Streamlined Towing Invoices for Facilities Made Easy

Towing invoices for Facilities

[Music] Vince and vanice here are bringing in a cool $12 million a year you have land and it's just producing this money every over $100,000 this is a business you can start today with a low budget there's many times we we talk to each other and say hey we can't pay ourselves this week that's why many people got to business they don't plan for those bad days all of it started out with a single truck and wanted to do something on side so start taking notes because this is how you build the American dream all right you guys it's a pleasure to meet you both tell us a little bit about who you are what ASAP Towing is all about as well oh Paul it's a pleasure meeting you uh we're here in Jacksonville we started out as a small company to help support my father's business been in business since 1966 wow repairing automobiles through accidents and we thought what better way to have a side hustle so vanis was my girl at the time and we started uh this business with one truck one employee 5 months of business we did what maybe 30 ,000 in Revenue fast forward you know 28 years we're up to $12 million and you know what we're not stopping there we still have plans to grow it more but you're not just towing cars right vny tell us about the services that ASAP offers currently well you know if I go to a a convention or a meeting I like to say we're valet service we like to park cars for those people who don't know where to park like but honestly we do lockouts we do breakdowns we tow for dealerships we tow for law enforcement accidents from small to big can you break down the revenue across income streams I know you've got quite a bit of them let maybe take the top three or four what does that look like per month currently okay so as we are impounding these cars from the accidents we're impounding 800 to 1,000 cars a month you're looking at storage of income over $100,000 but guess what they don't pick up all the cars it's amazing to me after all these years of business what people leave behind so we have to auction those Vehicles off well let's go check out your office and see kind of where the operation takes place okay take us back to the 18-year-old Vinnie uh vanis what were you guys like what were you doing before the ASAP Towing stories so I made my goals I was going to join the military for four years get out get my college education start a business and I made these short-term goals and I hit them you don't do the exact thing you put your goals in but it keeps you on a tight schedule where you know you achieve this goal and next thing you know you go to the next level that's awesome you stack the little winds you do yeah what about you vanice well when I was in high school I went to the work release where I went to school half day and I wor work in the bank MH so they trained me and um dealing with a lot of money then I moved on to customer service so I was in the banking industry probably like eight or nine years before we decided to venture off and start something on our own where we could be the owners of the companies working for other people that's awesome let's go back to the initial days of ASAP at what point did you both look at each other and you're like uh what the heck did we get into there hasn't been any moment that we regretted getting in this business I'll be honest he had just given birth to our two twins and I was doing all the numbers manually and I came to her I said V you know how much money we made in storage she's no what 5,000 6,000 no more we're up to $30,000 a month in storage income back in 2001 today that number we're over $100,000 a month in storage wow so think about it you know you have land and it's just got a fruit tree that keeps m producing this money every month over $100,000 pretty good money but that's on the books though right Vinnie like you don't get paid all 100,000 cuz like you said a lot of people just don't come pick up the cars so that paper income is really this is Cas you're talking what actually this is this isn't real money coming in wow you got to realize if you have all these cars you've got people picking up the cars they're paying 5 to 10 days worth of storage $25 a day storage you know if you get $250 per car and you imp pound 800 cars a month you're talking a lot of money but not everyone picks them up so that Bill's never paid that's what I'm confused about I understand but guess what when they don't paid a vehicle now we're going to auction off that cars oh you're right yeah we're going to end up auctioning 300 cars a month if we sell those cars in average $1,000 a car we $300,000 in auctions she and not only that guess what we charge an auction fee 133% oh wow so if you buy a car for me now you're going to pay me $1,000 or whatever you plus1 130 what multiplied that times not b 300 not bad well I'm excited to check out the house that you're building and take our audience with us let's go you're going like welcome home all right let's do it this place is gorgeous tell us about this project and what it means to you you know we all work and we have a dream in mind and my dream was always to live on the water and uh you see this beautiful entrance it's about to happen they tell me I'm going to be moving in in November it doesn't appear that way but it's going to happen but couple months out couple months out so this is one of your vices this is one of the ways that you invest and reinvest the money you earn from a business right yes I believe in investing something that appreciates in this house once I'm moveing will be appreciable by about 100% so when you were running the auto shop or the body shop with your father how much was it making if you can recall yeah the highest number we hit was $235,000 in sales in one month I was pretty proud of of my father started out at $30,000 a month and I was able to go seven times that that's a pretty serious shop I mean yes it's where I really learned about business I give my dad all the credit for teaching me the basics about business why go into the towing business though like at that point right cuz you could have grown the shop I could have but the reality my father would put the brakes on it cuz he was content it started getting out of control but it was never mind it was it was someone else's it was my dad's so you wanted something that belonged to you yeah that was our family something to start