Episode 219

John Kairys, Orlando Mangual, Kyle Suffoletto, Stephen Mars & Julio Trinidad

Tuffy Tire & Auto Service

John Kairys is the Executive Director of the Automotive Aftermarket Charitable Foundation, bringing more than 40 years of experience across retail, wholesale, franchising, and distribution in the automotive aftermarket. He now leads efforts focused on providing financial assistance and support to industry professionals facing personal hardship.

Orlando Mangual is the owner of Mangual Enterprises and a multi-location Tuffy Tire & Auto operator, growing his business to multiple stores through a people-first leadership approach. His background in training and organizational development shaped his strategy for building scalable, team-driven operations.

Kyle Suffoletto is a multi-store operator with Tuffy Auto Service Center, overseeing locations across multiple states while focusing on operational growth and franchise collaboration. With a background in management and marketing, he has helped expand his family’s automotive business into a growing regional network.

Stephen Mars is a partner at Williams Russell Group and an automotive industry leader managing more than 20 locations across several U.S. markets. A military veteran turned operator, he combines leadership development and operational discipline to drive multi-location growth and organizational culture.

Julio Trinidad is a longtime Tuffy Auto Service Center franchise owner based in Florida, operating his location for more than a decade while maintaining a hands-on approach with customers and team members. His career reflects a commitment to community-focused service and owner-led business culture within the franchise network.

In this episode…

Growth in today’s aftermarket demands more than adding bays or signing leases. The operators who continue expanding understand structure, leadership discipline, and shared intelligence are competitive advantages. Independent shop ownership delivers freedom, but scale demands systems, collaboration, and accountability. That tension defines the future of auto repair franchise growth.

This series of conversations cut through surface-level success stories and expose the realities behind multi-location expansion. Economic downturns forced reinvention. Military service shaped leadership philosophies. Franchise systems created strength without sacrificing autonomy. The conversation centers on mindset; transparency, communication, and the willingness to pivot, because sustainable auto repair franchise growth rests on operational clarity and cultural alignment, not luck.

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

[01:23] John Kairys on AACF’s mission and industry responsibility
[09:29] Orlando Mangual on scaling from one store to ten
[16:15] Kyle Suffoletto on franchise structure and collaborative growth
[21:45] Stephen Mars on leadership, adversity, and multi-state expansion
[32:46] Julio Trinidad on owner visibility and franchise culture

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“This job checks those two boxes very thoroughly; passion and purpose.”
“Transparency, communication, and pivot.”
“It doesn’t matter what it is in life that you want to do. You just have to put your heart to it and go after it.”
“I didn’t fail, I learned.”
“When you join a franchise, you own your business, but you’re not out there alone.”

Action Steps:

Audit your leadership language this week. Replace vague directives with clear standards built around transparency, communication, and pivoting when performance stalls.
Schedule a quarterly peer roundtable with other operators. Shared intelligence accelerates auto repair franchise growth faster than isolated decision-making.
Identify one operational bottleneck limiting expansion and assign ownership to a leader with measurable outcomes tied to execution.
Strengthen employee communication systems. Multi-location growth collapses without consistent messaging and cultural alignment.
Create a three-year expansion roadmap that defines capital allocation, talent development, and acquisition criteria before pursuing the next location.

Transcript

00:00
This job that I have right now checks those two boxes very thoroughly. And I’m just so happy because I get to see what the foundation does in helping folks in the aftermarket.

00:09
What’s your goal?

00:10
Well, I’m looking around. I want to make sure my wife isn’t watching me because I don’t want to say this.

00:14
I’ll see. Okay, go ahead.

00:15
Okay, thank you. She’s not. And I’ll whisper it. I’m like, no, we want to grow.

00:20
Yeah. We get a lot of probe into a lot of discounts, a lot of, you know, like you said, a lot more muscle.

00:25
It was 2008, the housing market took a collapse and everything went bad and people were losing jobs. I just happened to be one of those victims.

00:31
Funny thing, like today we opened the floor for discussion. There was a couple little heated but necessary battles. And we all address it as adults, right?

00:43
Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast, the official podcast for tire business. I am Mike Edge, your host and I have the privilege of interviewing the tire dealers, shop owners, counter sales reps, technicians, industry executives, and other thought leaders of our industry. This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. Tread Partners is the leading digital marketing agency that specializes in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. Tread Partners works with clients that have hundreds of locations, down to five locations. Get a professional, unbiased opinion and let Tread Partners review what you’re doing. It starts with a simple conversation. To contact tread partners, visit treadpartners.com so let’s get started. All right, I’m here with John Kairys. He is the executive director for Automotive Aftermarket Charitable Foundation. I take my glasses off to read there.

01:32
Oh, you got it right, Mike.

01:34
So we are at the El Conquistador in Puerto Rico. What a beautiful setting, right?

01:39
This is awesome. It’s incredible venue.

01:40
Yeah. Well, I tell you, this podcast gig is getting better all the time.

01:44
Has certain benefits, doesn’t it?

