As a teen, Matthew Brown was the guy buying and flipping cars in high school. By college, he was selling used coaches from his family’s fleet. Now, more than a decade later, he’s rebranding the business he helped build to reflect a growing national presence in the bus and motorcoach market.
This month, Brown announced the rebranding of his dealership from Holiday Coach and Auto Sales to Smart Choice “Coach” Sales, marking a new chapter for the company that has sold buses to or from nearly every state.
“It just made sense,” Brown says. “Everybody knows me as ‘Matthew the coach sales guy.’ It’s not ‘Holiday,’ it’s Matthew.”
The move aims to better distinguish the dealership from his family’s charter company, Holiday Companies, and clarify that the two have, and always will have, two independent focuses—Holiday Companies on charters and now Smart Choice “Coach” Sales on coach sales.
“Locally, people would say, ‘You’re a competitor. I don’t want to do business with you,’” he explains. “Or they’d question if I was consulting in their best interest, since they said I was tied to another operator.”
While the businesses share the same roots – Brown’s grandparents started the original company – the dealership now operates with a more independent mission, featuring its own branding, staff, and national reach.
“We’re still the same people, same location, with more focused leadership,” he says. “Now we stand on our own brand.”
Entire career in transportation
Brown has been immersed in transportation all his life. From sitting in his grandfather’s lap driving around the bus yard to graduating from college in 2012, where he joined charter sales, he also began selling used coaches from his family’s fleet, about five to eight per year, and found he had a knack for it.
“We always talked about starting a full-time dealership,” he says. “The DMV kept telling us we had to become a dealer if we were going to keep selling more than five a year.”
However, red tape and unconventional business practices, such as selling buses across state lines without inspecting them in person, made it difficult to obtain approval.
Then COVID-19 hit, and the pause in operations gave Brown and his cousins time to revisit the idea. In 2021, after several visits to the DMV office and persistence, Smart Choice’s “Coach” Sales officially launched.
Since then, the dealership has grown into a national operation, selling coaches to or from almost every state except Hawaii. Brown and his team have developed a system to evaluate coaches remotely, relying on rigorous photo reviews, the right questions, and a few lessons learned the hard way.
“It’s been trial and error,” he says. “Now, we know what to look for and what to ask. We can usually do it all without seeing the coach in person.”
What sets Smart Choice apart, Brown says, is a 360-degree understanding of the industry. His family still operates a charter company and a maintenance shop, which gives them insight into vehicle performance and market timing.
“We’re not just a dealership,” he says. “We know what’s happening in the market, how to value the coaches, and when’s the right time to buy or sell.”
‘System that works’
That knowledge fuels a hands-on approach to pricing and marketing. Unlike some dealers who list whatever price a seller wants, Brown uses data from past sales and national listings to set realistic expectations through custom-built tools.
Smart Choice also handles the legwork, advertising on all major platforms, coordinating financing, and ensuring insurance approvals. Brown estimates his team puts in more than 120 hours a week to support listings.
“You can DIY it,” he says, “but you’ll be dealing with tire-kickers, financing headaches, and buyers who back out as well as all the costs of listings. We’ve built a system that works.”
While Smart Choice focuses primarily on coaches built 2001 to 2020, Brown says his team stays aware of the new models not because they sell a lot of them, but because they’ll be handling them in a few years.
He’s also closely watching industry trends, including the impact of economic uncertainty and policy changes. Earlier this year, proposed tariffs created a wave of panic that briefly stalled the market. But Brown says demand is returning as operators realize the importance of keeping up. Many operators reported the spring charter season Brown works with as one of, if not their best on record.
“All the big companies are still buying,” he says. “So now others are thinking, ‘If I don’t grow, I’m going to get left behind.’”
For Brown, it all comes back to the fundamentals: relationships, reputation, and a deep love of the industry.
“I’ve always bought and sold things. That’s just who I am,” he says. “It made sense to combine my love for sales with my love for buses. This is the dream job.”