our own legacy mhm how long before you left the body shop when you went to work ASAP like absolutely full-time well well vanice did a wonderful job she's this she was doing this by herself from get-go I mean she was out there doing the sales doing the phones and taking the calls and dispatching our One driver and dispatching me on the weekends but about a year and a half later she says you know what we've grown too much vents we got to make it little smaller or you're going to have to work full-time mhm so about a year and a half about a year and a half and you dropped the whole body work stuff and what was your role as you got into it fulltime was it a driver it was a driver and also to set up the processes on what we were going to do we were going to do things what trucks and equipment we were going to do what services we were going to provide we went through a lot of growth periods where we actually did more and we have cut those Services down cuz we found out not everything makes a lot of money right what dollar amount are we talking about that you were making when Vinnie came in full-time about a year and a half ago or a year and a half into it yeah it over a quar million yeah it was a lot for us being so young and starting out and then we were just I would go to all the dealerships ask for business business cards dress up professional MH and first one said you know will you take a PO and I'm like sure I didn't really know what a PO was coming from banking yeah but you know I gladly said yes we'll accept and then we got into you know a program how we build them and it was just a whole learning process of how to auction a car off going to the tax collector getting them to help me paperwork what other business ideas did you consider before you said you know what Towing is going to be it just curious well we were uh sitting in the living room with my uh girlfriend at the time vanis and uh she wanted to go into the sandwich business you know Subway was a big thing talking about franchises but uh I just couldn't see me making sandwiches and my banker said the food industry is really tough and low margins yeah so we opted for the uh Automotive business and we went with the towing to support the body shell business yeah it kind was yeah it was supplementary complimentary to what your dad was over already do but it was your own thing it was our own thing yes well we can't possibly make it to all the five locations but we do want to hop over to the Jack Beach location let go let's go check that out is it a one of the smaller ones or one of the bigger ones that is our smallest location but uh it's a very productive you know it still gets to big numbers we're still doing probably about 150 to 200 impounds a month wow okay let's go check it out come with us you guys all right so we are at the Jack Beach location one of your small look this beautiful environment is a lot to see you guys but that's just the reality of this business right we're not showing up to fancy hotels and no you we're just making an me with a little little extra profit here that's right let's talk about the very first steps you took Vinnie when you decided to open up the business and I'm talking like cold steps like skip all the fluff once we came up with the name we knew we needed to turn so many dollars per day so we knew what we were paying our driver once you come up with your cost factoring your cost for tires your maintenance your oil changes Factor all your monthly expenses and then come up with a estimated number of toes and then come up with your price per toe too many people think that oh I'll just make $50 here without realizing their cost and asset they might be making money now but the first time they need a a major repair on a truck they're fixing go out of business that's why many people go out of business they don't plan for those bad days what did you pay for your first truck back in the day our first truck was a 1994 F550 flatbed in we paid right at $20,000 for it yeah same thing today would be what 70 it'd run around $70,000 for that truck today but you can start with one truck you can start with one truck today be a dedicated person and and driver and owner and you could make it this is a business honestly you can start today with a low budget and really if you're dedicated and working hard now I don't mean like part time work it hard you will make money in this industry are you looking to start this business with little to no capital stay tuned for more advice from Vinnie all right you guys thanks for submitting your questions we're going to jump into Blitz with Vinnie let's do it uh pack curvy 950 is asking what are the business expenses on a monthly basis well right now we're running expense around 700 to $800,000 a month whoa all right uh final Ace 2 says what is a good starter tow truck that's going to be your Dodge Ram 5500 all right and then if you go with a rollback you're probably looking at a neighborhood of 135 fully loaded all right thank you to Adrian Riviera 3570 how do they retain good employees I do my best to let them do their business the way they want to do we have custom hours we let them come in a little later we try not to get on to people as much because you know if you get on to them they're going to go somewhere else all right let's move on to Bobby Axel Rod 45 4153 $12 million a year here he says how can I start a trowing towing truck business in my city and what do I need to do to earn even a tenth of that well Bobby I me it's a good question but I always say don't chase the money chase Your Passion find something you can be passionate about and I tell you towing you can get passionate about if you got a tow fetish like I do man it's fun I tell you I got toe fetish okay what's the most business you've done in a single day maybe 100 50 toes in a day but dollarwise what about those accidents there's accidents we do it might be three semi trucks and we're doing 40 $50,000 per an AC scene so it gets a little complicated the number or the dollar amount I like the dollar amount okay what's the dollar amount so 4 about 30 to 40,000 on a rack a day yeah oh wow okay if you weren't an entrepreneur what would you be doing instead I might be a photographer for Playboy magazine I don't know but uh that's a childhood dream if you could have a dinner with anyone Dead or Alive who would it be in why I always looked at Marilyn Monroe and thought she'd be a pretty fascinating