Announcer: 0:00

Entrepreneur, author and financial consultant, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing entrepreneurial business owners create a vision for the future and follow through on their goals and intentions. Ang Onorato is a business growth strategist who blends psychology and business together to create conscious leaders and business owners who impact the world. Founders Forum is a radio show podcast sharing the real stories behind entrepreneurship as founders discover more about themselves, while providing valuable lessons and some fun and entertainment for you. Now here's Marc and Ang.

Marc Bernstein: 0:35

Good morning America, wherever you are. If it's not morning, let it be morning. New beginnings, new things happening, good things. Good morning Arlo. Whatever you're doing now, my friend, that's my little burn and doodle Arlo and hey, since we're being. We've been talking a lot in the studio about transparency and vulnerability, so I'm going to be completely transparent. We're doing two shows today right in a row. We just did one with a great guest, Kristina Taylor, and we now have who was also in the studio with us, Shawn Gilfillan. How'd I do Shawn?

Shawn Gilfillan: 1:11

You did it, I got it down now.

Marc Bernstein: 1:15

And this is going to be another fun show, I can tell you, because we had great chemistry in the room and we're going to do it again, and Anne John-Rado, of course, is with me here in person.

Ang Onorato: 1:27

We're on a New Year's resolution of sorts, that we're going to be in the studio together as much as we can.

Marc Bernstein: 1:31

And great to have you all here. So, in thinking about a topic for today, I was thinking because there is some commonality between our guests and with myself and with Ang, and that is this phrase that you've heard many times that necessity is the mother of invention, and you see that so often with entrepreneurs and with inventors, who are also often entrepreneurs, that I thought I would introduce this as a subject and, Shawn, it'll be part of his story. But, Kris, you mentioned it briefly in your show, but that was typical in your case as well. So explain how that worked and what happened.

Kristina M Taylor: 2:11

Well, early on in the late 90s, mid to late 90s, this new thing came about called the Internet, and we were struggling a lot with that. Our customers were using fax machines with the old thermal paper and it was really cumbersome to get the information we do a background screening. Getting that information to our clients was challenging and the Internet was a great opportunity. So the necessity was that we didn't want to deal with fax machines anymore and so we moved to the Internet and it really made a big difference in our business.

Marc Bernstein: 2:46

It's huge. So this is such an important piece of Shawn's story, I'll just introduce him. So Shawn Gilfillan is founder and president and CEO of Automotive Magic, Magic Lube and Rubber, Magical Solutions, magic motors and rabbit wheels. We had to break the trend there. But let me tell you a little bit about him. He wrote this and I love this.

Marc Bernstein: 3:12

Automotive magic was founded on April 1, 2003, April Fool's Day. Shawn says that was my joke to myself, because now I am a business owner, we're going to hear that story. Joke to myself because now I am a business owner, we're going to hear that story Hired his first employee in the beginning of 2004, moved from a 2,100 square foot shop and I'm pretty familiar in my business with auto body shops, so this is quite a growth story. He had a two bay shop and by 2009, he moved to a 6,000 square foot bay shop up the road two miles away. He then grew Automotive Magic to 14 employees and then opened his second location August 1st of 2022, which is called Magic Lube and Rubber, which is a preventative maintenance center. He now has 20 employees, which in that business is a lot between the two locations and is looking to open his third and beyond in the next 12 months and he also with Magical Solutions.

Marc Bernstein: 4:09

He consults with other automotive shops and helps them grow their businesses. So I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that. He's a great family man. He's got lots of other things going on. He's got a big personality and he's here with us in the studio today, Shawn. So tell us a little bit.

Shawn Gilfillan: 4:25

Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's a pleasure. Oh well, where to start right? I guess the April Fool's starting my own business was one of those things. That was tough to push myself over the edge and I can probably elaborate on that story a little deeper as we get through the session here, but I just like jumped in.

Marc Bernstein: 4:46

Well, let's back up, because this is an important part of the story. So what happened that that had you think that you had to do something different?

