Do the Right Thing and Have Fun With Joe McDonald, Vice President of Sales at Jasper Engines & Transmissions

Joe McDonald is Vice President of Sales at Jasper Engines & Transmissions. With over thirty years of experience in the automotive aftermarket industry, Joe is skilled in team building, account management, leadership, planning, and sales processes. He began his career in the rental car industry and has been with Jasper since 1996.

In this episode…

How do you build a culture where customers notice you do the right thing while having fun? In this era of job hopping, how do you regularly keep employees around for not just years but multiple decades? You’ll learn how Jasper Engines & Transmissions regularly accomplishes both on this episode of Gain Traction!

According to Joe McDonald of Jasper Engines, it starts with leadership. He says when staff members see company executives doing little things like picking up trash off the floor, cleaning sinks in the washroom, and clearing employees’ plates at company meals, it motivates them to do a great job and never look for another one.

On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge welcomes Joe for a conversation about building a culture that encourages employees to do the right thing while having fun and to stick around for twenty, thirty, or even forty years. Joe shares why Jasper employees take pride in their workspace and what the leadership does to set a positive example. Don’t miss it!

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• Joe McDonald explains how he accidentally started working at Jasper
• Why Joe has had sales success in the auto repair industry, even though his wife predicted he would get fired
• Joe explains the genesis of Jasper’s motto, “Do it right and have fun.”
• What makes the culture unique at Jasper?
• Why do Jasper employees tend to stick around for multiple decades?
• Joe tells a funny story about how he accidentally swiped a manufacturing associate’s jacket while he was in the bathroom

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Joe McDonald on LinkedIn
• Jasper Engines & Transmissions
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey 
• Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
• Traction Summit 2023
• Mike Edge on LinkedIn
• Tread Partners

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast, where we feature top automotive entrepreneurs and experts and share their inspiring stories. Now let’s get started with the show.

Mike Edge:

Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast. I’m Mike Edge, your host today. The Gain Traction podcast is where I talk with top automotive business leaders. Today I want to tell you a little bit about a summit conference down in Texas called the Traction Summit hosted by Smithers. This year’s summit is May 23rd through the 25th in San Antonio, Texas, where attendees will have the opportunity to understand and discuss the future of the tire industry while also networking with fellow colleagues and professionals. This year’s theme is sustainability and tires with topics of discussion including new materials for tires, reduction in tire wear, carbon block, material selection and impact on tire performance, and the life options for tires and more. Smithers has been in the tire testing market since the 1920s and has a very strong brand for independent, expert opinion on tire performance.

Along with presenting leading industry information at Traction Summit, with over 90 years of expertise in rubber testing, Smithers provides custom tire analysis and standard testing to meet your requirements. If you want to find out more, visit tractionsummit.com and that ends with one t, tractionsummit.com. This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners and the Retread program. What in the heck is a Retread program? It is a full-scale customer re-engagement program to win back a shop’s best lost customers. It is a one-time, 120 day program that generates a guaranteed 10 to one return on investment. Are you kidding me, a 10 to one guarantee? Yes, no tricks or gamuts. These are customers in your point of sale system right now. And Tread is basically telling you if you invest 4,000 today, in 120 days you’ll see back $40,000 from your best lost customers. We get them back for you.

So what are you waiting for? You can email us at [email protected] or you can learn more at treadpartners.com. So today my guest is Joe McDonald. Very excited about having him here. He’s a highly experienced professional in the automotive aftermarket industry. He has 31 years of experience in the field and began his career in the rental car industry. He then moved into the Quick Lube franchise sector before joining Jasper Engines & Transmissions in 1996. His career with Jasper began as an outside sales representative in the Baltimore area and after three years he was promoted to regional vice president of sales for the Northeast. Joe held this role until taking the executive vice president of sales role in 2018. Joe holds a business degree from the University of Maryland and he has become an expert in automotive aftermarket and a source for those looking to understand the industry as a whole. Joe, welcome to the Gain Traction podcast.