character to have a a a dinner with you know last one lastly biggest pet peeve when it comes to working with each other this is talking about vanice well working with my uh wife and and uh now ex-wife and now best friend as I would say is I hate being called hey she would get under my skin call me a damn boy but that was just that was my pet peeve okay well said let's take a second and talk about the exhilarating but exhausting journey of Entrepreneurship the long hours the constant hustle and the pressure to always succeed will take a toll on our health I've been there I bet you have too that's why I'm thrilled to introduce today's sponsor betterhelp betterhelp is the largest therapy service and the best part it's all online don't have time we simply book a phone call a video phone call or simply text your therapist don't know what you need help with better help will assess your needs and get you what you need don't know who the best therapist is well better help has over 30,000 therapists and if you feel like your first one is not the best fit you can always switch therapists at no additional cost it's affordable flexible and leaves most of us with no more excuses to leave our mental Health on the back burner click the link in the description below or go to better health.com upflip and get 10% off your first month I'm curious about starting a towing company today what does it look like as opposed to what it was 20 years ago make a plan of what type of Towing do you want to do do you want to do only for breakdown Towing do you want to do motor club Towing do you want to do impounds where you're collecting on storage you got to Define it but if you wanted to do a little bit of everything like what we did you're going to have to find location that is suitable with the zoning laws to impound cars you're going to have to learn to State statutes that you do not want to make an airair or you're looking at possible felonies convictions realistically give us a quick snipp at what do I need I need a truck and I need myself I mean technically that's that that could be a business right knowledge of how to run the truck yeah the experience behind it hey you don't even need experience when we bought the truck it was driven to us we had a customer break down on the side of the road he saw we had a tow truck he came over asked us if we could help him never say no in business find a way so I went and got my bodyman my bodyman came over he showed me how to use the truck we got the guy out the ditch he was like what do I owe you we didn't even know how much I think we quote him $125 our first $125 made without even knowing how to use the tow truck so you just learn as you go a lot of it is is that what was the most difficult part Vinnie uh when you started out ASAP what did you struggle with the most initially we knew nothing about the toe we didn't know how to operate a tow truck we didn't really know anything about the business or anything so it was a learning curve from the get-go and then once you started hiring more people it was a matter will they take care of equipment will they represent you well that was difficult and then you're counting on them to collect your money out there some people we've had to let go cuz they steal there's theft we now have one of the best computer programs which is aaditi okay we'll check it out and they keep track of uh the impounds it gives you data day it gives you customer list it gives you the ability to track every bit of the uh Towing operation nice so you barely scraped through high school then you joined the military Vinnie I did what are some life lessons that you picked up there that are now helping you in the business in the military I got us some leadership skills you learn a little bit of dedication and you learn team first it's not about yourself and it's uh valuable I think every young person if you don't if you don't know what you want to do military is a good route it really is parents should really push their children to go to Military and they'll be surprised the man or woman they'll become so we're in the middle of your lot you've got a mix of good cars I mean some of them look like they run others look like they'll never run I'll take a look at this sale right here yeah we've got a 100 units to sell it to sale and because of just overlooking what I've looked at I can tell you we're going to average about $800 a car so we're looking at $80,000 on Friday wow you add in a 13% fee now we're talking another another $111,000 that's good money let's go check out cuz you not only just have cars right you tell bik you know bikes and motorcycles and so on right well as a matter of fact there we to semis tractor trailers and this semi somebody left a dog on reer unit a reer unit is a semi trer with a cooling system yeah you've got one it's going on sale this auction let's go check out what else you got on the lot continue the conversation sweet how much were you making at your first ever location before you said okay it's time to go to to buy another location the reality we didn't want to open a second location because of money we wanted to open up for the ability to service our customers because you got to remember the law says you can only service your customers within 10 miles to remove vehicles so because of that law we have to open up a second location to service our customers then a third location to service the customers on the south side but the reality is my father always told me Vince More Cows don't mean more milk and it took me a while to figure that one out but just because you have more locations or you have more employees you don't necessarily make more money it takes a little bit more than that you get to certain levels some certain Peaks so you got a range so like when you go from 2 million to 4 million you got some variables where your real profit will may be right at the 3 million Mark but that 3 million to 4 million you're not making really no more money and you might be making less money so you got to get to the next level of four to 5 million before you make actually that as you continue to expand gotcha so there's these stages there stages yeah and you were making what at the first one before you you know expanded to this one would you say it's around a couple mil we were a couple million on the first location yes all right so you start making money with ASAP Towing uh what are some of the mistakes that you made initially