We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ray Brito. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ray below.

Ray, appreciate you joining us today. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later

When I first went out on my own, we just had a baby and it was the very height of Covid. I wasn’t allowed to go to any of my wife’s doctor appointments throughout her entire pregnancy, no one was allowed to visit our daughter in the hospital when she was born, all of the schools were closed and our kids were all doing virtual school, almost everything was closed besides some grocery stores, everyone was wearing masks and disinfecting their groceries, businesses were failing left and right, and everyone’s life was turned upside down. It was the craziest time I’ve ever lived through. If I could go back in time, the only thing I’d change is when I chose to make the move. I would have started the business years earlier.

Ray, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My parents both came to this country from Cuba in the 70’s when they were very young. My brother, sister, and I are first generation Cuban Americans born in Hialeah near Miami. We lived in South Florida until I was about 16 when we moved to Central Florida. I started working for my father in 2006 as a roadside assistance technician under a AAA contract him and his business partner had. My father passed away a few years later, but first taught me most everything I know. I feel like I inherited his work ethic, which is one of the main reasons I’ve been able to do this successfully. After he passed away, I continued working for his business partner, eventually moved to Jacksonville in 2018, and left the job after about 15 years total.

When I first started the business, Covid was going strong and business in general was very slow. For everyone. I started working as a subcontractor for a few different middle man companies getting paid very little money and using my own vehicle, gas, and tools. It would take me almost a full year to completely cut out these middle man companies. Roadside assistance is heavily dominated by insurance companies and motor clubs like AAA, so acquiring over a dozen or so direct contracts is necessary at least to start out in the industry. Getting these contracts takes time and expensive insurance that I didn’t have the money for at the time. That’s aside from the vehicle, tools, and fuel I was using. Roadside assistance is a very dangerous and high risk industry since we do a lot of driving and a lot of the work we do is on the side of busy highways, so the insurance is expensive. I started out using our only family vehicle to run service calls; a small Toyota Corolla with all of my tools piled in the trunk. It wasn’t the most professional set up and far from ideal, but it’s all I had to work with. I opened the LLC in early 2021 and took my tax return money that year to get the commercial insurance I needed to get everything going. The insurance doesn’t automatically yield results as far as work goes. It took me months to secure all the contracts and even then, I was very low on a list of other service providers, some who have huge fleets and have had relationships with these motor clubs for decades. I was paying all this money for insurance and other expenses and still receiving little to no work a lot of times. I was working Door Dash and Uber eats to try to make ends meet and still struggling. Having worked for AAA doing battery service for as long as I had, I knew there was a market for people who needed batteries delivered and installed. A lot of people who call for a jump start need a new battery, so having new batteries on hand was obviously a good move. I had built a relationship with a big auto parts dealer, took about $1,000 I had saved up and bought a small inventory of the most common automotive batteries to carry around and sell. The battery sales were making up for the small volume of actual service calls I was getting. Enough to justify financing a small service van dedicated to the business. It was another expense, but we needed a separate vehicle for the family and having one car for everyone to share was rough. I outfitted the van with storage for all my tools, a large air compressor and hose reel, lettering with business name and phone number, some emergency lights, and storage for all of the batteries I was carrying. After about a year and a half or two, our Google business listing, Google ads, and website my wife had set up started to grow and direct phone calls started to come in. We realized there was a market for tires as well as batteries. Many cars nowadays don’t come with spare tires unfortunately and a lot of the calls from people with flat tires needed their tire either repaired or replaced. So, I did the same thing for tires that I did with batteries. I bought a small inventory of tires and machines to mount and balance them to feed the demand. The amount of work grew exponentially and doing everything myself became impossible so I got some help to run some of the overflow. It’s been close to four years now and I’m pretty happy with where we’re at currently.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

For the first few months after leaving my last job, it was definitely a struggle. I was doing Door Dash and Uber just trying to get by. I questioned whether I made the right move. I could’ve easily gone back to the comfort and security that I was used to at the job I’d had my whole adult life, but the thought of being at that job in another ten years was scarier than the thought of failing at doing my own thing. So, I stuck with it and it ended up working out.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Finding new customers is the biggest struggle with what I do. Contracting with insurance companies and motor clubs like AAA is a good way to keep business steady, but it’s not enough to be profitable in the long run. We do get some repeat customers, but for the most part, we need to find new customers daily. For mine and I assume most industries, marketing is everything, Google is massive. We had our Google listing down for one month and it was a massive blow. When you’re driving down the road and your tire goes flat or you lock your keys in your car, you’re going to open Google and find the quickest and most affordable help. That’s where having a good website, Google my business listing, and well managed Google ads account comes into play. ‘Well managed’ being the key. Dumping a ton of money into bad Google ads can also put you out of business. I’d recommend using traditional forms of advertising like business cards and word of mouth, but understanding and managing your online presence is one of the most important factors in how well you do. We have been trying to expand our marketing to include social media like Facebook and Instagram and other local options like banners at local schools and parks and partnering with other relevant local businesses to help promote one another.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mobilebatteryandtireofjacksonville.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mobilebatterytirejax/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MobileRescueService/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/mobile-battery-and-tire-jacksonville-jacksonville-2?uid=LnllN3PkZJYjElqr3GLPEg&utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)