01:46
Yes, it does. That’s good. So we’re down here with Tuffy Tire & Auto and they’ve got you here representing your organization, AACF. And I’m honored to have you because I’ve heard a little bit about you, especially through Mary Ellen. But tell us a little bit about yourself, where your career was and then how you got to where you are today.

02:04
Yeah. Well, Mike, thank you very much for having me because this is important to us as an organization and thanks to the Tuffy organization as well. Mary Ellen’s a good friend and Jim Durkin has become one as well. And Certainly their organization has been very supportive of our foundation, so we are very much appreciative of that. But a little bit about myself. I spent 40 plus years in the aftermarket, got my start in the parts side, ended up in tires, and then worked for TBC Corporation, where I was pretty much exposed to everything. I, I was involved with retailing, franchising, wholesale distribution, and believe it or not, purchasing is where my career ended with them before I retire. So I was in retirement for about a year, a little over a year.

02:46
But I had been on the board of the Automotive Aftermarket Charitable foundation, which we’ll refer to now as the AACF. It’s a lot easier and being on the board for that amount of time. They were seeking a new executive director. The former one had retired. And as I tell the story, the executive committee called my wife and said, aren’t you sick and tired of having him at home and, you know, getting in your hair at home? He needs to go back to work. So In August of 24, I became the executive director. And I’ll tell you what, it’s been a dream job for me. They, you know, when you retire, you go through all this coaching, right? Because you’ve got this big transition into retirement. You know, like it’s something that’s, you know, dreadful, right? And everybody talks about passion and purpose.

03:31
And I can tell you what, that this job that I have right now checks those two boxes very thoroughly. And I’m just so happy because I get to see what the foundation does in helping folks in the aftermarket.

03:43
So on that note, let’s tell the audience that’s not familiar with the organization, aacf, what it does. Sure, yeah.

03:50
So our mission basically is to provide financial assistance to those individuals and families within the aftermarket in times of, you know, just the, the things, human things that happen to you in your life that just set you way back. Could be any need then, could be any need. So primarily it’s things like accidents, illnesses, deaths in the family. Another aspect is natural disasters. You know, we have a lot of folks that, even most recently with the winter storms, we had a lot of folks that we assisted that had ice damage to homes. We had, they had utilities that were out for a period of time. Also, we helped an individual that unfortunately, when the power came back on, suffered a house fire.

04:36
So, yeah, so it’s a, again, there’s so many aspects of what could happen to you in a, in a hardship, you know, and we’re.

04:44
There to help that particular person. Could it be somebody like a technician working at a garage?

04:50
Oh, most definitely. So all aspects of the aftermarket. All right, so that’s an interesting question because some people think that, you know, maybe will they help manufacturers or large retailers, employees of those companies? We certainly do in both aspects. But it’s also the independent service provider in our industry. Anyone that may work there, including the owner, could be a technician, could be a service writer, could be a driver. You look at parts stores and you look at drivers, counter persons, warehouse employees, you get a little bit into the organizations of manufacturers. Now we’re talking about sales organizations, sales reps, and even management positions. We’ve helped a full gamut of folks within our industry. And I would also tell you this, that we got our start in the traditional automotive. So it was automotive, it was accessories, and it was high performance.

05:40
But we have now expanded our reach. We’re in heavy duty and commercial, and we’re looking to get involved with the auto body inclusion as well.

05:47
Oh, that’s awesome. If somebody wanted to donate or just find out more, where’s the best place to go? It’s real easy.

05:54
You go right to our website.

05:55
Right.

05:55
Our website. You can access it at aftermarketcharity.org veryimportant.org and you can get all the information you need as to how to get involved. One of the things that. There’s two things that I would throw out in terms of a plea for companies that are in our industry. One is within become a member of our. It’s called the industry partner program. And basically what we do is we. All we ask is that you connect us with your employees through your HR department. We provide you with all that collateral that you can either put on a newsletter, on a website, in an email, post something in a break room, or at the store level. We have all that collateral for you. It’s no charge, doesn’t cost you a thing.

06:40
And we would love to connect with your employees again to let them know who we are and what we do. Because there are too many people in this industry.

06:46
Just don’t know that’s what I was getting at. So you’re. If this is like if, if a, if someone in needs something, they contact you guys and just apply. Is that the way to process it?

06:59
Yeah. So that’s the most difficult thing. Awareness is our biggest challenge. Right. So we do not reach out to the masses, so to speak.

07:07
Right.

07:07
And we do, we try to do that through our partners.

07:09
Right.

07:10
And we try to leverage that relationship we have with them. So anyone that is in need has to come to us. So someone has to, if they are aware of.

07:18
You’re not, you’re not going to General Joe Public.

07:20
No, absolutely.

07:20
Just within this industry.

07:21
No, we, again, that’s the uniqueness of our foundation. We only serve those within our industry. So in essence we take care of our own. I love it. But they have to come to us and so that you either have to know about the ACF or you have to have someone that does know and then is familiar with your situation and say, hey, you need to contact them. You can get some help.