Shawn Gilfillan: 4:52

So I was working for somebody and there was some kind of unethical stuff going on in the in the shop. And you're a mechanic. I was a mechanic, yep, I've always had the hands on, I was always doing the work in the shop and I was dating a girl and she was going away to school and kind of said to me you know what I'm going to get my MBA and this long-distance thing ain't going to work for me. And I was like, really, so I was willing to drive back and forth to UConn and whatnot. But long story short, 10 years later I recognized that that was something that triggered in my brain and I had to go do something. So at that moment, 10 years later, discovering this, reaching out and thanking her, turns out, I ended up marrying her a couple years ago, so we reconnected. It was pretty cool.

Marc Bernstein: 5:40

But going back, I want to add another dimension to it, which is that you had an injury.

Shawn Gilfillan: 5:46

I did so. I opened the shop up April Fool's 2003. On June 2nd 2005, I, like any kind of hobby that I can burn fuel I was on a quad decided to take the thing up in the air like an airplane. Didn't quite make it to the landing strip and I broke my leg real bad. I was out for about six months and my younger brother stopped what he was doing with his contracting business, jumped into the shop and he did his best to keep that thing going and kept it, kept it open, kept it alive so that when I was able to come back, keep it going.

Shawn Gilfillan: 6:17

But what? What really happened there on the topic we got here today is realizing that I wasn't able to walk around on the floor like I was with the injury. So, looking at the business totally different, like I'm not going to be able to do this for the next 20 years run around on a concrete floor. I'm going to have to hire people and we're going to have to grow. And that's really what kind of had me pivot between 05 and 09 to get the bigger shop and to continue to grow the company.

Marc Bernstein: 6:42

So it was a shift in your mindset from being a mechanic which we had talked. We don't have to get into this but I know you were doing really well and you could make a lot of money just being a mechanic the way you had figured it out. But you shifted a mindset from being a mechanic to being a business owner and being an entrepreneur. And now you're not just a business owner, you're a true entrepreneur because you've got a lot of creations going.

Shawn Gilfillan: 7:05

Love having people around that also enjoy the creation, and I think one of the biggest things with our people is we always create games around what we're doing, because if it's not fun for me, it's not enrolling and I sure as hell don't like to work.

Marc Bernstein: 7:17

There was a great book years ago I don't know if you heard of it called the Game of Work. Yeah, it's a great, great, great book. So tell us about your success, because and you've had challenges, oh, plenty. So talk to us about the challenges and what you had to go through and what you had to do to become the success you are today, and then we're going to, later on, talk about the future.

Shawn Gilfillan: 7:37

I would say some of the biggest challenges when we moved from the small location it was just me and two other guys into the 6,000-square-foot facility and really getting a team of people to work well together and it kind of dives into that whole culture thing and hiring the right people.

Shawn Gilfillan: 7:50

I got a lot of practice at that what we call it the school of hard knocks or the school of life hiring the wrong people sometimes and just watching the way that people interact with each other, having a better understanding on what we're looking for when we hire people that believe what we believe, people that want to take care of people, and it's really helped our company grow. And right now, with all these young guys coming out of school wanting to really get into business, I think the coolest thing that we're doing is we're involving everybody in our organization into the financials, into how the business works, into how the machine works, so that they all know where they fit, what they get for what they produce and how the whole thing works, and really looking into the future of how can we set something up where these guys are going to be able to grow this thing well beyond what I'll have time to do in my life.

Marc Bernstein: 8:37

You told me a great story last night we had dinner and about a guy, one of your key guys now, and how you got him. And now you actually hired him through a group interview and figured out that you had the right guy and I think he's a big piece of your culture today.

Shawn Gilfillan: 8:53

Definitely.

Shawn Gilfillan: 8:54

So maybe tell us that story, albert. So, looking back, it was about 2021. I got a phone call at in the process of building a new home and getting the second shop built out and you know I was running around like hair on fire, mach 10. And I got a guy who was running my shop, steve, day to day really great manager, and I kind of moved him up through the ranks a bit over the three and a half years he was there, got a phone call from his girlfriend and she said I need you to come over here. Steve's blue and cold Right. And I get choked up every time because the guy really had a lot to do with where we are today.

