She Scaled to $10 Million in 3 Years - with Jesse Jackson - EP 445

Welcome back to the 365 driven podcast today. We've got a great guest that brings a lot of different experience and marketing and business, but she applied a lot of different things into a space that really needed some help and some boost to grow some revenue, and she's looking at the service facilities for automotive service care facilities. Through a different set of eyes and different set of ideas, and that has led to very successful scaling. She achieved over 10 million revenue from starting up in the first three years of operations. She's about five years into operations right now. Our guest today is Jesse Jackson. See is the CEO of mango automotive. They have multiple locations in multiple states, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. Welcome to the show, Jesse. What's up, Tony? Thank you. So give us the story of where this came out before you got into mango because I was looking at your LinkedIn like we do. And you had a lot of different product, you know, expertise and you did some startup stuff and looks like you kind of did things outside of automotive until maybe there was one app that you were kind of the product, you know, leader of that. Yeah, makes no sense. So I'll come colored in for you back in the day. I was an environmental engineer. When I had my first baby who is now almost 20 was the 2007 crash. And there was not a job to go back to so I was out of work and I so I fumbled into software. I literally got something printed. I think the birth announcements for my daughter at a local printer and had to use their software and somehow talked myself into getting them to pay me to tell them what was wrong with their software. So that was how I entered product and my product, I just mean software software. And from there, you you hit the nail on the head that I stumbled into a product that was in the automotive space. And we sold that back in 2021 and I was trying to figure out what the thing that I was going to do next was going to be notice a huge opportunity in the automotive space. You had this aging industry were at the time six out of 10 owners were looking to retire in the next 10 years. And I was really tired of software wanted to do something that was tangible for a real actual thing. One of my grandfather's own the history pair shop my other grandfather owned in an aircraft repair shop. So it was it being in a shop felt familiar to me. So I hear I went on this journey having no idea what I was doing. I want to touch on the pain points around software I've heard different stories, but I want to get your take on that she said you were kind of tired of software. Because I think there's a lot of people that watch these things or listen to these shows that think that software was the fastest path to billion dollar unicorns and exits and they kind of get get tossed to the wayside and they had that same heartburn that you just shared so give us that what was that about. It's funny because the software that we sold was still not profitable yet I think people think oh software you're selling something intangible so you there should be tons of profit right like 90% margins 10% building it but that doesn't always turn out to be true. I actually have a different take on software now I'm using of course Claude code to build a lot of custom softwares for our organization specifically for the employees in our organization and to build those softwares exactly how I want them. So I mean it's my personal take that you know the sort of building this huge software company where the software is the same for everyone is sort of a dying air because it's so easy to build a custom software right now. And yet everyone can get on Claude code and build a custom software but they will be able to soon maybe I don't know that's what I thought about websites people still include their own websites but I'm certainly they'll be able to get something custom for a much more affordable price so if you can customize that software especially as a business owner. I think things are headed in that direction I do see that I have a couple clients that have built Claude code custom software internal use exactly not meant not meant to be external and scaled and used in different applications but it's their business model specifically and you know the size of their company maybe a little bit of room for growth but I think that a lot of people think that AI is just going to code out this app that can scale like Facebook and they want to have to have any input and be like for employees it's just. That's not realistic I like that you shared the realism there it's other way right that the advantage as I see it is the ability to build exactly what you want because as business owners I think we're all sort of like you're hacking together softwares or that's what the last 10 years has has looked like you know you need this software and that software and this software because you want this you want to build the specific thing for your team and now to have the ability to build it and you know cancel those seven subscribers. Yeah, you're tech stack right in your tech stack not only that but employees are born out from going to their all of these software places they have to go to so one of the things that I build for is to have one place where employees can go now that's not we're not there yet there's they still have to go to multiple places but we're headed in that direction right we have a program or call let's just call it a website where they can go. And everything that they need to access is actually there so they can know you know they can go to that one place like yeah they've got is you know sometimes link out to other places but I think it's hugely powerful because when your business owner you have custom needs like right now we have eight shops I want those eight shops to be able to see their primary metrics which metrics are important to me not some metrics that someone else invented. And you know see how the other shops are doing have a competition we actually give out like the golden mango trophy every week to the shop that performs the best in these metrics that we that we invented that we find important. So the app was I guess when I was reading is like it held to find it seemed like a mobile app for