Ep 152: She Grew from Zero to Eight Shops in Four Years?? | Jesse Jackson

0:00to just call upon Elon Musk. Like he says, you know, it's like being the CEO is sort of like eating glass because you get all the worst problems come to you. So you're just eating glass all the time. But I don't know, I wouldn't have it any other way. You are only limited by your creativity. You're listening to the Limitless Leadership Podcast, the podcast designed to help automotive repair shops learn how to lead, coach, train, and manage their team better by sharing proven techniques and thought provoking interviews from industry leaders.

0:34Are you ready to transform your leadership skills by tapping into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results? Let's get ready for liftoff. It's time to go from great to greater. Here's today's episode. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Limitless Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Parnell, and before we get started, don't forget to like, comment, subscribe. Do all the things you need to on social media to help this podcast impact people and build leaders.

1:06And speaking of leaders, I'm joined by a fantastic leader, one who I've been excited to interview. I was actually surprised to, to hear about maybe having her as a guest on the podcast, but she is the CEO and founder of Mango Automotive. Our guest today is my friend, Jessi Jackson. Jessi, thank you for being here. What's up, Josh? What's up, Jessie? Love the J's there.

1:29All the J's, all the J's. Well, Jessie, if you would, go ahead and share with our audience who you are, what you do, and how you do it. I'm Jessie, the founder of Mango Automotive, and we have grown from zero to eight figures in three years, and now we're at eight shops. So zero to eight shops in four years, and it's been, you know, it's been a fun ride.

1:53It's been pretty quick. I think when you, you know, look at the trajectory of most shops and how fast they grow. In fact, I applied to an SBA program that's sort of like a little mini MBA that the SBA runs for free, and they called me up after I put in my application and told me that they thought that my application was fake, that the numbers were made up because they never— wow— that quickly.

2:21So that's sort of— we've grown primarily through acquisitions. So that's the power of acquisitions. And I, I, we can talk later, Josh, but now I'm also doing something in, in the co-op space where I think your listeners who are shop owners, it could give them an opportunity to sell for a much higher multiple than they might currently be trading at. Excellent. So we will definitely address that later on in this conversation.

2:46I'll first ask you, Jessie, what got you into this industry? Promotive believes great shops deserve great technicians, and they built a recruiting model designed specifically to deliver that. Their team understands today's technician landscape and the challenges shops face trying to hire in a tight labor market. Promotive manages the entire recruiting effort from start to finish. They source talent proactively, qualify candidates with intention, and maintain clear communication with both sides.

3:10Shops get a faster process, better alignment, and far fewer surprises. Shops rely on Promotive because they're not a job board or a software tool. They're real recruiting partners who show up and follow through. Their focus is on long-term success, not short-term transactions. To connect with them or begin your next search, visit gopromotive.com, book a call, start a search, and see how Promotive helps build stronger teams.

3:34It's no secret in our industry that speed of service sells. As our world moves faster, instant gratification isn't a want, it's an expectation. It's proven that the faster you communicate with your guest after they hand over their keys, the higher your close ratio and ARO is. This critical window is called your golden hour. And let's be real, it's hard to achieve when you're buried in essential tasks.

3:54That's where Golden Hour Garage comes in. By partnering with their team of industry professionals across the US, you can truly own your golden hour. Golden Hour provides a virtual estimate building, extended warranty, fleet claim processing, loaner advisors, and hands-on partner support so your team can focus on the guest experience and profit growth. Book a discovery call today. Limitless Leadership listeners receive 10% off their first 3 months.

4:17Funny story, but I mean, I think I grew up in the shop world. Like, one of my grandfathers owned a hitch shop and my other grandfather owned an aviation repair shop, so maybe that felt comfortable to me. But really, my trajectory went from environmental engineering to product, like B2B software, and then the last software that I was in just happened to be in the automotive space.

4:42So I knew a ton about the space and saw an opportunity to help owners essentially retire out of their brick-and-mortar automotive repair shops as the industry is undergoing, you know, yet another transformation, however fast or slow, into the possible electric vehicle world. And so I, I made the leap into acquiring brick-and-mortar automotive repair shops for fun. Josh, for fun. For fun. Well, that you, you use that word fun to describe the, the ride so far, the ride being from zero to eight figures.

5:17In 3 years and 0 to 8 locations in 4 years. And you said it's been a fun ride. I can also imagine it's probably been other adjectives other than fun. Can you describe what it's been like to be a part of that rapid exponential growth in a short amount of time? Look, Josh, I have 7 kids and now I have 8 shops.

5:36I do not like to be bored, so I love me some thrill. I think for me, acquiring automotive repair shops is just where I've been getting my kicks. Like we all have to have our thing that excites us. So, but yeah, I mean, to, uh, to just call upon Elon Musk, like he says, you know, it's like being the CEO is sort of like eating glass because you get all the worst problems come to you.

