From sweeping floors in New Jersey to leading All Four Tires in Marietta, Georgia, Alejandro Muñoz shares how he built a tire and suspension focused business that fits his life. He scaled up to 18 bays, then intentionally downsized to six to reduce stress and raise margins. Alejandro explains why not every shop needs a master tech and how a tight scope of work can improve quality and profitability. He details his apprentice-first training approach, consistent retention, and a culture that rewards learning and life balance. The conversation covers hands-on training goals, DVI-driven maintenance sales, and stocking strategies that speed throughput. Alejandro also describes designing a customer-forward facility to elevate how the public views our industry. His closing advice is simple and powerful: do not overspend, learn the business side, and invest in yourself.

Host(s):

Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development

Guest(s):

Alejandro Munoz, Owner of All 4 Tires LLC

Show Highlights:

[00:04:27] - Alejandro buys a three-unit property, scales to 18 bays, then later consolidates to one unit to reduce complexity and stress.

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Episode Transcript:

Jimmy Lea: Hello friend. My name is Jimmy Lea with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and you are listening to the Leading Edge podcast. My guest today is Alex, and he is in Marietta, California. California, that's where my other cousin is. He's in Marietta, Georgia, where my other cousin is. His shop is called All Four Tires website, all four tires.com in Marietta, Georgia.

Jimmy Lea: Welcome, if you will with me. Alex. Alex, how are you brother?

Alejandro Munoz: I'm doing great. Thank you so much for the invite. Oh, you're welcome man. I'm excited to be here.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I'm excited for your shop as well. It looks like I'm looking at your website. It's a beautiful shop. You've got it set up extremely well. It's, this is cool.

Jimmy Lea: How long have you been in business?

Alejandro Munoz: Well, I've been, overtime has been open for 11 years this month. Congratulations. Thank you so much. And I've been in the automotive industry since 2010.

Jimmy Lea: I remember 10. That's when I had to reinvent myself. So you got into the business, both of us. Let's go back to there.

Jimmy Lea: 2010. What? What happened? How did you get into the automotive industry?

Alejandro Munoz: Well, that's interesting you asked the question. I moved from Columbia, south America. I'm originally from there, and I, you know, for personal reasons, I have to move to the us. My mom lived in New Jersey and family members had a shop, a small shop, and I got the opportunity to get my first job there.

Alejandro Munoz: Basically, you won't believe this, but sweeping the floor and learning how to do all the changes.

Jimmy Lea: I believe it. That's where everybody starts.

Alejandro Munoz: Yeah. So, I stayed there for probably a couple years and I learned a lot. I have a background of engineering, so I'm a mechanical, I'm biomedical engineer, so it didn't take me too long.

Alejandro Munoz: To kind of get my mind aligned with the automotive industry. I loved it since day one. Yeah. And I had great people around me. I remember I have a couple great technicians back in those days, which I learned a lot from, I. Watching, you know, passing them the tools and helping them clean their mess and, you know, asking them for the opportunity to jump on.

Alejandro Munoz: And definitely after a few months, I was able to start working. Own cars, getting my own tools and, you know, a lot of independent study. Yeah. I gotta tell you that even though I have a background in engineering, I have to learn how cars work and that most of that happened at night, you know, so I'll finish working, I'll go home and I sign up to any online class or, you know, training available, and I just started absorbing until.

Alejandro Munoz: Couple years later, I was already, you know, swapping engines and doing timing bells and all this kind of stuff. So we started selling tires in that same location in, in big volume. Yeah. And then I moved to a different company and this company was more towards tires. It was about 70% of their sales were just tires.

Alejandro Munoz: Their inventory was huge. And over there I learned that part of how to sell tires in the automotive industry.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow.

Alejandro Munoz: Yeah, a few year, years later in 2014 I moved to Georgia and you know, I thought it was a better place to live you know, compared with New Jersey. With all respect for people from New Jersey.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. We love our friends from New Jersey. It's the garden state. There's a reason. It's the garden state and we know the history. Yes, but Georgia.

Alejandro Munoz: Georgia, so I landed in Georgia and about nine months later I have found a pretty good shop to open all four tires and the rest is just, sorry.

Jimmy Lea: Nice.

Jimmy Lea: Congrats. So what is the shop look like? How many bays? How many techs? And is this the, this is the shop you opened after being in Georgia for nine months.

