SHOW TRANSCRIPT

 

[00:00:04] Speaker 1 Hey, welcome to another episode of the Go with John Show today. I’m very excited to have Mauricio three go with us. Welcome, Mauricio.

 

[00:00:13] Speaker 2 Thank you so much for having me here on your show.

 

[00:00:15] Speaker 1 Thank you for coming in. So, Mauricio, you’ve got a great story and I’m so excited to have you come in and tell it today. But before we get into your story and how you got here and how you got into the business, tell us a little bit about what you do. What is your business?

 

[00:00:31] Speaker 2 Okay, great. So I’m the CEO of Infinitely Limo Car. And here in Washington, DC, we provide corporate car services for executives, movie stars and anyone in the entertainment business. Basically, any needs for grant transportation. We can fulfill it with our business.

 

[00:00:50] Speaker 1 Right. And you? And what is your service area? Mainly you said D.C., but do you go outside of D.C., Virginia? Maryland?

 

[00:00:57] Speaker 2 Yes. Our area of of work is basically all the Washington metropolitan area, including Baltimore as well. Okay. And for the right price, we can go anywhere you want.

 

[00:01:08] Speaker 1 Yeah, that’s that’s what we say. It’s Stanley Martin. We can build anything you want to pay for. So, yeah, it makes perfect sense. So the. So tell me about your. Let’s hear your story. Let me just let you tell it. So where where were you born?

 

[00:01:24] Speaker 2 I was born in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

 

[00:01:26] Speaker 1 Okay.

 

[00:01:27] Speaker 2 And that’s right in the center of South America, right in the heart of South of America.

 

[00:01:31] Speaker 1 Yeah, there’s some interesting things going on there which we will not talk about today. So how how old were you when you came to the United States?

 

[00:01:39] Speaker 2 I was 20 years old.

 

[00:01:41] Speaker 1 And how did you get here?

 

[00:01:43] Speaker 2 So I got the opportunity presented to me by one of the family members that was in the country, you know, before me. Right. And she actually visited two back home in Bolivia. And at that point, I was in a back home. I have too many friends. Right. And I. I was. Realizing that I needed to have a change in my life.

 

[00:02:11] Speaker 1 You need a change of scenery.

 

[00:02:12] Speaker 2 And it wasn’t necessarily I mean, I, I, I’m thankful enough that I have a financial situation from the, from my household that I was in a good level where, you know, I wasn’t rich, but I wasn’t poor. Right. And but I just really needed to change, you know? And I was 20 years old and I didn’t know what to do with my life at that time. Right. I was not doing really good in college. And and so I just was kind of confused of what I was going to do with my life. And then this family member came to Bolivia to visit. And out of the blue, I just asked her, hey, you know, will you be able to sponsor me? And I just want to go there and give it a try. Yeah. So at that point that that person already has, you know, her family already had like a business here in the D.C. area. So they were able to sponsor me as a student and a part time worker. Okay. So they, um, yeah, you know, we did all the paperwork over there and so I came and I, when I came to the United States, I was able to go to school. Right. Within two weeks, I arrived here. Mm hmm.

 

[00:03:25] Speaker 1 What school did you go to?

 

[00:03:26] Speaker 2 Well, we. We went. I went to a ESL school for English Second Language. Sure. My English was pretty much. Pretty much zero.

 

[00:03:33] Speaker 1 Right.

 

[00:03:33] Speaker 2 And so from there, I studied English as a second language in that it’s like a linguistic institute.

 

[00:03:43] Speaker 1 Right, right, right.

 

[00:03:44] Speaker 2 And then from there, I went to Ta Nova. Yeah. And then I did. I completed my ESL over there and they continued into business administration there.

 

[00:03:55] Speaker 1 Nice. So did you get a did you get a degree or did you just take some classes?

 

[00:03:59] Speaker 2 I just do some classes.

 

[00:04:00] Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I did. Yeah. Yeah. Which which campus were you at? Yeah, yeah, me too.

 

[00:04:05] Speaker 2 Yeah. There you go. Back in the.

 

[00:04:06] Speaker 1 Day. I was there way before you, though, so.

 

[00:04:09] Speaker 2 Maybe there was only one building before.

 

[00:04:10] Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it was. I went for a very, very, very short period of time, one or two quarters. So it didn’t go long, but. So. So, all right, so you get over here, you learn how to. Great. So you did everything legit, right? You got sponsored. You got over here, you got you learned how to speak English, you got some experience working. So then what happened?

