Monday, May 21, 2007 Have a nice day! By Christine del Valle
SIMPLY clad in a casual attire, Leon Quimpo, a seemingly bubbly guy in his mid-thirties, appears on the doorstep of his very own Carlito’s Way Steak Restaurant. Although it would have been a gastronomic experience to converse on the topic of food (myself being a certified steak lover who always craves for a good and hearty steak meal), our topic wasn’t on his steak restaurant venture but on his roadtrip to success in building up the largest carwash chain in the country.
Leon’s journey started out with a sales management career from some of the top multinationals like Kodak, Selecta Wall’s Nabisco and IBM Philippines. During his sales stint, he was assigned outside the confines of Metro Manila and worked in areas like Davao and Cebu. Soon enough he learned to appreciate the beauty of Cebu and its way of life, thus he thought it would be a good idea to be permanently based here, and so he started up a business.
His first business venture was a buyout of a hamburger stand situated along Mactan in 2001, with a salary loan of P150,000. He named his corporation “Nice Day Corp” gearing towards his vision to have a business that would create a brand recall.
A second burger stall along A.S. Fortuna St. was put up in January 2002. Admittedly, margins weren’t really profitable so he thought of putting up a barber shop, a massage place and a car wash. All of his prospective businesses were in line towards making people happy and relaxed after a hard day’s work. Thus the Nice Day Car Wash was born.
Business Coach
An avid reader of autobiographies, self-help and other business books, Leon was inspired to focus on expanding his business. Famous stories about the success of Ray Kroc of McDonald’s and Sam Walton of Wal-Mart pushed him to reassess his strategy to further improve Nice Day Corp. His coach in Starshooters (a 3-month goal program run by PSI Asia) said something like “You need to see your business not as a small-time business, but a big business in its infancy.” This line was a realization that he wasn’t really giving his car wash business the same dedication that he was giving at that time to IBM where he worked.
Personal Philosophy
Leon firmly believes in the greatness of the individual and that “if a person believes he will succeed, then he will definitely do so.” Two of his favorite lines come from the creators of the Adidas and Nike Tag Line which state “Impossible is nothing” and “Just do it.” This philosophy extends to the way he runs the business believing that any individual will succeed as long as he is in a pursuit to continuously improve himself and open to learning new things.
“The best never rest,” Leon states. He’s the type of person who is always busy setting up new goals and projects. He adds, “Yup, I’m a tough boss. While we’re a small business, I try to apply the standards I was exposed to in IBM and Selecta Wall’s. The pay-off for those who decided to stick around is a fast maturity period.” As an example, they have four staff members who started as car washers two years ago but are now managing their own branch.
Car Wash University
Launched only this month is a learning center Leon put up for his employees. The education sessions aim to differentiate them from the other car wash outlets by providing the necessary tools to equip his 80 employees with the discipline and skills to excel in their own respective fields, whether as a car washer or any other line of work. He focuses mainly on his people and monitors their performance to ensure that he maintains his customer base and continues to attract more people because of its worry-free and one-of-a-kind service. Their weekly session starts with a discussion of the employees’ personal and professional goals, a review of the basic procedures of the business and a practical exam after.
As of today, Nice Day Car Wash has over 11 outlets in Cebu and will open two more shops within the next two months. Believe it or not, an accumulated number of 300-400 cars avail of their service each day thus becoming a household name in the carwash industry.
Leon now has about 80 employees including a trainor, facilities manager, a team leader for each store and a human resources and administration manager. Part of their future plan is to strongly consider building up a franchise system outside Cebu.
Apart from his successful car wash story, Leon traverses in between his other businesses – Big Daddy’s beef pares and Nice Day Relax Spa. Currently, he is almost halfway through his Regis MBA program at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business (Cebu Campus) and attends teleclass at the International Coaching Academy. Of course his drive to succeed stems from his main source of inspiration – his nine-year-old daughter Meg, and his wife and business partner Ji.
Today, Nice Day Car Wash is tagged as the largest carwash chain in the Philippines.
And everything started simply with a vacuum cleaner, a pressure washer and a can of platinum wax (plus the drive to succeed and passion to continuously learn new things).
