Scaling Up Success Podcast

From Technician to Leader: Bradlee May's Inspiring Journey at JM Auto Repair

• Ryan Van Ornum • Episode 2

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Discover the inspiring journey of Bradley May, the visionary owner of JM Auto Repair in Colorado Springs, as he opens up about his remarkable transition from a hands-on technician to a business leader driven by transparency and integrity. In this episode, Bradley shares his bold decision to leave the profit-driven corporate dealership world, choosing instead to prioritize people over profits by acquiring JM Auto Repair in 2023. Listeners will gain insights into Bradley's savvy strategies for customer acquisition, including the innovative use of social media and streaming commercials to build a resonant brand presence. Bradley also reflects on the early signs of success he witnessed within just six months of taking the helm, underscoring his confidence in the potential of his business venture.

As we explore the hiring process at JM Auto Repair, Bradley highlights the critical importance of thorough candidate evaluations involving multiple interviews and perspectives, ensuring the right fit for his team. The episode sheds light on the 90-day probationary period, a vital tool in assessing new hires' performance, attitude, and punctuality. Bradley candidly shares his approach to maintaining a sustainable work-life balance, providing valuable advice on disconnecting from technology and prioritizing continuous education amidst rapid industry advancements. Aspiring auto repair professionals will find Bradley's story inspiring, with practical advice on how to remain competitive and strive for excellence in a rapidly changing automotive landscape.

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Speaker 1:

What is up everyone? This is Ryan Van Ornam. Welcome back to another podcast edition. This is Scaling Up Success. I am here today with Bradley May of JM Auto Repair out of Colorado Springs. Brad, how you been bro.

Speaker 2:

I'm all right Bringing in the new year, just right, how about yourself?

Speaker 1:

there, ryan, man, I couldn't ask for anything more, man. It's been good times. So, man, we've known each other for half a decade already and I really like what you've done with all types of different businesses that you've been a part of. But tell me a little bit about JM Auto Repair and what got you into it and what inspired you to get into working on cars.

Speaker 2:

Working on cars started back when I was probably about seven years old and I started at my dad's auto repair shop in South Florida and just built a foundation of auto repair there and just watched technicians do what they do and it was kind of something that I liked and thought I'd be good at. So, as life went on, I ended up traveling myself into the automotive repair industry and I've been doing it since I was 15 years old, so I'm 33 now, so quite a while. I've seen a lot of stuff and been through a lot of things.

Speaker 1:

I'm sorry. You've turned a lot of wrenches in in that time, haven't you?

Speaker 2:

very much so, uh, very much so. I left the wrench turning a few years back and went into, uh, the advising side, so I learned how to advise people about their cars a bit better than a technician would. So, um, that would. That was a great learning experience and hard to kind of convert over to a supervisor from a technician. We bought JM Auto Repair in May of 2023.

Speaker 2:

And prior to that, I was with Toyota of Colorado Springs, which was at the time when Larry H Miller owned it. And Larry H Miller he really cared about his employees. And Larry H Miller he really cared about his employees. Unfortunately, when he passed, his wife took the company and they just didn't want to do anything with the company anymore. So his estate sold the company off to another buyer and that buyer was somebody who is more worried about the bottom line than they are their employees.

Speaker 2:

And we started seeing things change as far as the way we spoke to customers, the way our sales structures would go, and I just didn't like it. There was a lot of lying, there was a lot of cheating, which I actually moved away from multiple dealerships in my career because of that. And then I went into, like I said, we bought in May of 23,. We bought JM Auto Repair and the main goal here is to be transparent and offer right automotive repair and stand behind what we do. If we make a mistake, we're going to own that mistake and we're going to make sure that we make it right. Whether it costs me money, then it is what it is. That's the way it goes. That's how to take care of the customer. Man. That's integrity, for your is what it is. That's the way it goes. That's how to take care of the customer.

Speaker 1:

Man, that's integrity for your clientele. Man, that's really cool stuff and you bought it in 2023. When did you know that, once you bought this thing, that you were going to be successful with it? Do you remember a specific time? You're like dude, I got this.