Shawn Gilfillan: 9:31

And two weeks later I'm supposed to be going to Punta Cana with my wife and my three daughters. And here I am on a Sunday morning over at my manager's and friend, steve's house with his girlfriend and it's like, well, what do we do? We all come into work on Monday and we're just like this is not going to be the same, and I think that's really where our team pulled together. You could see the love and the care that everybody had for each other. This is before we even had the second shop open, obviously, and how do we find the right guy. And I think what we really did is we all put our intention on what we wanted, how to make it show up, and really had that belief in it happening.

Shawn Gilfillan: 10:14

And one of my really good friends, russ he owns a shop in Clinton, new Jersey, Russ's Wrench and he had offered to come up and run my shop for the two weeks that I was on vacation so I didn't have to cancel my trip. And just having somebody like that, another fellow shop owner that's willing to just jump in and run your business right, and the relationships that we have with some other shop owners, it's like a brotherhood almost, you know. And when we came back we had a group interview and Albert, who is now our general manager of both locations it's a group interview, so there was many of you sitting with many candidates at a time right we brought.

Shawn Gilfillan: 10:50

So it was funny the first night my wife and I were sitting there waiting for we had six scheduled. Not one person showed up. I'm like this is crazy, how are we going to get this? I kept having to shift that negative mindset of mine like what are we going to do? I'm going to have to go back to doing it all. And the next day we had two from the night before show up, plus another six or eight, I think we had a total of.

Shawn Gilfillan: 11:09

I think it was nine people sitting around a table and they had no idea what was going on, that this was a group interview and like we brought them all in, threw them around the table and you know, just kind of I didn't have time right to sit down with each one individually, tell them what I was looking for. This is what we want to do. It was kind of like I'm going to tell them all and see which ones get lit up and kind of feel who's good with people who might not be, and it was good. I got to make an example out of one gentleman. He just kept cutting everybody off and talking over the top of people. I turned straight to him. I said you know, the most important job of the person at the front counter in an auto shop is to make sure you can listen, and you're not really doing good at that right now. And I kind of looked over and that was when I saw Albert's eyebrows lift up like Ooh you know, it's like how do I keep my eye on this guy?

Shawn Gilfillan: 11:57

And uh, when, uh, we started going around the table and just kind of asking what they liked about what they were doing Some people had experience, there were some people from dealerships and uh, he really stuck out. We did a after the group interview. I kind of let everybody have a time at the end to have a one-on-one with myself and or my wife she did a couple of them as well and Albert wanted to stick around until the end. So right there, when Albert says you know, I definitely want to stick around and talk to you, I'll wait till the end. And we got to talking and he asked he said what time do you get in tomorrow? What we do after that is basically a trial run. We get them in, get them on the phones, put them to work. Let's see what this guy can do. And yeah, he came in the next morning. He said what time do you get here? I said 8 o'clock At 8 o'clock.

Marc Bernstein: 12:48

This is the best part of the story, yeah this is the best part.

Shawn Gilfillan: 12:49

8 o'clock. He said, well, what time do you get here? I said, well, I'll be here at 6.30. He's like well, I'll see you tomorrow at 6.30.

Announcer: 12:56

I said wow okay.

Shawn Gilfillan: 13:02

So he just like jumped in, took it on and he's just grown so much in the last two years he's been with us, Got him into.

Shawn Gilfillan: 13:07

I think it was 18 years and it was really kind of almost. From his story I got that he wanted to grow this place and that there was nobody opening him up to be able to do so. So that was one of the key things that I saw when him and I got to working together. It's like this guy is going to take this place and he's going to run with it.

Shawn Gilfillan: 13:26

And it really freed me up and, looking back as the guy that was on the floor and broken leg, well, it takes me out and then this happens and I was able to shift that mindset of not having to fall back into it, because I really do have a a lot of that entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial spirit that wants to uh, continue to grow things, create opportunities for these young guys to come out of, out of school and uh and run with life.

