Please, introduce yourself and your business.
Hello world, my name is Dragan and I own NDTR Center Inc (No Down Time Repair Center). English is not my first language so excuse me in advance. We help individual owners and transportation companies of any size by providing repair and maintenance services on their fleet of vehicles.
What inspired you to start your business?
I was honestly tired of working for bosses who either knew nothing about repair and maintenance, or were just generally bad people.
I was always close to them, my personality and knowledge helped a lot with that. The biggest thing I learned was how not to treat customers and employees, I am sure technicians and customers can agree.
Back in 2018 my friend recommended me to some transportation company who didn't have a repair shop but needed one, they had space but zero knowledge. I poured my entire savings and maxed my CC's and hoped for the best.
How much revenue was your best year? (include margin if possible)
Our 1st year was $600K gross. Our best year 2022 was $3.55m and the margin was at around 20%, our best year so far. Transportation took a dive in 2023 and a lot of businesses have closed their doors, our gross was $2.6m. This year however is looking slightly better than last.
When did you notice traction when building your business? The “Oh S**t!” moment, what did that feel like?
That moment was in 2022, our best year, I was sitting at 17 employees, myself included and we were running 7 days a week, 10hrs a day, we were split in 2 groups and i had a great team of people, some not so dependable mechanics but, i didn't push too much because i was there once and i knew how it was. I was looking at the bank account growing every day and people were just coming and saying "This and that guy referred me to you, they said you are great and fast". One thing I wont deny, i overemploy just because I know how it is to be stuck without a truck for more than 2-3 days, and I had to stand behind the business name of course, No Down Time!
What was your childhood like? Were you slinging candy on the playground?
Great memories of me being a careless child. Growing up I was wearing, believe it or not, my dads and my uncles clothes. Grandma was great at keeping old stuff, up until I was maybe 5-6, that's when they started kinda buying stuff. Definitely a lot of hand me downs. I was born in '93 and our country was going through the worst possible inflation at the time, think of Venezuela, maybe worst, so no money for unnecessary stuff like clothing and toys. Always playing outside the house on the road with another 7-8 friends from the neighborhood, no phones at the time as well. For the soccer games we would use rocks or just our clothes to mark the Goal itself, and there was no fault or outs, just pure running and trying not to break neighbors plants or windows.
What has been your best marketing marketing channel?
Best marketing channel is definitely BEING GOOD AT WHAT YOU DO! I had a couple of months where I spent north of $1000 per month for yelp and google ads, and it's the worst thing I did. I barely had any customers from it. All my marketing is word of mouth.
How many attempts at building something did you make before you found what you’re working on now? Did you always have an entrepreneurial drive?
I never actually tried building anything of my own, up until I met my now wife, who was pushing me to do more because I guess she saw the potential being wasted. I was having a nice car, nice clothes, but no money, credit cards always being maxed. So I sold my car and bought a little one just to get me around, paid off all my debts and saved as much as i can. I was making around $70k pre tax, I was just careless. So within a year, boom, owner of the repair shop. Never really had an entrepreneurial (it took me 4 times to write this lmao) drive, never wanted it until my wife, now i'm just looking for ways to grow what i have, meet new people, and expand in other areas.
What is your biggest overhead expense?
Definitely payroll, i pay my guys fair and square, every year paid vacation time, the cleanest working environment, according to our customers. Helping everyone where and how i can, increasing wages on 6-10 months basis, depending on improvement.
What’s the most important skill you’ve learned?
Sales and patience. I was always good at working but that would only get me so far, I needed to be able to sell, service in my case, which will also need parts, so win win. Patience is a virtue (as I learned.) Being able to calmly listen to customers complain how you are repairing a flat, causing them to have Check Engine light ON after nearly 2 days of driving, is just the tip of the iceberg. People complain about every little thing, just have to remain calm and listen to them, sometimes they just want to be listened to, it's funny i know.