Joe McDonald:

Oh, glad to be here, Mike. Thanks for asking me to do this.

Mike:

Listen, man, I’m excited to have you. First of all, big admirer of Jasper Engines in general. I grew up near the company as I told you. But I’d want to start from your career, where you got started, how you got started. So let’s get into your family dynamic, where you’re from. So I think you mentioned you’re from Maryland, correct?

Joe:

That’s correct, yes. I live in a town just about 25 miles south of Baltimore in between Baltimore and Indianapolis. And really my start with Jasper was by accident and sometimes you got to get lucky. I was coming out out of entrepreneurial spirit, coming out of college and tried a couple businesses with some partners and myself and you know how that goes sometimes. Found myself looking for direction and came across Jasper in an automotive repair shop I was at and he said, “You’d be good with them.” He picks up the phone, calls the local manager, the rest is history, truly.

Mike:

Really?

Joe:

That’s right. So that particular shop owner rangs me up every once in a while and he says, “You owe me one.” I said, “I owe you more than one.” So it was by accident but it was obviously turned out to be a great decision.

Mike:

 Well, listen, I think that’s just the way God works. I mean, we get slapped in the head sometimes and those opportunities just sit right in front of us and we just need somebody to point them out to us. So what was your family life like when you grew up? Was your dad in the automotive sector at all? Or did you have any relatives in the business?

Joe:

No, not at all. And I grew up with four brothers, five boys, so gave our mom hell and we’re always out looking for things to do. But in high school you have those kids that got into cars and were under the hoods fixing things and that just wasn’t me. I mean, I had the old muscle car and had my buddies work on it. I wasn’t a car guy, to be quite frank. And coming out of college, I just got steered into it with the rental car, then to Quick Lube. And then I realized early on that I liked the people in this industry. They’re good people, hardworking people. So I said, “Hey, I got to find a long career here.” And that’s really what I was looking for when I accidentally came upon Jasper and was blessed to find it. But didn’t grow up focused on cars or anything like that. I just got steered towards it and loved it ever since.

Mike:

Man, that is so funny. My listening audience, thanks, getting to know me better, but I had five, well, there’s four, I have four brothers and two sisters, so we had five boys like you guys did. So I know the dynamic of that household and it goes without saying, right? And I didn’t grow up around automotive either. I mean, had a little bit around me like family and friends that did a lot of work on cars and things like that and knew it well, but it wasn’t my thing. And when I fell into this the same thing, I love the people and for what you just mentioned, hard work and down to earth, salt of the earth, just I talked to them and I get it.

Joe:

Yeah, I’ll tell you. Yeah. And something else on that sales, when I first took this position, my other positions in the industry was rental cars kind of run into fleet, Quick Lube. I worked for the franchisor. We would visit the locations, make sure they’re doing things the right way. So really learned about business and marketing. But then when this position came about, I’ll never forget, my wife says, “Joe, you’re going to get fired. You’re not in sales.” And I said-

Mike:

“Thanks, honey.”

Joe:

“I hear you. Thanks for the confidence.” But what I learned very quickly was the people in this industry telling the truth, just be honest with them. And that’s all I know. I’m a pretty direct person. And that’s why she was saying, “You’re not going to be able to get around some of this stuff.” But I learned really quickly these shop owners and fleet managers, again, good people, “Hey, I can do that. I think I can help you.” Or “You know what? That’s not something we can do for you.” And that’s okay too. I think a lot of people get caught up in the constantly wanting to give the person the right answer you think they need, but no, it’s based on their needs. So that’s kind of where I’ve said, “Hey, the people here I click with, they get it. They’re salt to the earth people.” And obviously that’s been a big part of the success I’ve had because of people that I’m working with.

Mike:

That’s awesome. So I’m going to tell the audience literally my favorite, see, I don’t want to forget to talk about this, but my favorite mission statement of any company and this is before you and I met, Joe, and I’ve told you my relationship with Jasper or just how I knew him. My favorite mission statement of any company is Jasper Engines. And you can tell the audience what it is but let’s go into it.