detailers to find gigs is that kind of the high level of what it was yeah it was a mobile app for detailers and paintless didn't repair technicians and actually still exist and it is it's called it's a shot management system so invoicing okay so it has more than just marketing and these okay cool and what do you think that kept it from being profitable. Good question this is you know maybe to specific to that business but interesting sort of segue into what we were just talking about a lot of mid size companies expected and wanted something custom. And so our sales team would go out and sell that custom thing and then you know our our engineering team would have to wrap back around to build it. And so instead of selling this you know you're essentially doing all these baby white label products which at the time which is not profitable because it was before cloud code. But at the time when even overseas operations which we did work with had started doubling tripling their prices so when I first started working with a team in Vietnam we were paying them $15 an hour but this time they were wanting $40 an hour so you can't really afford to build these. Cost you know to make your application custom but it's cool because now you can write it's that's what the demand was so having an out of you know selling something out of the box was not what people wanted but. It was what we had and then we customize it for them which was what drove our profits down. You know what's fascinating is that the acceleration of progress because we're only talking you said like it's a while back but we're talking about five six years ago. Like not even that like economics have completely changed because of AI and really the world getting smaller because of connectivity so it's amazing just to hear this kind of shifts in business so. Those of you that are listening to this and you had an idea that was good five years ago it might be better today yeah it might be better yeah and so that's a thing to like I think. Building little niche products is going to be a space so that people who are having software companies I think are going to have less of the market but I think there definitely is space for niche products like their space for. Automotive shop software for shops that have between five and ten and so you really niche down to this like user group who wants a very specific thing and then they're super excited about what you're offering. So what other than the hanging out with the grandparents and repair businesses that you grow up I'm sure you visit them a lot when you're a kid. What made you start to look towards the automotive repair facilities yeah so it was around that space that I because I was in automotive. So I understood what was happening in the brick and mortar space which is you know at the time it felt like we were really turning over a new leaf into EVs you had a ton of owners wanting to retire they'd already been through sort of like the carbonated engine revolution. They didn't want to go through it again, and so that was the impetus. I just thought it was it was a ripe To be able to acquire in that space and help owners retire and also In a way the automotive industry was and still is stuck back 40 years ago because of all of these owners who you know, they've built the industry so kudos to them and It is not a big leap to revolutionize the industry. I mean what we've done essentially treat all people equal You know keep a clean lobby Some ways you actually want to hang out and you're not afraid to sit down like This is not a huge leap, right? This this isn't a huge leap. We're still fixing cars and we're fixing cars in the same way that they've been fixed We haven't seen a ton of AI revolution in that space But we're just Elevating the customer experience while we're doing it, which you can see this that way to my product background where I was focused on the customer experience Sort of just bringing that into the brick and mortar world. I mean one of the big examples most people have heard of and Reestablished gas stations as buckies were here in Texas. You're in Texas. You were you lived in Austin for several years So you've seen these buckies. Yep. They're a gas station, but what they did different was they made clean bathrooms That was their entire pitch is like we have clean bathrooms and we have plenty of stalls and lots of them And now and now but it's it's gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and they're going multi-states going nuts But it was just based on clean bathrooms and multiple stalls Yeah, so now you look at automotive you looked at the different complaints the common complaints that you see and a lot of it is What you said is kind of a dirty facility or it's kind of you know debris laying around or just kind of doesn't look very Welcoming to hang out in if your car is being worked on for no will change and So I know that there's other companies that have done these kind of things, but I think that yours is more Seems like a more feminine approach on the lobbies and being welcome and like you had Drinks and Wi-Fi and things like that. So that's pretty cool that you've kind of thought about what others that keeps you know Half of our consumer base from going to these things. Yeah, we call it the pink wall effect But I would say it's good for all human. Yeah, everybody's better off in a clean Environment that's just not nasty. Yeah, for sure and act you know, you would think there would be some pushback And we did once make one customer angry by improving our lobby and He came into our downtown location a bit a long time customer of that location and He saw the pink wall and the new lobby and he went off about how he didn't want to pay for that and This was awful. The new owners were rotten and on his way out. He mumbled, but I'm still gonna come here because my tux here And I think that it grew on him. Yeah, I think that he got used to it and it grew on him You broke the mold of the traditional gear head greasy, you know shop, you know for him right But everyone has a car not just a gear head. That's right. That's right. So First location, what did that look like going into something that you weren't experienced as a technician or a mechanic or Anyone that's owned a business like that. What was it like? Oh my god. Thank the universe that they sent