 

[00:04:32] Speaker 2 When I moved here and I started the school, I was presented opportunity to work as a part time in a limousine company. Mhm. And obviously at that time you know within a month of me being here. Mhm. The only job of that was to be able to apply for was to clean the cars. Right. So my job was to go to school in the morning actually to take care of the church, the house that I was being a sponsor, go to school and then right after school, go back to the to the company, to the base, and clean all the cars. So that was my job every day for for about a year and a half. So during that time, the person who who owned the company over there give me opportunity to. Learn the business a little bit. And, you know, he gave me a card and he told me, okay, you can you can go drive. I’m going to give you some some of the addresses of the clients and go basically go and drive and get lost.

 

[00:05:35] Speaker 1 Right.

 

[00:05:35] Speaker 2 I’ll find your way. Yeah. You’re going to practice from point A to the airport and from airport to point B, wherever. Yeah. So while I was doing all that, so I was going to school, I was cleaning the cars and I was practicing. And so then when was once I had enough time on my driver’s license that the insurance approved me to start driving for some of the company cars I started Darby’s on Charlotte’s from Pentagon to Arlington for office work. Right. So then my day was starting the morning at 443, go and pick up the car from the base and do the shadows for the rush hour in the morning. Go to school, come back, do the shovel for the rush hour in the afternoon, go back to base and clean up the limos. So that was my day.

 

[00:06:30] Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

 

[00:06:31] Speaker 2 For quite a while.

 

[00:06:32] Speaker 1 Yeah. So. So when you say quite a while, how many years you did?

 

[00:06:36] Speaker 2 I think that was probably another two years. Wow. That, that I was doing that and that at that time.

 

[00:06:41] Speaker 1 And you were happy.

 

[00:06:42] Speaker 2 I was I was happy. I was working very hard. Yeah. And but I kind of find a way to have a focus in my life. So my focus was gathering to be driving the shovel every everyday for the rest of my life.

 

[00:06:54] Speaker 1 Right. You want to get to the next level?

 

[00:06:56] Speaker 2 I want to go to the next level. So at that point, I was already enrolling into Nova and I was sticking to classes. My English was getting better. While the greatest thing that I have and it’s a blessing for me as an immigrant, is that whatever I was learning in school, I was able to practice because my whole surrounding was people that only was speaking English. Right, right. So many times I will you know, I would learn something in the morning and then I’ll go and try to apply right away. So that helped me a lot too. Yeah. Yeah. You learn and there’s some opportunities that many people don’t have, right? Right. You know, sometimes you come and then you, you know, a lot of my peers will go and work in construction, which is by the way, it’s a great thing to do to write construction, you know, but but you don’t get to, you know, depending on who you’re surrounded by, you don’t get to learn the language because you’re comfortable with, you know, either Spanish or whatever, right? Yeah. So that was something that I learned a lot and they help me a lot to to grow. So during the time I went through college and I got the classes that I wanted to get, my boss at the limo company realized that I have some potential. So he brought me to the office and he said, Okay, you want to learn some of the office work now that your English is getting better? I don’t feel you comfortable to answer the phone yet, but you can do some of the office work so for a good period of time. I still have to watch the limos. But then I will come to the office. I didn’t drive the shadows anymore. I come to the office and my job was to take care of all the credit card charges. Back in the time, we didn’t have all the software. So anything. So it was, you know, the credit card slips. Yeah. That you get getting the card or you get to the restaurant. So they had the day at the end of the day, you, the drivers bring all that, all the slips and then someone has to process, process at manually. So that was my day. Yeah. Processing credit cards 8 hours a day.

 

[00:08:56] Speaker 1 So now is this company that you were working for, are they still in business?

 

[00:08:59] Speaker 2 They’re still in.

 

[00:09:00] Speaker 1 Business. They’re still in business. Is it still the same owner?

 

[00:09:03] Speaker 2 Yes, it’s.

 

[00:09:04] Speaker 1 Still. Yeah. Are you are you friends with him still?

 

[00:09:06] Speaker 2 Yeah, we are. Yeah, we are. But at some point, you know, I decided to go on my own. Of course.

 

[00:09:11] Speaker 1 So when was that? When did you so well.