Speaker 2:

We went through a couple of different businesses before we looked at JM auto repair and at the end of the day, when we really narrowed it down between JM auto repair and a couple of the other businesses that we were looking at, I knew that I've had great success and track record in the automotive business, in the automotive industry in general, and knew that I would just hit it out of the park and really put faith in myself and my wife as well put faith in me to do what we've done. I would say when I knew we were on the right track was at the end of 2023, when I saw everything for those six months that we were right in line where we needed to be and, if not, doing better than where we needed to be. So I was extremely excited for that and knew that we were on the right track and heading towards the right track.

Speaker 1:

That's super cool, man, and one of the things that I see a lot of times with business owners is they start taking accountability for their numbers too. It's it's like you start seeing, okay, month after month, we're doing certain things here every month and I'm like, okay, yeah, we're winning. We're it's not just profitable, but we're actually winning. You know, it's not just getting out of the red and getting into black, but it's like I can afford to take a vacation type of feel to it, and a lot of that is just being very purposeful about what your business is bringing in, how you're bringing in those customers, that kind of stuff. So what kind of strategies have been critical for your success in those ways? How are you getting more customers?

Speaker 2:

Right now we're doing a combination of things. We're doing mailers, we have some social media running on that side of things, and then we're also we just launched last month we launched a commercial through streaming services, so multiple streaming platforms like Netflix, hulu, disney, plus all that fun stuff Freebie, I think, is another one. I think it's like 800 different streaming platforms that we blasted a commercial through to and we're hitting certain targeted areas throughout Colorado Springs for those, and we haven't seen the return on that just yet, but I know it's coming soon.

Speaker 1:

That's super cool, man. And being able to you know, track that with technology. You know. Track that with technology, you know. Being able to, to see the benefit of, you know, like creating your brand and creating you know how it, how it grows, you know, is as much as it's funny because, as much as you know, like an auto repair shop, you know. Oh, I just want to work on a 65s carburetor. You know, a 65 Chevy carburetor. Nothing to do with anything about tech, but what you're saying is you're already starting to utilize technology in different ways on the streaming platforms not on like. You don't even want to advertise on the local news. You know you're getting, you're going to get more value for the streaming platforms. You're going to get more value for the streaming platforms. You're going to get more value from social media for yourself. Uh, that you can actually get click rates and different things like that to be able to justify your spending. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that's what we're excited about. We're seeing movement and tracking that movement as far as people seeing the commercial and going to the website and playing around with who we are and that just like, like you said, building that brand and just keep having people recognize who JM auto repair is with all of our colors and all of our logos and making sure that's in front of everybody's face.

Speaker 1:

That man and just being super into what exactly you know. You were talking about just like the colors you know, like having a color spec or a color code of what you want to do. It's not just kind of mismatching this stuff, that you have a purpose to everything that you're doing. Man, I love that. That's super cool. So how, how's your you? You talked about it when you were at another place before you went into this as your own venture. You didn't like the culture so much, but how have you set your culture that you get better retention? You get people that are bought into jm auto repair uh, we're very transparent.

Speaker 2:

I made sure that all my guys know that the customer they come first, but we're the professionals, so we need to set that expectation with them. This is what it is. This is how it is. We do transparency by DVIs, which is a digital vehicle inspection. So what my technicians see, the customer will see as well. We can do video, we can do pictures. See as well, we can do video, we can do pictures and then also the actual red, yellow and green of the inspection form itself. And then the technician also puts in what they found.

Speaker 2:

So if they found bad brake pads, they'll put in a little note in there about why the brake pads are bad or what the specification is and where manufacturer spec says they should be, things like that, so that everybody knows the transparency of what needs to be done. And then the other thing is just, you know also, like I said, standing behind our work. There's a lot of independents out here, unfortunately in Colorado Springs, that don't. They'll do the work, they'll take your money, but they don't have a warranty policy. So then you come back because the water pump they just put in three months ago took a crap on you. Well, they're not going to stand behind that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So that's a real big struggle. I've talked to a lot of people, unfortunately in the Springs that have run across that problem. Where we have a warranty policy in place, it's on our invoice, it's right in front of you. There's not going to be, I can't move away from that policy because it's written, it's already there, and that's just kind of the way it's been for us. And then being transparent with my team as well, so they know where our goals are, where they need to be, and then they have individual goals that they're held accountable for as well.