07:41
So I know and I know some of the listeners that we have out there. Some of them are large tire companies, some of them are, you know, large distributors, etc, if those guys wanted to get involved, they just go to the site and they become a, can figure out a way to become a donor.

07:58
Sure they can. They can access that on our website. They can also through our website find information to get in touch with me personally. I’d be more than happy to talk to them about it. But you know, we have a couple different lanes. There’s, there’s two different aspects of it. One, you as a corporation, you can become a donor or a sponsor. We actually have a fundraiser that is our largest fundraiser that occurs two days Sunday and Monday before Apex and SEMA every year that involves an industry wide cocktail reception on Sunday evening and a golf outing on Monday. This golf outing coming up this year will be our 34th annual. And again, if I didn’t mention it, you know, the foundation itself is 67 years old. We’ve been doing this since 1959.

08:40
And it’s again, it’s unfortunate that not more people know about who we are and what we are.

08:45
Well, we’re going to help, we’re going to do our part.

08:46
Well, we really appreciate it, Mike and.

08:48
I’d like to have you back on for a full scale podcast.

08:50
That’d be awesome.

08:52
Just touch on this, we’re here with Tuffy Tire & Auto and honored that they invited us here, honored that they invited you to be a guest on this podcast, but great setting for us today. And I couldn’t say thank you enough for being willing through Mary Ellen to be on the podcast. Yeah.

09:07
And I thank them again. Thank you. And I would welcome anybody that hears this podcast to certainly if you want to get involved, reach out to the AACF. You can do that through AftermarketCharity.org or just get in touch with me, just access our website and call me or email me directly. So thanks, Mike. I appreciate your time, man.

09:28
Absolutely. Great meeting you too. All right. All right. We’re down here at the El Conquistador in Puerto Rico. I’m with Orlando Mangual. Yes, sir. And you have 10 stores with Tuffy Tire throughout Florida.

09:40
That’s correct.

09:41
Tuffy Tire and Auto. Let me be clear.

09:42
Yes.

09:44
Listen. What a setting we’re in, huh?

09:46
It’s a. It’s beautiful. I’ve been to Puerto Rico before, and I’ve never been here, though, so this was brand new for me.

09:52
Good. Yeah, it is. I thought this is a great place. I can handle this podcasting from here.

09:57
Yeah, not bad. Anytime you need anybody to do one, we can do it here.

10:02
I’ll tell them that. Listen, I’ve got a guest, but I got a video in Puerto Rico.

10:06
Yeah, exactly.

10:09
We’ll see how Neil goes along with that. But talk to me about your career path, because you’ve had an interesting career path to end up here with Tuffy Tire and Otto and just give the audience a little bit of background and then. And then why you bought into Tuffy Tire and Auto. Sure, sure.

10:25
Well, 35 years ago, I started working for a company that owned technical training schools around the United States. My job was advertising and marketing. I had come from a larger company and they recruited me. And one of the reasons they recruited me because they wanted to go public. And I came from a public company.

10:44
I gotcha.

10:45
And I spent 35 years there. Eighteen of those years, I traveled around the country, and my job was to set up their sales departments, or what we called admissions departments, and hire and train people. The interesting part is that the number of schools they had were 48 schools in 18 states. And their. The majority of their business came from their technical auto repair schools.

11:15
See, you were in the auto repair business already. Just the kind of the human resource training side.

11:21
I never touched the tool, though.

11:23
Yeah, but something attracted you to it. And then did you know your partner. How well did you know your partner before you got.

11:30
Actually, the part I haven’t told you is that my partner is also my nephew.

11:34
That works out well.

11:36
He was in the automotive business. He ran stores for many companies. Pretty successful. And I was in a part of my career that I wanted to move on to something else. I didn’t want to travel anymore. Go figure. Now I’m traveling again. But so five years ago, we got together and we spoke and I said, hey, if you want to do this, if you’re really serious, I’m with you. Let’s do it together. And we found out about Tuffy, and we decided our plan was to open one store a year, and we’re in our sixth year, and we have 10 stores.

12:14
So things didn’t go according to plan. A little bit faster.

12:16
That’s how much we know about it.

12:18
Let’s double our punishment.

12:20
Yeah, exactly.

12:21
I don’t want to travel, but let’s travel more.

12:23
More.

12:23
Yeah.

12:24
To places that is hard to get to also.

12:26
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, talk to us a little about Tuffy Tire. I mean, obviously, I’m down here on their behalf, and they’ve invited us to be here. And I like to tell people when they say, what’s the purpose of the podcast? Well, we’re associated with Tire Business, which is the largest publication in the industry. But we feel like our objective now is to build the brands up in the industry and the people behind them. And I think. I think Tuffy understood that. And they. They really were excited about us being able to make it here. And we excited about promoting because they’re a franchise, and you get. It’s a franchise operation. It works a little different. But there’s a collective strength in franchise. Right. You have meetings frequently. You get to lay your own feelings on the table.

13:14
As an independent owner, you have a say, in a sense.