 

[00:09:15] Speaker 2 Through all the ten years that I worked for them. From basically 2000 to 2010. Yes. I went through and, you know, cleaning the cars. Yeah. And driving the shadows, driving some of the cars, doing building. And I went all the way up to general manager in the company. So I was hiring people. I have about 40 drivers that were under under my my management. Right. And I have about ten, 15 people in the office. So I so the last year, 2010, you know, I was I was a general manager. And then from there it came to a point where I just realized that I was putting a lot of my time and my hours in this business, which it helped me a lot, obviously, for sure, from the very beginning. Right? Sure. But at this point, I already have a family, I have a wife, I have two kids. And I was putting 6 hours a day, you know, and my phone was up the hook, you know, dealing with a lot of stuff. And I realized that. I was not going to be able to go anywhere else. You know, to grow more from here. From that point on. Truly. The drivers or the chauffeurs are making more money than me. Right. Because these are the people who are generating money directly into the country. Sure you do ten jobs and then there’s going to be a billion for ten jobs. And then you bring the money. Then you get a percentage of that. Right, right, right. So I said, okay, I can’t do this anymore. 18 hours a day. And that is the nature of the business, man. Right. I was getting paid a salary, and that was it. So one day I decided to talk to my boss and I said, listen, I’m very sorry, but I. I have to live. You know, I feel that I need to do something else with my life. At that point, I was thinking maybe I was going to do something else. Mm hmm. And I decided to. To tell him that. And he said, Well, I’ll give you a month. You decide you have one month to decide what you’re going to do. During that time, I, I reach out to other people and I end up going to a company who was a bigger company then than this one. And I was trying to see if they have any work at the office. Mm hmm. And so when I spoke to the general manager of the company, he told me. Mauricio. I’m very excited that you come here, and I would love to have you. But my problem is, if I hire you and come into office, I’m going to have to quit. Because what you know, your knowledge will bring you as a general manager. And I cannot put you under reservations engine or as a dispatcher, because you know more than that. Right. And and you wouldn’t make the money that you need to make. Mm hmm. And I said, I don’t want to be in the office. I want to drive.

 

[00:12:04] Speaker 1 Yeah.

 

[00:12:06] Speaker 2 And so he was very surprised because he knew what I was coming from. So he said, well, if you if you decide to do so, I told him, then we’ll do it. So I got all my, you know, paperwork done. And I started driving for them. And so I went from being a manager of a lot of drivers, 30, 40 drivers at one point to be a driver. Yes. Right. So everyone was thinking, are you making the right decision? And I felt really good because I kind of felt that I was kind of free because I was on the road. I was outside.

 

[00:12:45] Speaker 1 You kept it on your own ship? Yes.

 

[00:12:47] Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. And this company had a different level of clients.

 

[00:12:54] Speaker 3 Mm hmm.

 

[00:12:55] Speaker 2 So in the other company, I was dealing with some executives, but mostly we were dealing with proms and weddings and all that stuff, which is good. It makes money, but the level of clients that you have at different to what I was going to come in this company. And when I started with them, I started meeting movie stars. I started moving, you know, people from Hollywood all the time. Mm hmm. CEOs, presidents of big organizations. Right. That I was having this direct contact. So although in those ten years of experience I have on the other company, you know, I have a lot of experience, but I really needed never had, like, this direct contact with customers.

 

[00:13:39] Speaker 3 Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

 

[00:13:40] Speaker 2 When I was in the other company, I will get into the office, and I was kind of like the king of the company. Right? Right. I that’s how I felt. Right. I want to say. Hey, Mr. Mauricio. Hey, Mr. Moyes. Yeah. Yeah, but I never really picked up the phones and talked to customers because I was on the operations side. Right. So this kind of opened my mind to understand more about the business.

 

[00:14:03] Speaker 3 Mm hmm.

 

[00:14:04] Speaker 2 And I also understood that. You know, when you come to this country, you have to kind of bring your you know, you have your culture, but you also have to learn the culture of this country. Right? Right, right. Right. And I learned a lot about that because then I said, okay, I need to go and watch some football games. I need to go and listen to the news more. I need to talk about hockey. I need to talk about basketball. I need to talk about political politics. Yeah. And the only way to do that is to read, to listen to the news and everything. So that brought me to a different level in this country. Right? Because before, I was just in this little world of the limo business. Yeah. And then I came out over here. I understood that there was more than that. And if I wanted to have a decent conversation with. The president of AOL at that time. Yeah, I needed to know more than, you know, limo business, right? Because he doesn’t care about ever that he might care about. How was the football game yesterday? Yeah, stuff like that. Right.

 

[00:15:05] Speaker 1 You can’t lose with sports. Exactly. Well, actually, you can, but. Well, if you. If you keep.

 

[00:15:11] Speaker 2 A diplomatic thing.

 

[00:15:12] Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. If you. If you get too excited about a team they don’t like, that could be a problem. Yeah, exactly.

 

[00:15:18] Speaker 2 So. So that’s how I really grew in this business is because I, I understood that the the limo business was not just about operations. It’s about the relationship you have with people.