Speaker 1:

Man, it sounds like once you have the structure in place for what you want to achieve, it kind of, if you allow it to regress, it'll regress, but if you have that structure already built, it's just going to continue to almost develop even more culture for your team.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's exactly what we've seen. We've seen the regression. I laid off for a month or two on certain goals because I thought, hey, we're adults here and I let them go kind of on their own. And in that month, month and a half, I saw a slippage of down and I was like whoa, what happened here? So, when I realized it was my fault not holding my team accountable, I stepped up to the plate and we created, we put systems and processes in place to prevent that from happening again.

Speaker 1:

How big was that? That you took ownership first instead of trying to push blame.

Speaker 2:

That's very big key. You cannot grow as a business and or a business owner or an individual in general, until you can look back at the situation and go okay, whose fault was this? Oh, it was mine. Let me go ahead and figure out how we can avoid this. And, as a business owner, unfortunately, at the end of the day, 99.9% of the problems that are created are your problem, so you need to figure out how to fix them.

Speaker 1:

I agree a hundred percent on that one, bro. There's so many times I'm like, yeah, that's just pretty much on me for allowing that to happen and or not. You know, teaching, having a teachable moment with certain things, or not having standard operating procedures in place, not having KPIs, key performance indicators, all of these little things along the way really make your business where it kind of runs itself, and most business owners they need somebody to like rewrite their job description that they can actually do those things for your business owner.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

So that's why you probably have an amazing you know front office staff that that handles a lot of that stuff for you, would you agree?

Speaker 2:

Most of right now, most of the front office, is still driven by myself I am. This year's big goal is to move away from that we're we're going to push we added a technician. We added two new technicians last year. A technician we added two new technicians last year. This year we're going to freeze on technicians and we're going to move our shop foreman from shop foreman to a service manager and he's going to do a lot more of the the front office things that we have.

Speaker 1:

So one of that kind of leads me into my next question with this is like how would you advise people about hiring the right people? Like what steps? Because you could hire the wrong person and it can cost your business immensely, but you hire the right person and watch what your business grows into.

Speaker 2:

That's an excellent question. Hiring has got to be the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. You really have to read. People know that they're not just blowing smoke up your butt.

Speaker 2:

And it's especially hard in an industry like this because you have a lot of people technicians who say they're technicians and they might have a $30,000 toolbox full of $100,000 worth of tools but they don't even know how to do an oil change. Full of $100,000 worth of tools but they don't even know how to do an oil change. And I've seen that happen a handful of times in my career. And that was the lucky side to me on that was I've been doing this for so long and I had my dad kind of teach me along the way when I was younger what to look for in a technician and understand that. So that was really big and key to me. I would say the biggest thing is make sure that you hold multiple interviews, yeah, and if you can have either a manager of a manager type person in the room during either both interviews or one interview, and or a business partner or a business partner like my wife.

Speaker 1:

Don't have it. Don't do it yourself, because you fall in love with everybody you talk to.

Speaker 2:

Yep, my wife has been there for me on every interview that we've held. It didn't matter if we did 30 of them in one day or if we did 30 of them spread out through the month of January. She was there for me and she's really good at that. That key of reading people and understanding who they are and she also they. Having a secondary person there brings a different point of view. And then usually in the second interview I would bring in our shop foreman, especially when interviewing technicians. Bring in our shop foreman to have him give his two cents onto what is expected of the technician coming into this team, so they know what clear expectations are. And then the final step is really just bringing them in and seeing what they can do. Sometimes you hit it out of the park. We've been very lucky to hit it out of the park with the two hires and continuing to look forward to adding more as we go.

Speaker 1:

Do you feel like one of the things that I've found in several different businesses is it doesn't even pass those interviews. It takes 30, 60, 90 days, 180 days to know if you have the right person. Is that something that you're consistently evaluating the people that you hire in those ways?