Alejandro Munoz: Yes. Yes. Okay. We have never moved. Well, it is good you ask. Offer Tire has been, you know, up and down over the years, like any other business.

Alejandro Munoz: This shop is huge. The property has three different units. Each unit has about six base. So I was, I started leasing one after two and a half years. The owner was selling the property, so I bought all three units. 'cause it was, oh my

Jimmy Lea: gosh. Yeah.

Alejandro Munoz: It was part of the same parcel. So, and then I, with all the motivation and excitement that I had back in those days, I decided I wanted to occupy everything and didn't want to lease any part of the units.

Alejandro Munoz: I pulled all three of units together. And yeah, we did a pretty good amount of growth sales during 20 17, 18 yeah, part of 19 until COVID. And then it took a big toll the amount of stress to manage a big job. You know, I went through emotions and, you know, stress and, you know, I was getting sick because I was just dealing a lot of, dealing with a lot of the, you know, day-to-day duties of running a chop with multiple people working for you.

Alejandro Munoz: So, and then I I left the business running. With my service advisor, she's been with me almost since I opened. I mean, she joined me probably before nine months of being running the business and she's been with me since then. So yeah, I moved back to Columbia in 2021. Oh, and the business. Stay here, you know, open, and I came back about 18 months ago, but now with a different perspective, the small, the chop is smaller.

Alejandro Munoz: Right now our gross profit margin is higher. Okay. But I, that was a personal decision. Yeah. That was, you know, it was not everybody wants to be a multi-location shop, and I learned that. Yes. You know, based on the experience, so,

Jimmy Lea: yes. Yeah.

Alejandro Munoz: The other two units now are rented or leased to other companies.

Alejandro Munoz: What kind of companies? What, who's in there? We do have a mankey car care. Okay. We do have a car dealership. They don't do any retail, anything. They just fix their cars in that shop. There's really no customer flow there. Okay. And then we're here. Yes.

Jimmy Lea: So, so you went from a single location, bought the entire thing, went garage Mahal on it, 18 bays, massive COVID hits, oh, hold on a second.

Jimmy Lea: Let's reevaluate Now you're down to six bays. I'm assuming you're just in the one building, one location. Six bays and much happier.

Alejandro Munoz: Much happier. A lot of free time for me and my family. And yes. Oh, nice. Yes, that's exactly how, congratulations how it is going right now.

Jimmy Lea: So with the six Bays that you have now, how many technicians, how many service advisors what does the makeup look like?

Alejandro Munoz: We do have two and a half technicians. Two, when I say two and a half is two, two full-time. And I always have a learner that it works part-time and you know, I have my service advisor and myself.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congratulations. That's good. So the two technicians, do you have one that is the professor, one that is the trainer, coach for the half tech?

Jimmy Lea: The part-time tech? Well, they, is it an apprentice?

Alejandro Munoz: Yeah, I, oh no I do have a two B Techs. So they know enough to do what we do. Yeah. And it is interesting you asked the question 'cause not every chop. Needs a master tech that wants to make $200,000 a year. So our shop is limited to suspension tires and emission repairs, and we basically leave it there.

Alejandro Munoz: All right. So what we do is basic.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. And

Alejandro Munoz: it, you know, with some, you know, requirements for computerized diagnostic, for like emissions, basically RC and sensors, catalytics and you know, and so forth. So. What I have done for several years and it's good you ask that question, is I have trained most of my technicians, I won't say everyone from scratch, but most of them come with.

Alejandro Munoz: Little to no knowledge. And I've been a trainer, so I have a teacher inside of me. So I have the classes prepared. I do have, you know, a projector, my computer, we do have a pretty big training room here in the company, and I teach them everything they know. So I do, we do keep, I would say, an average of.

Alejandro Munoz: Three and a half years of retention. We do know that this company it's al it also plays a role as cool for those who wants to learn and then fly away basically. So I, and it is interesting because every time I hire someone that wants to, I always tell them like, you probably not gonna stay here your whole life.

Jimmy Lea: Forever. Right?

Alejandro Munoz: Forever. But I want you to learn as much as you can while you're next to me. So I do most of the training. I do oversee the shop. My friend Kelly, my service advisor she takes care of most of the customer. I'm, you know, as a business owner, I'm back and forth, you know. Sure. Customers know, obviously know who I am.