 

[00:15:32] Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. So. So, but let me jump in for a second, because what you just said, I think great story and I’m glad, you know, we’ve gotten this far in it. But you just really touched on something really important. And, you know, that is if you want to be in business and I and I do the same thing, I watch the news and in fact, I tell my my team, you know, Nick is here with us, our engineer. I watch all the news channels because I want to hear what all the perspectives of the different channels are, because you never know who you’re going to run into in that day and and what what perspective they may be going through life with. Right. So, you know, watching the news channels in the sports and staying on top of that, I think that’s probably one of the key elements to my success when I was a younger businessman. Right. And probably same for you, because it gives you the ability to talk to anybody. Yes. You know, and you’re if you’re driving and you have customers in the car, you’re in the relationship business. If you’re in sales, you’re in the relationship business. If you’re in the real estate industry, it’s relationships. If you’re a business owner, it’s the relationships with your with your team members, your your your staff and your your your customers. So that was a really smart, smart thing to do.

 

[00:16:52] Speaker 2 Yeah. It’s something that I you know, I didn’t plan to do it, but I learned organically. Yeah. How, how? Because I feel uncomfortable sometimes, you know, in the beginning. Well I will be able to answer that question. Yeah, it was a football game yesterday or what about this or what about that. Right. Yeah. And during this time we when I work with this company, I got involved with a lot of people from the news industry, from two or three different, you know, different networks. And and some of the networks were from the right. So the networks from the left right. And so I made sure to be professional, regardless what I’m a political, you know. Colors.

 

[00:17:40] Speaker 1 Whatever your political colors are.

 

[00:17:42] Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. Thank you for that. Sure. So that’s something that, you know, I learn also how to how to handle, because at one point we need to understand that that. Yeah, we have to be very neutral. Absolutely. And one of the things is that. People don’t sometimes don’t realize when someone gets in the car, right? When a customer gets in the car, that is the most private time they might have during the day, right? It may. I can throw some names just because my my name was, you know. You know, publicly, you know, on Twitter or Facebook for example. I have. Mhm. Harrison Ford in my car. Mm hmm. All right, so he goes from the plane to an event. The event is crazy. You know, everyone was trying to take pictures with him or try. Try to talk to him then. Paparazzi are following him and then he gets in the car. That is the most private time that he has. And I’m the one who is managing that travel. Yes. Private time. Yeah. So I have to be very wise on how he will be comforted, feel comfortable during that time, maybe from that ride from an event to the hotel. Right. So sometimes the best thing you can do is to be quiet.

 

[00:19:04] Speaker 3 Mm hmm.

 

[00:19:05] Speaker 2 And sometimes, yes, there might be a conversation, but that conversation has to be very pleasant. Right. So you need to learn how to manage that. So something that that I learn, you know, little by little with the experience and as I say it again, you know, learning more about the culture of this country and the sport and use everything that helped me to manage that. Mm hmm. So. And that’s how I be. I was able to build a relationship with a lot of these high profile, you know, executives or high profile entertainment, you know, people that come through to D.C., which is not as often as is like in California. Right. It’s not like, you know, they come every day, but but they do come pretty often as well.

 

[00:19:48] Speaker 1 Pretty amazing. All right. Well, we’re going to take a quick break. When we come back on the other side, we are going to hear I want to hear about your story and how you started your business. And we’ll talk more about that right after this quick break. Welcome back. We are still here with Mauricio three. Go. And so glad you came. Embraced. Thank you.

 

[00:20:13] Speaker 2 Thank you so much for having me.

 

[00:20:14] Speaker 1 So, Mauricio, so how did you finally get to the point where you wanted to start your own business?

 

[00:20:21] Speaker 2 So at this point is about four years that I’ve been driving for this company. And again, this is a really, really big company that has branches in some of the major cities in the country. And I was very successful in the in the in this company at one point, within probably three months of me joining them, I was the top driver. And I was getting requests from customers all the time and very high profile customers. And so my days were always busy. You know, there was no days that I that I was I didn’t have anything to do. I and every time it was always exciting experiences that I have going to places that no civilians can just go on. They also like right going to the White House was it was was a normal time for me once once you know, once, once in a while, once a month or twice a month going to Pentagon government buildings, going behind the venues of concerts and stuff like that. It was just a normal day for me. So it was at that point above, as I said, for years after I realized that I was the highest paid driver on the company, my rate was, you know, was pretty good. I couldn’t ask for more. And I was making good money. But I knew that the only way I could make more money is if they had more hours. Right. So at that point, I realized, okay, I’m doing really good. I’m comfortable, but I have to go to a different level. So at that point, I did some research and obviously I already had the experience with working as a manager in the other company. So I started doing some research and preparing to tour to start my company. So I reached out to my boss and I said, Listen, you know, everything is great, but I explain him exactly that. And I said, I need to I need to go to a different level. Yeah, he was very disappointed.