6:06So you're just eating glass all the time. But I don't know, I wouldn't have it any other way. And that having fun is sort of like part of the culture we built. Because I've been, you know, at jobs where I wanted to cry every day, and life is too short. I don't want to have that experience in my life, and I don't want our employees to have that experience.

6:26I mean, it's not all rainbows and unicorns. Like, life is hard. But at the end of the day, I want it to be a place where people enjoy being because they spend a lot of hours there. I love, I love that concept. I love the fact that that is one of the things that's important to you. Um, fun is actually one of the core values limitless leadership as well.

6:47Um, especially in an industry like, it's, it's a dark industry, like let's call it what it is. I mean, there's a lot of negativity, there's a lot of toxicity, there's a lot of jaded, frustrated people, um, who, who have never known what it's like to, to be a part of an environment where it's a healthy culture, where fun is a part of the equation.

7:06What is it like to instill this level of fun and other amazing pieces that you do with your brand that creates a culture. You've created and cultivated a culture where people want to be a part of it. It's not like your typical, and I shouldn't say typical, but I'll say we're familiar with other shops and we look at it and we're like, oh, I could never be a part of that organization.

7:32How is Mango different? Yeah, I think a typical shop, I'm sure none of your listeners, but you know, a shop that I have been to, you walk in, there's a pot of burnt coffee on the counter and a couch that has oil stains on it and a 10-year-old Sports Illustrated that's offending over 65% of your customers. And then in the back, the owner's screaming at the tax and threatening them and they don't have health insurance.

8:04There's hardly any other benefits. So I think in that way, Elevating both the customer and employee experience is pretty straightforward, right? Like, there's no magic to having a waiting room that people actually feel comfortable sitting down in and treating your employees with respect and offering them benefits. This isn't like some revolutionary idea. It's just deciding that it should be applied in our industry.

8:38You mentioned 7 kids, 8 locations. I mean, I feel like you're start— you're gonna have 8 kids to match the 8. Look, I mean, I don't— I know we lived in the 7 and 7 world for— how long was I there? For almost a year, which was cute. But no, we've— it was cute. They will never match again. Yeah. Okay. My wife and I have 4 kids, and I know how hard it is with 4 kids.

9:04I can only imagine 7 kids. Um, so hey, hats off to you. Last year was the peak because everyone was still in the house. Now they're starting to age out. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Go to college. So things are actually ramping down a bit. Sure. Okay. Well, so things are ramping down in terms of the kid department, but in the location department, I would imagine it's the other way around.

9:24Um, what, what does the future look like for Mango? Leading a shop can be isolating. Especially when you're trying to grow and still take care of your people. Tectonic 2026 brings together shop teams who care about the same things you hear on this podcast: coaching, accountability, training, and building leaders at every level. Expect hands-on workshops, role-based sessions, and honest conversations you can take back to the shop on Monday.

9:48Tectonic is happening April 9th through the 11th in Houston, Texas. Tickets are on sale now, and Limitless Leadership Podcast listeners can, can get $500 off standard pricing with code LIMITLESS500. Go to techmetric.com/tectonic, that's T-E-K-T-O-N-I-C, or use the link in the show notes. All right folks, as you know, great leadership isn't about doing everything the best. It's actually about having the right partners in your corner to build your shop success.

10:16It's about putting the right team in place. It's about choosing the right vendors to make you a pro, making pro moves. And when I think about the pros, I think about Shop Marketing Pros. The know, like, and trust factor, that's a real thing. And Shop Marketing Pros understands that. That's why I wanna recommend Shop Marketing Pros to become your marketing partner in your shop.

10:37They get to know, like, and trust you and your business to then help your audience get to know, like, and trust you too, and bring your shop to the next level. So when I talk about making pro moves, this is the kind of move I'm I'm talking about. This is the kind of standard-setting partnership that's going to elevate your shop. So if you're ready to become a pro in your shop, visit shopmarketingpros.com and partner with the best.

11:02Good question. So we've grown totally organically with almost, you know, no backing, almost no investment funds. As most of you probably already know, when you're less than 2 years old, you're completely unbankable to begin with. So, you know, on the backs of my personal credit cards, I think is, is how we got started. And that has definitely affected the speed at which we can grow.

11:30Um, a lot of shop owners— the statistic varies, but I, I think it's at least half of shop owners right now are looking to retire in the next 5 to 7 years. So there's a lot of opportunity, and we actually need shop owners to step up and be willing to help out their fellow shop owners by taking over those shops so that shop owner can retire, right?

11:50It's real sad when you see a shop just close its doors. Um, so that's all of us that are already in the space thinking about how we can help each other out. Um, so I, I think we're continuing to build our existing shops, and on average when we acquire a shop, it grows by 30% year over year. Wow. So in those four walls, and then we put the acquisitions on top of it.