Alejandro Munoz: But I love spending more time with my guys outside and, you know, making sure everything gets out on time and, you know. So on.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, Alex, that is phenomenal. I appreciate the teacher spirit that you have in teaching your technicians. That's phenomenal. Have you taken your techs and gone to any conferences or trade shows?

Alejandro Munoz: Some of them in the past have been with me. The ones that I currently have, they're, they haven't been able to go. Okay. The one is, they've both been here for about a year and a half.

Speaker 3: Okay.

Alejandro Munoz: So, since I came back from Columbia, as I told you so the situation of when you have a small shop now that is a small shop, it's, you know who gets to go.

Alejandro Munoz: Yeah. You know, and sometimes it's difficult to pick that, but I tell you what, we do have a Caribbean trip on December for Christmas, and we're closing the shop and everybody's going, so

Jimmy Lea: bravo.

Alejandro Munoz: Yeah. So, you know, those are things that, and I always tell them, you know, don't take me for it. I'm not doing this for you.

Alejandro Munoz: You guys are doing this for yourself. Like, you know, everything that we can do, it's. It's a teamwork. Yeah. Like everything that we do is for everybody. So we are gonna be living in about four weeks the first week of December, and we'll go to the beach. Everything pay. And that's good.

Jimmy Lea: That's beautiful.

Jimmy Lea: They have been a blessing to you. Now you are being a blessing to them. And that's beautiful. I challenge you or this is free advice, so you know what free advice is worth. Take it into advisement. There's a show not very far from you in Raleigh, North Carolina. It's called a STA, automotive Service Tire Association, A STA.

Jimmy Lea: They do it in, usually it's in September. And so if you set a goal that says, Hey guys, if we can operate at this level every month. We'll shut down the entire shop and we'll all go to training at A STA Raleigh, North Carolina. Anybody that operates at this level, you get a go. If you're down here, you don't get a go.

Jimmy Lea: If you're up here, you get a go.

Alejandro Munoz: Yeah that's great. I'll take that. But I also wanna share something. You know, it's interesting 'cause after COVID everything turned into virtual. Right much. Everybody wants to virtual classes. Yes. So I tell you what, back in the days before COVID Yes. We did have several opportunities for training with Goodyear Michelin.

Alejandro Munoz: Yes. You know, we were actually part of a TI for five years. Yes. You're familiar with a TI, the coaching company? Yes. And we travel a lot and everybody. Got to go. Like we, but now, nowadays it's like you get this invitation to join a Zoom meeting. So yeah, training is pretty active. But it's most done online right now.

Jimmy Lea: It is. And I love the online availability of it. I love the frequency and the ease of use, if you will. So we can be in Georgia and here we are in Utah. We put on the training and you're able to join. Because you can't always travel to Utah. We understand that. Yeah. In this training that they're doing with Asta, that hands-on training takes that learning level just a little bit higher.

Jimmy Lea: So we, yeah, we learn on Zoom, we can do that, but now when we put hands-on, it elevates that education, elevates their learning.

Alejandro Munoz: Yes, sir.

Jimmy Lea: Every technician I've ever talked to, every shop owner I've ever talked to, when they come back from training, those technicians operate at a higher level. They have learned how to work a picoscope.

Jimmy Lea: They've learned how to diagnose something. They've come back away from this training and say, you know what, if I would've known this. These other cars, we would've been able to fix those. We would've been able to make those repairs. And maybe for your business, because you're doing the filters, the shocks, the struts, the brakes, the brake pads, the calipers.

Jimmy Lea: Maybe it's the easier stuff, but it's also what you're good at. Maybe you don't need to know about timing scopes and timing belts and water pumps and alternators and starters. Maybe you don't, maybe everything you need to know is right there in the tires and brakes and brake pads because what percentage of your business is tires versus auto repair?

Alejandro Munoz: 30% of our sales is the tire itself. But the tire brings a lot of suspension work. It does. We used to have on our website all four tires, your tire and suspension experts, because there was a point since we opened, most of it will be suspension. Yes. Why? We very throttle on if you're gonna get a set of tires, we wanna make sure your tires will last

Jimmy Lea: a hundred percent.

Jimmy Lea: Totally agree. So not only is it the suspension and the sway bars and the control arms, it's the alignment. Do you have an alignment machine too?

