How an Immigrant Mechanic Built a Multimillion-Dollar Business

You started as mechanic, now you've got a multi-million dollar company,

you're living proof that the American dream is still alive.

“So you have to be a little greedy, at least in the beginning.”

You have to be selfish. Yes. So I had to learn it and have to be successful for myself and my family first, right? Now once you do that, then it becomes a responsibility thing. You have to teach other people.

When I'm very proud of this being a good example, helping other people that see their dreams and their goals, yeah. And I truly mean it. Kiryako Slotkos is an automotive entrepreneur and operator who turned his lifelong passion for cars into a thriving repair business.

As the founder of Pleasant Carcare and COO of AutoHospitality Group, he's helping reshape the auto repair experience through trust, transparency, and hospitality driven service. Where did that growth come from from that first job? And as a mechanic, not speaking English, right?

To where did that growth get you to now? Every day you're going, you work with a purpose and an intentions. Every move you make, you have to think, "Does it get me closer to the goal or further away from it?" And it helps you achieve the goal faster.

We only have so much energy, right? And so much focus that we can spend and just follow your path, have a clear direction of where you're going, though, which you need to start with us. Today, Apple is going to reinvent from home.

It's our over, I'm telling our weirds. The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy podcast. I'm your host again, Jay Slayon.

And yeah, we've got show number two in this new podcast set up, but it's looking like the old one, but a little bit improvements.

And we're here in the sunny Miami Beach Studios with a new guess for my first guest

in the podcast for Made in America.

“Yeah, introduce yourself, what's your name, what's your business, and where you're from?”

Orange, thank you for having me. Yeah. Awesome, the studio looks great, by the way. Thank you, thank you. Really good job.

My name is Charlie Zlatko. I'm with Auto Hospitality Group, and what we do will basically help people and stop owners with auto repair subs, then and mean to Auto Hospitality businesses. We really use the concept that hotels or restaurants use,

and we elevate the business, the experience of the customer in the shop. Nice, where are you from? I'm Greek, actually. I moved here back in 1993, being here for a long time. All right, from Greek to from, not Athens, right?

I'm from Somonica, it's the second biggest city. Okay, after that, it's up north, beautiful place. Is it a big tourist destination? I mean, not in the city, but no, in the next three probably about an outer way. There is a place called Halki-Diki.

I'm the livable beaches, there's a lot of tourist homes. Yeah, yeah, so you're a beach guy? Yes, I know. I mean, I love it, my wife loves it more than me. Yeah, okay.

I met from Athens to Boston. That's the Boston, yeah, it's a long clip, I can't. So give us a quick, give us a quick feel about what that immigration situation was like. I moved here, I was about, I'd say what, almost 17 years old? Yeah, and it wasn't easy because I didn't want to move.

I mean, at the time, I was into motorcycles. I already had a job working in the place. What kind of motorcycles, dirt bikes, Harley's, or traffic? No, no, Harley's there. I mean, started with little bikes, with like 50 cc,

then went up to 102, 52 strokes. Okay, okay. Then yeah, so it's time to motorbike kind of thing. Hard to motorbike, how about cycling? Is those kind of stuff?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then my father didn't want me to basically die. So you kind of, you started working with motorcycles. You got me a job working in the guy that used to work on his cars? Yeah.

“That's how I started in the automotive world.”

So you were like fast and furious. What was the name of your city again? That's Alanique. Oh, I can't even say that. Well, it's Salonica.

Honda drift, right? So yeah, then you die, I got you started in the shops, right? Workin' hard as a young age. Yep. But then you came to America with four words, right?

Yeah. Not speaking English. What were those four words? So the four words were, "Cadhat, Men and Dog." I still remember them, I actually printed them on a sign.

And where's that sign going? In the house or in the office? At the office, I worked right on the outside wall of my office. I have a few things that remind me of the past. And that's one of them the sign with the four words.

I have that million dollar check in there in the closed case.

I have my first advertising piece from the first business that I started. Which was a mobile all-chains business. It was a terrible advertising piece. It looks horrible, but I still have it just as they remind there.

Well, it was, but it was kind of what you had in your medicine cabinet to kind of inspire you.