Joe:

Absolutely. So it’s “Do it right… And have fun.” And we wear that on our name tags. It’s kind of on all of our literature and people have got to know it. It’s short, it’s sweet, it’s to the point, goes deeper than that, but it’s got so many meetings and it is all about doing the right thing. Our company was built on Christian values by Alvin Ruxer who started the company in 1942 and built it up through 1987 and then the family had worked for him for many years, took it over and carried those values through today.

So when they say “Do it right,” it all stems from those Christian values. We took on the seven habits of highly successful people some years ago as a part of our culture today, which you can pull those same pieces out of the Bible and have fun doing it. And if you’re not having fun, then what are you doing? And learn to laugh at yourself, fail forward. We’re not building rocket fuel for a rocket scientist, right? Go out there and have fun and provide a need and a solution for your customer.

Mike:

Well, and what’s cool about it, so I’ve been in the internet marketing side for a long time and we help companies kind of develop their sales processes. I mean, not that they don’t have something in place, but we go, well, we want to know what your principles are so we can help portray that online and connect. And what I love about the Jasper one all the time when I think about it, some people can get wordy and they want to try to think about every scenario, but if you literally just do it right and have fun, it’s applicable in any situation. You got a customer problem, what’s the right thing to do? Right? You got an employee problem, what’s the right thing to do? You got another challenge with maintenance. What’s the right thing to do? Shortcut it or do it right? I mean, for me, I love brevity and then just it screams to me.

Joe:

That’s it. You summed it up and there’s been so many examples over that. We’re all about processes and doing it right. Processes, processes, processes. So we’ve taken on all the things that you’ve heard in the eighties and nineties with the Toyota Way lean manufacturing. We’ve done it. We not only did it, we did it to the nth degree to where, again, today we’ve got a full-time JPS, folks that go around and constantly looking at how we can do better, but it’s all about processes. So when we see a mistake and we’ve had them, right? And you go back and look at it, 95% of the time, somebody skipped a process or they didn’t follow process.

So it’s easy to identify the problem, let’s just make sure we fix it and move it forward, bring it out into outside sales is more difficult, but it can be done. And we’ve got processes for our outside sales people that they follow. And you see somebody faltering, let’s go back and look at the processes. Are you doing this every day? Are you doing… And if they are, then it’s something else, right? We can focus on that something else. If it’s not, let’s get the processes down, then we can move on to something else.

Mike:

Well, it’s that age old adage of if you can’t identify it, you can’t fix it, right? So we want to identify it. But let’s talk about the culture of Jasper because A, I told you I don’t live far from Jasper and I know the culture. I know the town. It’s an amazing area of our country that people don’t realize. And the rich work ethic is something that, even you recognize being from Maryland that when you get there, you’re like, “Man, these people just get after it.”

Joe:

They get after it. And I’ll tell you, when you go out there, you kind of get plugged in again and again. I travel out there quite frequently. Our outside salesforce does it just a couple times a year, but we get them out there to get them plugged back into the culture because they watch our people and how hard they’re working and they want to come out and work hard for them. We do customer tours. It’s our best sales tool, to fly a group of 10, 15 customers in from across the country. They’re already making-

Mike:

I’ve heard about these.

Joe:

Yeah. Right.

Mike:

Go ahead.

Joe:

They’re all making jokes in the van on the way over. “I mean, I thought we were going to land in a corn field.” And “Man, what are we going to see?” And then they get in there and they’re speechless, right? And by the end of the day, they’re just, “How do you do it? I mean, you had people smiling, shaking our hand, wanting to tell us what they’re doing.” And they said, “Man, if I could get that in my shop,” they’re just blown away. The two biggest comments we get, the most consistent comments we get is our people and they can’t believe how clean it is. They expect to come see a big machine shop, right? A big machine stop that’s dirty and we’re all about the Jasper Clean is what we call it, Jasper Clean. There’s a special thing about that.