Alejandro Munoz: Yes we do. And and it's interesting you mentioned like not everybody needs to learn about, you know, how to do, use a scope or how to do an electrical diagnostic.

Alejandro Munoz: Suspension is a whole science. It is. So we are alignment experts here. We do alignments all day long. Just to give you an idea, we get an average six alignment appointments. That's how well our reputation is, where we at. People bring vehicles here with drivability issues that nobody has been able to resolve.

Alejandro Munoz: So it's a whole science we spend most of our time. There on. And then the 30% of the tire sales that we do brings another. 60% additional on suspension work?

Jimmy Lea: Oh, for sure. For sure.

Alejandro Munoz: Absolutely. So I can tell you for sure, 80% of our business stays there. Tires and suspension. We do open hoods. Yeah, I know shops and I met a guy who actually was a trainer and I learned a lot from him.

Alejandro Munoz: He said he own a shop and never open a hood. That's how you know. Interest in the suspension and tire is Oh yeah. Just fixing drivability issues. But we can tell probably 80% of our business comes from suspension and tires.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. That's phenomenal. Do you also get into the, like the oil changes the fluid flushes filters, what?

Jimmy Lea: Windshield wipers?

Alejandro Munoz: Yes. We do all that. We do have a system in place to do a multi-point inspection and you get to. Sell most of these items almost guarantee per vehicle.

Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, you

Alejandro Munoz: pull your cabin filter, you air filter, you check your wipers, you check your battery, you have to have a battery tester and you have to have a pretty good system in place to do multiple inspections.

Alejandro Munoz: The customers can see the pictures and videos and. And circles and details of what, what is needed. Oh, I love that. So we do have a filter rack. We keep most, 90%, 95% of the filters in the stock. And that's the only way to get done. Honestly. Nobody's gonna wait half an hour to an hour for an auto part to bring an air filter.

Alejandro Munoz: So you have to stock your filters, you have to stock your wipers, you have to stock your batteries. So yeah, we do take care of that portion as well. We partnered with Baline about seven years ago. Okay. I would say already. So all our fluids are baling, so we do. Brake fluid replacement. We do differential fluid replacement.

Alejandro Munoz: We don't touch transmissions. Because nowadays every transmission is different. It's not like in the nineties it was just one transmission fluid for everybody. Right. So we stay away. Yeah, we stay away from that. But we do power screen even though it's tending to disappear. And we do coolant flush, I mean, you name it.

Alejandro Munoz: Yeah. All the maintenance items will include it as part of our service as well.

Jimmy Lea: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. So what do you do as a company to retain your employees, to keep them engaged? How do you work on company culture?

Alejandro Munoz: It's been a process. I can tell you this. From 2014 when I opened the doors, and you probably heard this a hundred times, you think you're a great technician, so you decide to open a shop and then you realize life is not as beautiful as you think.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Alejandro Munoz: So first, let me tell you this, you gotta work on yourself. Ooh, nice. My temper is not the same that it was in 2014. My patient is not the same that it was in 2014. You know? My ability to listen to other people's opinion. The ability to be able to share my knowledge with other people is from zero to 100.

Alejandro Munoz: Like, I'm right here. I was right there. So that probably answers your question. You need to work on yourself. You have to have your personality in place. To be able to teach others what you want to transmit as a company, your culture, it starts with yourself. I do believe that if you're not honest, if you don't treat your customers well, if you don't show up on time, if you don't help cleaning the shop, if you don't lead by example,

Jimmy Lea: yeah.

Alejandro Munoz: It's it, your culture is gonna be completely destroyed. So, I have to obviously give credit to God. I believe in God. You know, I'm not a religious person, but I do know that, you know, God can help you significantly when you have challenges on your personality. Yeah. And he will, you know, he will guide you through it.

Alejandro Munoz: So, and also education. Man, as I told you, we joined a coaching company for several years. I learned a lot. You know, as a business owner, if you want to create a culture, you gotta be around. You know, with those that are where you wanna be. If you wanna be a million dollar shop, then you have to meet with million dollar shop owners.

Jimmy Lea: You gotta surround yourself with the same people that you want to be.