12:17But right now our focus is actually on something else that I think is really interesting. So Josh, are you familiar with multiple arbitrage? I'm not. I've heard of both words. I cannot tell you what either of them mean together. Okay, so I— the concept will be familiar to you, and it's familiar to probably anyone who owns a sizable automotive repair shop that's been approached by private equity or strategic.

12:45So they come to you and they say, look, Josh, like, your shop is doing $500K in profit. I'll pay you a 3x x profit, or sometimes we use this term EBITDA instead of profit. I'll pay you a 3x on that. So your shop is essentially valued at $1.5 million, which is cute, but you could just work at it for 3 more years and get that $1.5 million.

13:07So like, sure, not that interesting. But, um, what are they— and if anyone here— what if anyone listening wants to sell for a 3x, like, call me, I'll buy you. Um, but then what are they doing really? We just just saw a sale, I think it was in January, in, in the automotive repair space that was a 16x. 16x? Yes. And why did they sell for, for 16x?

13:34Well, they had 20— they had amassed $20 million in profit. So this is multiple arbitrage, right? You, you buy at a 3x and you sell for as high a multiple as you can get. You know, 16 is the highest we've seen recently. So then how much money are you making? You're making that, that entire span, 16 minus 3, you're making a 13x on your money.

13:55So that means that repair shop that I bought from you, Josh, for 1 point— that I paid 1.5 for is— I'm going to do my math wrong here— 7.5. I made $7.5 million on your shop if I acquired it. Yeah. And it feels like that's not very fair. And, you know, maybe I gave you some small percentage in it, right? Like 10% so that you could get what we call a second bite of the apple.

14:25So you participated in a small percent of the resale of the business. So we decided if they can do it, we can do it. And this has been sort of our story. Like, we're scrappy. We came into it with no funding, like no money, and And now we see private equity gobbling up shops and they have nothing. They don't have the experience that you have.

14:48Like they might run your shops into the ground, but they just have financial backing. Yeah. They got the money. $30 million in the bank to execute this strategy or $100 million in the bank. Um, and it used to be, Josh, like in 2020 or 2021, you could partner with some friends and just say like, oh, those are my buddies, we're all going to sell our shops together and we want to hire multiple, right?

15:12Because if you hit, you know, maybe $2 million in EBITDA, you might be able to sell for a 7. So that's a doubling, right? But now the industry is really saying, okay, we're not doing that anymore because you guys aren't on the same systems. You're not doing the same, you know, your employees aren't run by the, the sort of same handbook. You don't have the same financials.

15:36So we're not hodgepoding shops together anymore. They have to be a real unified organization to sell at these higher multiples. So, and, and what we found over the course of just talking to so many shop owners looking for shops to acquire is there's a lot of shop owners who would like to retire but need or want a higher multiple. So in order to do that, we've formed the co-op, what we call it, the co-op, where We are partnering with other shops and we're essentially all agreeing to sell together.

16:11And what this looks like for the first 12 months is we're just finding partners. So we're finding who those partners are. And once we amass $10 million in EBITDA, we call that trigger one. At trigger one, we will all become one company. So we'll have a stock exchange where we exchange the existing company's stock for the co-op stock. Okay. And we'll spend about 12 months what's called seasoning the business.

16:40So combining, making sure all of our financials are done together, making sure we're running off the same employee handbook, making sure we're using the same systems and the same tech stock. And then we will all exit together. And it, you know, from our initial projections, it looks like our owners, instead of selling for a, a 3x, will be selling for a 9 or 10x.

17:01So that will be about 3 times their value in the current market. And our goal is just to help everyone win. How does leadership change after TriggerOne? Because when, when you're saying all of them now are combined, um, and then we're, we're all operating off the same employee handbook and we're all doing what I, I'd imagine very similar or maybe the same processes.

17:24Things are, things are run the same. How does that change leadership, uh, across one trigger to the next? Exactly. So until trigger one, everyone, there are certain, you know, tech stacks and systems and processes that we ask our, the partners to put in place so that we can have that work done. Um, after trigger one, our sort of financial and human resources, um, pieces are, exist in corporate, I'll call it, right?

17:55Like they exist in the co-op. And when you were an owner, you're now still an owner, but you know, a smaller slice of a bigger pie, which is going to be much more valuable to you. But we are looking at each owner and what they want, right? So you might have an owner that has a manager in place and, you know, wants to retire that gets replaced by a district manager.

18:21You might have an owner in place that has managers in place and wants to grow in the organization that actually becomes that district manager. So at trigger 1, everyone will get their offers essentially, right? This is your, your, your profit, how we're valuing the company, and this is the percentage of shares you'll get. Um, and this is, you know, what the, the leadership can look like for your company as we move into that seasoning process.

