102 - Styling Up Success: Tint World's Growth and Expansion Journey with Tint World's Charles Bonfiglio

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show, and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.

Charles Bonfiglio, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the CEO of Tint World, which can be found at tintworld.com. Thanks for joining me today.

Thanks, Douglas. I'm happy to be here.

Uh, you have a pretty amazing story. Uh, you know, I, you know, in our Authority Magazine interview, I was just so impressed with the whole journey you've been on. Why don't you tell, um, tell us your backstory?

Yeah, the backstory was, um, as a young kid growing up in Brooklyn, I kind of liked cars, and, you know, I did, I did it just for fun on my my, my cars when I was a teenager. But my family had a business that I worked with in their local business. It was a clothing factory. So I learned every aspect of the business. I was always inquisitive of how does that work, Dad? And how does, how much does that person make? Oh, I'm going to learn that one. But that guy, oh, he makes more. I want to learn that. So I just learned the business through wanting to learn who was making the most money. And then when I got out of high school, I just wound up opening my own factory. And my father had so much work that he was just starting to feed me the leftovers that he had. And then from that point I started finding my way, making relationships, doing really good work. I did that for a few years. I designed my own clothing line, and I can go on about that. But eventually I opened up— while I had the factory, I also opened up pizzeria in New York City, right around the corner from the Empire State Building. I had a brother-in-law that was working at the pizzeria. He called me up and said, this guy's selling, it's a good deal. I said, all right, let's go partner. So I did that. So I just fell into the businesses by learning. But when I got to about 21 years old, I felt like everything that I did in business was pretty good, but it wasn't something that I chose. It was something that I learned and fell into because it was just there. And I just wanted to do something that I really liked. And I had a neighbor that I worked on his car one time and he had a Corvette. He says, Charles, you're really good with your cars and the way you do this. Can you put a stereo system in my car? No problem, Pat, I'll do it. So I went over and I really did a good job for him. When I was done, he was like, you know, you should do something with this. I go, what do you mean? He goes, like, you're really good at this. You should like, you know, you know, do something. Your car is all customized with wheels and stereos and light. And I said, you know, maybe it's a good idea. I'm going to go out and make $1 billion. He goes, well, I don't really know if you want $1 billion, but it'd be good to go and use that to grow something. And I thought about that for a little bit and it hit me. I'm like, you know what? It would be good to open up a business of something I really love. So with that, I went and sold my two businesses and I told my parents, I'm moving to Florida. I said, why Florida? I said, I want to drive in palm trees and convertibles and cool cars, and I want to open a car stereo shop and aftermarket accessory business. And, you know, they said, okay, well, we know you'll do good at whatever you want, so go and do it. So it took me a while. I sold my— I had a Corvette at the time, was all customized. Sold my Corvette, sold my weight equipment. I was living in the basement of my father's house. I sold my businesses and I just took two suitcases, a one-way ticket to Florida, and that's how it started.

Wow.

And, and today you've got, what, 140 franchises and another 170 in the works?

Yeah, we have. Yeah, just, just nearly 150, but it's just under that. And, and we're opening up every week and every month we have new stores opening. We're really finding our rhythm of growth. But yeah, we have over 170 stores that are in development and they're in lease mode or in build-out mode. And that's why they're all starting to open up. And every day we have more coming in that people are purchasing them. I'm actually finding that we're getting the bigger players coming in, meaning that, you know, my whole life, even when I was running this franchise, I've been advertising to my 21-year-old self. So I'm advertising to people that are coming in to buy a franchise that are like I was at 21, not realizing about a couple of years ago You know, I should be really marketing to people that are already experienced in business. And, and I started doing that, and all of a sudden now I'm getting people that are buying 5 and 10 of them and building out marketplaces. So it's really a lot of fun how I have even, uh, grown to, uh, sell franchises to people that were beyond what I even was as a franchisee.

That's crazy.

A lot of fun.

I, I guess so. So tell us a little bit about Tint World. What exactly is the business about?

