James Beazley: The Making of Magic Tint

This episode is about the solopreneur James Beazley, and how he was able to start and manage his own tinting business. In this episode we discussed how to approach a business with an entrepreneurial mindset and how to truly enjoy yourself in the process. We talked about how important it is to stand out, and how to embrace yourself through your own business. Being authentic with your work and your intentions. He talks about how it’s all about community and working with people, not working against them. Throughout the duration of this episode we discover the steps and risks he had to take to become the successful businessman he is today.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hey everybody, welcome to From Sparks the New Venture Podcast. I'm your host, Walter, and today we're interviewing a very special guest, my dad and local business owner, James Beasley. Before we start, I'd like to give you an introduction. You were born in 1970 to a middle class family. You graduated from VCU in 1990 as a psychology major. You started your own company customizing cars in 1996. You're a married father of two. You're a spiritual man. You love animals, and your interests are fine arts, movies, music, and poetry. Did I miss anything? No, you pretty much got it. Thank you for having me. Alright, let's jump right in. What motivated you to start your business?

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Money. And um I really kind of disliked being caught up in everybody else's drama. You know, my boss's drama, all the things you don't have any control of. So um I knew I just wanted to produce good work, and I wanted mainly to make all the profits for myself. You know, when you uh work for other people, you're basically making them rich. And I'm not saying I got rich. Um it uh owning my own business did help me in so many ways. Um but uh but it was mainly I wanted control and I wanted to make my money instead of making money for somebody else. I felt like I could do everything I needed to do without help from anybody else because I had kind of worked in this field um customizing cars for a long time, you know, since graduating college. Um and uh and I just wanted to kind of you know, you you have ideas of the way you think things should be run and the way you would like to run a business, and I took that leap. You know, you have to take a leap, bet on yourself to make it happen. And that's what I did, and it and it worked out.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Awesome, yeah. Was there anyone that was maybe telling you not to or anything that was in your way that made you Um, not really.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Um, I mean, there you know, so I I worked for my brother, and their di dynamic when you work with family can get really weird. And, you know, I love my brother, and at times we had a really great time, but it actually got when it was bad, it got really intense. And um, and so, you know, when I opened my business up, it it could be seen as me going against him because he had his own so I started tinting windows. I I so you know his whole business was customizing cars from putting tires on, uh different muffler systems, uh spoilers, and tent, of course, and tent, you know. So, and I was the main tent guy. And um so, you know, I I gave him a heads up and told him I needed to start my own business, and um he still had guys that could do it, um, but they weren't very good, so we ended up kind of working out a deal where he was sending me all his tent business, and then he kind of got his other guys that sort of could tent into the other parts of his business that he needed help, needed help with. So it's like I guess I can chalk it up to no business owner wants to give up a part of their business or control, but sometimes if you say it the right way and you and they realize that you're really the that part of the business, there's no one else that can do it like you. Right. If you frame it the right way, you can you can literally carve out uh a niche so you can reap the most rewards for yourself. Um, but you have to kind of butt heads a little bit, you know, it's not like an uh something an owner wants to hear that I am quitting and starting a business that you might seem to think that's going against you. But in reality, I framed it as I'm cutting out a headache for you. You can focus on the parts you love, and I can do this for you, and we can work together. And um, you know, it was a it was really, really good. It worked out really well. So, you know, sometimes it's um not what people want to hear, and hardly anybody ever does start their own business. I mean, I think there's more young people doing it now than ever because the economy is so crazy, and what you hear about AI taking jobs. Um yeah, yeah. So uh I feel like that's you know coming up. Um but uh yeah, when I did it, I didn't know hardly anybody except my brother that did it, you know. So I mean I can actually thank him quite a bit for showing me that possibility, you know. So he was my older brother by five years, and you know, I is as much as we had different, you know, fights and stuff like brothers can have, but um, I did always look up to him. Um he showed me a lot of things. Watched what he did and and thought I could do a good job on my own and make my own money. So just started talking to him.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

What exactly did you do to sort of stand out or really branch off?

SPEAKER_00 6:17

I think what it was is like I just got so good at it, you know, and like you know, everybody was like, you know, go to you know, get James to do it. Yeah, and uh and that was my my my my goal was just to do a really good job, like really take care of my customers, and um it just made sense for me, you know. I I just wasn't making the money that I wanted to make, and I was making really good money, but I wanted everything, I wanted it all. I wanted I wanted the money that I was making plus more money, but I wanted the control. I wanted to control my schedule because at one point I was working six days a week for like two years straight. And um I never like my dad did that, and like he was always grouchy, you know, on the weekend because he only had like that one day off. And you know, I I finally understood what he was going through because when you work six days a week, you don't like that that you might have one night where you can have fun, but that next day that your day off is, you all you're thinking about is how you have to go in tomorrow. I really think it's important to have a two-day weekend off. And that so that six days a week kind of burned me out, and I definitely didn't want to do that anymore. And um so I freed myself up and made more money. Um and you know, it's just fun calling my own shots. I made my own t-shirts. I I just you know, I love art. Um, and I love the fact that I'm exploring. So when I when I started my business, I just took it as just really excited. You know, I was in a good place, it wasn't like I was inventing something and trying to shop it around and say, hey, will you buy my whatever? I was in an established business that people really wanted their car windows tinted, and I tinted buildings and boats too. So I had the business just waiting for me, and nobody could hardly. I mean, I was like, I could say I was definitely top five in in Virginia for tinning windows, so I was well known. I could say that, yeah. I mean, at some point the older I got, I did I did retire, you know that. Yeah, I did retire. So I mean, at some point the younger guys need to take over, and I was like, I was completely done and burned out, so that's how I retired. So but yeah, I mean I had the business just sitting there and I took it, you know, I took my opportunity, you know. You gotta take it.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Yeah. I uh I know you mentioned uh you know, exploring and involving art with everything.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Um I do remember when I was younger, uh you used to drive the gold, it was an all-gold car with your dragon logo on it. Yeah. Yeah. It was fun. I I you know, I always remember I've I've always wanted to know what was the decision behind that, what was the like the direction.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah, well, you um the philosophy is you always want to stand out. So even though I was you know well known and everything, I still had a lot of competition. And um, and um so my my business was mobile. Like I didn't go to a shop and click the the on the open button, you know, on. Um I was basically had my phone and you would call me up, I would put you on the schedule, and I would drive to your house, or I would drive to the dealerships. That's where a lot of my work came from. So these dealerships would have new cars, the sales guy would sell a brand new BMW, and they would make money off of what I was doing too, so they were always pushing it. And so, you know, a guy buys a new BMW, they call me up, I go to BMW before the guy picks his car up. And they I always, and it's a lot of difficulties doing it that way, but um they would find me a spot in a shop in the shop at BMW, and I would uh I would tint the car before the customer picked it up. So it was like the sales guy looked good because he hooked the guy up, and it was all he didn't have to take it to a shop after he got it and get it tinted. Um so I don't I think I maybe I answered the No Wait, you're talking about the car, you're talking about the car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So um, so that's why it was important to me to have that gold car.

unknown 11:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

And it was bright gold. Oh, it was very bright. Yeah, your your mom called it called it the golden ticket.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

And my company's name is Magic Tent. And I called it Magic Tent for a reason because everybody around me in the biz was like super corporate, I thought.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Like they were like Virginia Tint or uh structure tent or A1 tent. You know, it was like real business-like, you know, like black tent, you know. And I just wanted to have something like that was fun. I just I just said magic tent. It was a lot of hard work. But I wanted to have that like something else besides being so like kind of closed in. I felt like I wanted to express myself a little bit. And then like, so then I thought of like the dragon as kind of like my logo, and so I put that on my gold car. You remember the black dragon and the black stripes, had a big black dragon on the hood of the car, and like everybody, I mean, everybody knew me from that car, and that was literally the point of having the car was to get noticed. Yeah, successful. I mean, you know, when you see that car, it's like you just knew it, you know, that that I'm I'm here now, you know, and James is here, he's on the lot, or if somebody saw me driving, you know. I've had people kind of like try to pull me over and talk to me. But that's I put my phone number on my car too, so they could just write it down or take a picture, and they would say, Hey, I'm driving right behind you, you know. I was like, Oh, yeah, I see your, you know, yeah, I see your Chevy truck. That's that's a nice truck, you know. What do you want done? Do you want the whole thing tinted or just the front two windows? And so, you know, that was that was great. Yes, that's why I did it.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yeah, yeah. And uh, I did want to ask, uh, how did you collect the resources you needed to start Magic Tent?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

I just saved money. So when I was working for my brother, and I actually had another job at uh long story, but I saved money and um and just made it happen from there. You know, you just you just buy the materials and I already have the clientele set up, so that's important to already have your work waiting for you so you know that the money that you put into the business, you're gonna get paid on it when you when you perform the work.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah. Did did you have to uh because then you know you're working with tent, did you have to keep it uh like how did you preserve it to not to scratch it up so it wouldn't be that's the hard part.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

That was the that was the part that nobody could do very good except for me for a while. Some other some other people were really good at it too. But yeah, like um you just I was just detail oriented, I was focused on not making mistakes, and you have to have that mindset that you want to do a good job, and some people cared, and that was that's another reason to start your own business, is because it puts it all on you, which is a tough thing, but it's a good thing because you really want to deliver for your customers when it's when your name's on the business, you want to deliver. You you want to it's your name on it, it's everything. You if you disappoint your customers, it's like you feel terrible. Where if you have a boss that maybe you don't like and a situation you don't like, you're like, I I don't it's not that big of a deal to me if they yell at somebody else, you know. Like I'm they don't really even know who I am, you know, so it takes the pressure off. But um, yeah, I I kind of liked I was just good at it, and I I um everybody knew me already. So I said, well, if all the pressure's on me already, I'm accepting it. Like I used to have crowds of people watching me because no one had ever seen it done. I would literally, literally be in a dealership with like 20 people around me watching me. That's it was really nerve-wracking. It was it was like really intimidating at first, and then it got to a point where I felt like I was like a showman or something, you know, like I wasn't doing tricks or something, you know. But I felt like I was comfortable in the spotlight. Yeah. So that was kind of fun to get to that point.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Did you did you ever mess up when the crowd was there or anything?