18:51So even though we're banding together before trigger 1, every owner at trigger 1 still has the opportunity to make a choice. Like, this is, you know, exactly what I want. I'm super excited about this. I'm definitely doing this. Or anytime before trigger 1, you can decide, you know, actually this doesn't work. I want to pass this to my son. Or, you know, it's not exactly what I want.

19:12So part of the magic will be putting together the regions and the district managers and the ownership or, or the, the leadership of the company moving forward through the seasoning process. Got it. Okay. And, and, and how many How many shops on average are you looking at in terms of being a part of this multiple arbitrage system? We're looking for about 40 shops to— okay, the co-op.

19:39Yeah, so it's a— that's a pretty big— that's a pretty big number then, 40. And then, and now question: do they all have to be in agreement with how things are going to be running and operating after Trigger One? Do they all have to be in agreement? I mean, I'm not very good at politicizing, so we don't have to be in agreement, but we do all have to do, we have to agree to do things the same, even if we don't like it.

20:04And I think this is sort of, I mean, Josh, that gap between selling for a 3x and a 10x is, you know, in the example I gave you, the difference between selling for $1.5 million versus $5 million. So even if you don't like using our software, like, are you willing to do that for $3.5 million extra dollars? I mean, I can learn to like it, you know, I can learn to like that because it does the, the piece about having, you know, these things uniform is going to control in part the multiple that we're able to achieve.

20:46And so I have a mentor that says like every million helps, so like every extra million helps. So like, you know, and, and even a fraction of a multiple achieved because we're all in alignment, I think is valuable enough that, you know, everyone will be able— be willing to make, you know, adjustments to how they do things. Yeah, we can, uh, no, no, no, that's, that's good.

21:10I actually forgot what I was gonna, gonna ask, but I That I appreciate you sharing that. Um, I am going to ask you to share how our audience can get in touch with you, but I'll wait for that towards the end. So that's just a teaser for all of you listening. You just got to keep on listening to this amazing guest that we have.

21:24And if you're not, if you're listening and not watching, you can also tune in to YouTube at The Bearded Leader and you can watch this entire episode on YouTube. Oh my God, I don't know what's, what is happening. This is awful. Cut, cut. Whoa. I do not know what— That's staying in. Was that you? Was that you saying thank you for choosing Mango Automotive?

21:47No, but that's our hold music. Awesome. Okay. Well, so let me ask you, Jesse, because I asked about how leadership might change from one trigger to the next. Of course, this is a leadership podcast. If I were to ask you, what does leadership mean to you? How would you answer that question, Josh? I feel like when I listen to you talk about leadership, it is very sophisticated.

22:11And like, you just told me that you broke it down in a half-day session at the Vision Conference. So I'm like, okay, that's a lot to say about leadership. So I don't know why you're asking me, but I, I have just two rules that are, uh, not as exciting as your rules. Is my connection Just froze, huh? No, you're good, you're good.

22:31Um, my rules are just have fun, which we already talked about, and no assholes. And both of those are because life is too short. And maybe I have another rule that's not an official rule of the company but is something I personally implement, which is to hire people that are better than me. Oh, preach! Yeah, I think, you know, as I look at my career and how I've grown, I Josh, I used to build websites, and when I say I built websites, I, you know, sold the website and designed it and built it and coded it, like all the things.

23:08And when I was thinking about growing, I realized there was no more space for me to take on additional projects. So I had to add someone, and that person was a designer that I added, and it was So scary because not only was I paying that per— I had to pay them my salary, like it was coming from somewhere, right? Yeah. So it was coming out of, you know, my pocket to pay them.

23:36So that really put pressure on me in the other areas of the business to ramp up. But I just thought, I'm really good at this. Mm-hmm. And not in a conceited way, but my clients are happy. Like, this is one of my strengths. So I think I realized in that moment, like, I just had to feel good about it. I had to hire someone that's better than me.

23:57And I did that. And that's sort of been the policy. Like, our district manager, he epitomizes the Mango culture better than the founders do. We're like, okay, yes, like, you are Mango culture. Like, we love you. And I, at every step of the way, it's just find someone who is better at that than me and I guess not surprisingly, I can always find someone that's better than me.

24:24Well, I mean, I hear the humility and the modesty in your voice, and I appreciate that. I feel like that's, you know, those are some attributes of strong leadership skills. And there's a, you know, Steve Jobs was famous for a number of reasons, but one of the quotes I love that he shared was, at Apple, we don't hire people to tell them what to do.

24:43We hire them so they can tell us what to do. And I wish more leaders saw the value in hiring people who are better than us, who know things, you know, know more, know more things than us, who, who are, uh, um, more qualified, have a better skillset than us. It is not a scarcity mentality that we need to be operating with.

25:03It, there's an, there's an abundance mentality that we can learn and grow from. And I'm just a big believer in the fact that we can go fast alone., but we can go way further together. And multiple minds are better than one. So when we can bring on people who are strong in areas that we may be weak, that's a, that's a huge opportunity that you're capturing.