 

[00:22:29] Speaker 1 Yeah.

 

[00:22:30] Speaker 2 And he asked me, the only thing I ask you. I cannot hold you here. The only thing I ask you is don’t give me two weeks. Give me two months.

 

[00:22:39] Speaker 3 Mm hmm.

 

[00:22:40] Speaker 2 And at that point, obviously, I only have everything ready because I was not going to just leave without being sure. Right? Sure. I have all the paperwork ready for the for the company. I even purchased a new brand new vehicle, which was very expensive. Sure. Because it was my first one and I could have said, no, it’s too much. But I decided I decided to keep my word and go for it. So I literally have my brand new suburban. Sitting in the office for two months while I was driving their car. Wow. So at the end of the two months, I came to talk to him, I said, listen, I this I gave you my word. Two months passed. These are the kids. This is my paperwork for their resignation. And I really want to thank you for everything. And as I was walking out of the office, he’s like, Mauricio, I want to ask you a question. Would you be willing to be a subcontractor for us? Because it doesn’t make sense for me to subcontract the extra work that we have to some other companies. Right. If everyone knows you’re ready. So the day that I quit, then I started my own business. I have already my first.

 

[00:23:51] Speaker 1 Cost of amazing and that wonderful.

 

[00:23:53] Speaker 2 It was a it was a blessing because at that point, because I was so busy, you know, working, I didn’t have any time to reach out any customers or anything like that. And obviously I couldn’t reach all the customers that I knew there. Yeah, I have to find a completely different sure. Base of customers so that they. I love the company. I already have a really big corporate account. Mm hmm. So from there, I work for, you know, about two years driving on my own. God knows how many times I slept in the car. Yeah. Work until 1112 in the morning and have my first pick of a four in the morning. Try to fulfill every ride they could. Yeah. And after two years, I was able to buy another vehicle. Yeah. And I was fulfilling most of the time I was fulfilling the work from this other company.

 

[00:24:44] Speaker 1 But you never really got to quit.

 

[00:24:47] Speaker 2 Exactly. I was just getting paid more. Yeah, but at that point, I have a second chauffeur with me. And so I have a Suburban. I have a Cadillac. Yes. Yeah. And but then I started having my own customers as well, you know, from other places. I started doing some advertisement working on my asshole, my on my website. My website was pretty new and just getting some link leads here and there. And then I got to buy another vehicle. So we were three and the two guys that were working with me were, you know, superior. We were just they were working as they was. It was their own company as well. And so that’s how we started growing. But when it really reached the point of my company really becoming a real company, not just a guy with two cars. Right. Right. I guess in 2018. Mm. Where? I got a call from the same company who was giving me the work. So I was back at home getting ready for the camping with my kids. And I got a call around seven or eight in the evening from the manager of the company who was giving me the work. And they’re like, Mauricio, I have some news for you. The company is going to close doors in Washington, DC. And at that point, Mike had just sent because I was still getting at least 75 or 80% of the business from that. And so I sat in and, you know, my face, according to my wife, just changed completely. And then I guess the second part of the news, which was we’re closing the office, we’re closing all you know, we’re going to close, we’re going to sell all the cars and all the operations are going to go back to our maker quoting L.A. But we need someone to take care of our clients locally here.

 

[00:26:40] Speaker 3 Mm hmm.

 

[00:26:41] Speaker 2 Would you be able to come up with enough fleet and enough people to handle the business here? So it went from thinking that I was going to lose the whole business to actually getting the whole business of Washington, D.C. for me. Right. So I had to come out in three weeks or four weeks. I had to come out with enough fleet and enough people in the office to to make it happen. Mind you, at this point, I didn’t have anyone answering phones or anything in the office, so I didn’t have any office. So I told that night what to do. And early morning, I decided to make a call to one of my competitors. And this person was also he also have a medium company like mine, a small company, actually. And he was kind of doing the same. He was sticking, you know, some of the extra work that they had. Right. And I told him, listen, I’m pretty sure you got the same call. And rather than us competing, how are we going to do this? Why don’t we just get together and do this in a formal way?

 

[00:27:53] Speaker 1 Did he get the same call?

 

[00:27:55] Speaker 2 He got this because they knew I wasn’t going to be able to handle.

 

[00:27:58] Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got. Gotcha.