What do you spend the majority of your time doing, in a given week?
Well, my work week starts at 4:50am, get ready, pack food, kiss my wife and kid, hit the gym with shower afterwards from 5:40 until 7:30, arrive at work around 8:10am, run the day and scheduled work with Shop Manager and Supervisor, have a talk with technicians because they are late, hearing all the excuses in the book, good workers just sometimes gotta give them shit so they stay in check, nothing harsh or not needed.
Go through the emails and respond if needed, go through the shop and see who is doing what and if anyone needs any help and if they are okay. 12pm is lunch until 12:45, paid for all my employees, they can take an extra 15 min but it won't be paid, maximum 1 hr lunch time.
Work day continues and im getting some phone calls, troubleshooting problems with the manager, assisting supervisor if something is needed. Most of the phone calls are directed to the shop, and not me, i receive only very important phone calls, my customers from the day one, friends and such.
We close at 6pm, if the days are super super busy, i'm staying until everyone goes home, on other days i leave at around 4:30-5:00 pm, drive to home is about 30 min.
My kid hears the alarm disarming at the front door and she is screaming and I can hear small steps running, and there she is open arms running to hug me with the biggest smile ever, EVERY.SINGLE.DAY!
My wife is in the kitchen preparing the food which we all eat at around 6pm. After that is playing with the kid until 8pm, then it’s bedtime, every other night is a bath before bed. After that, my wife and I clean the kitchen.
If she has a bible study or is recording videos, I do it myself. 9:30-10:30 pm is bed time for us. Weekends are not as boring as the week days. Our kid has a natural alarm at 7am every morning, that's when the day starts for her and I.
I then make breakfast at 8am, wife is still in bed so she can rest a bit longer.
Then we play together until 10am, the kid has a snack, wife comes down and prepares some food, at 12pm the kid has lunch/snack. Maybe we go somewhere to walk or run some errands, or just stay in the house.
Kid basically eat every 2-2.5hrs, 3 main meals a day and snacks in between. She maybe takes one or 2 naps a day, 1-2 hrs, maaaaybe, my wife also likes to nap throughout the day, i really can't. 6pm is dinner for the kid, after that we eat. Bedtime for her is 8pm, as usual.
What do you know now that you wish you knew when first starting your business?
Do not take everything personal. You can't satisfy everyone. There will be mistakes. Nobody is perfect.
Do not become too close to your employees to the point where they start sharing personal problems with you, so now you are involved and thinking about it too. Give everyone a chance, they all deserve it, but do not have compassion if they make same mistake 3 times, just let them go.
Don't be afraid of changes and new things, that would be the only thing holding you back sometimes.
What’s a big problem you’ve faced as a business owner and what were the emotions behind it?
Let me bring the unlimited pages book for this. For me it was becoming too friendly with my employees, i would help them financially when needed, give them advices, i was involved in their life too much, and it was taking a toll on me, i would think about them and their problems, so i had to step step step step back from that, yeah many steps. Let them take care of their own problems.
Definitely overworking at the beginning, not seeing my wife, gf at the time, hoping she won't leave me because we don't see each other.
Bad days, can't stress enough about bad days, even to this day i find myself overthinking about bad days, so i start thinking about weeks, and months, revenue wise of course. Having clients that don’t pay.
It took me a very long time to detach myself from my clients' problems, like "i didn't work for 3 weeks and i dont have $3k for the repair", my response was "well the truck will be here for when you find the money".
It sounds cruel, but business wise, it is absolutely okay, if they take offense, it's their own problem. Well i had too much heart before and was letting trucks go on a good word, 7-10 people paid on agreed time, but others no.
What is your best advice for someone who feels completely stuck?
I always say that whatever you know how to do, try to be the best at it, do it great, people will hear about you and they will want to work with you, they will want your services, whatever they are.
If you happen to be in Illinois and need your semi repaired, give dragon a jingle, here:
