For this Quick Lube Q&A, NOLN connected with its three columnists — Scott Hempy, CEO at Oilstop Drive-Thu Oil Change and Happy’s Drive-Thru Car Wash, Adam Tatum, director of operations for Virgina Lubes, and Joanna Johnson, president of Johnson Policy Associates Inc. — to let readers learn a little bit more about who they are and why they care about the quick lube industry.
NOLN: Can you tell us about your journey in the quick lube industry?
Tatum: I didn't look at it at first as a career. I looked at it as a challenge. I have a college degree in marketing, and after working in downtown Charlotte for a while, I didn't want to be in an office. I started doing other things, and then my brother-in-law, who was an assistant manager at Jiffy Lube, said they needed a CSA. So, I decided to go try that out. After the first year, I was promoted to assistant manager. The very next month, I got promoted to manager at another location in our area. It was a store that had been down for a while, and we immediately flipped it around, and I was at that location maybe two or three months. Then, I was moved back to the bigger store I came from as a store manager.
Later on, a district manager position opened in Columbia, South Carolina, within our company, and I interviewed for the position, and got it. I was a district manager there for a while, and then moved up to regional manager within the Columbia area.
In 2018, I picked up a NOLN magazine, and there was a director of operations position in the advertisements. I knew that I couldn't be the director of operations where I was because the person in front of me had been here a lot longer, and we were performing. I interviewed for that position, and I have been in Virginia ever since.
Hempy: I started a delivery software company called Filld, and after 10 years building that business, I ended up selling it to a large web company. And at that point, I realized the startup world was fun, but I wanted to run more of an operational business and something that was more service oriented. So, I got involved with Oilstop in 2020. Larry Dollar, the founder, sold the business a couple years before that to an individual group called Cojourn.
Cojourn is a buy-and-hold kind of group of companies where they intend to operate them with excellence and operate them well. So, I knew some of the partners there and joined, ultimately to help day-to-day operation.
Johnson: As the newest counsel to a large national trade association in D.C., I got assigned to work with an associate member called the National Association of Independent Lubes (NAIL). The situation was described to me as “grunt work” because NAIL and the fast lube industry were small players then. But when I met NAIL’s board members, we clicked. They were whip-smart, scrappy upstarts devoted to employee training, equal customer service, environmental protection, and a level playing field. I can still see them standing in the office lobby: Dr. Scotti Lee, Keith Rabalais, and Frank Denton on behalf of their fellow board members Steve Hurt (founder of NOLN), and Larry and John Read (founders of Oil Changer).
It only took a few minutes to figure out they were going up against a wicked slate of challenges: unfair competition from automakers, outsized regulations designed for huge facilities, waning consumer education on the basics of vehicle maintenance, and ancillary service providers and manufacturers seeking amendments to control the marketplace (think: used oil, tanks, building codes, fire codes). It was very David versus Goliath, which is so hard to resist. And they were fun, especially after they hired Steve Christie as executive director to lead their highly successful transformation into the Automotive Oil Change Association (AOCA). I could fill up an entire issue of NOLN talking about AOCA and the Jiffy Lube Association of Franchisees’ amazing board members over the years.
NOLN: What do you suggest quick lube operators should do to ensure shop and team success?
Tatum: I'm sure there's different businesses that hire bodies off the street just to say they have people there. They don't really give them route success. With us, I have routes. We bring you in as a technician to start with, or MIT, depending on what your skill level is. From there, there's options. So, you've been here a year? I give you three or four ways that you can turn this into a career and not just a job. We will help you. We give you all the materials, all the training, all the support that you need to make yourself successful, so that when you do move on, you don't want to leave. We've built that type of culture of continuous learning. I never pretend like I know everything because cars change every year. If you ever think you know it all you will find yourself stagnant. We have built a culture on continuous learning. If somebody is trying to do better for themselves, we will help them do that.
Hempy: Larry, our founder, focused on this so much, and I feel lucky that I've really gotten to pick up the ball from him. Ultimately, we look at trying to support our team. We talk a lot about the mission statement of the business which is: We will serve people humbly with excellence. We really try to serve both our guests and our team to make sure they're equipped ... to do the real work. We talk a lot on our team about how our frontline team in the field and in the bays are the reason we're all able to be here. So, we support them. We've invested in a full training department. By helping them know what to do and how to do it, we’ll help them focus on how to do it with a smile of excellence, how to do that with a service heart. We’ve done a lot of little things over the years that have continued to build on what Larry started. We hope that it will help develop our team, serve our team, and really prioritize our team, because without them, we're not here.
Johnson: Automotive service industry competition is intense and constant. Some of it is blatantly unfair, like Magnuson Moss Warranty Act tie-in brand sales violations. It’s important to never underestimate how much the average consumer does not know about engines and vehicle upkeep overall. That lack of understanding can sink them into a terrible bind between an OEM’s kneejerk warranty denial and their aftermarket service provider. Be ready to provide patient education if it wasn’t provided up front.
NOLN: What do you find most rewarding about your work in the industry?
Tatum: Extraordinary customer service. I like it when I have crews and teams and people who excel at making a customer smile. No matter what company you are, the oil change itself is a negative purchase. It is something that has to be done. It's not something a customer wants to do. I make sure everybody understands we are not in the oil change business. We're in the customer service business, and if you remember that, it really is how you treat a customer as to whether you live or die in this industry over time, because with more competitors coming in and the way that the financial environment is, people will go where they feel appreciated. I like seeing people leave happy, because I know when you come in, you don’t want to be there. But if I see you smiling and you're laughing with a CSA when you leave, that's what makes me, I guess, think that we're doing what we're supposed to.
Hempy: Two things. One is the fact that it's a service business. I love hospitality. The idea that every single interaction with a person when we change their oil is not about the intention of the oil, it's about the kind of moment we have with that person to make a mark on their day. I think about the past hospitality experiences where you feel taken care of. You feel certain as a customer, as a guest, and the idea that the oil change business is one where people invest, it's about leaving that lasting impression. We have guests who have been coming to Oil Stop for over 30 years. It's not because we change oil best, it's because we ask about their day. We get to know their name. We have managers at some of the centers who have been here 25-plus years, who know the guests. They know their kids’ names. They know some about their lives. For me, it's a fun business, because it's more than just a service that we're providing. It's the human interaction that we get to focus on. The changing of the oil is not the hard part. The hard part is really making sure a guest feels known, feels appreciated and feels valued. And if we do that, well, then it's a pretty rewarding business.
Johnson: There are so many things. Successfully challenging Magnuson-Moss violations against consumers and their preferred fast lube service providers never gets old, which is great since the OEMs show no signs of slowing down in that regard. It is also wonderful to see the industry working together for early identification of engine defects so that the aftermarket doesn’t get stuck paying for endless problems created by OEMs who simply point backwards at the first sign of trouble. And, of course, considering how much new and used oil fast lube operators manage, their fantastic environmental compliance record is a special point of pride for me. This industry prevents pollution every single day.