 

[00:27:59] Speaker 2 So but, you know, that’s part of the sneaky part of doing business. Sure. You know, never going to tell that to, you know, to each other. But I knew, you know, it was by my experience. Right. So we got together, we decided to join forces. And so at that point, within six weeks, we leased office. We found three people to answer the phones. We trained them in that time. And between him and myself, we ended up getting eight, eight vehicles. Wow. And so that’s where we really became a real company.

 

[00:28:33] Speaker 1 Nice. So what’s the name of your company?

 

[00:28:35] Speaker 2 Mine. The name of our company now is infinitely more. Yes.

 

[00:28:38] Speaker 1 And you said that at the beginning. Yes.

 

[00:28:41] Speaker 2 And so from there, you know, things went up. You know, we we started servicing the full clientele of this big account. And at that point, it was about 90% of the business. 5% was coming from some of the clients I procured and 5% was from my partners aside. But 90% is too much.

 

[00:29:03] Speaker 1 Yes, I agree. Yeah.

 

[00:29:05] Speaker 2 And it’s just in our business. We said that you’re as good as your last, right? Yes. So no matter if you have thousands of perfect rates, but if you get one job that for some reason you’re chauffeur gets late. Oh, the reservation was improperly in the system and it was supposed to be AM But we put that us PM Right. We can do the whole thing.

 

[00:29:29] Speaker 1 Sure.

 

[00:29:30] Speaker 2 Sure. So that’s why we started working hard on getting our own customers. And so 2018 were still like preparing, you know, ourselves with this account that we have. But 2019 we started really working on marketing, you know, pushing the CEO and myself. I started going to many places to introduce myself and. Wow. Then COVID came.

 

[00:30:00] Speaker 1 Yes.

 

[00:30:02] Speaker 2 So I remember the last big meeting we have in a trade show in Las Vegas.

 

[00:30:08] Speaker 3 Mm hmm.

 

[00:30:10] Speaker 2 But it was February 2020, right? We killed it like we knew we had so many good contacts, and people were very happy, very excited about. About our story, you know, and how we we came to their business and they knew the quality of customer service that we were providing. Mm hmm. And I remember going back to Las Vegas, I mean, from Las Vegas to, like, back to D.C.. You know, we were just so happy with my business partner. Yeah. And we were like, this is going to be our year.

 

[00:30:40] Speaker 1 Yeah.

 

[00:30:41] Speaker 2 And soon as we landed, you know, because it was right, like it was beginning of March.

 

[00:30:48] Speaker 1 It was March of 2018, March 19th, 2020. We still have the date written on our wall for us.

 

[00:30:54] Speaker 2 For, for us we have the last 13th. Yeah. And so within two or three days of our arrival, we have so many plans, you know, we decided that we’re going to buy these vehicles during the tradeshow. We even reserve, you know, bigger vehicles for for our fleet and everything. After we we have decided to, you know, to buy some some more vehicles during the tradeshow. The cancelation started coming, and every phone call or email that we were receiving was just cancelation, cancelation, cancelation, cancelation. So at some point, you know, we probably have one or two right a day. And, you know, you know, the things started getting worst. And at that point, unfortunately, as you know, some of the guys have to leave. And, you know, thankfully at that time, you know, they have the help from the government. So it wasn’t so tough on us to write to do. And, you know, we worked as any other companies with, you know, with the way that things that government was offering, but it wasn’t enough. Right. And at that point, we decided that we might have to close the company. Mm hmm. And we. We started doing, you know, myself and the one side on my my business. But on the other side, we started kind of doing some some other stuff just to survive. Right? And I started working. I found a job in construction. I was just going and helping a guy who, you know, has a small company. I started going and just picking up the trash. Then he introduced me to an electrician who had a business of generators.

 

[00:32:47] Speaker 3 Mm hmm.

 

[00:32:47] Speaker 2 So he told me, okay, you can go and work with him because he has more business. Mm hmm. So I went there as a helper, and, you know, then I realized that when you when you’re an electrician, it’s not just messing with the wires and pulling stuff like that. You have to dig trenches.

 

[00:33:04] Speaker 1 Yeah.

 

[00:33:05] Speaker 2 And and get dirty. Go under the houses. And obviously, I was the one who was supposed to do that because my boss was not going to go right under the cross phases. So I worked very, very, very hard and my life changed completely. Yeah. And for 20, 20 one half of 2021, that’s what I was doing 18 months. And what I did and also my business partner did, is that we decided that we were going to try to put as much money as we can to keep the company alive.

 

[00:33:41] Speaker 3 Mm hmm.