13:18
And that’s really what attracted us to the idea of franchises still being able to have an opinion, to do make decisions for our business, even though it is a business. Does that make sense? So we heard about Tuffy, and they invited us for what’s called a Discovery Day. They said we would be there all day, and then they would let us know if they accepted us. So were kind of interviewing each other.

13:47
Yes. And that’s fair. I mean, that’s what we all do in life anyway, right?

13:51
Absolutely. I had no problem with that. Their home office was in Toledo, Ohio, which wasn’t the most positive in my mind. So we flew into Detroit, we got a car, and we drove toledo. We met at the time, Roger Hill, who ran Tuffy. We sat in a conference room. Five or six different people came in. We told them our story, they told us theirs. And believe it or not, Roger, before he left the room, says, you know, we don’t have to discuss it. You guys are granted a location, and I have a purpose.

14:26
Congratulations.

14:28
So he gave us one of his failing stories.

14:31
I really like you, man. I’m gonna. Let me help you out here.

14:33
No, actually, it was. It was one of their.

14:35
Their.

14:36
Their first stories, and it had gotten into a bit of trouble, and we took it over and we made it successful again.

14:45
That’s fantastic.

14:46
And that’s how it all started.

14:47
So do you see yourself continually wanting to grow beyond the 10 now, or you got a little plateau you’re happy with? I mean, what do you. What’s your goal?

14:55
Well, I’m. I’m looking around. I want to make sure my wife isn’t watching me, because I don’t want to say this.

14:59
I’ll see. Okay, go ahead.

15:00
Okay. Thank you. She’s not. And I’ll whisper it. I’m like, no, we want to grow. She’s asked us to take a year break from purchasing any more stores, but we’ve already got two in mind, so that’s not working out either. But, no, we’d like to continue. Go. We have a plan. Part of the plan. You know, one of our big words. We, our company, we use three words all the time. Transparency, communication, and pivot.

15:29
That’s beautiful. I mean, honestly, that’s as about as clear as it gets in regards to just the way we all should be with life, right?

15:36
Yeah. And when went into business, we spoke about what we wanted our business to look like in the future and taking care of our employees, taking care of our customers. And those three words, that’s what we’ve continued to. To impress upon our employees and what we do.

15:50
So it’s transparency, communication.

15:53
Communication and be able to pivot.

15:55
That’s awesome.

15:56
As long as you don’t pivot too fast and you get tearing.

16:01
Acl. Right? Well, Orlando, thank you for being on the podcast. I really appreciate you giving us your time. And what a setting, right?

16:09
Yeah. Mike, it was a pleasure, and we’re so happy to have you guys here. So thank you for taking the time.

16:14
All right. I’m here with Kyle Suffoletto at the Tuffy Tire & Auto. I don’t know what you want to call this, man. This. The settings. Unbelievable. I know it’s a conference, but it feels like the most beautiful place in the world.

16:25
Puerto Rico annual convention. We get together every year and we share our thoughts amongst other franchisees.

16:31
This got to be one of the best spots you’ve been to. Is it?

16:33
Oh, yeah.

16:34
This is beautiful.

16:35
This is unreal. I’ll give them a shout out. El Conquistador and Puerto Rico. I mean, this. The setting is so cool. Because you’re on a cliff. I had no idea. You know, I mean, you see Pictures, but you don’t realize how high up you are. And then when you overlook this bay and everything, it’s awesome. But it’s an honor to have you on here because you have 12 stores, right?

16:54
Yes.

16:55
Illinois, Ohio and Michigan.

16:57
Correct.

16:58
And you’ve been at this a while?

17:00
Yeah, I’ve been doing it for about 10 years.

17:02
Yeah. So if you don’t mind, just for the audience sake. Did you always know that you wanted to be in Tyron Auto?

17:08
No, not at all. I come from a different background in marketing and operational background. I’ve always been in managerial role. My brother actually was in the automotive industry for a long time. He was a mechanic. He moved up to the front of the house and eventually bought his first store, which was in Heath, Ohio. He actually don’t have that one open anymore, but he got into the industry, wanted to own his own business, and one thing led to the next and I, I came board with him and we started building our portfolio.

17:39
That’s awesome. So you’ve done. You basically built 12 stores inside of 10 years?

17:45
Yeah, my brother started in 2013. Oh, man. So he had one going and another. Another two.

17:50
And then I got you.

17:51
I’ve been building since then.

17:52
That’s awesome.

17:53
Yeah.

17:54
Why Tuffy?

17:56
I think the corporate structure was good as far as, you know, the franchise structure is why he got into it. He liked the buy in. He liked, you know, what it stood for. It had a long name. You know, chose that over obviously the competitors.

18:10
And now you guys are owned by Mavis. Correct. And that just gives you more muscle, I’m assuming.

18:14
Oh, yeah.

18:15
Industry, probably you benefit off of more buying power and things like that as well.

18:19
Yeah. And a lot of different categories. You benefit from being a larger company, obviously. Mavis is a huge company and compared to Tuffy, you know, a few hundred stores and, you know, they have thousands. So. Yeah, we get a lot of probe into a lot of discounts. A lot of, you know, like you said, a lot more muscle.