me my business partner because I didn't know what I didn't know. Okay, this is my big thing about growth and setting goals as You know an entrepreneur or a human when you set a goal. You're trying to accomplish something. That's probably new to you Probably you haven't done it before you haven't done it in this way So the very idea of setting a goal means that you You do not have the tools you need to accomplish that goal, right? So in some ways when I said I was gonna acquire all these automotive repair shops and we're just about at you know 20 million in revenue right now. I had never been the CEO of a 20 million dollar A year business and I had never done an acquisition and I didn't know anything about automotive repair per se aside from just this Software that I had worked on yeah, so I by all means had nothing that I needed the only thing that I had Was like the willingness to just go do the thing that I didn't know how to do that's a lot That says a lot though being willing and to go into the unknown and be that visionary and figure things out being resourceful Which is literally I think like why everyone has imposter syndrome because when you say you're gonna do a thing You're literally an imposter because you've not done the thing so like this is sort of where it comes from right? So I didn't even know how much I needed and when I was calling shop owners I just happened to find a young guy who was hungry for growth and ended up becoming my business partner And now I look back and like I got a guy. I didn't know it, but I don't know how I could have done this without him So your business partners the the automotive side He's a CEO. Yeah, sort of bored and raised in the automotive industry, but it's he's the best partner and we you know that first shop We got the keys on Christmas Eve Which I think was a Thursday and we were gonna open on Monday So we were there all weekend over Christmas with some of my teenagers cleaning out rats nests not an exaggeration Putting together Walmart furniture for scrubbing floors painting walls so that we could open you know on Monday, December 27th our Our first day and you know we open our shop and he and I were there with sludge hammers like hammering down a wall and and working on that shop So you know nothing nothing ever changes. I don't know that I imagined when we were this big that we'd still be doing it But part of it is like we want it done like we're opening tomorrow We're not closing for a day just because we acquired and we don't always know what day we're gonna close So sometimes if we want the shop to look like a mango shop on the day that we open, you know, it's Brian and I are no one So was this shop in operation and you just basically hit the ground running no time off in between and Remodels you just kept it going. Yeah, they were in operation. They had only two technicians. Okay, and the owner retired. So We're gonna we're gonna clean it up the best we can over a holiday weekend and keep that's right keep keep on going Keep on going and I mean we had no money either. So, you know that shop I think it took us 18 months to finish the remodel because they could only remodel stuff when they could pay for it Right the DIY a lot of things So what is it? What does it look like to structure a deal like that? So you came in without a you know giant cash Reserve and a great idea and a good partner and he's went out now. How many different shops did you look at before you found the one that you wanted to deal with? Yeah, so that's an interesting question, but I think the premise of that question I must address which is that I found the one Just right off This is the one I'm doing because I find entrepreneurs get stuck there a lot if you're looking to do acquisitions You're looking for the one. I knew that I was going to acquire a lot of business and businesses So I was looking for a shop. Okay, that we could start with right and so I wasn't dating to find the shop that we were going to marry and That can be a hard thing to sort of be like, okay, we're gonna start somewhere and it's not gonna be perfect I think when you're out there hunting down shops talking to every owner in your city if you're looking to do acquisitions talk to every Business in your city for brick-and-mortar or talked to every business in the country if you're not brick-and-mortar You're gonna have the right time right place experience Because you're there and there's not a lot of people putting them out there to begin with so that's sort of what happened with shop one Where the least was expiring and we were we were there to pick up the pieces and every shop has been a different story since then But you can only be in the right time at the right place if you're putting yourself out there Okay, so was this was this business on the market or did you guys knock doors and call and Have questions there, right? Yeah, they were not on the market I think that it's true to say that we have not bought a single business that's been on the market. That's good Yeah, we might in the future I'm not adverse to doing a deal that's on the market, but they just tend to not work out. So I Think there's a lot of business owners that are looking to retire that aren't sure how to do it and You know when you show up and start talking to them if you can understand what they want And try to figure out a way to get it to them then everyone can be happy You know, I was listening to a podcast episode with Mike Row from dirty jobs and he's big on trades, right? And he was talking about the baby boomer generation retiring and Half of them already retired, but they're still half that are kind of the younger boomers that are still working and He mentioned in the trades whether that's automotive plumbing electrical all these different trades that for every five of those that are retiring There's only one that's qualified to replace them So we're running into a trade shortage Across the board and you know and he and I and many of the people expect that the trades businesses will be the wealthiest businesses in the next 20 years Not only that, but a lot of business owners close their doors. because they're too small to be acquired by private equity. And we need more owners to step up and start acquiring stuff. Because for owners that I work with, I really feel like they are getting-- Oh, yeah, I'll