roper emphasized that regional operators have an advantage over national chains: proximity to their communities. Sponsoring school yearbooks, responding to emergencies, knowing names and faces — these touchpoints build loyalty that national competitors struggle to replicate. “We can do a much better job plugging into the community,” he said.

Time to Shine also leverages community engagement as an operational advantage. Their front-line teams are often recognized by name, and customers routinely bring them opportunities for sponsorships and involvement. This not only strengthens brand loyalty — it reinforces internal morale.  

MARKETING: The Amplifier — If the Foundation Is Set

“If you haven’t nailed culture, corporate structure and operations, there’s nothing you can do on the marketing side that’s going to save you,” Baumgartner said. Marketing cannot compensate for poor fundamentals.

But if those foundations are strong, marketing becomes the multiplier.

Brand Continuity Creates Trust

Baumgartner drew inspiration from John Wooden to outline a three-step framework for brand continuity: 

1. Explain your brand promise.
2. Demonstrate it through execution.
3. Repeat it until it builds customer trust. 

Consistency, he said, is more powerful than flash. Think McDonald’s — they win not because they have the best burger, but because the customer knows exactly what to expect.

Build Brand, Not Just Sales

Short-term tactics like digital coupons or mailers can spike sales temporarily. But true resilience comes from brand development. That’s how operators build pricing power, loyalty and long-term value. “Sales activation is fleeting — brand equity is lasting,” Baumgartner said.

Community Is Your Marketing Engine

Successful regional players differentiate by embedding themselves in their communities. Baumgartner saw it firsthand during his years at SUDS Creative. National operators who centralized marketing too much became disconnected from customers. But brands like Quick Quack Car Wash thrived by decentralizing — enabling regional teams to engage directly with their communities.

Know Your Customer Better

Finally, Baumgartner encouraged operators to obsess over customer insight. Understanding customer patterns — or “ant trails” — reveals how they move between home, work and retail. It also breaks the mold of relying on generic one-, three- or five-mile trade area rings.

But data, he warned, is only useful when paired with context. What looks like overlap between stores might actually reflect different daypart uses or customer needs. And as more of a car wash’s revenue comes from subscriptions, understanding behavioral churn becomes vital.

FINAL TAKEAWAYS: Scaling with Intention

Scaling a business isn’t just about growing faster — it’s about growing with purpose. The leaders on this panel offered real-world lessons:

• Invest early in systems and talent — wait too long and growth becomes chaos.
• Prioritize your people — culture isn’t built by accident, it’s reinforced daily.
• Understand your limits — founders don’t always scale with their businesses.
• Stay close to the customer — front-line teams and local engagement are your best brand ambassadors. 

Above all, don’t forget the human side of growth. As Roper said, “If your employees are having fun, the customer does too.”

Ultimately, it’s not about how many sites you operate — it’s about how you show up at every one. With the right culture, structure, operations and marketing, growth isn’t just possible — it’s sustainable.