 

[00:33:41] Speaker 2 And one of the things we did is we put a ridiculous amount of money into CEO and advertisement. We said, a lot of people are going to quit and we’re not quitters. So we need to be ready when when the business comes back. We need to have people knowing who we are.

 

[00:34:03] Speaker 1 Yes.

 

[00:34:03] Speaker 2 So as I said, we invested a lot of money and and that we were not even generating we were generated. I was generating the money by digging trenches in Shenandoah Valley. Sure. And and, you know, that gentleman also had a solar solar panel business. So I was on top of that of of roofs, you know.

 

[00:34:24] Speaker 1 Over a hundred houses.

 

[00:34:26] Speaker 2 I was doing everything, which I actually love to do. Yes. But we we we did that a lot, you know, dating months that I work there. You know, I can say probably more than half of what I was making. I was putting it back to today to the company and paying the rent of his rent. And, you know, for some time, we have some some help with the you know, with the payment of the vehicles. But then at that point, at one point, you know, we still have to pay them. So yeah, yeah. Because we’re sitting in the office. I mean, it was so depressing at one point. We were so worried that so many cars were sitting in the parking lot of the office that I brought all the cars to my house. Right, right. And just just.

 

[00:35:05] Speaker 1 How many cars was that?

 

[00:35:06] Speaker 2 At that point, we have eight cars. Wow. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And so we went through this and back in June 2021, the business started picking up again. Yeah. And we started getting all these calls that we were hoping from people that were looking for grant transportation that didn’t really trust on Uber or Lyft. Right. Because the sanitary conditions. Right? Sure. Sure. So during the time that we were out and working on different things, we were focusing on trying to show the people that we care about sanitary conditions of the vehicles cleaning up and all the COVID protocols that were giving at that time. So we were creating content. We were creating videos of of how we were sanitizing the vehicles. And so so then when people call, we can we can tell them what we’re doing. And we were actually applying those. Sure. As well. So during those 18 months, we were prepared for this moment, which was people started traveling again. So our web business just grew like crazy. That we so we went from like what we were doing. 90 and 10%. Yeah. Now it was just the opposite. Were doing 90% web and 10% of the corporate business that we were getting from from this specific account. Right. And that helped us so much with our cash flow because we were charging the credit cards and we started building relationships with people because many people will call like a secretarial admin. Yeah. We’ll go we’ll call company a to to book the corporate travel for for for for the boss and then realized that the companies closed or no one is answering the phone. Yeah. And so we we were able to fulfill that. And one of the things, yes, a lot of the chauffeurs have to you know, they left, but we kept a good group of people in the office. So our answering times on Imus were less than 5 minutes. That’s wonderful. And we will never put people on hold. Yeah, yeah. You know, stuff like that. So that’s how people getting to trust us. Yeah. So we. We started building relationships with people that were calling for a one right. One time. Right to say, Oh, you guys are good. Yeah, I’m going to call you next time on. Maybe we’re going to open a corporate account. Yeah. So we started building corporate accounts based on just web calls.

 

[00:37:42] Speaker 1 Amazing.

 

[00:37:43] Speaker 2 And then it really started building the confidence again. Mm hmm. And at one point, we we got an account from a very, very, very high profile person that I was never I could never imagine that I was going to be, you know, in touch with this person. So obviously, I decided to take this on my own right and take care of this this this individual by myself. So when this happened, this person has relationships with the highest level of. Corporate and government people that you kind of you can imagine. And I was there. I was driving for this individual. And in a very little time, we we we developed a trust relationship. And this individual decided this this individual. Realize that that I’m a trusted, trustworthy person. Right. So at some point, he will in there will introduce me to to these individuals that were visiting or having doing business with. Right. So I expanded my my customer base just based on me driving for this individual.

 

[00:39:05] Speaker 1 Amazing.

 

[00:39:06] Speaker 2 And I cannot tell you how high level of of of government and corporate these people are. Yeah, it’s amazing. I mean, I would never imagine in my life to be, you know, talking to these people.

 

[00:39:17] Speaker 1 Right.

 

[00:39:17] Speaker 2 And it build up my self-confidence. Yeah. That I can talk to these people, like. Like normal people. Yeah. And, and that’s how I, I was able to reach out to the admins, to the secretaries. Right. And that’s how we started building relationships with, with, with these other bigger companies. Yeah. And this is just based on one individual that started driving. Yeah. So and till now, you know, I always make a point to, to be, to be the chauffeur for that individual.

 

[00:39:48] Speaker 1 Wonderful.

 

[00:39:48] Speaker 2 And just because of the experiences I get. Yeah. And, and so that’s how we, we, we went from covert to do what we have.

 

[00:39:56] Speaker 1 Now made so many cars. Do you have now.