tell you a story about one owner who-- we had bought his shop and then he called me up and said, Jessie, Jessie, Jessie, I want to take you and your husband Brian and his wife to dinner, like, let's go to dinner, please. So I said, OK, Tom, when do you want to go to dinner? So we all show up to dinner. I said, oh, Tom, how's it going? Do you miss the shop? You worked here for 40 years. He said, oh, I thought I was going to miss it, but I've been too busy missing it. Spending time with my grandkids, doing my honey to-do list. I said, Tom, why are we here? What are we doing here? Tom said, this is the one year anniversary of the day that you called me. And I had been praying for that phone call for years. And then you called me and you changed my life. And I think that really gave me strength to keep doing what we're doing. And I'm not there for every shop owner. I don't want to buy your business if you don't want to sell it. But for a business owner who wants to retire, doesn't know how, doesn't fit very clearly into the bucket of over $1 million in profit. - Yeah. - You know, easily sellable. Those are the owners that we're here for to help them have a retirement where they can actually step away from their desk and spend time with their family. - So do you generally try to structure at owner finance deal that the fund of retirement plan for them? - Yeah, we do. We do a lot of owner financing, but I'd say we've done every deal under the sun, every permutation of a deal that I can think of. And the important part is just really understanding what the owner needs to retire. Sometimes they need to pay off their house and they need that cash up front. Sometimes they do want ongoing payments for the next 10 years. So we work together to figure out something that works for everyone. - So how long did you operate store number one until you started to think about the second location? - Oh, no, no, I didn't have any stores when I was thinking about the second location. We open two and three seven months later. - Wow. So you're already thinking like we're gonna have more of these, like let's build this business model and go. - Yeah, we were from the beginning, we were building ourselves to be bigger. Now, mind you, people in acquisitions talk about how easy it is to just buy a services business. That is not true. We've been eating glass for five years. When we got shops two and three, we nearly drowned. My business partner looked at me and said, no more shops for six months. Because when you have one, you can cover your advisors, lunches, you can run around. But suddenly when you have three in three different parts, even of the same town, you can't be at all three in one day. You can't be there to make sure the wheels stay on. So this is when people start talking about systems, like building systems is basically just, how can the wheels stay on when you're not there holding it together? And that is a really hard transition for a lot of entrepreneurs, but that's, in my opinion, where the growth is, right? You cannot multiply yourself. So you have to figure out what you can do to keep the wheels on your business even when you cannot be there to micromanage it. So give us an idea of which systems you implemented to be able to manage those multi-locations. I remember the first system we really implemented was the slow-day checklist. So what we found was when the shops had a slow-day, they would twiddle their thumbs or be on their phones. So we wrote down the slow-day checklist, which is if you're having a slow-day, just go down this checklist, right? You're gonna call your declined sales work, you're gonna call misdeployments. You're gonna push, there's this AAA button, you can push to have toes come to your shop, you can push, you're gonna push the AAA button, you're gonna change your Lexon sign out front, you're gonna X, Y, Z, and then when you run out of those 10 things to bring new leads in, then we can clean the bathrooms. - Right, men, yeah, the list, do the list. - So that was literally, I mean, fundamentally, it's a list, but then the real question is, how do you get people to use the list, right? So in the beginning, that was Slack reminders, right? Like, if you're slow, do this list to all the managers, right? Like, don't forget about the list, but now it's this software that I've built, right? So the checklist is sort of built in there, there's a to-do list, like you're literally checking it off and everyone can see if you've checked off your things today. - Well, I like it, it's great, yeah. - I'm gonna do the slow-day checklist every day, but-- - So is it able to look at the logged work that's in the service base and determine if it's a slow-day, then triggered the list? - So now we're just like, do the list every day. Like, you always call your misdeployment, so you always call these, you know, if you didn't close a sale, we've used AI to analyze that phone call, it shows up on your to-do list. - Awesome. - On and on, everything you should have done now, a checklist item with the phone number on your to-do list, like get that thing done and check it off. So that's what a system looks like. And in my opinion, a system is easiest to build when you're disconnected from the business. And this can happen because you decide you're gonna grow or you literally just overwhelm yourself and you can't be in every place at once. So then you have to figure out a way to replace that. So, you know, this is what we call as systems, but I think SOPs, standard operating procedures, like we write everything in a book and someone's supposed to look at it is up a waste of effort and time. Yeah, that comes later, usually when you have a large organizational chart and it kind of gets lost in the mix. But funny story, you talk about that. My first job as a kid, age 15 was McDonald's. And the franchise or, I think that's the right, yeah, the franchise or that owned multiple locations, he used to say something similar to what you're talking about your list. He would say, if you got time to lean, you got time to clean. And that was his whole thing. And so if he ever saw us like, lean around or not do anything, he'd hand us a mop or a broom or a rag and some spray bottle and he was like, go out there and clean, you know, and there was a cup. Nobody wanted to clean the children's playground 