18:35
Yeah, you know, it’s like the little brother gets to get. He’s got Big Daddy behind him here.

18:40
Yeah, exactly.

18:41
Yeah. What’s. What’s the best thing about the Tuffy organization and the people? I mean, one of the things. I just kind of answered the question myself, but I noticed you guys have a very vibrant group in the sense that you guys can discuss a lot of things openly and try to plant your path forward together.

18:58
Yeah, it’s a lot of different people from a lot of different walks of Life, you know, we all come from either a single store or multi store and everything in between as far as that goes. I mean, yeah, we work together, we bounce ideas off each other. You know, it’s a blue collar industry and you know, a lot of these people have become owner operators and have moved themselves in a position where they’ve done very well for themselves. From latafi model.

19:20
That’s awesome.

19:21
Yeah.

19:22
Being a franchise, you find it. What’s it like? So if we got a listener out there and he’s thinking, man, I’m already in the business. What if you got an independent out there but he wants to hook up with Tuffy, is there a pathway for that?

19:37
So if the current. He currently owns an independent, I would say he could probably rebrand that. Yeah, yeah, he would get in through the interview process because let’s say for.

19:49
Whatever reason, somebody’s looking for a little strength in numbers, you know, and have that ability to have some support system versus being out there on their own.

19:57
Yeah, definitely. I mean, that’s, you know, obviously the reason why anyone would join a franchise. You know, you own your own business, but you have this corporate structure on the side is the best of both worlds. You have a larger name and. No, it’s known.

20:09
Where do you guys see yourself as the Suffoletto Group in the next 13 years? You, are you looking to continue to purchase stores?

20:17
Yes, we’re growing. Yeah, we’re growing every day. We’re trying to grow every internally and also externally tighten up, provide a better quality service and for our experience for our customers.

20:28
So if there is a dealer that we get a lot of dealers, tire dealers, auto repair shops that listen to this show and we’re very grateful for that. But some of them, you know, they do have ideas of retirement, succession plans, whatever, and they’re looking for, you know, an opportunity to potentially sell. That’s somebody you’re looking for within the market you’re in. Correct? Yeah.

20:49
There’s several different ways to acquire a Tuffy location. You know, you either purchase it from someone who is currently a Tuffy franchisee and looking to retire or for whatever reason, multitude of reasons, they’re getting out of the Tuffy model. There’s also, you know, the conversion route where you convert it independent.

21:05
Yeah, that’s what I mean. So you go buy a guy that wants to sell.

21:08
No, everything we have right now is we’ve had Tuffy, you know, franchisees that we’re selling.

21:13
Oh, okay.

21:14
We have not done the conversion, but it is an option.

21:16
I got you.

21:16
Sooner or later, you know, I think we will have to go that way. But we’ve been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time for a lot of these and made those deals happen and you know, it is an option, several options to get into it.

21:28
That’s awesome. Well, I tell you, I don’t think I have to encourage you, but enjoy your day to day. This thing’s gorgeous. I think we got a four hour break after this to have a lot.

21:38
It’s off your team. They throw one heck of a party.

21:41
They. Well, I’m honored to be here and I appreciate you being on the podcast. Thank you.

21:44
Appreciate it.

21:45
All right, we’re back here with the Tuffy Tire and Auto Conference. I’ve got Stephen Mars. Stephen, welcome to the Gain Traction podcast.

21:55
It’s an absolute pleasure. Thank you.

21:56
What about this setting, huh?

21:58
I mean, who gets the opportunity to go to, you know, Puerto Rico in order to have a convention? Yeah, this is fantastic.

22:03
I think I’m rubbing it in for everybody that’s listening that’s living in cold weather right now. But I’ve said this multiple times. Like, I could podcast like this all the time. If any organization is heading to Puerto Rico or somewhere south, I’m in.

22:17
We could definitely convince my wife to buy a store down here. And you know, it’s, we live in Wisconsin, so, you know, taking the time out in February in order to get away from that cold weather wouldn’t hurt her feelings at all.

22:27
Oh, no. So how many stores do you guys have in Wisconsin?

22:30
Well, we don’t have one store in Wisconsin. We have 22 stores throughout the Midwest and East coast and down South. So if I’m going to name off the states, that would be North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan.

22:46
You like to travel a little bit then, don’t you?

22:47
We travel quite a bit, yes, I do.

22:49
Yeah.

22:50
How did you get hooked up with Tuffy? I mean, you got into this industry obviously for a reason, but why did you go with the franchise model?

22:57
Well, the funny part is that I’ve come from the industry. It’s kind of in my bones.

23:01
Okay.

23:02
When I, when I got out of the military, I was in a position where I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. And someone was talking to me one day and said, you know, you would work really great in the service department at the Honda dealership. And that’s kind of where I cut My bones. And from that point on, it was just learning. And I made a move at one point in my life to Texas. I started in Georgia, and by the way, I’ve moved quite a bit. And so we got into the independent side of things, and that’s kind of where I’ve been ever since, you know, working up from, you know, a general service guy all the way up to managing partner and then director of operations for Tuffy at the end. And then we ended up being acquired by Mavis.