 

[00:39:58] Speaker 2 So right now we have 18 vehicles.

 

[00:40:01] Speaker 1 Amazing.

 

[00:40:02] Speaker 2 And not only that, we have, you know, more than double of what we had before, but we changed our strategies and now we are on high profile, high end vehicles. So right now we have Cadillac Escalade, we have Lincoln Navigators, we have Mercedes S-Class and, you know, sprinters. So everything is high, high, high class. And obviously we can charge more.

 

[00:40:28] Speaker 1 Sure. Sure.

 

[00:40:29] Speaker 2 And so that’s what we are now.

 

[00:40:31] Speaker 1 That is an incredible story. So, Mauricio, so tell me, where in Bolivia did you come from?

 

[00:40:37] Speaker 2 I came from a town called Cochabamba.

 

[00:40:40] Speaker 1 Cochabamba. And then when you came to the U.S., you came to Washington, D.C., and you are living the American dream.

 

[00:40:49] Speaker 2 I am. I’m different. I think that I experience everything of the American dream, which is, you know, all very hard fought for your dreams. Mm hmm. And achieve them, you know, succeed, but also fail. Yes. And able to build my company again from from from zero back to back to where we are now.

 

[00:41:10] Speaker 1 And I think really, you you beat me to the punch and I didn’t want to interrupt your story. But, you know, when you were speaking about leaving your company to go start your own company and the the manager asked you to continue to drive for him, that was because you had integrity and you were honest. He would not have wanted you to continue to service his clients with you as a competitor if you didn’t have honesty and integrity as part of your your core values. So and I think it’s the same with the last story you just told about the the the government official that has made a lot of introductions for you. He could sense that you were an honest person and he trusted you. I don’t know if it was a he or she. I’m making an assumption. But, you know, the the you know, the stories that you’ve told. I mean, you went to school, you learned how to speak English, you went to work, you learned how to wash the cars. You learned how to process the credit card statements. You worked in the industry. You learned everything about the industry inside and out and upside down. You had a mentor in your first company that you worked for that was willing to let you drive a car so you could learn how to start driving around. And you had a very intelligent mentor who said, Hey, learn how to drive from the airport to here and here to the airport. And it’s it’s you know, you were in the right place. You had the right people around you, but you did the work. And, you know, the hardest thing that you had to do. And and, you know, it’s funny, our team we just had a meeting on Monday. You know, I had to survive, you know, in business, the aftermath of 911. And, you know, we’re going through challenges right now in the real estate industry. And you went through some really difficult challenges when COVID hit, but it makes you stronger, it makes you better. And you’re here and probably many of your competitors went out of business, you know, so when you had the fortitude and the wherewithal to fight your way through it and to go out and dig ditches and get up on roofs and put solar panels on to pay your bills to keep your business alive. It paid off.

 

[00:43:16] Speaker 2 Yes. Yeah, I believe I believe it did. And, you know, we’ve been very blessed that that we we were able to come back from from all this because it was it was a really tough time. Yeah. But with perseverance, hard work, it, you know, it paid off now. And now we it’s not like we don’t have challenges. And I think we were talking of my before about the challenges of finding a workforce. Right. So right.

 

[00:43:43] Speaker 1 Right, right.

 

[00:43:44] Speaker 2 And this is something that we still is still working on. Working on. And right now, it’s incredible because when before when we interviewed, you know, someone for for a position, we will kind of listen to the person and and see if he’s fit for the company. Right. But now he’s kind of the opposite. We need to show the person that that that our company fits their needs. So it’s changed a lot. Yeah. And it’s it’s another challenge that we have. And as we grow and we acquire more, more, more vehicles, we also need to find the right people to work with us. So, you know, it’s going to be a challenge and it’s going to. But we know that we’re going to see that there.

 

[00:44:25] Speaker 3 Mm hmm.

 

[00:44:26] Speaker 1 Absolutely. Well, Mauricio Trigo, thank you so much for coming in. And I really enjoyed hearing your story. It’s amazing. I hope the folks out there listening will see that you have implemented the very basic rules of succeeding in the U.S. and not only succeeding, but thriving. So congratulations.

 

[00:44:48] Speaker 2 Thank you so much. Is being a pleasure being here.

 

[00:44:50] Speaker 1 So that concludes another episode of the Go with John Show. Go out there and build something extraordinary just like Morris has done.

 

[00:44:58] Speaker 2 Thank you.

 

[00:44:58] Speaker 1 That was amazing, buddy. Like what you’re hearing on the go with John Cho. Please share it with your friends. They can sign up and go with John Dot Com