Climbing Out of a Business Hole with Juan Chavez of JMC Automotive Equipment

Juan Chavez is a serial entrepreneur and is the CEO of JMC Automotive Equipment, an automotive equipment distribution center that has been a recipient of the INC 5000 award in 2018, 2019, and 2020. They’ve been in the industry for the past 20 years and have extensive knowledge of anything related to the automotive repair industry.

Juan also runs a VIP Concierge, an entertainment company, and a solutions provider company in Colombia with english-speaking agents that handle customer care services for different companies.

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

• Juan Chavez talks about moving to the U.S at the age of 11
• How Juan got started in the automotive industry
• What Juan had to do to make his first sale online
• Juan shares how he is growing JMC Automotive Equipment since becoming the CEO
• The ideal customers for JMC Automotive Equipment
• How handling customer services needs at JMC Automotive Equipment inspired Juan’s return to the solutions provider business
• Juan recalls his low moment and how he was able to push past it
• Juan shares why he reached out to his clients during the pandemic and what came out of it

In this episode…

To say there are no days when you feel terrified that your business is going to fail is to deny your reality as an entrepreneur. Juan Chavez had had his fair share of low moments in business; he has even come to a point when he almost declared bankruptcy to put an end to a once-thriving family business. A few months later, Juan’s JMC Automotive Equipment is booming again and even better, they make it to the INC 5000 list two years in a row.

If you think that’s amazing, then you should listen to Juan talk about his experience of moving to the U.S from Peru at 11, how he failed at his first business in his early 20s, and why he went back to the automotive business he once hated.

Catch the details about climbing out of a business hole and staying resilient in this episode of Inspired Insider with Dr. Jeremy Weisz and his guest, Juan Chavez. Stay tuned.

Resources Mentioned on this episode

• JMC Automotive Equipment
• JMC Enterprises
• Medellin VIP 
• Cartagena VIP
• Juan Chavez on LinkedIn 
• Juan Chavez on Twitter 

 

Episode Transcript

Jeremy Weisz
Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder of inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders, you know some of you’ve never heard of and some you’ve heard of, you know, Juan I love telling the journey. And the story is it’s not always rosy along the way and some of those bumps and challenges in the road and you should check out check out past episodes. You know, there’s one with Pipedrive cofounder Urmas he talks about having brain surgery getting married and moving from Estonia to the us all in the same year. At the time they got 10,000 paying customers. When I interviewed him, now they have over 100,000 customers so they’ve grown tremendously There’s also an interview with Chris Ategeka. And he moved. It’s an amazing story. I mean, one of the most amazing stories I’ve heard, he grew up in Uganda, and his parents died of AIDS when he was young, when he was seven, he had to take care of the whole household. It’s just, it’s an amazing journey. And he speaks nine languages, he end up coming to us from college, and just what he did, he formed nonprofits and for-profit companies and, and we’re going to dig in with Juan’s story in a second. And in it kind of that theme Juan of it fascinates me when someone has to pick up, they’re living in a different country, and they pick up at the move to another country because we sometimes take those things for granted. You know what I mean? And you show up in another country and just things are different. So we’re going to talk about Juan’s story and and what happened with him. But before I introduce you, today’s episode is brought to you by Rise25. Rise25 You know, I co founded my business partner John Corcoran, and we help businesses Launch and run their podcasts. When I see Juan in my life and I know you’re very similar is the number one thing in my life is relationships. And I always look of how do I give to my best relationships and the podcast is a way that I can profile others thought leadership and their companies to give to them. And so if you’re a company and you’re thinking about starting a podcast, you can call us we’ve been doing it for for over 10 years. Rise25.com and check it out. Now, today’s guest I’m super excited and a big thank you to Dean Dutro and Ryan O’Connor at Worth eCommerce. They help ecommerce stores increase sales by 20% or more through email, and they have The Relationship Commerce podcast, rave top leaders and e-commerce and that’s how I met Juan because Dean was like, You need to have Juan on He’s amazing. I’m like, I trust you Dean. Let’s do it. And Juan Chavez is a serial entrepreneur. He runs an e-commerce business called JMC Automotive Equipment. It’s been in the Inc 5000. He also runs a VIP concierge, an Entertainment company and a call center in Colombia now, call center is not really proper, it’s really what’s the solution does it provide right? So if you have sales, customer service or marketing needs, they have nothing but English speaking agents that handle other company services. So check it out email, Juan, you can go to jmcautomotiveequipment.com to check out what they’re doing there. They’ve been in the industry for the past 20 years and have extensive knowledge in everything automotive repair, related. So Juan, thanks for joining me.