Alejandro Munoz: Exactly. So we do, I mean, what else we do? We do have some perks here and there for the employees. We do pay for some of the tools. We obviously, we listen to them, to their personal needs. You know, if they have a family emergency, we take in consideration if they're parents, they have kids.

Alejandro Munoz: You know, if at some point you might have people that have family members that you know depend on them to do daily duties. And you know, being able to listen to their needs as well. They will give you a hundred percent, 150%, 200%. It's not about the time or the amount of hours that they clock in, is the quality of service that they can provide you.

Alejandro Munoz: When you adjust yourself, and I'm telling you this from a very conservative point of view, because I was raised differently than the way these kids are now in the market. Trying to find a job.

Jimmy Lea: Right?

Alejandro Munoz: It's a different world.

Jimmy Lea: Yes.

Alejandro Munoz: So you can't talk to them. Like, for example, I'm not too old, but I'm not too young.

Alejandro Munoz: I consider myself like I'm in that age that I'm like a sandwich in the middle. I learn a different way that I'm teaching my employees, but. Yeah, you got, you kind of have to get the best of everything, you know?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Alejandro Munoz: It's, it is just to get adjusted to the culture, I guess, to understand what these generation is looking for.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. You gotta be adaptable,

Alejandro Munoz: you gotta be fluid and it is continuously changing. Every two, three years, you start seeing, and I'm telling you, because remember I told you this company's a school. Yeah. So I do get young people constantly. Every three years I get to get someone that just got outta high school.

Alejandro Munoz: Right. And it's an, and I learn something every time you learning what you know their interest is and it's different every generation, every. Time that years go by. It's just different. Yeah. And you have to get adjusted to it.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's true. I've heard it said before that just because you're a business owner doesn't mean you're a good leader.

Jimmy Lea: What does it mean to you to be a good leader?

Alejandro Munoz: Lead by example?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Alejandro Munoz: I think that's key. The leader, you know, s. The leader is going to run next to you. It's not gonna ask you to run on your own. You know the leader is gonna be there to extend, you know, a hand when you need it, when you need to be lifted. The leader is gonna, it's just gonna show you, it's gonna transfer you information.

Alejandro Munoz: He is gonna want you to grow. The leader wants you to be better than him. I mean, I'm not an expert on motivational, you know, writings and words, but I think that's basically how I would say a leader should behave. It's very important that you are with them. You share time with them, you listen to them, as I mentioned before.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh yeah. It's important. You gotta pay attention to your people. You gotta listen to them. I applaud you for working on yourself to have the patience to work with people, to have the patience, to listen to customers, to have the patience to be there with your people. And it is not just about you.

Jimmy Lea: It's about them as well. That's very cool, Alex. That's really good. That's correct. So if you were to have a magic wand and you were to be, to have one wish, you can't wish for more wishes, but you have one wish, what would you change in the automotive aftermarket industry?

Alejandro Munoz: Whoa, that's a tough one.

Alejandro Munoz: I would say. The perspective of how the world see us.

Jimmy Lea: You would change how the world sees the automotive aftermarket? Yes. Yes. Nice. And yeah, I would Go ahead. What would you change it? What would you change? What would you change? What would be the difference between is currently and what they see tomorrow?

Alejandro Munoz: Okay. I'm a, I'm gonna give you this answer in two parts because there's two things that I wanna, two separate things I wanna discuss about what I just said. One is how people perceive it as a career, and the other one is how customers perceive you as a business. And that's why when you ask me what my wish would be, I'll say that one.

Alejandro Munoz: Well, obviously when I, you know, being a biomedical engineer. And with good grades at school. My parents were not too happy when I said I wanted to open a shop.

Jimmy Lea: Right.

Alejandro Munoz: Okay. But I think that's normal. No, I don't blame them for it. And not only including my parents, but including most of my family members, you know, I got to love it.

Alejandro Munoz: I didn't know how to explain it.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. They're wondering why do you go from being a doctor to being a tech technician, an automotive repair guy? I don't see the line.

Alejandro Munoz: Yeah. So how do I change it? I think I already did, you know, because I put a lot of effort in showing them this is as a beautiful career as any other, and I'm putting a lot of love on what you do every day.

Alejandro Munoz: And with this, I'm not saying I'm happy every day I wake up, but I know I love what I do. I know it for sure. And that conviction sends a message. When you love something, you're gonna make it happen. Yeah. It's that simple. Yeah. You know, from turning wrenches or as I said, from sweeping a floor all the way to, you know, now just to say, you know, having real estate investments and, you know, other type of investments and still working on cars, you know?

Alejandro Munoz: Yeah. Still doing what I love. Nice. That would that's one thing, you know, that's one of the things I told you and from the customer perspective is because when I wanted to open a shop the square footage in New Jersey is expensive. So you don't get to get a lot of space for cheap, let's say that way.

Alejandro Munoz: Yes. So it's really hard to find a place. Where you can have a clean bathroom, you can have a waiting area such as, you know, dealerships do, you know, you go to a dealership, buy a new car and you have probably 20,000 square footage of, you know, customer area for customers to enjoy. So I say when I open a shop, I do wanna offer that.

Alejandro Munoz: I do want to, I want them to walk in and they don't have to see an alternator on the counter. They don't want to put their fingers on and you know, so what I did to change it, man, we allocated about 2000 square feet of customer area, like just re between reception bathrooms and, you know, the TV room.

Alejandro Munoz: We have you know, working. Like a work workspace where Workspace, yeah. The laptops. Yeah. Yeah. So the coworking area. Sorry about that. Yes. And we do, we did allocate area for our employees to take a break and have, you know, a small kitchen where they can. So everything I dream of, at some point I executed it and I changed that perspective.

Alejandro Munoz: Some people walk in here and they say, man, this smells better than my house. Ah.

Jimmy Lea: So we, congratulations. So it doesn't smell like oil. It doesn't smell like tires. It doesn't smell like rubber. It smells like relax. It smells good. It's cool. I pulled cinnamon by the way. Apple cinnamon. It's apple cinnamon.

Alejandro Munoz: It's apple cinnamon. Yeah. Even when I'm here right now, I can smell it like every ev everything is, you know, putting love in details like every single nail on these walls. Because let me tell you another thing. I demolished about 70% of the. Office area and rebuild it the way I want it. Oh, wow. So I, yeah, I got to grab a hammer and take every wall down and we remodel everything and put new sheet rock and paint and everything is fresh.

Alejandro Munoz: And I, I'm telling you, every single thing you see in this shop, it has love in it.

Jimmy Lea: Congrats.

Alejandro Munoz: Every single. Every single thing. And we think about customers, you know, we have a baby changer on the battery. Like, you know, you never find a baby changer unless, again, unless you go to a dealership. Right. They probably do.

Alejandro Munoz: But it's the pleasure to change the perspective. Yes. Thank you for that question, by the way, because I think that question is. It is. It is probably the best question I've really been asked, to be honest, but this is how I created a change to change the customer and the family and friends perspective of the automotive aftermarket industry.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. We talk in the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. We talk about building a better business, and as a coaching and training company, this is what we are here to help you do, is to build a better business. Because when you build a better business, you have a better life. And not only do you have a better life, your spouse does, and your family does, and your service advisor does, and their significant others have a better life, and your technicians have a better life and their spouses and their children and their families, everybody benefits and has a better life.

Jimmy Lea: And for the institute, we know that result will be in a better industry. Better business, better life, better industry. That's the foundation of our company and what we do. That's our vision in helping shops to take that next level and become what you have done. Alex, that, that's phenomenal.

Jimmy Lea: Congratulations brother. That is super awesome. Thank

Alejandro Munoz: you. Thank you so much. I'm actually happy to be able to share, you know, I love sharing.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, right. Yeah, it is. It is. In with the teacher spirit.

Alejandro Munoz: Yeah we do learn something new every day. I love it. I love it. Every day when I turn the key and I close at 6:00 PM I always go home with something new in my head.

Alejandro Munoz: Love it. I always learn every day.

Jimmy Lea: Love it. Oh, congratulations. That's so beautiful. That is so beautiful. So, last and final question here, we come into land. If you were to talk to yourself today. This is you years ago, before you were starting, what advice would you give yourself today if you were starting your business today?

Alejandro Munoz: Don't overspend.

Alejandro Munoz: Don't overspend. Oh my God. I can tell you how. I mean, I can spend hours telling you how immature I was financially when I opened. Four tires. Tires, it's, I look back and I say probably would not do that now. You know, save and invest. That's what I will tell myself.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. Save and invest and I, I hear you saying things like, make sure you have an education.