Marc Bernstein: 13:49

Well, two, two things I see coming out of that story. One is necessity is the mother of invention.

Marc Bernstein: 13:54

And the second thing is magic, which runs throughout all your names and everything else, which has a lot to do with your intentions and what the things that you set in motion, but it's really the story of two key people one that was tragically lost and then one that was created out of midair. You know magically out, you know in a unique way because you know, I think, you had to think outside of the box, and also cooperation with your employees, who set their intentions about it, and your wife, and it was a great group mindset that brought about Albert, who I know is really integral to your business today. With that, this is a great time to take a quick break and we will be back on Founders Forum.

Announcer: 14:40

Looking for reliable auto repair and maintenance. Discover the difference with Automotive Magic. Since 2003, we've been serving the community with top-notch service and expertise. From brakes to transmissions, our experienced technicians handle it all with care and expertise. Plus, with perks like AAA discounts and a three-year nationwide warranty on repairs, you can trust us to keep your car running smoothly. But we're not just about fixing cars. We're about building relationships and providing peace of mind. Discover why our clients trust us for all their automotive needs. Contact us today for a professional evaluation and personalized service plan. Don't wait. Call Automotive Magic now at 973-366-37 77 and experience the magic yourself.

Marc Bernstein: 15:35

We're back on founders forum and um, my voice a little froggy there, so take it away.

Ang Onorato: 15:41

And while I clear this up, yeah, so, um, oh boy, this is one of these, these uh shows where I think we need like two hours Cause I have so many questions and so many things. But, um, number one I also come from a family of mechanics. I have two sisters and a best friend all females that are licensed mechanics, so this is really exciting for me. But I want to ask a couple of questions and an insight that interview story that you've told again.

Ang Onorato: 16:10

I've spent my career in recruiting and executive search and I've been trying to get employers, people that are hiring, to do a similar approach, because just doing the individual off the resume and asking the same stories, what you did and what you brought in a very non-traditional industry, what I would say that is so brilliant because of exactly your experience that you found the right person, not someone who just looked the right thing on paper. So I'm curious how that has affected like it sounds like you've got a great recipe now and, as you're looking to build and open other locations, how are you seeing about replicating that? Obviously, maybe is this going to be part of your normal interview process or, you know, how are you building that into in terms of a repeatable culture?

Shawn Gilfillan: 16:54

Yeah. So I think the most important role in a shop is the people that are at the front counter dealing with your clients as they come in with their vehicle problems. Those are the people that we would put in that situation with the group interview, because it really gives you an authentic sense of how are they going to deal with something that's uncomfortable, cause that happens, you know, as far as technicians it's not so much necessary there. We kind of bring them in and we throw them right in the back and hand them some wrenches and say let's see what you got. Here's a car with a light on and we leave that up to our lead tech to really kind of feel them out, see what they're like, and then we'll sit down with them and kind of review how that goes. But yeah, it's definitely. I wouldn't do it any other way.

Ang Onorato: 17:35

Yeah, I don't know if you're not really local, but there's an amazing thing in Havertown, a shop that I'm familiar with the founder, and it's called Girls Auto Clinic and it was founded by you know, know, the founder and president there and she's amazing and the movement that she started with, you know, women becoming more adept at understanding and repairing their cars. So I'm just curious, I mean, do you bump into other? Do you find other females trying to get into the space as well? Or, you know, where are you finding feeders for texts and stuff like that?

Shawn Gilfillan: 18:04

Well, a lot of word of mouth, believe it or not. When we ask, we run Indeed ads and we run ads on Facebook. We tend to get a lot of resumes coming through and we usually try to reach out for most of them, but it's just kind of like that constant. You know, we haven't had much turnover right, so hunting for anybody. Right now we're looking for a technician to bring on board and as soon as we lock down our third location, we're going to overstaff ourself again and really get the people built into the system and then probably distribute a couple from each location to where the new one is.

Marc Bernstein: 18:35

It's all going to be with the driving. How do you do your background checks? Well, now I got a new one. Is it's all going to be with the driving? How do you do your?