'cause that was always the biggest mess especially in this ball pit. Like you find all kinds of food and stuff in the bottom of a ball pit. So, we had to crawl through the tunnel or like, were teenagers having to crawl through the tunnel to get into the ball pit to clean it out? So, yeah, so what do I make up? I wish I had worked at McDonald's. Like, Donald's is like a picture of perfection in some ways, like how they designed the layout. - Absolutely. - And it's like in a parking lot. I'm always, this is one fun thing that happens. My business partner, he actually knows what he's doing and I have no idea. So, I'm always like throwing him these ridiculous ideas about, and one of them recently was like shop organization but sort of on an extreme level. Like what if instead of the technician like going to get all the tools they need and what if those like magically appeared for him? (laughs) Before he does a job or whatever. Which is-- - That would be good for an assembly line if you're gonna build like production vehicles. Yeah, we need that robotics stuff. - Right, but how can you do it in an aftermarket automotive repair? I don't know. So, he sort of talks me down. I have these crazy ideas and I'll be like, why do we do it this way? - Yeah. - And he's like, Jesse, like that's literally how it's done. Like this is how you do it. And I'll be like, well, could we do it this other way? And he's really good about being open minded and being like, actually, maybe we could, you know, tweak things a little. - Yeah, especially when you get to the technician level, they have their superstitions and ways of doing things and we organize our tools a certain way. So, we know where everything is and-- - They have-- - That's why everybody's got their own box and they do it their own way and their own speed, right? - They're geniuses by their own, right? Yeah. - You can't disrupt them inside their base. - And they don't wanna wear like a GPS tracker either for some weird reason. - That's cool. - No, so that was pretty cool. Like, different processes in the simple one 'cause when everybody heard me ask that question, they're probably gonna be some super complex like system. You just talked about a dial for dollars, reach out the old leads, clean the store and get it ready, you know, and that's important 'cause I think a lot of times it is misproductivity hours. - Yeah, it's amazing how much we see the shops that are really diligent about their to-do checklist are preparing, you know, they're not preparing for today but they're building consistency into their businesses. They're, you know, making appointments for next week in the week after and when you're not doing those preparations, we see, you know, revenue and profit just sort of all over the place up and down like a wild ride. - So have you looked at the different metrics when you're considering a shop to acquire? Is there a certain amount of bays or technicians that you've seen as the sweet spot for that service model? - I think the two most important components are the size of the shop and the location. So in everything else can essentially be manufactured. So location is going to drive what the customer base looks like and also the employee base and the size of the shop were just. Limited by space because we're not in digital land anymore, right? We sort of think of seven bays six seven bases our minimum because I frankly don't know how to run a shop with Only one person in the front of the house So you figure you have to have that to support multiple people in the front of the house because what do you do? It's fine when the owner's up there He can never go on vacation And you know eat his lunch at his desk, but everyone else wants to be able to have a sick day So, you know, we don't do little two three bangers. I'm we call them bangers. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure how to run that operation So ours are definitely bigger and we you know, we have 18 bay shops We tend toward larger shops, but our absolute minimum is six or seven when the unit math works out a lot better I mean there's a lot of overhead that are you know caught captured in the first couple bays and then every bay You add is just more profit center. Yeah in general and automotive when I I mean I've looked at hundreds of P and L's what we see is that Around a million dollars in revenue. You have really thin profit margins So you went 10% or less profit margins and a lot of that growth is from million to two and a half were million in revenue Where you can really grow your margins from 10% ish up to 25 27% and margins so there's a lot of goodness a lot of profit to be achieved by just growing Revenue in a single location Yeah You know the thing about Multibays you'll say I have to have a lot of people a lot of employees In the trades a lot of the heartburn that we hear about is just a turnover and funding qualified labor And it's like this constant thing. I don't think it's ever going to improve I think that's always going to be the demand for business owners and regardless of the industry But what have you seen from making sure you keep people that haven't always hire people? Do you cuss on this podcast if you want You're like dang it. That's the problem. I didn't ask for permission I asked if you cuss on your podcast. Sometimes. Okay. Yeah. I think a lot of this is bullshit Yes, there are not enough technicians. Yes. I want to hire 10 technicians today And at the same time we have a lot of technicians We have a hundred employees most of those are technicians and these employees supposedly don't exist in the market But what do you have most shop owners and okay? Is your audience a lot of services owners or just all kinds of entrepreneurs mostly services a few manufacturers Yeah, okay, in the services world at least in automotive I don't know your industry, but why do we think that we can hire someone and give them no health care No benefits at all. No dental. No vision. We we just pay them You know, maybe we pay them per piece if they they have a very physical job We don't give them short or long-term disability and then we're like oh, there's no one to hire Yeah, I I Respect that we want to keep prices low for our customers and it can be hard to be profitable in services because you're trying to keep your prices low for your customers