It was almost like manifestation, right? Exactly what it was. Yeah. Back in 2018, I think I found March 2018. In one of the podcasts or YouTube videos,

I was a grandcard don't say it. It's like, write yourself a check. Yeah. You can't cast it anyway. Yeah.

So right, you can't take it to the bank and cast it. So write yourself a check, whatever you want it to be. And use it as more evasive so I did it. I really took it to heart. And I underestimated the power behind that.

Because every morning you get ready for work. So brush my teeth, I fix my hair. I'm ready to leave, but that check is writing front of me. Yeah. And I was able to achieve that goal probably within a couple of years of writing that check.

But every day you're going you work with a purpose and an intentions.

“Every move you make, you have to think does it get me closer to the goal or further away from it.”

And he helps you achieve the goal faster. And just like, you know, I sat down with like neuro-scientists here and doctors, right? It also strengthens the pathways to your brain where it's almost like a roadway. You know, like people think, oh yeah, manifestation if you think it. But there's actually a science to it too, right?

It's like, it's like a road. The road that a lot of people travel down, it gets more used. And it goes from a dirt path to a paved path, you know? Yep. And it's easier for people to travel down that road. And that's the same with like information in your brain.

So the more you think about that, the more you instill it in your brain, the more like the information and the electrons flow and the neurons flow to use that path, right? And it's like scientifically proven that manifestation actually does work. I'm not sure, I'm not a scientist, but I can probably say we only have so much energy, right? And so much focus that we can spend. And I feel like that was the superpower for me.

Just everything else is noise, try to stay away from it and just follow your path, have a clear direction of where you're going, though, which you need to start with that. What's your goal? How are you going to get there? You need to find the vehicle, get there? You know, I was blessed and we can talk about in a minute,

“I found all the key to key concepts, and I had a clear path of, okay, right?”

This bus and it's going to get you there. A lot of people haven't found that yet, and they're just wandering around, and especially today's world with social media, and advertising just blasting in front of you all day, they say it's what I call the signing object syndrome. All this looks good, let me do this, this looks good, let me do that. Yeah. But it's almost like if you're trying to get fit, and you see this trend or that trend

or this diet or that diet, this workout, well, you're never going to get there, you need to pick one

and just follow that. You went from four words to now speaking fluid, English, and talking on stages to your last conference was 1500 people. Yeah. And then you went from, you know, actually, you got your first job in a mechanics garage. Only four days after you landed in America. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. You know, it's like you were like knocking door to door with your uncle, and then finally someone accepted you. And so where did that

growth come from from that first job? And as a mechanic, not speaking English, right, to where did that growth get you to now? I feel like you have to also want to grow. There is information is available everywhere. And today, like I never went to college, right,

“but you could probably learn almost anything you need to learn today, go on spend a little time on”

on the internet. Yeah. Right. Everything is available. You have chatGPT, you have YouTube videos, people really showing you exactly how to do stuff. That's really what I started. I didn't want, I kind of feel like when I moved here, I felt like, well, I have to prove myself,

you know, I have to blend in, I have to show what I could do. Yeah. And always worked hard.

Later on in the career, when I go into a reduced to thought and I found the concept, that was a clear buzz. Okay, you write this buzz and you're going to get to this destination. It's 100% proven, right? Yeah. But you have to want to do it. And that's all that is to it. You have to want to do and you have to stick with it. A lot of times people don't give it enough time. It has to develop. They start things that

take some time. They start things in the concept, which with each people right now, you can do today and you're going to get a result today, right now. Okay. And then they start things that take time. We create customers and value for them over time and they keep coming back and other bring us the neighbors and their friends and we grow the business that you have to give it time. You can also go in one class and say, "Oh, I did this class and I don't know everything."

You probably don't. I feel like I had somebody speaking this and they say, "You're attending a class today by tomorrow. You forgot 70% of it was in that class and in one week you forgot 90%

in you in order to really understand it deeply what it really means, what it stands for,

and what this concept is trying to teach you." You've grown into a multi-million dollar company,

right? And doing multi-million dollar deals. And by taking your system is taking kind of the mechanic shops using like this hotel management kind of system, but using it for

“automchanics, right? So take us into that problem. Why is it like the hotel system?”