Shawn Gilfillan: 18:40

background checks. Well, now I've got a new one here.

Ang Onorato: 18:41

It's all the founders connecting, it's the dot connecting, that's right.

Marc Bernstein: 18:46

But that's the same thing. Like we were talking about Founders forum, we connect the dots.

Ang Onorato: 18:49

That's right.

Shawn Gilfillan: 18:49

New tagline I definitely think it was a very effective way to get somebody for the front of your business or that you want, that believes the way that you as the owner or founder.

Ang Onorato: 19:00

Well, I think you're also tapping into. You know this is a very educated marketplace. I don't really care what industry that you're in, and there's a demand that people have. So you're bringing a really unique approach to, I think, something that people have the idea of. You know, I know my grandfather's shop was the big greasy building on the corner and you just you know. But you're talking about customer service and an experience when they come in and I think that's really unique. Also, that's what it's all about.

Marc Bernstein: 19:24

Magic. So, speaking of that, magical solutions so you are now in a consulting role with with a group of other automotive shops. Tell us a little bit about that and the kind of things that you're trying to share with them.

Shawn Gilfillan: 19:37

Yeah, so we've spent some time in our own organization working on our culture right and how to build a high-performance team and somebody I guess stuff that goes on inside people's minds while they're at work Could be focusing on something at home and really having that ability to bring the transparency of our employees out on the table so they all get to know each other as if we're family. It's a huge deal in the way that we do business. Everybody's happy, we're all playing a game, it's exciting, it's fun and just kind of spreading that out. Right now we're running a 20-week program for shop owners and their management staff. Usually a good mix is like maybe an owner or founder, somebody in the front end manager or service advisor and then a technician that's kind of leading the back and when you plug those three guys together, that tends to be where the most friction at least I've discovered in our own organization has been and being able to have them become more vulnerable with how they're feeling or the thoughts that they have, because there is totally a bunch of frustration that people carry around and a lot of times they won't say anything and we're a shop where everything comes out.

Shawn Gilfillan: 20:47

If you're frustrated, you need to get it out immediately. We need to deal with it. We need to figure out what we either need to do as a company to do it differently and or figure out where the roadblocks. Just deal with those things and, uh, the program that we're running it's. It's been awesome. We're on our second one now. Um, I've uh really teamed up with my uh very fortunate my my uncle owns a company called Gutman Development Strategies and they're in uh, mount Arlington, new Jersey. He's kind of been my uh mentor I'd through the years. That has really given me the opportunity to pivot and work this direction. So teaming up with them and putting this out on the ground has been mind-blowingly awesome. To watch other shops start to succeed and get their teams to really level up their communication, level up their listening skills and really get to understand what kind of EQ we're dealing with, when it's not even something that you'd really see in the industry.

Marc Bernstein: 21:41

And I know from talking to you, besides the work with your uncle, you've done. So. A phrase that Ang and I have shared is you've done the work. I've done the work which means looking at yourself and done the work. Yeah, anything you'd like to share about that.

Shawn Gilfillan: 21:56

Oh man.

Marc Bernstein: 21:57

Where do you want me to start? I about that. Oh man, I know you've done a lot of it. That's show number two.

Kristina M Taylor: 22:00

Maybe we don't have time for that we might have to come back for that one.

Marc Bernstein: 22:03

Okay, all right.

Ang Onorato: 22:03

We love repeat offenders, so to speak, if you had one thing that you live by.

Marc Bernstein: 22:08

We talked about a couple little phrases last night. You know, is there anything you know we talked about?

Shawn Gilfillan: 22:16

you know authenticity and love. There you go. Okay, you know, love people just the way they are, just the way they're not, and I think the biggest thing is being able to empower somebody to work and or live through their superpowers. I would call it. You know, we all have our unique abilities and when you can recognize it in each other and you can keep empowering that to come up wherever you end up landing within a company, whether it's ours and we've had people come in and grow and find other opportunities, like we talked about on the other show and I just want to see people succeed at life, whether they're inside or outside the shop. Your life's got to work and that's really what we're committed to.