And you're trying to serve our employees But just like with our customers having a clean lobby is so easy to differentiate ourselves I'm sorry, but treat your employees better and you will have more qualified employees not offering benefits to Mechanics is in that is crazy like why how is that the case? How do we offer benefits is pretty much a standard where I come from in software? Everyone gets benefits and what are they going to injure at work like their fingers typing I don't know, but then we have these technicians that are literally under cars working so hard And we're not going to offer them benefits I had a technician last week who had his safety goggles on was working on a vehicle dropped his screwdriver went between his safety goggles into his eye And we're not going to protect these employees. He was literally doing his job So I think if you're whining about not having enough employees like you have to treat them right And if that means you have to raise your hourly rate by ten or twenty dollars an hour Then do it because it's not okay to treat humans that way and my point of view. I just think all humans Should have especially working humans in America. I think we agree you should be able to take care of your health And so if you're not offering that to your employees You're doing them a disservice and then you're whining that no one wants to work for you Yeah, I don't want to work for you without health care. I have seven kids think I want to show up And I have no health care for my kids because my 12-year-old broke is armed three times this year Well that response tells me how much you actually care about your employees and That's why your business is becoming more successful as we as we speak and you know Most people do look at things just trying to do cost savings and you know We touched on AI and a lot of you know people are getting removed because of AI even in the back big tech Space and you know, I think there's a shift where employees are being almost looked at as a second-class citizen Versus the customers sometimes and that's not the right way to run businesses I think if you don't put your people first They're not going to show up for you and they're not going to perform and you're not going to have the customer experience that you really want It's crazy. I mean I will say I think it runs both ways with employees It can be hard in this day and age. I think that there can be an entitled mindset for Employees of some certain generations that might be your thoughts And you know, that's hard, but also get behind it like you do owe them I'm sorry like you do owe them disability insurance if they get it. It's a very physical job It's very demanding, you know It's very demanding and most of them are not air conditioned facilities and there's a lot of there's a lot of Stress involved with being a technician at that and a lot of trades. I mean think about Plummers and electricians, you know going through addicts at her 150 degrees and all kinds of things like that Yeah, my daughter Was head was working for mango for several years She moved to Austin where we don't have a mango right now, but she is When I say that she worked for mango people imagine her at the front desk answering phones. No She is almost 20. She's in the back. She's changing tires changing oil doing Expans and she's outside in Texas. It's 120 degrees and I I don't think I could do that But like I'm so impressed by her and like proud of her drive And I have that same respect for our employees. I mean when you run payroll It's a heavy load. We run payroll for a hundred families. Yeah, and that's why we exist Literally on both sides. We exist to serve them and we don't exist without them so We have to figure out a way to make it work and we charge less than dealerships And maybe we charge a little more than the average shop on the street And we do that so we can treat our employees right that comes first and our customers right as well Well, I don't think it's a good idea in the automotive space to try to be at the bottom dollar Kind of market. I just don't think that's a good idea. I think So in deeper we get reviews. They're like mango tried to charge me a hundred and sixty dollars My neighbor did that for a pack of beer You just can't you can't compete as a business owner and you know It's unfortunate that people go to price first when they when they're lacking something and when you're competing at the bottom You get the bottom level customers and anyone that does business or his own to business Realize the ones who offer you the least complain the most. Yeah So shoot for mid-market mid-market or higher luxury market if you can make it happen To know where you're at. So let's talk about the different locations on management because That's another heartburn I think that a lot of people have with scaling different locations as finding people that they trust that could be in charge of managing those Do you tend to hire or Elevate within the organization or do you bring an external on it? It's probably happened to both, but which you prefer? We have done both of course you prefer to hire someone inside of the organization if you can what's cool about being a Growing organization is you have a growing org chart and it gives people to a chance to elevate their careers That they might not have at a smaller organization and really cool to hire someone Making you know pennies and be able to bring them into a six-figure role Do they usually require the automotive technician type experience or is it more of a management character personality? you're looking for So my business partner says he'd write in the front he'd rather have someone with customer service experience than just Automotive if you have to go one way or another, but it takes time to obviously learn about automotive although less and less with I think the tools that we have in place Brian Yeah, I guess that would make sense because You can still have technicians that do the initial inspection kind of do the problem assessment So the technician level is always there anyways So the counter needs to be more to customer focused and the financial focused, I think We found that no matter what the role is the most important quality to us is a growth mindset Because if you have a growth mindset, I can train you to do it literally anything And