25:21So I applaud you for that. Um, by the way, the reason I, I like that, I've never heard anyone say I'm sophisticated. I'll just say this, all I do is leadership stuff, Jesse. So that's why you might hear some sophistication in my voice. Um, but the reason I'm asking you is because you grew from 0 to 8 locations. And zero to eight figures in a very short amount of time.

25:41It's because you're awesome and you're great at what you do, and that's why you're on the show. So thank you for being here. You mentioned— Josh, I thought of one other thing that I— Oh yeah, come on. I think my entire job is to ask questions. Oh, and like, preach. Come on, Ryan, my partner, he's amazing and he comes from the industry.

26:00Thank God, because I could not do this without him. But my, from the time that we partnered, my job is always like, to say, well, why do we do it that way? And sometimes he says, well, that's the way it's done. And I'm like, okay. But Brian's amazing because Brian's never attached to his opinion or how it's been done. He just wants to find the best way to do it.

26:23So he's always open to this exploration of, okay, like, that's the way everyone does it. Well, should we be doing it that way?, or is it not the right way? Like, could it be done different? And I think, you know, as I look at how I lead people in our organization, I, I ask a lot of questions because I don't know the answer.

26:49Well, there's, there's power in being curious. You know, when we're in curious mode, we're in learning mode. By the way, Jesse, when you just said, when I lead people in the organization, and then you, you put air quotes around lead, you can drop the air quotes please. I mean, You are leading people in your organization. Okay. I think, Josh, I don't think of it that maybe I just don't think of it that seriously.

27:07It's not like I have imposter syndrome, but I'm just like, everyone in my organization is doing their job. Everyone's doing their thing and we're all working together. And yeah, maybe I'm the one who had the original vision and is sort of driving it and asking these questions, but maybe I'm by the air quotes, I think I'm trying to get away from this.

27:29Traditional organization from the 1990s where the boss says, we're doing this thing and you better do it. Like, that's not the kind of organization that I believe in. So I have a hard time using terms that can— I, I think lead is better than like being the boss or being in charge or some way, but it's still, to me, leaders have made me feel bad ways about myself, and I don't want our team to feel that way, although I'm sure sometimes they do.

28:05Anyway, it's just my, you know, my reaction to that sort of typical, like, organized waterfall organization. Sure. Well, and I appreciate the, the clarification, and, and I— because I don't hear imposter syndrome at all from you., but what I will say is we get to give leadership a positive tone of voice, a positive name. And I, I'm, I'm convinced because of your rules that you have and because of the, the, the, because the fact that you, you implement fun within your organization, your team doesn't feel the weight of your title.

28:40They feel the energy and influence of your leadership. So that's why I'm saying drop the air quotes. I mean, like, it's okay to say that you're leading them because because you're not like bossing them around. You're like, you're leading them in a, like, in a very positive, fun manner. And that's probably why you have your general manager, who is like the epitome of Mango.

29:00Yeah, your DM. Like, that's, that's amazing. And, um, so kudos to you for that. By the way, when you mentioned that your, your job is to ask questions, if I could applaud that anymore, I would. Um, I, I have this, I keep this book on my desk. So for anyone who's, um, not watching this episode, if you're listening, I'm holding up a book called The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier, and it has 7 powerful questions for any coach or leader.

29:27And in my opinion, they're synonymous with one another, but too many of us as leaders are not asking enough questions. We're constantly giving directive after directive after directive, but that doesn't mean we're providing clarity and direction, and we can provide direction through questions. So, Please, if you're listening, if, if, if all you take away from this episode, which I know you won't just take one thing away, but if all you took away was there's power in asking questions, I can't emphasize that enough.

29:55I love that you mentioned that, Jessie. Um, we do not ask enough questions as leaders. And so I, I really, I, I like, I really like you now. At first I was like, yeah, yeah, she's great. Now, no, like you're, you're like, you're a strong leader. This is awesome. The, I think The more you know, the more you don't know. And, and maybe that's cliché, but you become more comfortable in your not knowing.

30:18And I remember a time like when I was on the C-suite, but I felt like I had to have all the answers for my organization in order to be seen as whatever it was, competent. I think I just wanted to be seen as competent, but being at the very head gives you the ability to let that go and to just ask the question because ain't no one gonna fire you when you're the owner of the business, right?

30:46You don't have anything to be afraid of by asking the questions. Well, let me ask you this, 'cause I, I, I like that you're, that you're addressing this topic. Uh, I, I'm a big believer in improving yourself versus proving yourself, and a lot of us feel the need to prove ourselves. When you're in the C-suite, with the organization that you're with. And I, I'm hearing you say to some degree, like, uh, yeah, I wanna prove myself.