in the journey well you know some people call them mistakes some people call them failings I call them experience when I first bought the trucks we thought oh wow this is a 26,000 gbw truck we can carry all this weight well there's a rule on the laws that says you can only carry so many pounds per axle and we didn't know that in the beginning we made some errors we went across the scales we were overweight we get hit with $3,000 fines we didn't have the money we had that American Express card boy that American Express card got us so much uh leeway and getting us out of trouble that I like to tell people we got an American Express education in this business well you still were on the hook for the bill though right you're on hook for the bill but guess what you know you got that extra 30-day leeway you know to go and hustle and get some more money coming in right and you learn you don't do that mistake again because it's very costly what do you tell entrepreneurs watching us right now who are starting out who are starting to see cash flow and they're like w I've never made this kind of money before let me go about buy fun stuff or you hon common mistake that's a common mistake people want to go and and have instant gratification but to be honest we didn't take a pay paycheck from our business for over 2 years oh wow and then when times were a little tough guess who's the first one you cut the paycheck the owner there's many times we we talk to each other and say hey we can't pay ourselves this week but you know what in the end it's all worthwhile cuz you got to invest in yourself invest in your business but you got to pay your people first they will give you their time their energy but no one's going to work for free except yourself inspire ired by the Journey of Vince and vanis we've got courses by worldclass entrepreneurs so check them out at upflip docomo you've got a team of over 50 people five locations what is it like to work with you what do you focus on how do you approach things and so on I would like to say I'll take a page for what my daughter told me she said dad you and Mom are so different mom's always you know right on top of us that helicopter paring but you know you gave us a little bit of space and we felt like we could do our own thing so I triy to do the same my employees I try not to micromanage them I try to give them the tools they need to do their job we try to reward them it's very difficult cuz it's um all commission based so they're already making their money on per call so the more they do the more they get rewarded on a financial basis we give them benefits or they they earn their benefits so you got to stay on top of it and take care of your people but don't micromanage them let them be a little bit personable you know they're going to have bad days and realize we're all human not every day is going to be perfect so let them uh be their own self and they got to be able to express themselves yeah no I like your real world approach and giving them some space you mentioned not taking a paycheck for the first year in starting this business why did you decide to do that we wanted to scale the business quickly without borrowing a lot of money we didn't want to put the business on a burden of having a a large loan payment so by not taking a paycheck we were able to invest every dollar to buy a second truck quickly and a third truck and you needed to get to three trucks to get on a um law enforcement rotation system interesting so they have a minimum there's a minimum it's like the Rotator so these contracts require you to have certain equipment to qualify what would be your advice or tips to those who are not in that position if you're not in that position where you can uh work for nothing on your business what you need to do is find another income that you can rely upon whether it's your girlfriend or your husband or wife depending who's working the business have another part-time job there's many part-time jobs you can do across all your five location ations how has Revenue grown from 1 to two three and so forth well we were at our main location on 103rd Street we we approached close to $2 million and then when we were able to grow to our second location and our third locations the revenues grew a little bit quicker because we already had the clients in place we just couldn't service them at the time so once we added those locations they had instant customers M so in the first one we had about 2 million when we added downtown we're looking about another 1.5 million and the Southside location was a really great investment we are able to have monthly storage there we have tractor trailers Park paying us approximately over $10,000 a month so the reality is every location has been a great investment and a more opportunity for cash flow you need cash flow to keep investing how do most customers find you today we have those customers that break down on side of the road and when they Google something the names are going to pop up we pop up fairly quickly cuz we've got good reviews and we've got a good name of business in our longevity but then you have those customers that we valet service where we brought their car into our yard they're going to find out where we are by calling the police department they're going to say hey your car didn't get stolen your car got impounded over here it's at ASAP to and storage uh you may call your dealership you know what I mean and the dealership is going to tell you who to call and we're the preferred tour for some of the dealerships locally because we know they know we're going to bring your car in there damage free now when you talk about advertising Google and stuff who's the designated person for ASAP to do that how much is that costing you per per month uh we're spending a little bit over $1,000 on Google right now monthly to uh keep up our AdWords campaign what about like Tik Tok Instagram Facebook is that it all being used right now or not yet Instagram is starting to be a little bit of a player Facebook is definitely used as an approach we use for our auctions and we're looking to do more with Facebook at this point in time okay and I learned recently that these videos are good source and we're going to be looking to get video productions made yeah if you're not in it yet for sure you've got room to grow you mentioned before that if you want to lead you first have to serve what does that look like a day-to-day