Juan Chavez
Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Jeremy.

Jeremy Weisz
I want to start the journey, you know, when you move to the US, so talk about life in Peru, and then transitioning actually just moving to a different country in general, right.
Juan Chavez. So um, yeah, so like you said, I was born in Peru, right. My family moved to New York when I was 11. So that was back in 93. Right in Peru at that point. There’s a lot of terrorism going on, really. So a lot of terrorism, a lot of inflation. You know, the current president wasn’t doing a good job, you know, he actually became a dictator for quite a while. So that’s when we actually basically had to flee the country, you know, because there wasn’t that much. We didn’t have that much money. And obviously, there wasn’t that much opportunity. Right. So luckily, my grandmother lived in New York at the time she had moved to New York, I think, in the early in the 70s. So of course, my father went to New York to basically find a new opportunity for us and that’s when little by little like he, when he first moved over there, right. as anybody as any immigrant moving to the United States will do like a lot of people say, Hey, you know, go get a job as a cook, go get a job as a dishwasher. You know, my father actually did not want to do that, because he was obviously a college graduate was in the military in Peru and English speaking person, so he actually decided to to become a salesperson in the automotive world. Hmm. Yeah. So like actually basically what he started doing in 93 when he moved to New York was what I’m doing right now, selling equipment to auto repair shops and auto body shops. And so, um, literally within the first three months, he became top salesperson in his company, because his only motivation was to bring us from Peru to New York.

Jeremy Weisz
Did he come by himself then at the time he, he came by himself now that’s a tough choice.

Juan Chavez
Yeah, well, I mean, he had to because he didn’t have any we didn’t have any money for an extra. So at first he actually moved to Mexico because my, my uncle lived there. So he tried to look for an opportunity in Mexico within like a month, he saw that he couldn’t find anything. So he decided to go to New York. So he arrived in New York in 93, or 92, excuse me, and within three months, he finally was able to bring my mother there. My sister, and then me in September of 93 to New York and of course, I was 11. So I wasn’t really aware of what’s going on like of what was going on too much. I was to a certain extent,

Jeremy Weisz
what did what was what were you thinking at the time was going through your head.

Juan Chavez
At first, I was like, awesome. We’re going to New York. We’re going to live in the United States. Of course, once we were moving, I was like, I was very sad because my family lived in Peru, my friends to that to this day speak to live in Peru. So you know, I was sad. But I was also excited that I was going to see my father and my whole family because like I said, the only people that were or the only members of my immediate family that were approved at the time were with me, and my little sister. So my mom, my my other sister and my father were in New York, right? So I was excited to see them but I was also sad that that

Jeremy Weisz
that I was so they sequentially kind of went over you were the last person to go over the last person.

Juan Chavez
Yep. Because my sister, my younger sister couldn’t live without my father. So my father did anything you know, he bought the ticket for and, and brought it to New York right away. Then of course it was my mother, you know, my mother was able to or my father was able to buy my mother the ticket so my mom can travel to New York. And then of course it was me and my youngest sister.

Jeremy Weisz
That’s amazing what it really is like, you better you have to be good at that time. If you’re bad your parents like all right, why you better be good or we’re not

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