31:11Like, I wanna prove that I'm capable, competent, and confident. Speak to the listening audience who is not the owner, who feels the need to prove credibility, prove something, but the opportunity, like you're, you're an owner of a fantastic organization. What are you looking for in your own team members? Outside of them feeling the need to prove themselves? There's one thing that we look for in Mango team members, and this quality, we say if they have this quality, we will definitely hire them and keep them.

31:49And if they don't have it, we won't hire them if we know they don't have it. And if we find out that they don't have it when they're employed with us, that it just never works out. Any guesses, Josh? Oh, I mean, integrity comes to mind, um, but yeah, I mean, I'm intrigued. What, what is it like? That one for us, it's a growth mindset, because I can put you in courses to teach you how to sell or how to change those brakes or whatever it is.

32:18We can teach you that, and we have Mango University, um, where we put our employees in courses and we send them books to read. Ones they choose because we believe that we're all on a personal journey. But if you think you know everything, I can't teach you. Um, so like, those are the ones where we found that's just not a match for us.

32:38And it— because we're growing so rapidly in our shops and through acquisitions. So if you want to grow along with us, it's perfect. But if you don't want to grow, it's just not a match for us. You know, there's a lot of shops that but just stay the same all the time. And, and you might be a great match there and a great leader, but for us, you have to really realize, or, you know, be willing to say that you don't know everything and be willing to, to learn and be better.

33:05Because we're all like— the version of me that said I was gonna start Mango, Jessie 6.0, whatever you want to call me, couldn't run Mango now. Like, and in a way, I think that's why when we set audacious goals, it feels scary because you're aware that there's, there's a leap between where you are now and where you have to be to accomplish those things, and you're not there yet.

33:32But being comfortable not being there yet is, I think, what sets apart people who achieve big things, right? Like, I'm, I'm now, you know, Jessie 8.7, and, and I'm here. But, you know, that Jessie 6.0 certainly couldn't be running this 8-figure organization. Realization. She just didn't know what she didn't know. But part of the fun is in not knowing. I— what's the saying, Josh, about like, um, kind of like you're, you're dumb enough to do it because you don't know?

34:06Like, so I, I call it blind optimism. Yes. Because as an entrepreneur, like, I, it's like I'm, I'm, I'm like, I don't want to— I avoid negative self-talk, but, but I think you guys can hear in my voice, I just call it blind optimism. Like, yes, I don't know what I don't know. I'm just gonna go and just— I'm gonna will this to victory.

34:25Yes, like, I have no money, I've never owned an automotive repair shop, but it's fine. Like, I'll just buy 8 of them, it'll be great. Yeah. And in some ways, if I had no— you know, if I truly understood what I didn't know, there would have been more fear in me. But I just had, yeah, the blind optimism. That is brute force.

34:47I'm just gonna muscle through this. Yeah. I, I like, I don't call it fake it till you make it. I say face it till you make it. But the reality is we're never gonna make it. I mean, we're, if we're committed to being lifelong learners, we're gonna think like a rookie. We're never gonna make it. Jesse, there is a lot of power in what you just shared, and I don't wanna just glaze over this topic.

35:04Um, what you described is quite frankly the, the, the reason why everyone should have a coach. You mentioned earlier that you have, you have a mentor who said, uh, every million matters. Um, or something along those lines. Every, every million helps. But he's funny because no matter what amount it is, it could be like $1,000 or $3.3 million, and he'll answer that amount.

35:29So it'll be like, every thousand dollars helps. Gotcha. Okay, every 3.3— it's usually big numbers with him though. Yeah, every 3.3. And he's right. And, and there's power in, in having someone to help you in that journey from Jesse 6.0 to Jesse 8.7. Um, there's power in having someone who can help you identify blind spots. Let me ask you this, because as a coach myself who serves this industry as a, in, in the leadership lane, what we provide is, um, an interview guide for our clients for them to hire their CIA team members, people who are coachable, intelligent, who have the right attitude.

36:03You're saying have a growth mindset. What, what we provide is a 5-page hiring guide, and if anyone who's listening wants this guide, just Reach out, josh@limitlessleadership.co. I'm happy to send it to you. Send it to me. I'm interested. Yeah, I'll send, I'll send it to you. So, um, yeah, josh@limitlessleadership.co, and I'll send it to whoever's listening. Um, but there's 40 to 45 questions in this document that help you identify if, is this prospective hire coachable, emotionally intelligent?

36:31That's the intelligence I'm looking for. And has the right attitude. Let me ask you, how do you determine if these prospective hires have the growth mindset that Mango is looking for? Josh, I think it's really hard. And one of the challenges in hiring is you get such limited time with someone before you bring them on. When in the tech world, it's a little bit different.

36:55Like you can ask them to do a project for you that you pay them for, or, and I think at Mango, we try to play with the idea of bringing on someone for a half day. So that we learn more about them, but that's not always compatible with their current job, right? That's not always an option for them. So I, I would say Brian and I lean a lot on our instinct.

