Resist the Usual: Interview with Jose Costa, CEO of Magnolia Wash Holdings
I recently went one on one with Jose Costa, CEO of Magnolia Wash Holdings.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Jose: I was born in Caracas, Venezuela, but left my country in 2003 to attend graduate school in the U.S. where I earned a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from Northwestern University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Coming to the U.S. and leaving my country and family behind was not easy. I lived and worked for over 26 years in Venezuela, so it was a bittersweet moment when I had to pack my bags and go in search of a new future. However, it was during my time at Northwestern University that I met my wife. Today, we have been married for 15 years and we have three amazing children.
Before permanently moving to Charlotte, North Carolina, I held marketing positions at Yum Brands and Burger King Corporation. However, in 2013, I was brought into MAACO® by Harvest Partners ownership group to manage and develop 500 automotive body shops across the U.S. and Canada. This was a very exciting time for me. During my tenure as president, I worked hard to improve MAACO®'s procedures and training practices, raised consistency among franchises, revamped operations and enhanced the look and feel of its advertising.
In 2015, I had the opportunity to appear on CBS’s “Undercover Boss.” This was an amazing experience, full of important lessons and humbling moments. The key takeaway for me is that we are all working towards the same dream; to work hard and to provide a better future for our families. However, I was mostly happy to be able to give back to and recognize deserving employees.
Two years later, I was promoted to Group President of Driven Brands where I continued to lead MAACO®, but also became responsiblefor leading CARSTAR® and Drive N Style®, as well as focusing on further establishing the company as a leader in the automotive aftermarket space.
In 2017, I changed the automotive industry for optical retail and accepted the position of CEO of For Eyes, which is part of GrandVision. I was recruited by HAL Investments to shape the company’s North American vision and lead the growth of the 120 company-owned stores in 11 states. Even though the company’s headquarters and manufacturing facility were in South Florida, I decided to stay in Charlotte and travel regularly between both cities.
This was a challenging time. The constant commute between both cities was hard, but this experience also brought a lot of good lessons. For example, it taught me that in order to recruit the best talent in the country you need to be flexible about remote work and you need to have a strong cultural foundation, so everyone is singing from the same hymn.
In 2019, I decided to stop commuting to South Florida and accepted the position of Global Chief Growth Officer and Executive Vice President of Bojangles Restaurants in Charlotte. There, I was responsible for driving the architecture and implementation of the company’s growth plan, which at the time operated over 800 restaurants in 18 states. In three years, we were able to add over 400 units to the new restaurant pipeline.
I currently serve as CEO of Magnolia Wash Holdings, an express car wash operator with over 100 locations across the southeastern US. I joined the company in May 2022 to oversee its continued growth and expansion. Since then, my team and I have added 40 new locations in markets like Alabama, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. The new locations have expanded Magnolia’s footprint to eight states, and the company keeps growing.
We have also added new positions in the corporate office, as well as increased both average unit volumes and profitability per car wash location. In addition, we have lowered the churn rate, indicating a higher level of customer satisfaction, as well as increased average tickets and implemented NPS (Net Promoter Score) across all locations. We have also focused on creating a positive work culture with a variety of wellness and well-being programs for employees.
Adam: In your experience, what are the key steps to growing and scaling your business?
Jose: When growing and scaling a retail business, there are three levels. In many industries, including the car wash business, the first level is how to grow top-line sales for the brand. To accomplish this, you need to think about how to drive incremental traffic by reaching to more customers. You also have to think about driving a larger average ticket by encouraging those customers to add additional services to a single transaction.
The second level is how to grow profitability by location. This means reducing costs by store or location, as well as negotiating better agreements and implementing cost control initiatives. This will translate into better margins in each transaction.
The last level is how to grow the number of locations by adding or building more units/stores.
Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?
Jose: Three defining qualities separate a good leader from a great one. The first quality is humility. This characteristic is critical because it allows leaders to admit they don’t have all the answers and consequently allows them to seek and gain knowledge through outside sources. A lack of humility can get in the way of learning from valuable experiences that others have to offer. Humility also helps leaders to correct their course when they are heading down the wrong path. After all, no leader has all the right answers and, oftentimes, pride can make a bad situation worse.
A second quality is being a good listener. Leaders should learn to master this basic skill early on in their professional life as it allows them to acquire important insight into the business, its challenges, and its direction. Asking questions is important but without the capacity of listening closely to the answers, then the purpose of communication is weakened. Additionally, a good listener should actively participate in the conversation, rather than simply listening quietly.