Jimmy Lea: Make sure you learn, make sure you have a good team that's helping you to build your business, because you as a technician need the business training. You need business acumen to take it up to that next level.

Alejandro Munoz: Sorry, I lost you for a second.

Jimmy Lea: You, you need the bi. So many of us as technicians, we have the technical training.

Jimmy Lea: We can fix cars, we can repair cars, and you did this for hours and hours every evening. You were learning how to fix cars, fix and repair. And what we lack in the industry is the business acumen, the business knowledge, the business knowhow. Which is where you were talking about in the beginning.

Jimmy Lea: You were very immature in your financial decisions. Where now, today, because of the school of hard knocks, you have learned how to be smarter with your business, how to be smarter with your money. Your advice is, hey, get the training and be smarter with your financial decisions.

Alejandro Munoz: Knowledge is converting into dollars. I'm explain myself what I just said. You learn two ways. You pay someone to teach you or you're gonna make a big mistake that's gonna cost you money, and then you learn

Jimmy Lea: either. It's so true. It's so true, Alex. You either paid somebody to help you get there, or you made a mistake and had to learn on your, I have a $17,000 lesson that I learned, but I want to hear what yours is.

Alejandro Munoz: Okay. Oh. No I got many. I got many. I got many. I've been smart in certain areas, but I've been a fool in others. You know, I'm gonna give you, I know we have to be done in a minute, but let me just tell you this short story. When I opened all four tires, I didn't have a lot of money, so there's something I know now.

Alejandro Munoz: I did smart. I bought. Almost brand new equipment from shops that were closing. I and I don't ask me how I found that. I think probably by just Googling, Googling at some point, you know, I got information and when I opened up four tires, I remember I got a $50,000 rack for like $3,000. And the, yeah.

Alejandro Munoz: I'm talking about the alignment rack, the alignment machine, all that. And it was barely used. Yeah. And I paid three grand for the rack. And I remember I paying like 10,000 for the system itself the digital system, but it was worth $50,000. And I. That for like with the tire changer and the now, nowadays I can probably, you know, something breaks, we're just gonna order a new, but not back in the days when I opened.

Alejandro Munoz: I that's a different story. It might take hours, but I can just tell you I didn't have what it was needed when I opened and it caused me a lot of stress at some point. So, and you can pay to get the knowledge. I told you I was trained, I was part of a coaching company, cost me thousands of dollars, but that also saved me a lot of trouble.

Alejandro Munoz: Not only that, the return on investment was great.

Jimmy Lea: Yes.

Alejandro Munoz: So I tell everybody whoever's listening, either way, you're gonna have to pay you, choose what way you wanna take, what route you wanna take. All right. So it's a learning experience anyway. 'cause even though you get coach, that coach is not gonna do it for you.

Alejandro Munoz: You need to start making changes on yourself, on your company. You gotta start influencing the people you work with. And then this is another thing when you start making changes, some of the people that you think they're with you, they will leave. Yes.

Jimmy Lea: The people that got you where you are today are probably not the people that are gonna be with you when you get to where you want to go. Because they're with you for today. They might not have the same vision, the and the drive that you do to take it to that next level. So they, yes, they'll be with you today, but they may not be the ones that land with you when you make it to the final destination.

Jimmy Lea: And that's, and,

Alejandro Munoz: and for those who actually have let's say some sort of faith or belief and you kind of have to, you have to learn how to separate the employee that comes late because you know, always something happened. I'm so sorry. And then you wanna give them opportunity, over opportunity and then you gotta understand this is a business.

Alejandro Munoz: Yes. Because if not, then you will go up in a church. It's that simple.

Jimmy Lea: Yes.

Alejandro Munoz: So it's to have that mentality clear because trust me, you can't run a business with emotions. You have to have a goal. You have to have your standards in place. You have to have a plan that your team knows what route you going to, so the goals can be met as a team.

Jimmy Lea: That's so true, man. We're either going there together or we're not going.

Alejandro Munoz: Definitely.

Jimmy Lea: And it takes a lot of individual input to, to make it to that final destination. So Alex, thank you very much brother. I appreciate talking to you. I appreciate the the banter, the back and forth.

Alejandro Munoz: Listen, I feel honored for the invitation. Thank you so much.

Jimmy Lea: Thank you, brother.