Well, Tint World, um, started out in 1982, um, um, by someone else. They, they started the business. So when I came down to Florida and I found franchising along the way, I started to get my car tinted at this place. It was pretty cool. Name was Tint World. That's a really cool name. And the way it was done, and just as I started building my other franchises, I started to grow. And then, uh, as fast forward, after I built 10 franchises with another brand I got to the point where I was one of the leading franchisees. I was really knowledgeable about franchising, but I really thought, you know, if I don't start doing something, what I want to do, I'm never going to get there. So I went home and I told my wife that day, I said, listen, I don't really want to open up any more of these other franchises. What do you want to do? I said, I want to open up the business I always dreamed of, the business I came down here to start. I want to open up a car stereo shop, an aftermarket accessory business. I think I really could think I could do a good job. And knowing what I know from my last franchise, I think I could do it better. And I think if I want this franchise, there's nothing else like it. If I want, there's got to be other people that want it. So I'm going to build my own franchise. So after doing some talking, I called up the guy who owned the, the TIT World Center. He owned about 6 locations at this point in South Florida. So I called him up and I took him to lunch and I made him an offer and He took the offer. It took about a month of getting the deal done, and I purchased his 6-store franchise, 6-store company stores. And I took about a year to write the franchise system and launch it. And then in 2007, we launched franchising. And first year I awarded 3, and I started going very slowly over the years. When I got to about 2019, we had about, I don't know, about 70. And I, okay, it's time to really now, you know, really grow this thing. I mean, I was doing a few a year growing. I really got it down. I got a built team now around me. It's time to grow. Growing scale. So I put some time into learning really how to really focus on frandep, on, you know, selling and, and marketing franchise opportunities. I really was just tripping on some sales because it was a cool, fun business. Um, and then now when it got along, uh, you know, the pandemic hit in 2020, we got lucky and were deemed an essential business. So that really went well for us, and people started to hear about it, and that was the hot thing. Let's Leave this franchise, let's buy this one. And next thing you know, here we are, like, you know, growing like weeds in the last 3 or 4 years and right through the pandemic and right out of it like a boomerang shot. Wow. Really good. And that's how it all happened.

Wow. So tell me, what does Tint World do as a business? If I were a consumer, why would I go to Tint World? What products and services do you offer?

So we offer all the fun stuff and also things that you want, you need. So You know, when I was in the auto repair and maintenance industry, it was repairs. And so you need it, you buy it, you don't love it. You know, I went in for an oil change for $20. Next thing I know, I got an $800 brake job ticket. That's the kind of, you know, you're doing a good job, but it's not something that people love. With Tint World, we do offer window tinting, paint protection film, vehicle wraps, ceramic coating, auto detailing, car audio video systems, electronics, you know, whether it be radar detectors or, remote start, alarms, you know, lighting, all cool stuff. And, you know, so with all this, in addition to doing everything we do for the car, we also do that on boats and we also do window tinting on homes and office buildings. So we have a business model that's built out of a, you know, out of a brick and mortar store. But we also have trucks on the road doing these other services. And that's how we started to really grow the brand. Wow.

So, I mean, if you're a franchisee, you're buying into a pretty, pretty big business. I mean, once you get going, you got to have a lot.

Really is. I was always concerned that it was going to be too complex for the average person to come in and buy a business, and in some ways is, but we're really focusing on simplifying everything. We simplify and automate our bookkeeping process so they don't have to worry about that. We simplify our sales process for our home services. It goes to a call center, gets them scheduled. When it comes to the brick-and-mortar store, they're trained really well how to talk to customers. Tell them what we offer, invite them to come in for our services. When you come into our stores, we have really nice offices with interactive displays because we're in a niche market and not everybody understands all the, all the pieces that we do. So to let them understand it easily, we have everything digitized where they come in and learn about it. So they'll come in for a tint and, oh, you guys do all this? And next thing you know, they want, how about this and how about that? And they have a wish list. And from there we go and we start a relationship with our customers. And they love it and they leave. They leave happy. They love what the car looks like, what it feels like. And, you know, I want to get this on my home. I can't believe how cool my car is and how much better it is. So that's how we build relationships with our franchisees, with our actual customers through our franchisees.

So you're a pretty excited guy. What gets you going in the morning? What gets you out of bed and excited to go to work?

What gets me out of bed? Every single day is helping my franchisees grow. It's, it's, it's a thankless job sometimes, but if you care that much and you work that hard and you're always showing new evolution improvements to your business and it pushes out to them and they're happy with it, that makes me excited.

Yeah, I bet. So in terms of your relationship with your franchisees, I imagine it's a lot like herding cats.

Um, it's not always easy because they're all entrepreneurs in some way. So they love the brand, they love the business. I know we have a lot of passionate people, but like all business people, like, they have their own ideas. So, you know, and we want to accept those ideas, but we kind of keep them focused on what's most important is to grow your business with high profitable quality services. And, you know, we're in a really fun business that's got a lot of categories. So we have to, you know, it's, it's just really a relationship that we work together and grow the brand. That's what we're always trying to do. We're 40 41 years now our brand is grown and we wanna be a legacy brand. We wanna continue growing to 100 years.

Wow.

Huh.

Well, what do you think it's unique about you that you bring to the table that makes everything so successful?

