Authentic Auto Body, which became a newly minted MSO earlier this year, currently has two collision repair shops in Holliston and Dartmouth, MA, and plans to add two more in the first quarter of 2026 and a third within 12 months from now, according to its Virginia-based owner, Envest Private Equity.
“Five shops this time next year, all in Massachusetts,” said Envest co-founder Patrick Keefe.
But what does Authentic do when it buys? Well what did it do so far when it bought?
Keefe said shops become buyable by “the local touch. If something’s wrong with my car, I talk to Steve. First and foremost: how do you replicate red carpet service at scale?”
Steve Proia sold Authentic to Envest and runs the shops. But their goal seems at least counterintuitive, if not contradictory. They say no, it can be done. Shops that sell — and that don’t — can keep doing what they’d been at and add it at each new acquisition.
Beauty and Community
Perhaps it’s just paradox: musical harmony from disparate parts cohering in concert, both art and science.
You could say it’s easier with five or so locations and you wouldn’t be wrong, and there’d be nothing wrong with that. MSO can be just an acronym. Family with three shops is one and they do things one at a time, too.
Proia said the first thing is the first thing.
“First impressions, well thought-out, well-planned,” he said, and means this literally. At the exterior entry, “flowers, clean mulch, grass is perfect, trees are trimmed, landscape lighting for ambience.”
Authentic Auto Body also pays close attention to its landscaping.
It sounds like a to-do list because it is.
“Do people feel comfortable?” Proia asks, not rhetorically, and it continues when they enter. “People say ‘this office is nicer than my house’ — leather couches, large TV, coffee bar, refrigerators.”
He had it first in his Holliston shop, and added it at Dartmouth, Envest’s first follow-on acquisition. “You can have your car fixed anywhere, but the experience can’t be replicated,” Proia said.
Local charm continues in community: events supporting the city or the zoo, a fall festival kicking off holidays or Oktoberfest. Authentic Auto Body is there.
And not just social media, but specific — and not just segmenting a market for ads.
Holliston has a significant Portuguese population, “so it’s targeted to those communities, thoughtful whom you’re trying to reach,” Keefe said.
Proia said Authentic’s full-time social media staffer speaks Portuguese. Some ads do too, seeking business or employees. “The GM is from Brazil; been with me since the day we started.”
Training and Incentives
It’s “unique marketing, how they treat customers, the entire experience,” Keefe said. “Unique and local.”
Customers wait in comfort.
Those become two bywords for more technical moves. Here’s where an MSO, even a smaller one, can do things different, and also more, with resources at the ready for marketing, and compensation.
The shops didn’t previously have profit sharing or bonuses and Proia freely confesses to bafflement on this — the specifics of how to do it. Consultants can help. So, of course, can Keefe.
“I struggled with that, tried to put something together, but I didn’t have the experience,” Proia said. “Envest understood structure,” he added, with rising emphasis.
“Incentives, training, the right people in the right places,” Keefe said. “Incentives drive outcomes.” And the starting point in Holliston becomes “a holistic, specific approach, different things to different people: might mean cash and income, might be long-term equity.”
The shops are I-CAR Gold Class and Proia said, “we pay for all I-CAR training.” When new stuff is needed — an EV course, or re-upping and adding “always changing, revitalizing” OE certification — Authentic’s there too, just like with city events.
Keefe added: “Steve and I are good salespeople” for Authentic, “because we bought into this.”
The aim is the same for staff, he said: “that people are buying in and believe in what you’re doing.”
Paul Hughes