Speaker 2:

Yes, we do a 90-day review. They're on probation for 90 days when they get hired. During that process, we're looking at everything. We're looking at their attitude times they show up to work, are they busting their butts? Are they giving us 110 percent? You know things like that. And then, at the end of that 90 days, we sit down and we review with them everything that we found and, at um, either tell them where they need to adjust or, you know, send them down the road. Luckily, we haven't had any issue where we need to send anybody down the road.

Speaker 1:

With. I know some of the the bigger, the bigger companies they work on, like uh, the bigger companies they work on like say that you have to replace some breaks and it gives it'll actually give an evaluation of how long that should take. Do you guys have something similar to that, where you kind of know like hey, some so-and-so is just not not working out because you know that break job should have take X amount of time and it took them three times the amount. You know that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we use a repair manual, a flat rate repair manual that tells us all of where they should be as far as these jobs. So, like an average break job is usually anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half, and then we time them through our POS system. They clock in and out of the job so they'll start the job when they go get the keys. It starts from when you grab the keys, not from when it's in your bay and up in the air. You're already halfway through it at that point, so it starts from when you grab the keys. You hit the start button, you get the car in your bay, you rack it up and you start the job. Uh, we've had many times where we've had to pull the technician to the side because they're clocking two and a half hours on an hour and a half break job.

Speaker 1:

I I'm not, I'm not very skilled with I know what, what it looks like to be able to, like I know if the brakes need changing or the oil, but, like, dude, that's incredible that that they have that, that type of breakdown. You know, know it's like, oh, it should take an hour and a half, two hours to change brakes. That would take me a whole weekend and I would. There would be a whole lot of curse words involved with that situation as I got done with it. So, no, that's, that's super cool and I'm glad that that they have that for us now and kind of industry standards, really cool.

Speaker 1:

So, um, one, one question that I have for you is, now that you've kind of got your business like to to a level that you're, you're feeling comfortable and you're ready to take the next step, how do you cause, when you're starting out, it always feels like you're taking off on a like on a plane, uh, on a plane trip, and it's like full blast, you're in it a hundred, 110% and until takeoff and uh, with that, how do you deal with like a work life, you know, family balance, man, because you know I'm sure there was a lot of long days at the shop that you're just trying to piece this thing together, that you may not see your wife and kid very much at all. How do you deal with that work-life balance now that you kind of got it to a little better place?

Speaker 2:

It is tough In the beginning. It's tough. It's still tough, even after you get to that 30,000 feet in altitude. It's still endless sleepless nights. You know you, you talk to guys, you listen to guys, not talk to them. But you listen to guys like Mark Cuban and Damon John and they don't get sleep. You don't sleep until you're 40 years into the business and then you sleep. There's a lot of that. As far as separating the two is, it's. It's really about you as an individual and if you want that-life balance, you find it and you make it happen. There's only 24 hours in a day, but there's a way to make it work. And for me, what I do is when I get home, I'm done. The phone goes into a drawer. I don't look at it until the next morning. I might look at it to maybe text my pop or something like that, see how he's doing or something, or check it to make sure I don't have anybody calling me, calling out, type thing.

Speaker 1:

That's why you don't return my text messages.

Speaker 2:

I get it. Yeah, it goes into a drawer.

Speaker 2:

I don't even see it. Yeah, so Monday through Friday, eight to six is your best time to get me Fair, Otherwise when it's home and the phone's in a drawer, and then we're actually closed. So we're a Monday through Thursday shop and we're closed on Fridays. But I use Fridays as my admin day to do anything that I need to do as far as the business aspect of things, and that includes going over my books, going over sales numbers, setting goals, reaching out to the team, letting them know what they need to be doing, and then after that you know that might take, you know, five hours in the day. After that, I'll put the phone away and it's done. Close the laptop. We're back. We're back to home life now.

Speaker 1:

Dude, I love that you have that in already built in. That's super cool. So what, what challenges do you see in today's society that is going to? That? Wasn't there like 10, 20 years ago, man, that as a business owner, now it could be tech, it could be the way that our society has changed. What are you kind of seeing that's challenging for you right now?