It’s not just wiped, it’s Jasper Clean. So again, that’s taking pride in your workspace and it just down to the smallest detail. So that’s what they come back with and they start to bring some of those ideas back to their shops, but they see who we are. But going back to the culture piece of it, a culture piece of it, that’s born and bred from original owner, Mr. Ruxer. And then it’s thoroughly continued through our leadership with the Bibles and the Schwanks who took ownership in 1987. And in 2009 when it became an ESOP, Jack and Doug and the [inaudible 00:12:46] Schwanks and the Bibles are still involved in the leadership. And I’ve heard some of the other folks on the other podcast, one of the things they say is genuineness.

They believe it. Leaders eat last. They live it. I’ve seen it, right? They’re the last one to get up and get the food. They wipe, they’re picking your plate up off the dinner table. This isn’t a show, this is who they are. And when you see leadership doing that, when you see leadership walking through the manufacturing floor and seeing something on the floor and bending down and grabbing it and putting it in a trash can. Or if they’re in the washroom that you see them wiping down a sink area, that’s culture. One last good thing-

Mike:

Yeah, no this is awesome stuff-

Joe:

I can share with you. Probably about, yeah, five, six years ago, we had some folks come in from around the country and kind of tour the facility. And we had a lady come in and she is a industrial psychologist. I’ve never heard that term before. And she had written several books about different companies and culture. So she comes out to Jasper and she comes after two days of there, she says, “I swore I would never write another book, but I’ve never seen anything like this.” She goes, “I don’t know how to explain it, but I got to put it back down in words.” So I’ll get you the book, Mike, I’d love to send it over to you.

Mike:

Oh, yeah.

Joe:

The Jasper Way and our culture. And she really did a great job of capturing it and putting it on print of really where it’s at and kind of where it’s born and bred from. But I can’t stress enough, it starts at the top of the genuineness and just people see that and you kind of catch it. And then you get that prideful feeling of being a part of this company of something special. And it’s tough to carry that outside of that community, as you said. And as we’ve grown, we’ve had to do that. And we’ve done a good job of it so far.

Mike:

Now you have, and I’ll attest to the fact that. And I didn’t mention this to you when we talked beforehand, so that little airport that you guys land people in, it’s what? I don’t know, five miles down the road or whatever from the facility. It’s awesome that you guys fly everybody in there that the visits. But then the one thing I remember when I got my tour, and this is I’m going back 20, 25 years, but I kept thinking to myself, because I’d been to a lot of industrial facilities at that point and I remember walking in there thinking, “Okay, the office area is nice, about to go into the dirty spot.” And then you go in, it doesn’t change and you’re just like, “Holy cow, you could eat off the floor in here.” I mean, it’s that…

Joe:

That’s right.

Mike:

And you mentioned something else about Doug and the rest of the leadership team. Some people call it servant leadership, but really all it is it’s just treating everybody the way you want to be treated. For me it’s example, it’s just do what you’re… Just, you see something on the floor, why are you going to wait for somebody else to pick it up? And then you teach everybody else to have that same mindset. The next thing you know the place is spotless.

Joe:

You got it. And we have the little signs around and just pick up or in the washroom and things like that. But you’re right, it doesn’t seem that hard. That’s what you do. But you got to live it and breathe it. And other people see it and they say, “Hey, I’m a part of something special here. I want to be here. I want to be a part of this.” And that’s where retention comes from. You can’t build a quality product if you don’t have people there that’ve been there a long time and are passionate about your work. So we focus a lot on it. And it’s been a challenge the last couple years for everyone. And we learned a lot about ourselves through all of that. And the biggest thing going through something like this is, all right, we know we’re going to go through it, but let’s start to do things right now that we’re going to be better because of it.

And that’s some of the things that we’ve done to get through this and come out, doing very well. Obviously the automotive aftermarket has been blessed because of what happened with the chips and the manufacturing. You can’t get the vehicles. So we’ve been busier than all out the last three years and that causes other issues of burnout and some different things like that. So we’ve had to step back and make sure we’re taking care of our people. “No, we’re not going to work every Saturday this month, we’re only going to work two. Our folks need to break. They need time with their families.” That’s about to do it the right piece, right? Yeah, we’d like to build more and sell more, we certainly would, but that’s not the right thing for our people right now.