Tod implemented the system. First of all, he started back in 1986. So the system has proven itself for 40 years. Different markets, different operators, different presidences. I mean, we just went through a global shutdown a few years ago, right? And we still were able to thrive. So the system can't really withstand everything. The way it works, he came, he actually used what's called a restaurant-based system, says cold food, getting hot, hot food, getting cold.

So that's speed of service that's where he came from. On a management star, we call it in the trenches with the renches. That means if you go to a high end, rest on the manager's supposed to touch every table, right? Go around and touch every table. What's going on? Is everything fine here? Can I help you with something? Yeah, yeah. Our managers don't have an office. We work in the trenches with the renches that talk to every customer, talk to every technician, the talk to every service advisor,

it's called Managing by Wandering Around. They were the taxi drivers. Not taxi drivers, even though

on Todd's first company, they actually had white shirts and a red tie. Okay. We don't use that today.

We do use Paula's shirts. You know, we're not professional. Of course, you got to go clean. You're car guys. You know, it's just joking. Yeah. But yeah, it's important to have that clean look, right? People are bringing in you, they're luxury Porsche, right? They're their babies, right? Because a car is almost like, you know, your status symbol of, I've worked this hard. I got this car and now I'm giving you this baby to take care of what I've worked so long to achieve. So it's funny

you say that because we have customers that not only they call their cars their baby and it doesn't need to be a Porsche by the way. Yeah. It could be a Jeep. It doesn't matter. Like we work on everything. But they also these customers, they also have names for their cars. Yeah. So, you know, if somebody actually goes out of the way to pick a name for the car, there could be some sentimental value there. There could be some significant importance to them that we don't know, we're not aware of.

And sometimes we try to find out why that is, right? That gives us good information for the customer,

“and all who we're dealing with, we know what's important to them. But you have to treat it with that”

kind of respect, right? It's not just a piece of equipment. It's actually immune something to them.

And for a lot of people, it's also the second most important investment after their house is the car, right?

If going across a lot of money, it's the transportation is the way they get to work and they're able to make money and meet. It's the way they take their kids to baseball practice or soccer practice. So, whatever it is, they're able to take their parents to the hospital. I had a customer probably a year ago, he brought us a very, very old car. And he wanted to invest a lot of money. I'm talking a lot of money. I actually called him over because he said yes to my advisor on the

farm. I said, I got to talk to you. I said, you really want to do this. And he says, yes. I said, okay, you understand, this is more money than what the car is worth. Yes. It says absolutely. There is on this. He had another vehicle that was a total vehicle, I think, at an SQV. But his mother couldn't get in it. And he had to take his mother in doctors appointments. And this car worked perfect for his mom to get in and out. And he didn't want to go out by another car. He wanted to this car.

So, again, there was something way more than I would ever know other than we having this conversation.

“Right? So, you have to trade with us, because that means something to them. And also, on the other”

hand, when a lot of times people are like, oh, I'm not going to put $1,000 into this car. I'm going to buy another car. Well, that's crazy. You have seen today's prices. The average is a new vehicle is $52,000, the average use vehicle is over $30,000. Yeah. Just the sales tax is the registration fees are thousands of dollars before you even hit the road. Then you have depreciation in soon as cost goes up. So, for somebody to invest a couple of thousand dollars in the car

and get it safe back on the road, it makes 100% sense. Yeah. So, you have to have those conversations. What are the biggest mistakes that, you know, these people that before they come into your system, would the biggest mistakes there that you see? First of all, they're not looking to cater to the customer. They're looking at their schedule. We want they like to do. Yeah. Okay. And if that's how they want to work, it that's perfectly fine. But that is not our hospitality.

That's car repair. Yeah. That's all that is. There is people nowadays that they even open four days a week. I haven't even heard of scenarios of three days a week. And if you have a shop and that's

if your business hours don't reflect that. Just as a beginning point, right? Then another mistake

“they do. We are on the business model when we expect the cars when they come in and we expect”

us to what's going on. We have built a team that does that. We call it our paid crew. Yeah. So, I have a couple of junior technicians very early on in their careers, right? And they help us stage the car take the wheels off, take the filters off, test the battery, scan the codes, all the basic items that you want to inspect on the car. I want you to think about it just like you're going

to the hospital. And you see a nurse first before you see the doctor, that's our pit crew.