I think I never give up and I'm always trying to make it better. To me, I'm a systems guy. I love to build systems and automate them. 'cause I found out how hard it was for me to grow from 1 store to 2 stores to 3 and more. And as I started developing, buying property and putting my franchise in buildings that I built, I wanted to automate all these processes the best I can. And I saw what the franchisor was doing and they were doing good, but I felt like, why aren't they doing these things? So everything that I ever dreamed of, I always have, I document everything. And when I got to building our franchise, there's so many things I wanna do. On top of that, technology is advanced, allowing me to do some of the things that I thought about 10 years ago that wasn't capable. So a lot of those things I'm always thinking about. I'm, I'm in my office pretty much, uh, 5:30 every morning, and I'm here till 6, 6 o'clock or 6:30 every night after everyone leaves. It's my quiet time where I can come in the morning and think all my strategy and all new things I want to do. And then when they leave at night, I fulfill some of those things and sub them out to whoever's going to be doing that work. But it's always an ongoing build. It's never perfect. It's always going to be an ongoing thing, but it's as perfect as anything I know that's around today.

I, I would also add to that, based on what I'm hearing, that you're very persistent and you're very patient to have been doing this for so many years.

And yeah, it doesn't feel like it. It feels like I just came down a couple of years ago, and I've been doing this a long time. I, I really love what I do. Um, I love the people around me that I work with. I really am very selective of who is going to work for our company because they got to get it, they got to want it, and they have to be capable of doing it. And most importantly, they have to love our franchisees. We have to put our franchisees first because if they're successful, we have a great life building whatever we're doing in corporate. If they're— if they have turbulence, we have turbulence. So that is the first thing when I hire someone. And from there they just manifest into who they are, of what area of the company they're building. And so we have a really good team. I love all of them and we have a good time together. We do outings together now and then to, you know, build our team. And we like— we enjoy it. So that's an important thing. And it's also just as important of having a close relationship with our franchisees, you know, giving them the support and knowing that they know that we care about them. That's the most important thing, that we care and that we're persistent on making them make as much. Sometimes I got to drag them to the finish line over that million-dollar hump, kicking and screaming all the way. It's like more important to me than it is to them sometimes. But I have to be sensitive to their timing in their growth. And so it's all about that. It's almost like, you know, I have kids as well. It's almost no different than the way I lift my kids up. I can't overpush, but I got to empower them and I got to grow them. And I find myself doing that same thing with my franchisees. And don't get me wrong, some of these people are wicked smart and really good, but you got to rein them in on to focusing on what the important things to get them to grow is.

So what the big, the big, the big milestone for you is when your franchisees are doing $1 million a year in gross revenues.

Everybody's got to be in the Million Dollar Club. And so we give gold rings out every year when somebody gets over in the Million Dollar Club. And then every year thereafter, we fill out the million dollar zeros with diamonds in their rings. So I do that every year. Last year I spent like $43,000 in rings and diamonds because we had a really— a lot of people joined the million. I have a million, $2 million, and $3 million club. There's 3 different rings levels that they get.. And but it's, it's, I love it. I am, it's really important to me to show them how much I care and to, to receive something for really being in that club and help the people that are not there yet to come on into the club. So that's kind of what we try to do.

Oh, that's, that's really cool. And you've got a lot of energy and excitement about what you do, obviously. So tell me, tell me, Charles, the, this What— how important is listening to you in all the work that you do?

Listening?

Listening.

I guess listening is— so there's two parts to building anything. So you have input and you have output. So if you're always putting out stuff, you really don't get to learn anything new. And if you're always just listening and pulling in stuff, reading and podcasting and listening, you're always doing that, you don't have energy to put it out. So there's got to be a balance of what you're pulling in on listening and what you're producing. And that's really important. Be selective to listen to things that are going to make you positive, that is going to keep you growing and learning, and then use those skills to go out. A lot of the kids today, they go to college, they go to schools, and they're pulling all the stuff in. And yeah, they're taking tests, but you have to create something with that knowledge that you found. And so I don't know that all of them are doing that. So I try to talk to my kids all the time. It's great to learn, but make sure you, you actually facilitate something, you build something at the same time. So you're the push and pull. It's got to be both. It's really important to have that level equalness because if you're just pushing, you don't learn anything new. And if you're just listening, you're not producing anything. So you have to have both.

Have to have both. So how do you handle— every now and then you must get a call from a franchisee that's unhappy or upset or something? How do you handle that?

In the best way you can. I mean, first you have to listen.

And there you go.

And you want to know what is really a valid complaint and what is just whining or, you know, complaining about something that really is not an issue. And then from that point, I have to decide, is this something that I'm going to best give it to them or is there somebody else on my team another franchisee that can answer it to them in a way where they would more receive it, knowing that again, if it's a, if it's something about what they can't do in their business, I can pick out 10 other people that can, and I can tell them and they'll listen to most of it. But to really truly believe it, they want to hear from their peers. So I'll align them with those peers that can probably support what I'm telling them because they're already doing it, right? That helps them listen a little bit more. But, um, and then sometimes it's me. I can give them a lot and they'll, they'll probably take 80% of me. Sometimes they need that other 20. And how do I do that? The right person. And maybe somebody on my team, maybe my COO, my, you know, my CIO, somebody is going to get to them and help it. Now, they don't just flip like a switch. It's got to be learned and absorbed over time and work with them. So it's no different than any other thing that you're training. They have a pain point. We have to figure it out and we have to make sure that they're getting the best person to actually work with them on getting past that and solving the problem if there is one.

Well, it seems like, I mean, you're really dedicated to your franchisees. I mean, you're really into their success, and I think that speaks highly of you. What do you think it takes to be a successful franchisee in your business?

Well, in my business, I think that number one, it's nice to have passion for your brand. Because that goes a long way. You're going to put a lot of your time and energy into whatever business that you do, and if you're passionate about it— if you're passionate about it, it's not as much work. It is your sport, your hobby. You want to see not just the money, but you want to see it grow. Money is important, but so is enjoying your life and the people that you surround yourself with. So I think the passion and having a good, uh, what you like and what you're good at is good. Also, basically having good leadership because, you know, some people come in and they're really good at what they do. But if you're not breeding leaders, how are you going to build your team and your business? It's not a one-man team. We have, you know, stores that open up and they need to have, you know, 3 or 4 people that work in that business for them. And if the employees trust them and they're honest with them and they support them, they're going to want to be there. They build a good culture, a good trust, and a good idea of growth. Nobody wants to buy and buy it. Oh, this is all I got. No, we're growing. So the more you grow, the more they understand that there's room for them to grow within your world, and, and you want them to be able to do that. So putting the right people in the right places is really important, and that's leadership.

And how do you go about cultivating leadership in your franchisees? Is that something they need to have already, or is it something that you can coach them in?

Some of— some people come in and they have good leadership already, and it's quick. You can see how quick they put the right people in place and they grow it, they get it, and they run it. And then some people, they have ability to do it, but maybe they didn't use it, or they didn't have family or friends that were really, you know, having them cultivate that leadership. And a lot of times we can actually bring them up. And again, it's pairing them with other franchisees that are doing really well in that way. And then there's somebody— some people, they just don't have that ability, you know. So What do we tell them at that point? You know, maybe, maybe they have a broken language that they're not really good in that area, or maybe they just don't align with some of the people that are employees. We try to tell them, hire a manager that has good leadership so you can work with that manager and they could be your liaison to, to build your team and support them maybe the way that you can't right now. But it's all good as long as we can get through to them that someone has to lead the team, whether it be the owner the husband or the wife or a family member. If not them, then some employee that's a manager that can actually help them build a team and bring out their vision. That's important.

Wow.

Huh. So what, what's the future look for you next 10 years?

You know, it's, um, 10 years is a long way out. Um, I like to dream about what it could be in 10 years, but I always focus on the 2 to 3 years, you know, stretch, because it's more doable for me. I've already got Everything built out in the next 2 to 3 years that in my mind, with some slight adjustments of shift of technology and new things that are coming up. But if I think too far out into 10 years, you know, it might get clouded because it can be a lot of different directions. But yet 3 to 5 years, we'll have over 600 locations in the US and we'll have more countries, you know, with our brand. Right now we have a 4 countries. We have US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai where we have stores and we're building more in all those areas. But now we're actually sending my team down to Australia and we have a, you know, I guess a meeting with a very large group of car dealers that's looking to, you know, take on Tint World. And it would be great. I think Australia would be great for our brand. So we like to grow. It's one thing to see you do every well do very well in any city in the United States, but to see it grow in other countries and people just excited about what we do there and how much it's desired and unique. I mean, that we love, that really makes me feel good that I'm building something that's worthy. Um, last week we had a really big week, the first time we broke $2 million in one week in sales collectively. Wow. And it was really exciting. And you could see all the franchisees were like They just— we have an owner's group that we all chat in and they were all, you know, really excited about it. And, you know, we're going to break more barriers, but that was a big one for us. Wow.

Really fascinating. One more question. I'll let you go. So, so, Charles, what's one thing about yourself that we wouldn't know about unless you revealed it to us?

I'm very compassionate. Not everybody sees it. I really care for people. I'm very, you know, like, I'm very outward. I'm very excitable. My emotion is very high. So I can be upset and I could be like, excited about, I want this, you know, that's your Italian background. It's my personality. And so people don't realize how passionate and how much I really care about them until they do. And so maybe that's something that not everybody knows right away. I have a hard shell, but a really soft core.

We call you the crab, right?

Well, my wife does.

Thank you so much, Charles. It's been a great conversation. I really appreciate your time.

Thank you, Doug. It's a pleasure.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up, ratings, and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.