if you think you already know everything, I can't train you to do anything that you can't already do And so we find that our employees that stay with us forever and are the best. employees are loved to learn and are willing to learn and we're willing to support them. We have Mango University where we really are, you know, we buy books and audiobooks for our employees, whichever ones they choose. Courses, we just, we try to promote their learning because the more they learn, the more it benefits us, but even if they leave us a rising tide rises, what does it go? Rising tide raises all ships. Yes, raises. That's the one. That's a good perspective. I've always felt that same way, just even leading a corporate in the businesses that I've owned is that employees, because a lot, there's like this scarcity mindset within owners that they're so fearful that people are going to learn things and leave. And I said, that's normal. And you probably, you probably did that in your own career. People learn more, they become more valuable. If you don't have what, you know, they need to be offered, they're going to go do something else. And I always looked at it when, when someone's coming in as an employee, you're basically the steward of that individual and your, your duty is to mentor them and make them the best version of themselves while they're in your, your proximity. Whether they decide to leave or stay is up to them, like you have no control over that, but I think as a leader, you're always going to have to invest to make that person individual. And that's worked in corporate as well. When I was in management and corporate, I know that these young engineers were going to come in and the young project managers were going to come in and they may not be there for two, three years. But I'm going to give them everything I got and they're, they're going to still go out and disperse out into the industry and speak highly of the people that mentored them and took care of them. Yeah. And when you get someone else, don't you think, don't you hope that that employee was mentored wherever they were? Absolutely. Absolutely. So pay it forward kind of like, you know, give people the opportunities that you had coming up as well, right? Yeah. So let's talk about the importance because everything we touched on is around culture. It seems like core values and culture dictate your success. Explain maybe some of the, how did you deal with that? You know, I'm sure you're coming into a business. There's already existing employees a lot of times. Sometimes people may be, you know, stubborn or they don't want the core values or they just don't really feel like they're going to fit in. Like that's a really challenging position for a lot of owners to be in. What's the best way if you've found to handle that? For us, we're, as it were, it's true. We're doing acquisition. We're acquiring a group of employees and our viewpoint is those employees are the most important part of that acquisition. That's essentially what we're buying is the crew. And we come in and part of it is that benefits. When the owner tells his crew, it's always been him. I hope to have cases of her, but I use him very quickly. When the owner tells his crew that he's retiring and we're taking it over, we're literally in the parking lot before they can go home and sleep on it and talk to their wife and look for another job. We want to be there to answer all their questions. So we say, look, like you've been an integral part of this business's success. We want to help you grow. We have these additional growth opportunities. We're going to pay you at least what you're making or better and we're going to add this slew of benefits. Will you please give us a chance? It's true that sometimes they're not always the right fit for mango. Those employees weed themselves out because when they're faced with a district manager or a manager who expects growth from them and that's not what they want, they're going to find a place that is a happier place for them to be. That's right. I think there's a better place for everybody. They're not happy with their ad for any reason. It's like we say set them free. Let them go figure out where they want to be. I've enjoyed the conversation and everything you brought to the table here. I think it's going to be very insightful for a lot of small business owners, especially in services. This isn't just applying to automotive. Everything you shared can be done in different industries and I think that's pretty cool information. It does feel like once you figure out one services business, you could do it any place. What do you have for your big goals with mango? Oh yes. I think that we're getting ready to hit a growth phase. I think you mentioned we went zero to eight figures in our first three years. We're going to try to hit zero to nine figures in the next five years. Are you going to do that for investment or any growth? Eight to nine figures in the next five years. Do you think that's going to happen through investment or more organic growth? How are you differentiating here? Are you going to do capital raises and seed round like all these different things to do the acquisitions or you're just going to grow it on your own cash flow? We have taken on some investors over the years and we'll continue to do so to grow rapidly. I think you've got to have some capital. Whether that comes from investors or bank funding, you can grow organically and you can get really big if you have lots of time. The way to press time is to have additional funding because you can only make so much profit at the size you're at and you can only invest so much profit in new businesses. If you're growing by acquisition or especially if you're brick and mortar but even if you have to either give yourself the time to do it or find the capital to do it. Those are two sides to the same coin and we will take some time, we'll take five years, but we will have to have some capital as well to get that done. Got it. Looks like you're getting into Texas without a pass so you're going to start moving east and hit Austin and Houston and all this. That's right, that's right, I told you I was in Austin last week. I love me. And your daughter is in Austin and she can manage on the rest. My daughter is in Austin and I got to get her a shop yet. Austin coming right up. My phone number still is 512 so I own that. There you go. You get the Austin Texas area code. That's right, take that home with me. So give some final advice to the listener that has been hearing all these great ideas. Maybe they're stuck in that researching phase and they've been doing it for years and they can't really pull the trigger to get going. Give them some advice. My advice is to just do it. I think the secret to success is to just do it. When other people walk up to a mountain and start assessing all the gear that they need, what they need to climb it, who they're going to bring along with them, all these things are important and must be done. But really, the person that's going to send that mountain is the person that starts putting one foot in front of another. And you've never climbed that mountain. You certainly don't have all the tools that you need to climb the mountain. But unlike climbing an actual mountain, you can find the tools in the people along the way. So in the people I think that are, I'll add to that. You put one foot in front of another and then when you are struggling, you find people to bring along the journey with you. To help you plug those holes. There was a time when I thought that I was, I needed to do all the design of a website and all the coding. And I only began to grow when I started handing those pieces away. And you can hire someone that is maybe can't do everything you do as well as you do it. But they can do that task better. That's right. Human resources specialist can hire better than I can hire my CFO can run a spreadsheet better than me. And without them, I couldn't, I couldn't be where I am, the business wouldn't be where it's at. So you got to give away some of your things. Yeah, I even think that from individual specialties and tasks that we're really only looking for someone that's 80%. If you think you're the best, like find someone that could do 80% of what you do and give them that task, you get that freedom, you get that time to work on other things are more important from an executive standpoint. When you can afford it, yeah, definitely hire people that's much better than you at those things. But 80% of it gets you, gets the tasks done and you don't have to focus on those things that are taking all your time. I hear that point on some tasks. And I, but I would argue back that it is not that hard to find someone that's better than you. If you're an entrepreneur, your trick is the wearing of many hats. It's for sure that you can do all of the things that, you know, you're willing to work 120 hour a week and get paid the same amount you were getting to work 40 hours for someone else because you're willing to do it for yourself. Right. But if you were to peel off one of those roles, it is not that I'm sorry, like you're good, but not that good. It's not that hard to find someone who's better at you than that in that one vertical. That's a definite, that's a good perspective shift. It's kind of like when people say, hey, you know, to be rich, you got to have seven streams of income and they go start seven businesses and none of them are profitable. I was like, now you're just one seventh of effective in any of these things and you're actually not doing anything. So it's actually worse than half-ass. Yeah, but the big thing is when you can afford it, right? And do you have to do it when you can't afford it? I remember when Brian and I had five shops. I'd been trying to hire an HR specialist because he was spending most of his week recruiting. And he was like, no, no, no, no, I don't want to do it. And we were in the back room of our fifth shop the day that it opened and I looked in his eyes. And for the first time I sought to spare. I said, okay, you're ready to hire that HR specialist. But he said, okay to me, but the reason that he was resistant is because we arguably could not afford it. I'm not HR specialist and we also hired a CFO. and shortly after a district manager, hiring those people meant that we could not pay ourselves a dollar anymore, but we have kids and that we must feed. So what we did was translate that to growth energy, right? So you trust in yourself enough that if you don't have to spend 30 hours recruiting, that you can take those 30 hours and turn them into dollars and you better do it quickly if you still want to feed your children. That's right. So you bet on yourself again, but you bet on yourself, you know, for the specific set of tasks that are most valuable, which is profit, grow. So hire that person that you can't afford if you're on the edge, right, and you're overwhelmed by your tasks and then make the money immediately to be able to afford them. It's a leap. It's always a leap. Growth is a leap. I love it. That's the entrepreneurship mindset right there. Building the airplane as you're flying, you know, jumping off the cliff and you're building it on the way down and you catch just enough air to stay afloat and then you get to the next journey and do it over and over and over. I love hearing about reinvestment back into the company. I think too many people try to create a lifestyle business right away and company never grows. And so kudos to you. It's been a great conversation. Enjoy this. Thanks. Nice meeting you, Tony. So guys, if you had any takeaways from this, definitely reach out to Jesse or myself and you can find them through the social media channels. Jesse, what's the best way for people to reach you? Okay. If you're in the automotive repair space and you want to chat, you can just text 505-4414-779. That is the best way to reach me. You could email me [email protected], but a little less likely to hear from me because that email inbox is busy, text the best way. A lot of noise going on. That's right. You can reach her out. Also on LinkedIn, that's where I found your profile. I won't respond to you there. The messages are bad from now. I don't know if in the inbox maybe once every quarter. It's not so spammy. It's a spam culture app for sure. Awesome. If you got something from this, share the show, tell your friends, family that need to hear this, give them some inspiration, give them tips. Those of you that have been struggling with your business, you heard some good advice on this one. Thanks for hanging out with us. We'll see you on the next episode. Go get 'em.