It's the nurse station. It's our pit crew, which take all the vital signs right there. Yeah. And there's a misunderstanding. People think, oh, how you trying to do it without a technician. Well, there is a need for a technician, right? If I have to diagnose a problem. You gotta get the baseline down. I have to get the baseline down. But unfortunately, they wait for the technician to even do the baseline and there's no need for that.

Gotcha. And it's so hard to change their mind onto why we do it this way. And I say, really just go look at the hospital. And that will show you exactly how this system is.

“We have a three hours, you know, you have to do this and this before we get to the doctor.”

There is a complete waste of time. You're not going to waste the surgeons

time to get them basic. You have a lot of good analogies to simplify concepts for people to really understand easily. You know, you're talking about auto hospitality instead of auto repair, right? Just that mindset shift, right? And then you're talking about, okay, look at the doctor and how the hospitals do it, right? Once they get it, it's like this mindset shifts, right? And it's easy. It's like simplifying kind of these big concepts for them to be easily understood.

Yeah, I'll tell you why. What happens is, uh, as you talk to a lot of people, it's very hard for them to understand it because they live in this world and what we teach is over here. Yeah. So it's too far apart. Their head is under the hood to the right in the engine, right? Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So they're just thinking of the car thing, every system of everything else. I mean, at the end of the day, we happen to fix cars, but we serve people.

Yes. Okay. So we have to look at it that way. And there isn't a came up with these analogies. Everybody has been to our restaurant. Mm-hmm. Everybody has been to a doctor or doctors office or a hospital even for themselves or they took that pattern or something. At some point they have seen it. Yeah. So he makes sense. Not a Greek restaurant, so a lot of good big restaurants, too. So they have seen it and it kind of makes sense. Once I use the nurse and the

doctor they're like, oh, I get it. Versus in their mind that just thing, all the technician has to tell me, well, it does the technician need to tell you if the battery is good. I can teach a young 18-year-old kid how to test the battery. Here's the equipment you plug it in. You punch in the numbers. It's very simple. Yes. It is very simple and it's almost cost more cost effective. It's most time effective. Because now that the technician is involved with another big job, he's in the middle of it,

you really don't want to slow down. So imagine going to a surgeon and be like, oh, can you stop

me, surgeon and check this? Yeah. You will never do that. I wouldn't have ever had. So why do we do it

to a very high level L1 technician? Why do we do it? You take their brain off. You got to trust your team though. Right. You know, the team has to go past certain levels before you just let them even do that. You know, but that's a big thing, though. You got to trust your team, but you also have to trust the mechanics. You got a lot of shady mechanics out there. The industry started off shady, right? But you're also helping them get away from that. So I don't know if you started shady,

but at some point in the process, he did become shady and he earned the bad reputation, right?

“And that's why we have what we call the 10 trust points. Honesty is, I think I told you earlier on”

that my parents taught me honesty and hard work. Honesty is what we live for. And what I was looking for, I wanted to find a better way to do business. I didn't know how though. And then when I was lucky enough to meet Todd Hayes and he introduced me to his concept, I'm like, oh my God, there is the answer I was looking for. There is an answer. So we have our 10 trust points from the minute, the phone rings, to sending a virtual show tour, to walking the customer in the shop

once they arrive, to sending him a great presentation of the vehicle. They feel like they're here next to us looking at their car. And if they happen to be waiting, we actually bring them in the shop and we saw them. Exactly what's going on. The other day I had this customer as they came in for a noise and it's a couple, husband and wife very young, the probably maybe 30-year-old at most, maybe late 20s. And I inspect the car and then they went, bring them out. And actually

the problem was in what's called, and I'll tell you right now just to get your card here. So if I tell you a carrier bearing, do you know what that is? No idea, right? Okay, so they don't need it. So I have to assume they have no idea. So most of us who are going in the front and say,