Finally, a great leader needs to be an avid learner. Curiosity is an important trait to have in any field. It helps in the pursuit of knowledge. Connecting with new people, getting involved with organizations and professional groups, investing in educational programs, and reading are all effective ways leaders can expand their knowledge and ultimately become better at what they do.
Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Jose: In my book “Leading with Edge, Activate Your Competitive Advantage Through Personal Insight,” I address the importance of sharing knowledge. As a leader, providing feedback is a critical way to spread knowledge, which is the ultimate level of leadership.
Providing honest and direct feedback should help people expand their knowledge about themselves and their work, as well as grow professionally and personally. It shouldn’t be about turning people off or pushing them away. It is all about delivering the kind of feedback that makes a difference – a positive difference. Good leaders help others by being their mirror and allowing them to see clearly what they are good at, what they need to improve and how they are succeeding overall.
However, promoting know-how should go hand in hand with providing feedback. Helping to expand someone’s skills should also be a priority, especially when the person is eager to learn and grow.
After all, the success of a company doesn’t lie in just one person, but an entire team. Helping promote know-how and provide effective feedback will encourage more people to be better positioned to solve problems, innovate, and build better relationships, which is good for the organization as a whole.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?
Jose:
Find a good balance between your community, your family, your religious life, and your work. All these aspects of your life are equally important, and they all deserve your time and commitment. No leader can be effective if they feel overworked and overstressed or lead an unbalanced life.
Always have a growth mindset. Never stop thinking about how you can grow on a personal and company level and view challenges as opportunities.
Find ways to continue to give back to your family, your employees/colleagues, and your community.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
Jose: For me, the success of a company starts with a thriving corporate culture that encourages teamwork and inclusion. However, building a great corporate culture starts with leadership. Leaders set the tone for the organization, and make the initial decisions on the way a company will run and the type of company it will be — how they should treat customers, how they should encourage employees, what kind of hiring practices and company policies they should put in place, etc.
Since joining Magnolia Wash Holdings in 2022, I have focused on creating a positive work culture with a variety of wellness and well-being programs for employees. Today, Magnolia provides a flexible work environment that lets employees work from home on Fridays and hosts monthly lunches for employees, which offer a space to sit together as a group and socialize with each other. It also gives recycled water bottles to site managers so they can keep themselves hydrated throughout the day and supplies healthier food choices in the staff kitchen.
Additionally, an executive coach with a background in psychology also provides mental support to the company’s executive team free of charge. Starting this year, the company will be expanding the coach’s role to support other team members. In terms of financial wellness, Magnolia offers financial literacy classes to employees. Most of these classes are online, but it also has in-person classes with the CFO.
To measure wellness, the company conducts an employee satisfaction survey twice a year, as well as a monthly call with field employees. These are measures to check in with employees and help create a safe space where they can express their feelings and concerns. Furthermore, the weekly executive meetings follow a psychological safety protocol that allows team members to ask questions, contribute ideas and even challenge the status quo free of judgment and without fear of retaliation.
Finally, I have made meritocracy one of the core values of Magnolia’s work culture. The company hires and promotes based on performance and merit. This means everyone in the company can get ahead and advance as long they work hard, have a solid track record, and bring interesting ideas to the table.
Ultimately, all these efforts look to inspire employees and team members by helping them lead happy and healthy lives so they can be the best they can be. When people are learning and growing, the company will benefit. They will feel motivated and supported and consequently, they will work harder and take on new responsibilities as they will feel more invested in the company's success. I believe in leading by example and inspiration!
Adam: What are your best tips on the topics of sales, marketing, and branding?
Jose:
Using Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning to identify and reach the right market and audience.
Finding a differentiator for the brand, something unique and different that you can own.
Using creativity and innovation to effectively communicate.
Measuring the impact and results of the different marketing activities.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Jose: I received the best piece of advice from my father. The owner of a very successful advertising agency in Venezuela, my father’s office featured a large poster, depicting a school of blue fish going in one direction and one little orange fish swimming against them. Below the image, the lettering read: “Resist the Usual.” This was Young & Rubicam’s mission statement, and it summed up everything my father believed in. He taught me, not just with words but actions too, to have the courage to go my own way, even if everyone else was headed in the opposite direction.
Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.
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