23:50
And I made some life decisions at that point and, you know, to try doing this for myself. And I have two amazing business partners that said, why aren’t you doing this for yourself? You know, you’ve done a great thing for so many different people over the years. You know, why don’t you join? And so that’s fantastic.

24:08
You got a great story, man.

24:09
That’s a good story.

24:10
What branch of service were you in?

24:12
I was army.

24:12
Nice, man. My dad was army. How long were you in for? Nice. Did you do that after. Right after college or before college or. How did. What.

24:21
You know, my whole life I’ve done everything backwards. So no, I had a little bit of college underneath me, and it, you know, it didn’t take me. Where I wanted to go was trade school. And so I made the decision going to the military because nothing else was working. And, you know, it. It grounded me. It taught me about leadership and the things that I needed to do.

24:41
That’s awesome. Look, everybody’s got a path, and it’s. I think it’s. It’s one of those things in life. You just got to care and you just got to want to get after something. It’s not necessarily some. Everybody else saying that you got a piece of paper.

24:53
No, you know, it’s. The funny thing is that the education came later on, and it was a matter of it back in. What was it? What year was it when the housing. And it was 2008. The housing market took collapse and everything went bad and people were losing jobs. I just happened to be one of those victims.

25:14
And.

25:14
And when that went down, I found myself sitting there going, I’m not even able to get some of these job opportunities because I don’t have this piece of paper. And so I made that decision at that point that I was going to go back to school. And I didn’t stop until I had my mba and I told myself I’d always get my doctorates. And, well, guess what? I’m just right around the corner from completing that.

25:38
Oh, that’s awesome.

25:39
So, yeah, it doesn’t matter what it is in life that you want to do. You just got to put your heart to it, put some hard work in there and just go after it.

25:45
Yeah. I got a cousin of mine that, he’s retired now. He’s. He’s up there in age, but he’s funny. He goes, well, I never grad. He goes, I think he goes, I think you always stay in the school of hard knocks. You never graduate, you know. He goes, you’re always learning, you know, and he said, if you’re going after something, you’re always learning. And I think if you know that going in, like, hey, I’m not saying that life doesn’t get easier as you get older and you get wiser. It does. But there’s always. You got to be always willing to take some knocks, change, adjust, pivot, you know what I’m saying?

26:16
Well, all of those things are. Create red flags for you as you get older. So, you know, it doesn’t necessarily make it any easier, but you recognize those dangers so that you don’t walk down that same kind of.

26:26
Know how to duck.

26:27
Oh, definitely know how to duck. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

26:29
Yeah. I think it’s so interesting. There’s so many things. My dad, he’s passed now, but there’s so many things he said to me that as I got older and our kids were growing up, he did tell me about that or, you know, or he did say I should handle something like this. Of course, when you’re young, you’re like, what’s dad know?

26:48
Right.

26:49
Right.

26:49
What does he know? Yeah, everything. Right, Right. He knows everything. Yeah.

26:53
And he’s telling you where the duck and weave, you know, here’s where you go get it slapped upside the head, you know. But yeah, it’s a journey and it’s awesome. And I’m impressed with this organization. I’m impressed. I’ve been honored to be here today and do this podcast to get to interview some of you guys. But y’ all have a great story and I really appreciate you being on the podcast.

27:14
I appreciate that, you know, and my business partners, Mike and Al’s a veteran himself, too, and, you know, we’re family orientated. And I think that a lot of people don’t understand from a franchise perspective is that’s what you end up getting involved with. That, that’s the joy of it. You know, if you work in the corporate world, you’re following Rules you’re following, you know, other people’s perspectives and what they want. And sometimes that doesn’t always align with, you know, how you believe in your cultures and things like that. And when you get into a franchise organization, you get a bunch of wonderful people that have risked everything.

27:47
Yeah, that’s right.

27:48
They risk everything in order to make things happen. And don’t get me wrong, it helps having those experiences. You know, serving in the military, having worked for other corporations in the automotive repair industry, had definitely given me the foundations I’ve needed. But it’s taking those lessons and then applying it to my own life, my own businesses, and, you know, truly embracing everybody else around you and never having the arrogance to think that you know everything.

28:17
Amen. Amen to that. I tell my son, so I tell my daughters, too. But, I mean, whatever experience you go through, you. You’ll think, God, why am I. Why am I going through this right now? But whatever it is, it will always help you later. It’s amazing.

28:31
Oh, absolutely.

28:32
Every one of your experiences are a benefit and a stepping stone, even when you don’t recognize it at that point because you think you’re miserable, right?

28:38
Look, I’ll tell you a miserable thing. Don’t get your doctorate, okay? I’m gonna tell you that right now. You know, it’s. It’s five years later. And what I would. What I would tell everybody who’s gonna do anything, absolutely go after whatever it is that you want to do in life, you can do it, but it’s the journey. It really is the journey. I am not the same man that I was going down this path. It’s not about that piece of paper anymore. It’s just about how I’ve changed and the things that I’ve learned throughout this process.

29:02
Somebody told me the other day about just the spiritual growth and everything that, you know, whatever growth that you’re doing, you know, you’re maturing. If you like the journey, and it’s not so much about the destination. If you’re willing to do the grind and you. You find a way to enjoy that grind. And if you. If you know that I can live in that grind and do it daily and I like it, then you’re gonna. You’re gonna make it. You’re gonna do fine because you’re gonna do everything necessary that gets you to that destination.

29:31
I mean, and there comes some discipline involved in it and everything else. And God forbid you fall on your face. It’s okay. Just dust yourself up, get back up.

29:39
I love that you said that. Because I think that’s the hardest thing. I think. I think it’s interesting when we. We watch kids today, you know, and I’m gonna. I’m gonna pick on this mentality, but everybody gets a trophy mentality. But the problem with that is you’re not teaching the kid how to fail or lose at something. And I’m not saying teach them as in accepting it. It’s the teaching that, hey, I didn’t win today, but how can I win tomorrow? I used to have a coach say this to us when were growing up, and we admired this guy big time. Me and my friends, we think he’s the greatest coach we ever had. And he coached us when were 12, and he still sticks with us today.

30:15
He goes, whatever you do, leave it all on the field so that when you walk off that field, he goes, I might know it.

30:21
Know it.

30:22
More than likely. He goes, I probably will, but I might not know it, but you’re going to know if you let up on a play. He was talking about football. He said, if you let up on that play and we lose that game, you can go right back to that moment that. That affected the game. Not going to say it caused the loss, but it stacked, it piled on. He said, walk off that field leaving nothing to chance or that you laid it all out there. He said, and then if you lose, you can at least say, I gave it everything I had.

30:48
Yeah, that’s absolute fact. My wife’s uncle is a saying, can’t, ain’t never done nothing. And I love that saying, can’t, ain’t never done nothing. And I just sit there and I was like, it’s just so true in life in general. And now it’s like kind of my motto.

31:04
I hate to say it this way because, I mean, it sounds like I’m the biggest idiot in the world, but I’ve learned, and I don’t want to go through more failure. But it’s interesting how much sometimes failure is the greatest teacher. And then you really learn, you know, and to your point earlier, you learn to avoid the red flags, you learn the potholes, et cetera. But you learn a lot about yourself, too.

31:28
Right. You know, and it’s funny, when you’re. When you’re younger, you look at as failure.

31:32
Yeah.

31:33
And as we get older and we have gray hairs or no hair, you know, we, you know, we start to understand. I didn’t fail, I learned. Yeah, that’s what it was. I don’t fail at things that, you know, I have Those lessons, you know, in this business alone, you know, getting to 22 stores, that doesn’t happen overnight. It’s not simple. And you’re going to fall on your face in certain areas. It’s understanding and reading those flags and making adjustments, and that’s what you’ve got to do.

32:04
One of my favorite quotes from Thomas Edison was, I think somebody was trying to be sharp with him. I think it was in the news media or something. They go, how’s it feel to fail at something 10,000 times? He goes, fail. Then it fell at it. He goes, I found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.

32:20
Yeah.

32:20
I mean, that’s totally flipping it upside down. Finding the positive 10,000 ways not to.

32:25
Make a light bulb. That’s it. Yeah. And it’s correct. That’s exactly how you have to take life. So you just got to keep at it and know that no matter what, as long as I never quit, I’m going to reach my destiny. I’m going to find exactly where I’m supposed to be.

32:39
Well, Stephen, I appreciate you being on the podcast. It’s been a pleasure having you.

32:43
It was a pleasure being here.

32:44
All right.

32:45
Have a good one. All right. I’m here with Julio Trinidad. How you doing?

32:50
Hot, man.

32:51
Puerto Rico is beautiful, though. But you’re from Clermont, Florida?

32:55
Yes, sir.

32:55
And that’s where your story is.

32:57
That’s right.

32:57
But you’re originally from. Not too well.

33:00
Born in New York.

33:01
Okay.

33:02
But my parents are on the Dominican Republic.

33:04
Nice.

33:05
Yes.

33:05
You still have family there? Yes, because it’s just the island over, right?

33:08
It’s a half a skip away.

33:09
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I got to tell you, I mean, for a Kentucky boy like me and getting invited to come to the Tuffy Tire and Auto Conference to do a podcast, man, this. They get me anytime they want to be down here, buddy.

33:22
Look at that view, man.

33:23
It’s incredible.

33:24
I wish inside and out.

33:25
I wish our audience could see it, but the. We’re literally on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I mean, it’s gorgeous. That’s right. Yeah.

33:34
And the wind and the palm trees and islands. You saw the apartment that they built on the island.

33:41
Yeah. What. How do you get in there? That’s what I was wanting to know.

33:44
Jet yacht boats. That’s it.

33:46
I know, but how do you. How do you get one of those? Do you purchase those condos?

33:50
You have to know somebody. Know somebody, Know somebody.

33:54
Well, tell me about your experience with Tuffy. You’ve been a. How long have you been a franchisee so funny story. Yeah.

34:01
I. I have this good friend of mine, Lincoln, right. And he owned a toughie’s in Cimarron Boulevard in Orlando. Lincoln’s also from New York. Like, like me. He’s here. He’s having some difficulty with his car. Believe it or not, because he was my neighbor at the time. He said, dude, can you give me a jump start? I’m like, yeah, sure, I’ll show up. I jump start the car. And we started talking about the business. He said, listen, do you know that there’s another toughie available in Claremont? Do you want to join with me in that one?

34:28
That was it.

34:29
I’m like, what? Yeah. So showed up 17 years late. I’m still here.

34:34
Wow.

34:34
Yes.

34:35
That’s very cool.

34:36
But Claremont is so nice because it reminds me a little bit about those hills that we don’t get in Florida.

34:41
Yeah.

34:41
So kind of New York.

34:42
Ish.

34:43
A little bit the elevations, but beautiful, man. And it’s growing like crazy.

34:47
That’s awesome. What do you guys. So talk about your plans for the future. I mean, as a franchisee, where you see yourself in a year or two years, any growth plans?

34:57
Well stepping, managing the business from a far. A little more. Not that as involved as I am now because I’m daily in there one one with customers. Maybe look at it from a different perspective and start growing from there. God knows, I mean, maybe another store.

35:12
Nice. So what. What’s. Tell us. I mean. Cause this is going out to the public and everything and tell. Tell the audience what. What makes Tuffy so special?

35:21
The cool thing about Tuffy’s is the fact that in any given Tuffy you can see the owner, talk to the owner and have that one one with that personnel. Corporate America.

35:32
Great.

35:33
I mean you can go to the other ones, but you’ll never see the guy in charge. And when the guy in charge is at the house, the people behave better.

35:42
Right.

35:42
And they treat. It’s a better experience.

35:45
Right. And it. And you guys have such a network here that you guys get to lean on each other. You’re on. You know, you share a brand, but yet you’re all independent business owners.

35:54
Correct?

35:54
Yeah. And it’s really cool.

35:56
I have a funny thing. Like today we. We opened the floor for discussion. There was a couple little heated but necessary battles. And we all address it as adults. Right?

36:07
Yeah.

36:07
Well, and everybody.

36:08
That’s what it’s about.

36:09
Right.

36:09
You know, but everybody’s market’s different. So everybody’s got an opinion about something. Absolutely. But the nice Thing is, you can come together as a brand and say, hey, this is what would help me. Then you might say, well, this would help me. Where can we work together and steer the brand? And while corporate’s, you know, ultimately in charge, you guys have a huge say in that.

36:28
Exactly. And that’s why these meetings are so important, because you get to voice your opinion. You’re not just there saying yes and go. So for the franchisee owners that don’t make it here because they can’t fit in their schedule, I mean, this is shameful because they have to adhere to whatever we come up with.

36:46
Right.

36:46
And they have no, no other say in that. But, but still, there’s people here that advocates for them.

36:52
Yeah. And. But the reality is you show up, you get heard, and you have influence if you.

36:57
Exactly.

36:58
And look, you make a lot of nice friends. I mean, all over the country. I mean, you guys probably know you know everybody. You’ve been in it so long. Yes.

37:05
So once you come in, it’s kind of a, A family meeting again. Like, oh, look at you.

37:09
You’re grown.

37:09
Look at your kids.

37:10
So you’re.

37:11
It’s, it’s a beautiful experience. And, man, Puerto Rico, huh?

37:14
I’m telling you, I think I’m going to tell Neil, my boss, that we’re going to have to start scheduling most of our podcast in Puerto Rico, because I’m telling you right now, this is my first time here. And. Yeah, man, I love this place.

37:28
Have you had a chance to drive out and.

37:30
No, but I got news for you, my wife is with me. Oh. And we’ve already made it clear we’re coming back. So, you know, we’re on work. But this is good work, right? I mean, you know, at the El Conquistador.

37:41
El Conquistador is.

37:44
See, I could hang out with you all day, but I’m gonna let you go.

37:49
All we need is some margaritas. And some margaritas are here.

37:52
Ridiculous.

37:53
What’s wrong with Neil? I say chop to him.

37:55
Neil.

37:56
Chop chop.

37:56
And Neil,

37:59
He has no idea what he’s doing. Right?

38:00
Neil’s new, guys. Neo is new.

38:03
I’m gonna get killed for this one. Don’t worry about it. They love you. That’s right. All right, well, thank you for being on the podcast. I’ve enjoyed it.

38:10
Hey, thanks again.

38:10
Good man. To all our listeners, thank you for being part of the Gain Traction podcast. We are grateful for you. If you’d like to find more podcasts like this, please Visit Gain Traction podcast.com if you’d like to make a guest recommendation, please email me at mike at treadpartners. Com. This episode has been powered by Tread Partners, the leader in digital marketing for multilocation tire and auto repair shops. To learn more about Tread Partners, visit treadpartners. Com.

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1 In this episode…

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

3 Resources mentioned in this episode:

4 Quotable Moments:

5 Action Steps: