Interview with Jesse Jackson of Mango Automotive

Hi. This is Paul Zellizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps more people learn how to have positive impact through a values based business. Thank you. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to another New Mexico rock star.

I welcome Jesse Jackson, and our title today is crushing misogyny and building an auto repair empire.

Thanks, Paul. I love your late night radio DJ voice.

You like it, Okay. Well, good. It it helps to have a nice podcast, Mike, Dusty. I've been doing it long enough that I decided to invest. Jesse, you have not always been in auto repair and building an empire in that space. We're gonna get into all these awesome things you're doing, but, like, tell them, what what did you do before you got into auto repair?

In my deep background, I used to be environmental engineer, and then I was in product. So technology startups as chief product officer for for many years, which grew out of sort of a a career in user experience design. My the last software that I worked on was in the automotive space. And while I was in that space, I saw this huge opportunity to move into the brick and mortar space. Automotive repair is in the owners are an aging demographic that are looking to retire 6 out of 10 of them sometime in the next 10 years. And with sort of electric vehicles coming on to the the field, They've already undergone automotive trans or transformations, like the carbonated engine transformation, and a lot of them feel not up for the next transformation. So it is a space ripe with opportunity. And my both of my grandfathers had shops.

1 had a hitch repair shop, and 1 had had an aviation repair shop. So I happen to feel very comfortable in the back of a dirty, greasy automotive repair shop. Not that mine are dirty or greasy.

Well, we're gonna talk about that in a second. Yeah. So from, like, mobile apps and user experience to bricks and mortar and cars. And in addition to, like, seeing this demographic of, like, auto repair owners aging out and all the technology, our cars are, like, computers have wheels on them now. Right? Especially EVs. But there was another piece for you. There was a particular segment that you were like, you know, there are some people that when they go to get their car repaired, they don't get treated so well. Tell us about that part of the story.

Yeah. This is what's, well, so cool about working in the automotive space instead of technology, and probably cool about working in other services space is it's just right for transformation. So you have this space where over 65% of decision makers and aftermarket automotive repair is women. Yet, when you walk into most automotive repair shops, you don't want to sit down because the chair is so greasy. There's a pot of bird coffee, and probably 5 year old Sports illustrated sitting on the counter that you don't wanna look at. So going from that, you know, environment and saying, okay. Like, this in many ways, it certainly doesn't feel like the experience we should be offering in the year 2024 to all humans, you know, let alone women who do not wanna see your pinup posters in the shop.

Yeah. And so almost 2 thirds of decisions major decisions about car repair women. And your research as you were doing some market research and, listeners, hold on. I'll tell you how Jesse and I know each other in a second, and I I remember you telling me this when we met, that you did some market research and that, you know, women were charged more money, were not necessarily feeling like their questions were being answered. They weren't being treated with respect. Like, this was also it was, hey. Look at all these people who wanna get rid of their shops, and look at all these people that are having, like, a terrible experience with auto repair. And most of us, unfortunately, in 2024, 2025 need a car, at least in the US.

Our public transportation isn't very good in many cities. And you were like, that constellation of things made for an opportunity, to use your words, to build an empire. Is that fair to say?

This is literally crazy, Paul, and it really gets my go. Okay. I was born in the 19 eighties, and I grew up thinking I can do whatever I wanna do. It doesn't matter that I'm a woman. Like, the playing fields are totally equal, but that here we are in 2024, and that is just not the case. So it boggles my mind that women are, you know, potentially charged more and treated differently. Still still, I just I can't recover from it. And so you have to sort of my belief going into it was if we're gonna treat all humans equally, including women, we have to put women on both sides of the counter.

We have to employ women and men so that we can serve our customers that are women and men. So this is part of the transformation that we've made. In fact, at Mango Automotive, we employ 6 times the national average of women technicians, and we have about half of our front of house staff is is women. So we've invested very heavily in that, and I think it really comes through with our customers as well feeling like they can be be treated equally.

Right.

Paul, can I tell you a story?

Oh, totally tell me a story.

Okay. This just happened a couple of weeks ago, and I just it it feels unbelievable, but someone called our shop and and spoke with one of our service advisers who we just promoted to manager. She is amazing and was asking questions about having his headlight repaired. She said, you know, just bring it in. We'll it taken care of for you. And he said, I'm sorry. I need to speak with a man. And this just it made my blood boil and my brain explode.

And in our service advisers, I just was so impressed with her. She said, excuse me, so, sir, we are women owned. I've been in automotive for 10 years. I know what I'm talking about. And I felt like on that day, she just turned the climate for automotive repair, like, a little more into equality. Like, we're just trying to make our difference, our small difference on the earth here a bit, you know, in in eliminating gender bias and and discrimination. And I just I felt so proud of her and felt like this is what it's about.

Great story. Thanks for sharing that, Jesse. And, listeners, I should back up a little bit. I probably should have started this, but I I do a chat with every guest, so it feels like I know them a little bit. But Jesse and I know each other better than most. I'm the business coach for an accelerator here in Albuquerque. It's actually all throughout the US called SBA Thrive, but our Albuquerque cohort are awesome folks. Matter of fact, somebody I just interviewed last week, Rose Velasquez of Hiring Hub.

Big shout out to Rose. I interviewed Rose last week. I think we talked about the Thrive Accelerator there. But, anyway, Jesse and I know each other. So if I'm asking questions like, how did Paul know that? Well, because we're, like, coming towards the end of a pretty intensive 6 month program together. A bunch of awesome humans. So, anyway, full disclosure.

And Thrive Accelerator is cool for any business owners listening. It's sort of like a little mini MBA. So I know for me, I felt like, gosh, I've only been to the school of hard knocks. Wouldn't it be helpful to have some actual, like, information backing me? So it's been a cool experience to, you know, sort of compare my journey with real professionals, and they bring in different professionals in finance and law and marketing and learn some things there.

I'll put a link to Thrive. It's an awesome program. And if you qualify, it's free. It's It's paid for by the SBA. It's fairly intensive. 6 months, but you get to hang out with awesome people like Jesse and Rose. And it's in 71 cities in the US currently in Puerto Rico. So it's an awesome program all over the US.

Go check it out. Link in the show notes. So anything you could say, Jesse, that that confluence of, like, other the trades, there there's this general trend towards people who own trade, whether it's construction supply or, like, car repair or plumbing and electrical, like, these kind of businesses in general are aging out, and you were like, I want to go into that, and I particularly wanna go in to auto repair to help women have a better experience, and also women who wanna have careers in this industry to be treated well. You did a bunch of research, and anybody who listens to podcast knows I'm a big fan of market research. Anything you could say? Like, how formal was your research? Was it, like, just chatting with some folks? Were you, like, deep into, like, spreadsheets? Like, what did what did Jesse's mind, like, do in terms of trying to understand this market opportunity that you can articulate so well to us now?

Okay. Well, I was lucky in that the software I was working for was sort of in the automotive space. So being in product, I mean, product does a lot of research, so this was happening. I was preparing, I guess, for my next step in my career while I was still in that space. So definitely just like researching trends in the area, but for this comes from my product background, from my user experience background. You know, a lot of it was was real life conversations, both with, you know, owners and I shouldn't call them users because I'm not in software anymore, but customers in the space.

Drivers? Can we call them drivers?

Yes. Car owners. So, like, looking at the broad, like, industry wide trends, but there's only so much data. Like, you wanna get data, we're in Albuquerque. So if you wanna get data about automotive repair and Albuquerque, it's pretty limited. So you sort of have to experience it and talk to people on both sides to to figure out what's going on there.

Cool. And so far, it's been a pretty robust ride. Like, when did you launch or when did you launch Mango Automotive? Was it 3 years ago or not quite?

Not quite 3. Yeah. December 27, 2021, we opened our 1st shop. We did $5,000 in 2021. We grew by over 300% in in that 1st year, and I just was looking at our October numbers From October of 2023 to October 2024, we more than doubled our monthly revenue.

Wow. And as we're recording, as we're recording in early November, it'll go live sometime in December. Right now, you have 5 shops. So so in less than 3 years, you've opened up 5 shots shops, and I'm told I'm not you're not allowed to tell me where they are, but there's a couple more in consideration. That's pretty robust growth. Not quite 3 years, 5 on the ground, up and running, and several more with an empire, like, coming soon. Right? Is that is that fair description of where things are right now?

Yeah. For sure. I think we're looking to do 10 shops over the next 12 to 18 months. We have one set to close next month and one the following month. We're already a 10 figure business. So if you don't mind, Paul, I'll just I'll sort of give a little plug for how I learned to do

acquisitions. Please. Please. Please. Yeah. This is the single biggest question we got is how are people scaling? What are their scaling strategies? So, yes, I do not mind at all.

For sure. So when I was still working with the software company that we sold to private equity, I was also pregnant with our 6th child. And my husband kept telling me, you gotta take this course called epic with Roland Frasier. It's on acquiring business. I said, babe, like, I do not have time for that. Like, I am the CPO of this business. We're getting ready to sell, and I am pregnant, like, very pregnant. Will you please back off? Because the context is my husband has a PhD from MIT.

He is a lifelong learner. So this was, like, a course out of you know, he's always recommending a course. Like, he's always learning and recommending something. So I just said I don't have time. I don't have time. The baby was born. I was on maternity leave, and then he kept hounding on this one course. Like, with Roland Frasier, I was like, you know what? If you get off my back, I'm gonna take this one course.

It was, you know, their challenge is a week long, so it's like a couple of hours you commit. I had the time to do it. So I I took this course, and I had already sort of, like, wanted to move into brick and mortar. And so what's interesting about Roland's course is it's really about, like, acquiring businesses for $0 out of pocket. So it's I mean, he taught me everything I know I coach for his program now, and it has just, like, it I mean, it's completely transformed my life. Right? Like, from being an employee, like, chief product officer, like, being in the really hard grind of startups where you put your blood, sweat, and tears in and you might or might not have an exit. I mean, I did that for 15 years to, like, now I'm acquiring something that's already profitable. It's it's just been, like, so cool.

So that's how we've grown. I mean, growing through acquisitions is the fastest way I know how to grow. Right? Like, you we're also focused on growing each business individually, each location individually. Right? But every time we tack on a new shop, we grow. You know, know, in the beginning, it was double, triple. Right? Now it's not quite so big, but certainly, like, quite significant.

Beautiful. And, again, I have some inside information. You didn't stop at 6 kids. You kept going. Right?

That 7th just happened. I he just snuck in there.

Just snuck in. So 7 kids, soon to be 7 locations. Right? And

Oh, that's right. That'll be a moment for me.

That that'll be a moment. Right? That's a that's a lot of children, both literally and metaphorically. Right?

Yeah. It sure is.

So I'll put a link to that course on acquisitions. That sounds really awesome. But what would you say, like, now that you've, you know, 5 completed, several more, you know, right now under discussion and a few more coming down on the coming down the pike pretty soon. If you if somebody was gonna, like, give me your top three tips for acquisitions if that is gonna be your growth strategy, what have you learned about doing that well?

Okay. I have I'm gonna take it back a step because because I coach in acquisitions, I have found that the hardest part for people and that wanna grow their businesses through acquisitions is to make the decision to do so and to decide what they want to acquire. So there is a huge mental leap that you have to make into thinking of yourself as an investor and someone who can make acquisitions. So most of the time people get hung up in this sort of mental, you know, gymnastics that they're trying to do to, like, move into that space. I think, you know, once you've decided you're gonna do acquisitions, you know what you want to acquire is now this is kind of the easy part. Right? I mean, the idea is find off market deals, reach out to 3 to 5 business owners a day is, you know, a 106 weeks. So just be consistent in reaching out to these business owners, and try to understand what that business owner needs and wants. So if you call a 100 business owners, 97 of them are don't wanna talk to you, are not gonna sell their business.

Maybe I should go with 90 of them. Right? 10 of them will have a conversation with you, and you'll end up with 1 to 3 deals. But what's really key is you're helping these people. So you're not taking something from them. 1 of the shops that we purchased, the owner called me up and he said, Jesse, let's go to dinner. So I gathered my business partner. We brought our spouses. I said, Tom, what's this dinner about? Said a year ago, you called me for the first time, and I had been praying for you for 2 years and you were the answer to prayer.

I had been just waiting to figure out, like, how I could retire from my business and I didn't know how to do it and then you called me. I said, Tom, don't you miss the shop? You worked there for 35 years every day. And he said, you know, I thought I was gonna miss it, but I have not had time to miss it. I'm really enjoying my

life.

So when you're doing acquisitions, you're helping someone who wants to exit from their business whether it's because they're getting divorced, they need to move to Florida, who knows the reason. They're a motivated seller. And you're helping them to move on with the next stage of their life. So you're not out there taking something from someone. You're giving them a gift of of being able to, you know, go someplace else in their life.

Great. I love that thinking. So let's do this. Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, I wanna hear a little bit more about some of your impact goals. Like, has this really made difference for women on both sides? Right? Both women who work for you and also the women who are your customers. Also wanna hear about a little bit more about the empire because, like, this is a big part of the pitch when I said, Jesse, what do you wanna talk about? You're like, I'm gonna talk about crossing misogyny and building an empire. So I wanna hear more about building an empire and just hold that thought because I wanna take a break and hear a word from our sponsor.