Mike:

Well, and tell the audience a little bit about the patches that people wear, because that’s one of the things that stood out to me. I mean, you got 25, 30, 35, 40 year patches on people’s shirts that they’ve been there that long. I mean, you had a great track record there.

Joe:

Yeah, it really is. And I tell you, you’re starting to see these, we call them old timers and have fun with them, but these 30 and 40 and 45 year patches, they’re starting to retire. And we’re seeing this next generation step up. And that’s where it’s even more unique. My generation, generation before us, you saw some long term employment. I read something recently about if this generation coming up, by the time they’re 40 years old, most of them will have six different jobs. That blows my mind. But that’s the norm for them. When they get a job, they’re constantly looking for the next opportunity. Let’s focus on what we have here.

So we’ve been able to build that there. And it’s not only in our manufacturing facilities, even our outside sales team, we’ve gotten used to, when we get into a group, introduce yourself and we’re always saying, “How many years you’ve been here?” Because we want the new guys to hear about it. When we say veterans, we’re not saying a five year guy, we’re saying a 20 year guy, 25 year guy, a 30 year guy. And outside sales, which is not unheard of, an outside sales with the retention rates there. So we’re proud of it for sure and we make sure those patches are on there so folks can see it.

Mike:

Well, and I think it’s a trick, but so when you’re hiring people, I think that, like you said, when they hear that the young guys, they’re like, “Man, they’ll keep me that long.” I mean, because in a sense the culture is, I don’t think it’s just the employee’s fault anymore. I think companies shed people. It’s just a commodity. And if you have that-

Joe:

You shut it down.

Mike:

You can’t build loyalty because the people don’t feel like they could trust you and that they’re always thinking, “Where’s my plan B?” And I don’t want them to feel like even in our company, I don’t want you to feel like you got to have a plan B. I want you thinking for our-

Joe:

 And if you do, tell us what’s going on. You had a gentleman on not too long ago, Rush Automotive down in Texas, really impressed with him and what he’s doing with his organization. He made a comment that “When I’m talking to a technician, I do a heart interview. This isn’t about the company, this is about, I want to get to know this guy, but I want him knowing I’m hiring you to retire here.” And you’re like, okay, yeah, that’s cool. And you wish you could do that.

But I think he shared, he’s had one guy in all these years not stay and he wasn’t the right fit. So it’s all about interviewing and hiring tough, make sure you get the right guy, we do the same thing. It’s pretty long in interview process. You may not fit here and that’s okay. There nothing wrong with that. But we just want to make sure. So we’re going to ask you those tough questions and make sure you do a ride along and see what we do every day. This isn’t a show. This is what we do every day. So they get a really good look at who we are so when we do get ya, you’re here and we want to keep you here.

Mike:

All right. I’m going to ask you a strange question. Have you eaten at the Snitzel Market in Jasper?

Joe:

Oh, man. I eat there all the time. And anybody new that comes there, it’s the first place we take them.

Mike:

You got to.

Joe:

You have to.

Mike:

It’s fantastic. And they have been very consistent for… But again, it fits that culture in that town, right?

Joe:

It’s that culture in that town. The Schnitz, yeah. Many, many, many. many dinners there.

Mike:

That’s funny. Well, we’re coming up on our hard stop here, but let me ask you some tough questions here.

Joe:

Sure.

Mike:

And we’re doing a new segment called Make Us Laugh. So is there anything that you could tell us? I mean, I don’t know if you got a Tommy Boy story being in sales or if you’ve got a self-deprecating, embarrassing moment or whatever. Whatever you’re comfortable with telling the audience, let us hear it.

Joe:

All right, so I’ll tell you one that just happened recently and this is going to be around for a while. So this long in my career, Jasper, I’m still falling over myself. So we just had our convention in with our outside sales reps in. We had a meeting at a big south break room so we could get everybody in there. Well, I’m walking, there’s a washroom right outside this manufacturing uses, bathroom and a wash area just outside. So I’m walking by and I see one of the black Jasper jackets that all our guys wear. Like that on it, let me grab this, these guys left it laying around. I take it in, the speaker’s already speaking. So I sit it down, forget to say anything at the end of the night it’s like I’ll check tomorrow with the classes we’re having, see if it belongs to anybody.

Well, we go all morning, nobody claimed the jacket. Well, I get a text message from our vice president of Human Resources, says, “Hey, Joe, you got a second?” I said, “Man, I’m a little busy. What’s going on? I’m in a meeting, I’ll call you back.” He sends me a text message of a video goes, “This is what I want to talk to you about.” The security video of me taking the jacket. Unbeknownst to me, we had a manufacturing associate that went to the bathroom and I took his jacket and he came out and his jacket is gone.

Mike:

So that looked like theft.

Joe:

It was theft and we had a new security gentleman that just started and Jason Nord, our vice president of our people department, he said to me, he said, “Joe, he came in, he’s a military guy.” And he said, “Mr. Nord, I’ve got my first investigation. We have a theft in the South break room wash area. Here’s a video.” And of course, he just starts busting out laughing. So you can imagine some of the names I’m being called, “I think you’re doing a coat drive for me next week.” And they’re asking… So that’s very recent one that I’m going to be here for a while.

Mike:

Joe, I hate to tell you this, you might hear that with the rest of your career.

Joe:

Yep. Yeah.

Mike:

Don’t leave the jackets laying around Joe, right?

Joe:

No. One quick thing, I got the jacket on my hand and I went up to Misty and Joyce them up front and I said, “Hey, I’m going to take this over to the security office.” They’re like, “Why?” And she’s got this paper in her hand. I said, “Well, jacket,” they all just started laughing. They had already went and bought him a new jacket thinking that it is gone. And I said, “No, I’ve got it. I’m going to give it back to him.” So, that’s a good one.

Mike:

Yeah, you’ll be called names for a long time on that one. That one’s… Yeah.

Joe:

That’s good.

Mike:

So let me ask you another one, just get to know you a little bit better. What’s your favorite all time hobby, if you have a hobby? Or what do you like to do?

Joe:

So, I love boating, right? People that don’t know Maryland is Chesapeake Bay’s here. And you might hear Maryland’s for crabs and different things. We have Annapolis, the Naval Academy, the Eastern Shore of Maryland is like a bunch of mini Jaspers small towns. St. Michael’s. I boat a lot on the Chesapeake Bay. It’s beautiful in the summertime, one of the most beautiful areas of the country, I feel. And you can pop around, listen to live music or taking a couple cocktails if you like. Tremendous fishing, rock fish, striped bass here in the Chesapeake Bay. My son’s a charter captain. I grew up in area and he’s the charter captain so I get some good taste and fish, but we love to boat.

Mike:

That’s awesome. I didn’t expect you to say that because I think that’s first guest that has told me that they do… Do you have a boat? I mean, do you have a sailboat?

Joe:

I do.

Mike:

Okay.

Joe:

Yeah. No, it’s a motor. It’s a center console, with outboards on it. And you have a lot of sailing here too, Nappers is big sail area in different parts of the Eastern shore. But yeah, a lot of the motor boating for fishing and pleasure and things like that. But it’s beautiful area.

Mike:

That’s awesome. Well, Joe, I want to thank you for being part of the Gain Traction podcast. It’s been a real pleasure.

Joe:

Well, I appreciate you having me.

Mike:

So we’ll have you back someday. So to all our listeners out there, thank you for being part of our podcast. If you’d like to recommend a guest to us, please email me at [email protected]. I’m not kidding you, I take these very seriously. We’ve ended up with some good ones and they’ve ended up being great interviews, so don’t hesitate. Until next time, be safe and have a great day.

Announcer:

Thanks for listening to the Gain Traction podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.

• Gain Traction
• Gain Traction Podcast
• Jasper Engines & Transmissions
• Joe McDonald
• Mike Edge
• Tread Partners

Transcript