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Yeah, yeah, you mess up and you make mistakes, and you're like, what happened? You know, they asked, they asked a lot of questions. Yeah. You know, that was the fun part. I used to even take my dog with me. So everybody knew, yeah, Rita went with me every day. Yep, Rita. And people would like, they knew I was coming to do some work, and they would like save food, they'd have like a hot dog. Like I would bring a hot dog from home because we wanted to feed my dog while I was working on some car.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Awesome. I know you had that uh it was like a w I don't think there was water in it, but it was like a little spray can thing. Yeah, squirt gun.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Well, it's like uh it's really for gardeners. Okay, and you know, most people have like a squeeze trigger sprayer, but I didn't like squeezing all the time, so you you pressurize this when you pump it up, it was like chok, chuk, chuk, chuk, chok, chuk, and then you would have spray power for like two or three minutes straight. And so I kind of I started that. Like I didn't know anybody else that did that. Like I like that was part of my exploring was I just love figuring out how to make things more efficient and better for my customers, better for me, you know, like win-win situations. And so I kind of cut out a lot of BS and got down to the just the facts that that did a great job. So that's that's what I focused on. Right. That was the fun for me.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Yeah, I I remember you had, I mean, we still have it somewhere, but it's you had like the big red bucket full of all those materials. Yeah, and like yeah, no, so I got that from somebody else. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

So I mean, you know, I mean you you look around, you know, and if you somebody has a good idea, you you use it, you know. So I think I got that from somebody else. Um yeah, you you learn tricks. I mean, you have I had competition, but I never like hated all my competition. I always talked to them, I tried to be friends with them, and half of the guys were really cool, and you end up sharing things, and I tell them something one day, and they're like, What? You can do that. And then sometimes they would tell me something they could do. Yeah, and I was like, Well, you know, how, you know, and you learn stuff. So that's you know, so that was fun too, to have like a family, like I felt like I had a family that I would work for, like the dealerships and the customers and the clients, but I had a family of people that I worked against kind of that were still all friends, and that was kind of neat.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

It's like uh two sides of a coin, you know. Absolutely, yes. Yeah, trying to figure out you know who's working, you're working with, who you're working against. Uh what would you say is uh most important to be successful in that kind of uh world and business? And um what kind of mindset, what kind of entrepreneurial mindset would you have to be in?

SPEAKER_00 19:06

You have to you have to commit to doing good work, you have to be accountable, you have to show up on time, you have to uh create a connection with your customer, you know. I mean that's what you want to do, especially this day and age when there's so much going on. You really want to connect. The first way you connect, showing up, being available, and doing good work.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

It's definitely down to the basics. Uh, and that leaves me to my uh final question. Uh, what is one piece of advice you would share with undergraduates trying to start their business and their you know life journey?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

I gotcha. Um find a need. Well, I mean, you can you can kind of do what you love or something you're interested in, but you want that interest or the thing you love to fill a need in society. Something that you see is lacking that you can do a better job at, or you want to try to create a need. You can create a need sometimes by doing something very interesting, but sometimes it's just looking around and maybe hearing people complain about something, and you're like, I think I could do that, and that's kind of what I want to do anyway. I want to do a better job than the guys that are helping them are doing. You know, I want to improve this, I want to make a difference. And so when you do that, you're um making money, but you also have a purpose, and that's really important to drive you because when you have your own business, there's no boss that's gonna yell at you if you don't get up and go to work and say, Where are you? You know, you have to be motivated, and part of the motivation is money, but it's also that sense of fulfilling a need, helping people, because I've made a lot of people happy. I really made them happy, and uh so that always carried me, like it always made me feel like what I was doing was worth it on a whole other level, on a personal level.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

That sounds like great advice. Hey, thank you so much for uh sharing your experience, and um hopefully this will help me and my audience um who is looking to start a business. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Yeah, thank you. I I really appreciated um you offering to interview me. It's kind of neat to have this happen, and um, you know, no one really asks about this stuff, so it's nice to share, and I really do hope that young people today look to start something of their own and form a community, don't burn bridges. With the people that do it like you do. You form partnerships and friendships, and you'll grow that way. And so I definitely encourage anybody to take the leap, get alone, save up your money, have a plan, and have fun.