Speaker 2:

It's really both of those things, especially in this industry. Tech I mean tech in any industry is really big now especially, but automotive tech has come so far. Look at Tesla. They're building cars that drive themselves Now. They have an autonomous taxi now and they're working on having semi-trucks be able to drive themselves as well. So just in that aspect alone, I read an article from the Better Business Bureau about the automotive industry and how it's changing. They believe by 2030, they said I think it was 30, 32% of independent repair facilities will not have the equipment to repair these newer vehicles on the road. In heaven, oh my gosh. So it's very scary. That's probably my biggest thing as an automotive repair business is finding out what equipment we need. How can we jumpstart to have that now and make sure that we're building that end of things, and then also having my team be educated on everything. So this year we implemented continuing education requirements. So this year we implemented continuing education requirements. So they're now being held accountable for that. If we don't meet those continuing education requirements, then there is penalties for that stuff. So that's a big thing on how we're going to overcome that.

Speaker 2:

The other thing is you mentioned it just dealing with the general public. People have changed the way they like to be spoken to, how they like to be addressed. I've had a customer that told me that they don't want to be addressed as sir or ma'am, they'd rather be addressed as a human. That's what they told me Human, come here. So that has got to be the hardest thing. I come from an automotive background where back in the days you didn't talk to people like that, you just sir, ma'am, right, you know? Hey, mr Johnson, come on over here, let me show you what's going on. It was a lot different and now people are just. Things have changed in that aspect. So it's it's interesting to see what, what we've evolved as not only in technology, but as creatures of nature, and what we got moving forward.

Speaker 1:

Well, you're a, you're absolutely stellar human. I I've known you for years, man, and I I appreciate our friendship. Uh, what, what's one thing that you would? You would give a little piece of advice. That somebody wants to get into your field, man, what, what ways that you can help the next generation of auto auto repair people?

Speaker 2:

I didn't. I wasn't a believer of this myself when I was a young tech. But educating yourself, continuing that education and always be hungry. Don't just because you got a job that's giving you 40 hours a week, that's that you're flagging 40 hours a week. Be hungry, go get 50 hours a week. Go get 60 hours a week. I mean, when I was in the dealership as a technician, I was flagging one hundred and ten hundred and twenty hours a week.

Speaker 1:

You know that's, that's a lot.

Speaker 2:

That's a lot of cars, it's a lot of jobs, that's a lot of pain and suffering, but the paycheck looked nice at the end of it, so it was always nice and it gets you at your at the end of the day. You have to evaluate where you want to be as an individual and if you're, if you're happy working a nine to five, then hey, work that nine to five, the best that you can be, the best nine to fiver that you can be. That's it.

Speaker 1:

I love dude. Uh, man, this is. This has gone by so fast and, uh, I just appreciate you being able to uh come in and and and talk to us and give us a little bit of insight into the auto repair industry. Uh, brad, how can people get ahold of you? And, uh, you know whether it's on your socials, your phone numbers. Send it all out there so people know who you are.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely it was. It was great sitting down with you and talking about this. Uh, we've definitely been friends a long time and, uh, much overdue for something like this, so I appreciate having me on and allowing me this opportunity to reach us. You can go to jam auto repairnet. Uh, you can schedule an appointment there. You can reach out. You can see my entire team. That's on our website. You get to meet who we are and a little bit a little bit of a background of each of my my employees, so you know again that transparency, who you're working with and who's working on your vehicle. You can also reach me at Brad at JM Auto Repair dot net. Our phone number 719-548-0555. 5, 4, 8, 0, 5, 5, 5. And then we're on Facebook and Instagram, both jam auto repair. Cos is the handle jam, awesome.

Speaker 1:

COS. So awesome, man, awesome. Thank you so much for being a part of a scaling up success. You are absolutely crushing it, my friend, and cheers to a wonderful 2025. And I always got your back. I always support you and love seeing your growth with your family and your business. Man, take care, yeah, you too. Thank you so much Awesome. Enjoy your day, you too. Bye.

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