Are you passionate about making a difference but feeling stuck on how to take your mission driven business to the next level. You don't need a lengthy coaching program. You need targeted advice from someone who understands the unique challenges that social entrepreneurs face. With my strategy session package, we'll focus on your most pressing decisions, whether it's clarifying your value proposition, optimizing your marketing strategy, launching a new product or service, or adjusting your pricing to align with your mission. These sessions are perfect when you know the direction you wanna go, but you need someone with the experience to help you get there. If you're ready to unlock your potential and amplify your impact, book your strategy session now. The link is in the show notes. So welcome back, everybody.

I'm here with Jesse Jackson, and we are talking about crushing misogyny and building an auto repair empire. And I wanna get into a little bit of that both parts of that title, a little more nuance, Jesse. So talk to us a little bit. We we mentioned it real quick, but when you're talking about the impact on women, and this was one of your big goals, talk to us a little bit about what are women who work for Mango and what are the men who work for Mango? What what's it like to work for Mango, and how is that fit into your goal of making auto repair a more female friendly environment?

Well, I well, you know, I think oh, first of all, a lot of what we built, I really wanna attribute to my business partner and our district manager and our HR specialist, so the whole team who who has sort of and and even our in shop managers who have short sort of, like, brought what is the mango culture. I I think we want to have fun and, you know, not be around assholes and make money. And you're thinking like, okay. How does this have anything to do with, like, women in automotive repair? I mean, I think it's sort of this this sort of, like, fundamentals. I don't care if that's a woman who's your manager or a woman on the counter or a woman technician in the back. Like, we're having fun, and we're all treating each other with respect. So it doesn't matter how much that technicians are hard to come by and they're very valuable. So, you know, if that technician is making us a a ton of money, but they they can't sort of get behind the culture of having fun because they're not treating someone right, especially a woman.

Like, we're we're not we don't tolerate that. So we are willing to make financial sacrifices at for this the sake of our culture, which a huge part of that culture is is equality and, you know, fairness, especially when it comes to gender.

Yeah. And what's it like even in the description? You know, I looked at LinkedIn. You're very forward about the EV revolution. And and, you know, if we look at America as a whole, pretty ambivalent. Right? Can we just be honest about that? Like, Americans, some really love their whatever brand of EV that they have, but a lot of Americans have been really reluctant. And and yet you're very much planting your flag that the EV evolution, revolution, whatever term we wanna call for, is a significant opportunity. Talk to us a little bit about and and also when you hear a lot of folks in the trades, like, in the auto repair, it's like something to be afraid of or like a pain in the butt. Oh, god.

Now I gotta get more training, and it's so complicated, and there's batteries and, Yeah. There's no carburetor on this thing. Whatever. Right? And and you see it as a real opportunity. How is what's happening in the world of transportation and particularly the electrification of it? How come you're thinking about it very differently than a lot of folks in the auto repair and just the automotive industry altogether?

I think I try to take a note from the technology sector, which is how quickly you can become irrelevant if you're not looking to the future. Right? One example of that is Kodak, of course, who, you know, essentially disappeared because they weren't thinking about what future technologies will come down the pipe. So and how we think about electric vehicles is all of the data and signs point to this being in our future. We could have a debate about whether that's 10 years or 30 years down the line, but I I think the the data points to it being part of our future. So as a company, we've just made a decision that, you know, whether it's electric vehicles or hydrogen vehicles, we're gonna work on them. And we're gonna be sort of forward thinking and forward leaning so we we don't then become irrelevant. Yeah.

And how would you say that Mango has we've gotten some great stories about what it's like to work there as a woman and just the culture in general. What are you hearing from your customers? How is it different for a woman customer to needs to get her car repaired, to go on a Mango? Like, what is what are you hearing from women who bring their cars to you all?

Okay. On January 18, 2022, which was a mere two and a half weeks after we opened our doors, 3 weeks, I guess, we got a review that said, finally, exclamation mark, exclamation mark, a place where a girl can take her car and not worry about getting ripped off. She goes on. And it sort of talks about our our clean seating area, how she felt welcome, how our service advisor who was, you know, a man helped her, who was professional. And we get these kinds of reviews regularly. And when I read that review, I thought, gosh. We're only 3 weeks deep, and already, like, what we've done, someone has seen it and felt it and left a review about it. Right? So this these kinds of reviews are like they are they tell me that we're doing exactly what we need to be doing and that we're sort of hitting our goals.

But I think one of the first things we did to change the experience is just to change the lobby. So we literally have a pink wall, and I refer to the lobby transformation as the pink wall effect. Right? We have a pink wall. We have drinks you actually wanna drink. We have essential oils diffusing into the air, like soft music playing, so it's more like a spa effect or some some place that a person would not be afraid to sit down and, you know, pull out their laptop if they're hanging out for a while or just feel comfortable in this space. Yeah. And I think this elevates the automotive experience, right, from what we talked about before, which is, like, the Sports Illustrated on the counter and the pot of burnt coffee and grease all over the place. You know, probably a stinky lobby.

So we're I think when you change the the physical space around you, it has an an effect on how we feel when we enter that space. So there's the culture that we we build with our employees to make sure that everyone is treated with equality, and then there's, you know, the physical upgrade of the space where where people can feel comfortable in that space.

I'm imagining, like, it's almost like bringing my car in for it needs to get a manicure or pedicures. I know. I'm kidding.

There is actually I can't remember where it's located, but there's actually an automotive repair shop that's owned by a woman that is called, like, the car spa

or something. Exactly.

I I love it. I think

That's awesome. The car spa. I love it.

We also try to, you know, think about the busy professional and what they might need or want. We have a VIP program, which for those customers, we will will come get your car at your office where you are now, fix it, bring it back to you, hand you your keys.

Very,

very. So it sort of caters to the busy professional or a parent or anyone who doesn't have time to drop off their vehicle.

Speaking of that, Jesse, I was just thinking, like, that that that flavor of the waiting room you're talking about with grease on the seats and all that, there's there's a kind of a if you look at the research, when young people are thinking about their careers, they're rethinking bias against more bricks and mortar. Like, for a while, everybody wanted to be creating a SaaS product. That was, like, the goal of life was the the unicorn. It was like, you know, like, tech is is better than or medicine, you know, high-tech medicine. And and we're seeing a change in young people's mindsets towards trades and towards activities that, you know, you get your hands dirty, but you don't necessarily not get paid well. These the because some of the factors you were describing, a lot of auto repair owners are aging out, a lot of plumbers, a lot of electricians, these careers are becoming incredibly well paid, and there's also like, you're describing, there's a lot of technology in these fields that more so than there used to be in the past. What would you say to a young person who's kind of, like, maybe surrounded by some folks who have a little bit of that mindset of, like, the something they wanna do that's more bricks and mortar or more get your hands dirty, and they wanna sync it up with impact, but maybe they're not getting a lot of support from some of the adults in their lives for going in this direction. What would you say to somebody in that situation?

So interesting because my daughter is 17, and she in New Mexico, you can essentially go to school halftime your senior year if you've acquired enough credits. So she gets out of school around 11 AM, and then she goes to to work at one of our shops, and she's been learning to change oil and change brakes. And she's a kid who was in middle school during the pandemic, so she was staring at a computer for 8 hours a day, and she very much does not want her career to be staring at a computer. Some of the I I think we sort of call these, like, unsexy industries, like automotive repair is not sexy. Like, HVAC is not sexy. And these being in a business owner and these spaces are some of the most profitable small and medium sized businesses. So I think there's, you know, a real space to go into one of these services industries and carve out quite a quite a good life for yourself being a business owner and sort of how you get there is learning the business especially if you're young. Not only that, maybe you don't wanna own a business.

You, you know, wouldn't be hard pressed to find a 6 figure job in in the trades, certainly in automotive. So I think it's a real it's a meaningful job. It's feels good, I know, to my daughter to work with her hands and not be staring at a screen, and I think that might be the case for a lot of young people. And I didn't grab the stats, Paul, but maybe you know them. But there is a stat that a lot more people who even have bachelor's degrees are going back to school in the trades. Yeah. So I'm pumped that things are coming back around. You probably know more than me.

I know we have, like, a program through CNM that's, like, automotive tech. And so, you know, your local university, your college might have a program like this. And college degrees, I don't know what you think about them, Paul. It's very interesting. For me, my degree was environmental engineering. I loved getting my degree. I loved, like, deriving Bernoulli's equate equation, figuring out how the world worked. And then I got put in an office with a computer program that did all the fun calculations for me, and I thought it was, you know, quite disappointing.

So I think of oftentimes when I'm talking to my kids as education being valuable no matter where you get it or what topic it is in even if you don't use it. It. Right? Like, you could argue, like, I'm not using Bernoulli's equation or basically anything else in environmental engineering, but I learned how to think. I learned how to create formulas. So it's sort of a stepping stone. So, I mean, I think it's super cool when kids are, you know, choosing the trades. It's a super cool space for them to be in. You can make money both as an employee and be a successful business owner.

Absolutely. I don't have those stats, but I've heard the same trends that you're describing, Dessie, the young people, not all, but that there's more willingness to look at the trades. And, yeah, like, CNM is a great example. CNM stands for Central New Mexico College here. It's in Albuquerque general area, but many, many locations have a great community college. And many of them, even if the program you're thinking of doesn't exist, they're open to hearing about it. Again, some of our training institutions in New Mexico, New Mexico is a very in addition to solar, which most people think about, most people haven't thought about New Mexico as a wind incredibly wind. There there's a lot of resources here for that.

And if you go back 5 years ago, there were way more need for people to work on windmills and installing windmills than we had, and several institutions kinda got tapped on the shoulder. Hey. If you would do this, this would be really good for the New Mexico economy. That's just one just one example of something that's scaled up really fast in the past 5 years. So if it doesn't exist now, and you're like, hey. In my area, it'd be great to have an auto repair or an auto repair that, you know, was EV welcoming and focused and and not, you know, thinking of working on the cars from the fifties and the technology of the past. Go go talk to some of the leaders in those institutions. At least in my experience, they've been incredibly open to suggestions in New Mexico to Yeah.

New new training programs. Right?

Yeah. For sure. I think we stare at computers so much, even our kids in education. You might in this computer we carry in our pockets, you almost begin to think that this is the real world. But at the end of the day, like, your house still needs a roof, and your car has to run. Like, we do actually exist in the physical world as much as our minds get pulled into this digital world. So those jobs are are not going away.

Absolutely. So, again, going back to your LinkedIn profile, on there, you're talking about scaling up to a $100,000,000 plus business. Like, you got big goals. This is the building the empire part of things, Jesse. Like, talk to us. So 3 years, you're like 5 shops up and running. I don't even know how many employees you have. You've got 2 more in the works, all this while raising 7 kids, by the way, listeners.

I'm still very taken by that, Jesse. Give it give us a sense, like, where do you think Mango's gonna be 5 years from now? What's the empire look like?

I yeah. Good question. I'm doing some mental math. I mean, I I think over the next 3 to 5 years, we should see 10 shops a year. So I I think we'll be solidly in the 50 range. There was as you're

say 10 shops. It's almost one new shop a month is the goal.

Mhmm. Yeah. So we've we've made some hires to sort of allow that to happen. I think in the beginning when you're scaling, okay, you have one shop. It's, like, fine. And then for us, we got 2 at the same time, so then we had 3. I was like, oh, maybe we should have some SOPs. Like, let's get those in place.

Let's wait a minute. And then we got 45. My business partner and I were doing finance, HR, management of all the shops, everything. And so then there's a moment we were finally big enough to hire, and we were like, okay. If we're gonna scale, like, we we can't like, I can't be running our Google Ads anymore, which I definitely was doing. And so we made some key hires, and now it feels like we really have the team in place to take us, I mean, from, you know, 5 to 50 shops because it's a little bit duplicative now. Right? Like, we have a DM in place. So we have one meeting with that DM a week.

So I'm like, okay. So when we have 20 shops, we'll have 2 DMs. So does that feel doable? Like, yes. Like, we already have the SOPs in place, and we're creating, you know, additional SOPs all the time. We have the core team in place. So I think this this next growth won't be so hard as the 0 to to 10 figure growth, but, you know, I don't know what I don't know. So maybe you'll have me back on 3 years.

Oh, totally. We'll see how big the empire is 3 years from now.

Right? Everything I said was wrong. Actually, 8 figures to 9 figures was the real hard part. That was the easy part.

Now it says cruising along and right. Yeah. So if our listener if we have a listener who's, like, in that earlier journey, like, maybe they have one location or they're working on their 1st or their second. Right? You're at 5 with 6 and 7 falling into line right now. What would you recommend to somebody who's in that, you know, initial? Like, they've got it up and running. They've got some degree of proof of concept, and now they're in the very early stages of scaling. I heard you mentioned SOPs, standard operating procedures listeners, at least 7 times already, so that might be one suggestion you have. What what what would you suggest to somebody who's just kinda coming out of proof of concept and alright.

Alright. There's some there's some here here. Now let's scale this.

Yeah. I think I'm not sure that this applies to the exact scenario you presented, but at every stage in my career where I've experienced really significant growth, I have hired myself out. And so whether that's been I mean, in automotive repair, you know, bringing on a manager, now bringing on a deputy CFO, bringing on a marketing team, and that leap always feels scary. But I encourage you to as soon as you can make the leap and be at breakeven because there's a financial moment when you can't make the leap. Right? And then there's a moment where that feels scary, but you can make it. You just have to make sure you keep running afterwards. That's really, I think, what allows growth. Right? I I cannot, like, look for a new acquisition and run our marketing ads and, you know, do our p and l review and do our hiring.

Like, one can only be extended so far. So hire someone who's better than you at that skill, and then free yourself up to put your, you know, energy and efforts into growth, whatever that means, whether that's acquisition, you know, or scaling. And preferably, hire yourself out of the things you're bad at first because at first, you're doing everything. So find your weakest link, hire yourself out. But the especially hard part is, eventually, you will have to hire yourself out at what's your best at. Now, like, don't give up. Make sure you're always doing things you love, but eventually, if your strength is being a service adviser or a tech, you are and you want growth in your business, you will have to hire yourself out for that, and that will be painful. I remember when I had I hired my first developer.

I brought him on full time, and I was like, he's just not gonna do it. Right? There's no way he can do it like I did it.

And then he did. Right?

Way better. And then, of course, he was way better than me. I was, you know, wrong.

So to to really let yourself lean into coming into CEO status, and that's that's something we talk a lot about Thrive. The whole Thrive program is about going from owner operator, small business owner to CEO thinking, and the idea of it being an MBA equivalent, a lot of folks who have really strong subject matter expert expertise, like really good at car at auto repair or marketing or whatever you do, at some point, you don't wanna be the baddest subject matter expert. You wanna be the CEO, and you can't be both. Right? Is that fair to say it?

Yes. It's true. Well, you can for a while. But You

can, but you're probably gonna you're gonna do a less than optimal job or suck at both of them, and that's not the goal here. Right?

You'll keep yourself small for sure.

Exactly. Exactly. Awesome. So let's talk a little bit about the impact part of the story. So this idea of pairing up bricks and mortar, like, knowledge intensive, get your hands dirty kind of a business that is very profitable because Americans have been so kind of, you know, some disdain towards businesses like that, not replacing it, not training young people for it. There's incredible opportunity. And when you hitch that up to an impact goal in terms of your goal, Jesse, helping women, empowering women, transportation's an essential part of thriving in your life and in your career. Like, anything you could say about that particular sort of pairing of a very kind of high touch, knowledge intensive, more trades oriented business with a robust impact, make the world better impact area and putting those two things together.

What have you learned about that?

I think I sort of mentioned this or alluded to it earlier, Paul, but for me okay. Technology is there's constant innovation. Like, things are changing really fast in terms of apps, and it's I don't know. It's in a way a dog eat dog world there. I think that in the trades and any industry who hasn't experienced significant change, like automotive is a 150 year old industry, and it's really caught in gender bias. So I think it is easy or simpler to make an impact in this industry than it would have been where I was in technology. Right? And I I'm hopeful that Mango will have a big impact on on eliminating gender bias in this industry. But, really, it's it's about the tiny wins.

It's about that story I told you earlier where my service adviser explained that she was competent, and at the end of the call, he apologized. And I know that he will never call our shop and ask for a man again, and I hope that he will never call any shop and ask for a man again. So everything we do, every hiring decision that we try to bring in quality to and eliminate our gender bias, Like, every interaction that we have with a customer where we treat them fairly, it's it's a slow game. Right? It's the sum of tens of thousands of interactions, mostly not by me. Right? Mostly by my team, and it really flows down from having a vision and a mission about what we're doing. And I think people care. It's also interesting. Like, people come to us because we're women owned and that's sort of, you know, uncommon.

And as they hear about what we're doing, people care in this day and age, like, that you're making an impact. And it's not I think when you it can feel like this grandiose mountain that we might that we have to climb. But really, it's just about setting the stage for your mission and bringing your team back to this mission over and over again. Reminding the team, reminding your employees, like, what we're what we're here for. I think it makes our customers and our employees more sticky, and and there are losses. We give things up. You know, it's not always easy. You you sometimes make a hard, you know, decision, but everyone knows why you're making it and and what you're doing.

And I hope that you know, it's one customer that didn't have a bad day because, you know, a man at the shop, you know, didn't mansplain to them. It's, you know, one employee that is excited and happy to come to work because they get to work with other, you know, women in the shop or just have a happy environment. So it's it's the sum of tens of thousands of tiny interactions trying to make a difference.

Love that. You've you've been getting to tell all the stories. I wanna tell a story, Jesse. A different kind of story, but I think it's an awesome win as well. So I was doing some volunteer work with a group that I volunteer with, and one of the other volunteers pees out. He's a queer man. He's a queer man of color, and we were talking about Mango Automotive because it wasn't that far from where we were volunteering. He said, I love that place.

I bring my car there. And I we had been through Thrive, and and he asked me what I know. And I told him about, you know, I knew you and the whole story of the impact area of helping women. He's like, I had no idea. I didn't know it was women owned. I didn't know that that was part of all I know is that they're always really nice. They treat me great, and they, like, take care of my car with no drama. And now I'm even more excited about them.

So so I love some of the stories you're telling, and the thing I liked about that is he didn't come because of your impact there. He came because he heard you were a place that could fix his car without drama and not overcharge him. Right? And, you know, him being a queer man of color, I think he felt inclusive in in your culture as well, but nobody sat him down. It's not like it was the reason he came to you. He was looking for a quality place to get his car fixed, and sometimes that's hard to find. And then when he heard that there was also this really cool impact mission, he got even more. He's like, I gotta tell all my friends. Right? I haven't seen him since then about whether he did, but the look on his face was just so telling that he was so excited that there was this other element that was not just is this the, like, cool place where they're gonna take care of me and not overcharge me and they're gonna treat me well? But, also, there's this impact thing that just really it said something to me.

So I thought that was an awesome story too.

I love that he felt it before he knew what was

going on. His his left brain had no idea that was going on, but some part of it was like, I don't know what's going on over there, but it's kinda cool. Right? And, like, he calls it, like, auto repair. He's like, that makes sense. Who would call it Mango Automotive? Like, I what was up with that anyway? Right? Like, anyway.

That's funny. I love it. That's so that makes me happy. If we just uplift everyone, you know, a little a little bit who interacts with us. I mean, it's not fun. It's like going to the doctor. Like, no one wants to bring their car in.

Right.

Maybe it's better if if we pick up your car and drop it off for you, but, you know, it's like, let me take time out of my day and spend money to, like, get my brakes repaired, but it's it's sort of necessary. So it makes me happy that it maybe brought a little bit of happiness into his day.

It totally did. Well, Jesse, I could hang out with you all day. I know you're super busy, and our listeners are too. If there was something you were hoping we were gonna get to and we haven't touched on it yet, or there's something you wanna leave our listeners with as we start to say goodbye, what would that be?

Well, I would like to encourage all of you, especially those of you who are underrepresented to think about acquiring or businesses if you're not a business owner, because, you you know, what I talk about in automotive repair is having people on both sides of the table that look different. We we desperately need that in the business world as well. In the business world and the finance world, I mean, whether we're talking about, like, private equity, VCs, or even, like, CEOs of, you know, top 500 companies, we're desperately missing it. And so we need everyone's contribution to to bring themselves to the table in those spaces so that and it's hard. It's hard. You know? I can speak for myself. It's hard being a woman in automotive. Sometimes my business partner who's a man, he has to call another, you know, shop owner because they literally won't talk to me.

Like, we have one landlord who thinks I'm a complete idiot and ask for him every time. Like, it can be difficult. So if you're doing the work, keep doing the work. And if you're interested, you know, the world needs you. Our country needs you to to sort of step up and take that next step. And, well, I personally would love to support you, especially, you know, if you're a a woman trying to make acquisitions or get into the finance world, I mean, I would I would do whatever I could to to help support. So go go be the fullest version of yourself because because we sure need it.

K. Jesse, if somebody wants to get a hold of you, I heard a couple things. They might wanna get a hold of you to get their car fixed. They might wanna get a hold of you to get some help with acquisition coaching. How how should they do that?

Well, if you wanna get your car fixed, you can make an appointment at mangoautomotive.com or call any of our shops, but it's just a few clicks to make an appointment on our website. So that's pretty cool. If you wanna chat, my email is jesse@mangoautomotive.com.

Cool. And listeners, I will put links to all of that in the show notes. Jesse, thank you so much for sharing your journey with us, all your great tips. It's been just an honor to be in Thrive cohort with you, and I'll share you with some of our listeners.

Thanks, Bob.

Great. So, listeners, let's do we go do tell your friends is an awesome example of impact in a way that I hadn't quite heard before. So, please, if you know somebody who could benefit from hearing this message, please share the episode with them. And speaking of episodes, we love when listeners suggest topics and guests. If you have an idea, please go to the AwarePreneur's website. And on our contact page, we have 3 simple guidelines. We try to be really transparent about what we're looking for. If you think it's a fit, please send your ideas in.

Lastly, I wanna say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times, and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.