Marc Bernstein: 22:58

So love is all you need.

Shawn Gilfillan: 23:00

Love is all you need. That's right.

Marc Bernstein: 23:01

So listen on that. I just have to say something because this says something about your love language. Ang, this morning helped me interpret this weeks ago about my story about now and then the new single by the Beatles and how that became a refuge for me during some very difficult news weeks over the last few months. And he picked up on that and I forgot that we even talked about it and he said I have something for you. After we had dinner last night and I said what is it? He said well, it's like two feet by two feet. I'm thinking what could this be? So I go in and I pick it up. It's wrapped and there's a picture inside and it was a friend of his, an artist who's extremely talented. I'll tell you why proof that he's talented.

Marc Bernstein: 23:51

It was the Beatles walking across Abbey Road. It had some little buried messages in it, like the Beatles would do, except that it kind of advertised automotive magic and some other things in there. But it was really cool. Brought it home to my wife, who was very picky about what goes on her walls, and she said you know you should put that up in the living room. She said that's really good. So it was just really, you passed the test. That was really, but I thank you so much for that it was one of the most thoughtful things anyone's ever done for me.

Marc Bernstein: 24:18

I was very touched by it. So let's talk about the future, as we love to do here. We only have three minutes, I'm told by TJ All right, your 10-year vision. What does that look like?

Shawn Gilfillan: 24:28

Well, what it looks like is I'm completely hands-off and our Magical Solutions coaching company is really empowering young guys to be able to succeed at running an automotive repair shop successfully and empowering the guys that we already have to, whether they end up taking over or opening up their own, and being that support where we're going to continue to grow them, whether it's mine or not.

Marc Bernstein: 24:50

And so when you say completely hands off, you'll be the visionary, I would imagine, and you'll still be conducting magical solutions and all kinds of magic you'll be conducting all over the place, but you won't be in the day-to-day operations of the business one way or the other. Quick closing round We'll do the lightning round. Favorite books.

Shawn Gilfillan: 25:12

Looking way, way, way back, napoleon Hill's Laws and 16 Lessons oh, I knew I loved this guy.

Marc Bernstein: 25:20

So I never read that one, but I read the Law of Success, which is the big. I've studied that one, the big version of that which is really cool.

Shawn Gilfillan: 25:28

Newer books I've been through who, not how is one that really helped me Dan Sullivan, another one of my favorites.

Ang Onorato: 25:33

We're all big fans.

Marc Bernstein: 25:35

I knew I loved this guy Keep going.

Shawn Gilfillan: 25:37

Let's see, we got Hero on a Mission. I don't know that one, donna Miller. It kind of breaks the context of our human being-ness in a hero, a guide, a victim or a villain, and how we all tend to play each or one of those roles at any moment in our life. There's plenty of times where I've been a victim or a villain Sometimes you've got to poke somebody but I've really noticed that I tend to want to be more of a guide as we go through life here.

Marc Bernstein: 26:08

Quick thought about your legacy. Okay, I'm thinking.

Ang Onorato: 26:14

It's a big legacy.

Shawn Gilfillan: 26:15

That was your question you picked by the way I know right. Did I put an answer no you did not.

Marc Bernstein: 26:21

There it is. I'm thinking it Kris did with her question.

Shawn Gilfillan: 26:23

It's going to be forever thinking about that, okay.

Ang Onorato: 26:26

I think being a guide is a pretty good. Whatever you're touching, it seems like that's what you're leaving behind.

Marc Bernstein: 26:32

You are living your legacy right now in everything you do. So love it. Thanks for being here, Shawn. Thanks again, Kris, for being here. Both of you guys Thanks for having us Really been a fun morning fun day.

Ang Onorato: 26:41

Great way to kick off the new year. Hi Barb, Happy New Year. Thank you.

Marc Bernstein: 26:46

Thanks to you, Ang, for being here in the new year, and thanks for all of you for listening. We'll see you next week on Founders Forum.