37:21I mean, we try to ask the right questions. One question to sort of suss out the attitude piece that we ask is, I'll say, Uh, what do you love about your current job? Which is, is a softball question because I'm asking them to tell me the positive. But you will be— you probably wouldn't be surprised, but so many times the response is only the negative.

37:47They go straight to the negative. And that is something for me that I know isn't a match because that's, to me, more indicative of how you see the world. Look, we all move on from jobs, and some bosses are crappy, and some commutes are too long, and there's— we have reasons. And sometimes we just need to get paid more. There's lots of reasons to move on.

38:09But if you can't see the light where you were, it might be your perspective on the world. So I love to walk through that. And then one thing that I do during an interview— Josh, I'm curious if you have this— but that makes people so nervous is I with a service advisor or manager, I just do a role play. Okay. So I'll say, okay, Josh, um, pretend you're, you're working at Mango.

38:34You're behind the front desk. I'm like, I'm a little old lady and I'm walking into the shop and you be the advisor and let's walk through it. And I'll say, okay, I got this postcard. It says you fix everything. I need a new heater box door on my Miata, but the last shop said they couldn't find one? Like, can you fix that?

38:54So I set it up for them and sort of see how they play with that role play. Um, I'm telling all my secrets, so if anyone's listening to this and they're applying for us, oh, smiling is the number one most important thing, which I think sometimes people just get so nervous and you have to feel for that. But for sure, our best managers, you know, smile through that exploration and ask questions and they might even, you know, they do their best, but then they might ask questions afterwards, right?

39:27They'll say like, how do you do this thing at Mango? And that asking of questions during an interview is a sign about a growth mindset, right? Yeah, that's good. Not feeling like you have all the answers, but that you might have questions. And there's a lot of interviews I do that there's not a single question posed, even when I say, okay, great.

39:44So I've asked you so many questions. Like, do you have any questions for us? So nuns are like, no. I mean, you're even saying, I've asked you so many questions, now it's your turn. Um, you know what's interesting is the— so the very first question I ask every client on every coaching call, and they know it's coming because, because I do this with every single call: what are some of your latest wins?

40:02And very much like the question that you had about, um, what did you— what do you love about your last place of employment? When I ask, what are some of your latest wins? I mean, you would guess this, Jesse, they start going into the, the negatives, the, the losses, the things that they've been challenged by. Here's something that I think that you— I've noticed you do very well.

40:22In the book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, what we learn is that the sweetest sound to any person in any language is the sound of a person's name. Jesse, you've called me by name at least a dozen times in this interview. I know how important that is to me because of how it makes me feel. I imagine you do that intentionally.

40:40I know that I, I, I'm guessing that you do this with your team members. I'm guessing that you do this with prospective hires. There is power in naming someone, um, looking in, looking them in the eyes, smiling like you talked about, calling them by name. It shows that you are showing up in a different kind of way. And a quote that I love from Maya Angelou, she said, I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

41:05Yeah. You make people feel a certain kind of way when you, do all the things that I just described that you've been doing in this entire episode. So, I applaud you for that. Thank you for doing that. Thanks, Josh. That quote inspired something that I wanna share, and sometimes I just wanna share things that we do because I would love to see more people in the industry do them.

41:23Yeah. And we, okay, Mia is, Mia Mango is our little character. We're Mango Automotive. So, Mia Mango is a little mango. She has arms and legs and a smile, and she's a mango body. And so we, we play off of her in what we think are kind of fun ways. So one thing that we do is Mia Money, where we give each advisor, each employee that's interacting with customers, a minimum budget.

41:52And we say, you need to spend this every month to delight a customer. I love that. And I think it's just really fun. And sometimes we get away from it and we have to go back and, you know, remind ourselves that we're doing that, but it's, and it's kind of, oh, whatever. Maybe you think it's silly because we bought that customer, they told us their favorite wine and we bought it for them, or that guy, his car broke down and he's traveling across country, so we paid for his hotel.

42:18But I think at the end of the day, it's just an acknowledgement that we're thankful for what we do and it allows us to make a living. And because of our customers, we get to, you know, make a living and But it's human, right? It's nice to make people smile. Yeah. It's like you and I'm not intentionally saying Josh, but like we're talking to each other.

42:41So, you know, maybe there was a time when this was intentional for me and now it's just ingrained. Like you and I are having a connection and we're human. And that's so easy to forget, especially for our teams who are interfacing with customers and they're busy. Right? They have a million reasons to forget because they're thinking of like, I need this car done at this time and that part hasn't arrived.

43:04And I have to take a call when I'm in the middle of talking to this technician. There's a million reasons to forget. But I think as a leader, the important— you gotta come back to the basics. So whether we have our 6 non-negotiables in the shop for how we do things and on, on the customer and employee-facing side, like what are the basics?

43:25It's what you're talking about. Remember that we're human. Smile, use somebody's name, and you'd be surprised how many times you forget. I mean, sometimes I'm trying to get something done on the phone with someone and I'm not being human with them. I'm just hammering them. Yeah, let's get this move forward. So even for me, for everyone, we have to come back to the basics and remember like we're human and make that connection.

43:51That's so important. Um, You mentioned having a mentor. One of the questions I ask every guest on this podcast is, what is the best advice you've ever received from a coach or a mentor? I'll ask you the same question. You are only limited by your creativity. Oh, elaborate please. Yes. So oftentimes we, I think especially when I was younger, because I, my parents didn't have businesses, I didn't come from this world, I didn't understand how to be successful.

44:24I thought that there was a way that things had to be done, and I think we think this a lot, right? Like whether it's how you're operating your business or how you're acquiring things. So, and, and even so, for me, because we're acquiring other businesses, I thought that I would be very limited in how I could do deals by what you do legally to acquire a business.

44:53This sort of idea that there was something I knew, or I didn't know, but was how things needed to be done. But at the end of the day, when we acquire a business, it's all about what does the owner want or need, and what do we want or need, and is there overlap? And if there's not overlap, it's fine. Like, we tell the owner, I hope you get that.

45:15You know, you, you want $5 million for your business. We used to tell them it's worth $1.5. Like, I can't give that to you, but I, I really hope you find it. And if I find someone who's doing that, I'll let you know. Yeah. And that's sort of, you know, why we have the co-op now, to— for those owners that need or, or want to, um, make more money upon their exit but can wait 2 years, which is our, our time horizon for that.

45:39So everything I've done has been out of the box, right? I didn't go to the SBA and get a loan and acquire businesses. I worked with owners to understand what they wanted in their lives, how they wanted their lives to look forward and thought about how I could get that for them. And the co-op is the same story. Like, this exists in some, I'm sure some iterations, but it's not a common thing that's being done with owners.

46:06How do we help owners get a higher multiple, um, so that they can exit their business a bit more wealthy and in a better place? And I think they deserve that. You built this business for 30 years, 40 years, and You know, you're only going to get 3 years worth of profit. If that's okay for you, great. Call me. Like, I'd love to buy you.

46:26And if it's not okay for you, great too. But how do we get there? And it's just a matter of thinking creatively about the problem. There's, there's always a solution. It, it's just a matter of whether you can think of it and then whether you, you're willing to, or you want to execute it. So I, it can apply to anything. You know, if you're thinking about what your lobby looks like, use your creativity.

46:53If you're thinking about what you say to customers on the phone, use your creativity. If you're thinking about, you know, how you can work with your automotive repair shop neighbor down the street, like, let's get creative and get out of the box because the confines that we think exist in business, in the world, often don't. And this goes for employees too. Like you, might feel like you're not happy in your role or you want it to change.

47:17Have a discussion, ask the questions, like those things, things can happen that aren't the standard par for the course, how someone tells you your life is supposed to go if you're willing to think about it. Jesse, this has been an incredible conversation. I really appreciate you being here. Hopefully this will not be your only time on the podcast. I'd love to have you back in the future.

47:40Can I ask you to share if someone is listening and they are considering selling and they're interested in the co-op or they're interested in just a 3x deal? I mean, hey, you'll take, you'll take, you'll do that too. How can our audience get in touch with you? Okay, so the best way is going to be to send a text to Kevin, and Kevin is my VP of Biz Dev.

48:05So he is really running all those conversations for us and he'll set you up on a call. With me. So his phone number is area code 505-441-4779. So that's the best, most expedient way, but I am happy to also share my email address. But as Josh knows, I ignored his email from 9 months ago. I am not the best at my email, but if it— if Gmail decides that it's important and puts it in my primary box, I'll read it.

48:36But my email address is jessie, J-E-S-S-I-E, e@mangoautomotive.com. And also, Josh, I love to tell people— this is— I'm going to give you advice. Target emails me like 12 times a day. Like, you can send more, more than one message. I got to get— I, I got to get better at that. I, I try not to be a pest, but I, I've had so many people say, Josh, you just keep on sending me stuff until I tell you stop.

49:00I mean, so I, I will, I will. That is— let's talk about that on the next podcast. That is truly like one of our mantras is like, until someone tells me to kick rocks, I just keep going because we're busy. We're all busy. Like, if you're a pest, I'll tell you to go away. Well, very good. Well, so if, if you're listening, uh, you can email Jesse, uh, try at your own risk.

49:23I mean, you know, she didn't, she didn't like my email, but hopefully she likes yours. But at the very least, you can reach out to Kevin. Jesse, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Uh, this is gonna, this is probably gonna air after Tectonic, but I just want to say I'm looking forward to seeing you next month in Houston at Tectonic.

49:38And, um, we will keep in touch, my friend. Okay, awesome. Sounds good. Thanks, Josh. Thanks, Jesse. Bye. Take care.