I'm going to go to like cousin Jimmy, who you're like, "Hey, you're trying to, you know, undercumb you for a carrier bearing, I even know what that is." Exactly. So I take this customer as I bring him out, we're under the car. And I have a car, one of my guys upstairs, his actually dining the car, and we'll be sending to the noise. They thought they needed a wheel bearing. So wheel bearing makes more sense, you may have heard that term. You haven't heard that term,

carrier bearing. So it's okay, this is your wheel bearing, this is your carrier bearing, or noise is coming from here. And actually it took a stethoscope, because we use a stethoscope,

just like the doctor, okay, put a stethoscope on the ladies head first. And I guided the stethoscope

word to touch it, and I saw her the difference. The bearing and the carrier bearing. Okay, the wheel bearing and the carrier bearing. And you hard to see, carrier action. So it was like, "Oh my God, I can't believe this." And they would did the same with the husband. Does that build full transparency and trust? Yeah. So it's versus me just calling somebody or telling them, "Oh, you need a carrier bearing, it's $1,000, whatever, making up the number." Yeah.

I'm actually getting to show them, and they can see and visualize exactly what he looks like and what he does. People aren't done, right? But show them, you get you trust and say, "Hey, look, this is your actual problem. Oh, I get it, you know." Very simple. Yeah. Well, you're so knowledgeable, and the show's made in America. You came here with four words.

Now you speak it on stages. You started as mechanic. Now you got a multi-million dollar company.

You're like living proof that the American Dream is still alive, right? Yeah. I ask everyone, "What are you most excited for?" I love John Maxwell, I'm being watching his dancing for many years.

“And you always said, "You can't give what you don't have." So you have to be a little greedy”

at least in the beginning. You have to be selfish. Yes. So I had to learn it and have to be successful for myself and my family first, right? Now once you do that, then it becomes a responsibility and you have to teach other people. What I'm very proud of is being a good example, a helping other people that see very dreams and their goals. Yeah. And I truly mean it. Yeah. I have so many text messages that I receive every day from people that come to key to key,

because we have a class called key to key. Yeah. And they lend the concept and they follow my social media content and they're like, "Oh my God, thank you so much. Thank you for showing the way." Because there is a lot of good people out there, like me as an example, that they just didn't have a way of doing it, right? Yeah. And now we provide that pathway. And it also gives you more accountable because you have to be good. You have to keep your team accountable

too to make sure they deliver this high level of service because that's the expectation,

“you say, right? And that's what you're teaching other people. So like having kids,”

what are you teaching your kids? I mean, these are not clients. These are look at them all as partners, are look at them all as, you know, we have a common goal. We're trying to provide better service for our customers, for really everybody that drives out there. That's what we're trying to do. Let's change the way auto repair is being looked at. Why are people looking down on us? You know, and we've been doing it the last few years since we then the doors open and we started

teaching people. We've had a pretty significant impact. I want to believe even in some big companies, with a lot of work with some very big franchises, precision-tuning is one of them. We're able to change them. We work with Microsoft, which has a tremendous amount of locations. I think by the end of this year. Yeah, by the end of this year they're going to reach 1200 locations. Personally working with them and helping them and you can see the people

that actually go back and do it and the difference in their business and they call you back and they tell you how thankful they are. Yeah. So we're doing a small scale from people that have one store. Like I started to big big companies. Yeah. Because we're looking to change the way they see industry is being looked at. How do people find you? So a couple of different ways. I mean, I have Instagram and LinkedIn and the Charlie's Latkos. Okay. The business is called Orohospitality.com.

That's where you can actually see a lot of examples of our business. Yeah. The difference between our business and the industry. A lot of examples of people that came under our umbrella, it was they have done. It's all right there. And the first step where everybody should do to go to Orosopancers.com and learn about our training and pick a class. Because we have a class going on every month. Pick the month I work for them and come in

“and just experience it. You have to experience it. You have to see what it's all about”

before you form a formal opinion. Perfect. Well, it's been a pleasure to talk to you and have you in our studios and learn about, yeah, the four words to stages and the repairman to

multimillion dollar company, right? Thank you for having me. It's been an amazing experience. Thank you.

I'm an awesome. Yeah. So, yeah. Big one for our first meeting in America show here. Yeah. If you want to learn about the American dream and people coming into this country and taking advantage of the opportunity

here at Living New York Legacy Podcast. Cheers, everyone.