practically well when you're out there with your guys out there working a re scene you don't want to be that pompous is telling everybody what to do you've got to take action I mean if you see something that's uh going on that needs to be taken care of pick it up if if it means getting a bag of oil dry pouring over the oil going and picking up debris or getting a broom and sweeping up hey my guys are proud to work next to me cuz they know that if I ask them to do something is because I can't do it right then but they know I would do it in fact they tell me hey V give me that broom you don't need to be doing that but you know what I'm going to do it anyways y I say I tell them go get your own let's get it done quick right lead by example lead by example do what do what others may not be willing to do do you think it's possible for anyone to become a millionaire today and and if so how you know the reality is if you've got the dedication perseverance you're going to you're going to be successful to what you define that degree of success you got to find that answer because you know some people look at it and say hey they've got all the money money but do they have the time do you know what time they spent gave up on their family time the next thing you know their children all grown up so to what value you want money balance it family happiness and love I mean and your community it's not all or nothing you can have it all but work at it and be dedicated and faithful to it mhm what about you well I agree pretty much it's just it's a lot of dedication but you know and as you grow you learn to incorporate other people to depend on and as you grow you're adding more staff which makes it a little bit easier than as the 28 years we've been in business what habits do you have currently and have lived with that have really made you into a successful business person what do you want to hone in on I'll be honest with you just being honest with your customers being uh true to your business and true to your employees and stay true to your family and in the long run we all work to enjoy a little bit of fruits of our labor and it took us a few years we waited 25 years to enjoy fruits of our labor to this degree yeah and and you did a good job delaying that gratification with the money that you're making today years and many years after you started um how are you investing in I'm just curious like we have chosen to invest in things that don't appreciate us much granted we do have our little vices that we have as far as like the boat or we have the cars that depreciate but you know the reality is we have still invest together we recently bought 8 Acres of property in Uli oh wow uh with the hopes of maybe open up a six location but we're dealing with zoning at this time so it may or may not occur what is your typical monthly Revenue today with all five locations and what are the margins that we you know the industry standard what is it you know the industry standard uh it varies because there's so many types of different operations we're one of the few that encompasses the matter of storing auctioning off vehicles and doing heavy Hall heavy wck so our operation a little bit more profitable than some we have higher costs because the bigger you get you got to have higher insurance cost but today we're uh minimum revenues $1 million a month so that's why we're at the $12 million annual revenues and uh we're running around 18% net and that's after paying me rent cuz I the business pays me rent so we don't look at that as I Revenue it's a cost but the money comes back to me so if we looked at a true net it would be higher it would be 25 30% reasonable I would think yes sir I am curious about how you deal with angry customers I have to imagine you've get them from time to time right in the kind of business you're in on the phone people are calling they're angry which you have to understand they're angry where's my car but sometimes they're a little a little threatening and so you get a little nervous when they come in a lot of times they've calm down a little bit but then there's those that have not calmed down they're still really upset about taking their car who's the better one of you to handle that situation well I mean if it gets to the point where my employees feel like they they they're going to lose their cool I tell them always forward me to calls because the reality I'm going to get to talking to the customer I'm going to listen to them I'm going to let them Express themselves because you don't like a pressure cooker take out that little button and let all the steam out once they let all the steam out then you can deal with it not every business makes it through the tough times right the first year year and a half will either break you or make you in a way you've obviously made it what made it work for the two of you how did you guys get through the tough times you know we were very fortunate that I I had another job to begin with vanice had income coming in every dollar was reinvested in the company no money was splurged upon by going and get an exotic car or extra high Dollar Fashions you know that came later in the business cycle and I was always raised do not take care of yourself first you have to take care of the employee first so my decision making has always been on how how it's going to affect my employees not on how it's going to benefit vents mhm they had to be taken care of first and that's why today I'm able to take care of vents because of my employees have been taking care of first what do you want to leave our audience with as just last piece of advice whether it's life work business anything on your heart you know what's come to mind to me today is the realization the older we get the more we realize that time is the most important aspect that we will cherish or waste so don't waste time cuz it's like the sand in The Hourglass once it comes down it can never be replaced in life you don't get to take that hourglass and turn it back and get more time whatever time you have is what you have so don't waste it well said well that's a wrap I really enjoyed it sir thank you appreciate it well that's a wrap you guys I hope you enjoyed this episode if you're interested more about the towing industry make sure to check out episode 123 with KO Towing which Grew From one truck to four in a matter of three years take a second to like subscribe and we will see you next [Music] time