Interview Ken Joiiio.Com
Ken is the founder and president of Joiiio. His Twin Cities-based company provides expert hard top removal and secure storage, and they are Platinum-certified Bestop softop installers. Joiiio’s mission is to enable every Jeep and Bronco to enjoy their vehicle the way nature intended it! Topless, doorless, we got you covered (uncovered)!
I’m Tony and welcome to the Jeep Talk Show, the talk show where we talk about all things Jeep from trail riding to overlanding and everything in between. Every Friday we have an interview with a new and exciting guest. So sit back, grab a cold one and get ready for another great guest right here on the Jeep Talk Show. Are you ready? It’s time for the Jeep Talk Show with hosts Tony, Josh, Wendy and Chuck.
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All righty ho boys and girls, it’s time for another Jeep Talk Show interview and we’re going to be talking with Ken. Ken is the founder and president of, good lord man, pronounce that thing for me because that always drives me up the wall.
Is that like Fro-Yo?
No, it’s, you take away the J and you got a Jeep. Oh I know, I know it’s a grill but I mean I don’t know how to pronounce a Jeep grill.
So anyway, what Ken just said, his Twin Cities based company provides an expert hardtop removal and secure storage and that’s the important part is the secure storage. Nobody wants anything bad to happen to their hardtops. They’re so expensive.
And they are platinum certified, best top, soft top installers. Oh that’s nice.
Joyo’s mission to enable every Jeep and Bronco to enjoy their vehicle in the way nature intended it. Topless, doorless, we’ve got you covered or uncovered. So just go over to, I’m just going to say the letters here, just go over to J-O-I-I-I-O.com. Joyo.com and you can get more information on this service. Alright guys, thanks for being here with me. And who is our secondary guest, Ken? Oh yes, to my left is Brandon Schipper. So Brandon’s our first employee and he’s been managing our operations here as the general manager at Joyo for, on year two now. So Brandon. Awesome, spreading Joyo love out here. You need everybody topless Jeeps and yeah, it’s been a good time. So Brandon, is Ken a hard employer that I think he is? Because he’s just, you know, he’s very mean and mean spirited here on the last episode that we did. He is so mean man. I’m kidding. No.
He’s like the backbone of Joyo. He’s always keeping the vibes high, always keeping customers happy, making us, making sure we’re on track in the shop, but always in good fun. So is every Friday pizza day, does he have pizzas brought in on Fridays? I bring in treats though. Healthy treats. Brandon’s a crossfitter and a professional water skier and all kinds of other things that are required to be athletic. So we live healthy lifestyles at Joyo. So I try to bring healthy snacks in. We had, we had deer broths earlier this week. We do chia seed bars, all kinds of healthy snacks, not pizza, but if there’s pizza, if there’s, frankly, if there’s any food around, boys will eat it. So what’s the, what’s the opinion on bacon? If you guys live a healthy lifestyle.
Okay, good. I was getting a little concerned about you guys. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Lots of it. All right, Ken. So either really easy. One of you can take this one. Tell us about the business, what it is that you do. We had a little bit of it there in the intro, but I think you guys have a really cool and unique business that allows people to do things that they may find difficult to do if they’re in a town home or an apartment or even in their house, especially when the garages are full with everything else that they can’t fit in their house. Well, Tony, thank you for that question. We think so too. As a 37 year old, 37 year Jeep owner through the years, I’ve just always known people to struggle with everything that we’re doing here at Joyo, essentially hardtop removal, storage, soft top installation. If they, if they own a soft top, if you don’t own a soft top, we’ll, we’ll lease you a one for the summer. And we’re also selling soft top stops as well. We remove doors. We place with half doors, remove doors for the weekend, remove full tops for the weekend. So any version that summarizes your Jeep that includes soft tops, sun riders and doors, that’s what we do. And we do, and we’re very, very focused on those, those level of services. We also have just not even by almost by accident, was really not a part of our initial business model. We’re doing a lot of repairs on soft tops.
Brandon, the guys are just, we’ve, we’ve amassed a good, a good selection of parts and backups when people unfortunately hit garage doors and parking ramp things with low clearances. We end up saving some of those parts and pieces. So we had our customer on Friday came in, just called in, did it was walk in and we had both the parts she needed without having to order them. So we’re, we’re really, you know, our goal is to just get everyone on the road with our soft tops, with no tops, with no doors, and truly enjoy their Jeeps in our opinion, the way it was designed and the way, as we call the way nature intended. So people, and correct me on this, I’m just remembering from last time and from going to your website and looking at the stuff, what people can do if they, if they don’t know how to remove their hard top and freedom panels and you guys don’t have any, any limit on the Jeeps, right? I mean, you do TJs all the Wranglers, the modern day ones, I would assume the gladiators as well. So it’s, if you’ve got a Jeep that has a top that can be removed, they can take it to you guys like at the start of summer or whenever they want to do it. And then you guys will store it for them and then they don’t have to worry about keeping it someplace.
Absolutely. And really all there’s think about any version of, of, of that potential customer. And yes, and to your point, I don’t know that we’ve done any YJs yet. I don’t think lots of TJs, lots of beautiful older TJs crank up windows, you know, sticks. We love those the older, the better.
There’s some really cool rigs that come in here, as you can imagine. And of course gladiators.
And then I think you touched on something that I’ll go a little deeper. We also with our installation, people that are new, newly introduced to soft tops, maybe they just bought a, a used Jeep with that came with the dual top group, both soft top and hard top. We also, you know, go to great lengths and really going through and going over the operations of that soft top. So for some people and for actually for most people, if you’re not familiar with even the new amazing super top altruists for jails that were installed on a ton of their, their super easy, easy to operate the, you know, gas shocks, lift assists on the six bow. They’re pretty, there’s no zippers of course, and other such things that were a little more of a challenge for the TJ and YJ owners of years past and even JKs. But we go through the complete operations, including what we call pro tips around what do’s and don’ts, storage of your windows when you’re not using and making sure that they’re taken care of and they can still be usable in years two and three and four from that standpoint. And then we also just to ensure that, you know, that same safe temperature controlled, dry storage, secure storage we have here for their hard tops. We also repurpose that space for winter storage for those soft tops.
So again, we go to great lengths and pack them in craft paper, all the windows, everything’s all nice and neat and stacked, set in an in Iraq and it’s ready for reinstallation that next spring when they, when they return.
So if I remember correctly and you correct me on any of this stuff because I’m going by, by memory and Lord knows if that’s anywhere close. So I got the memory part. So if somebody wants to, they have a hard top set up and winter’s done and you guys are up in the Michigan area, is that correct? No Hopkins, Minnesota. It’s it’s see it’s a state with the letter M in it. So that’s the reason why I got confused. It’s near the Arctic circle. You got to understand. It’s a suburb of Minneapolis. You got to understand I’m in Texas and it takes 12 hours to get out of Texas. So this is the only state that I pay attention to. Sorry. All right. All right. So anyway, so when the snow period ends up there, somebody might want to come by and get rid of their hard top, which is good for winter and maybe get a soft top. And you guys can put a soft top on there for them. That is a rental. Is that correct? That’s correct. Yeah. I would, I would estimate would you see Brandon half of our, of our maybe two thirds of our customers, you know, what’s called a terminal line package, which includes our top removal and storage soft top installation use of that soft top. And then in the fall we repeat. So remove the soft top. We store it, clean it, store it, put it back in inventory. And then we reinstall their nice, sparkly, clean windows, cleaned inside and out. That’s nice. Yeah. So do you guys have to monitor the weather at these two times of the year, like when winter is ending and when winter is coming, coming back? I mean, cause I would think that you potentially could get snow and ice before you anticipate it, or maybe it can go a little longer.
Oh my goodness, Tony, snow and ice. What would he do? Snow and ice, Brandon? No. Brandon, tell me. I’m down here in Southeast Texas, so I’m uneducated when it comes to snow and ice.
So I’m thinking that people use hardtops up there because it’s a problem for soft tops. I don’t know. Maybe it’s not. Soft tops are, they’re way more durable than you think. They don’t have rear window defrosters or rear window wipers, but the new soft tops are, they’re amazing. And they, yeah. And I might even defer to Brandon. You had, I would say two or three days, was that last fall or fall or fall or fall? Yeah. Describe that situation where there’s, well, I think some white stuff on the soft tops that were coming in for fall. Androff. Yeah. So basically like normally our winters will start, let’s say December 1st, we can start expecting snow. Last year we got snow like October 15th. So October 15th, we got dumped on with five, six inches of snow. And then that whole day of services, basically every rig that came in our shop, we ended up having to shovel snow off their soft top, basically. And I mean, I love it. I love the snow. I love playing in the snow. So we were in the shop throwing some snowballs at each other and playing Christmas music, drinking coffee out of the bus. Yeah. Yeah.
So they were, they were embracing it even though it was double the work. And we don’t just take a snow covered soft top and set it up on the racks, Tony. We go to great lengths. Each one of those tops, we obviously the guys cleaned it off from the snow, but then cleaned and dried the windows inside and out. And it was like almost like a day at the beach where you have blankets everywhere that are drying. That was our shop. Everything was laid out. They had fans on everything and we, everything dried out and was all tucked away. But back to your question, soft tops are, and Minnesotans are, they’re pretty hardy folks regarding, you know, we run our, with outdoors and, and you know, marginal top coverage on, on our two bodyators, you know, well into the shoulder seasons and all it requires is a winter jacket, gloves and, and you know, you deal with it. Full blast heater. Yeah. Yeah.
All right. So I was just poking around your, your website, uh, j o i i i o.com.
And I was, I noticed I clicked on accessories because I wanted to see what was going on there. And is this something new that you guys were doing or we did, did we just not talk about it last time? We didn’t talk about it because it didn’t exist. There we go. So, so, so Tony, we have some, we have some months of the year where, um, you know, the hard tops are, are there’s those, those mid, mid summer, where everyone’s into summer mode, they’re not transitioning from fall to spring to fall and vice versa. In the fall there were removing soft tops, adding the hard tops. There’s those winter months where, um, we’re pretty idle and, um, you know, want to keep, want to keep covering, you know, covering our life bills and continue to have revenue coming in. Um, and really by, you know, our customers have learned to really trust us, trust the team, really trust Brandon, um, and caring, you know, going to grade lengths and caring for their vehicles. Um, to add a line of products that are, that are just difficult enough that someone would, would love to have that as an accessory on their vehicle, but they’re really, they’re not inclined to do it on their own, much like installing a soft top and spending eight, nine hours on a Saturday. Um, we’re not doing lifts. We’re not doing exhausts. We’re not balancing wheels and suspensions and those kinds of things. We’re doing, you know, moderately, um, for Brandon, for the, for the, for the tax, not only easy ads that are really cool upgrades. So you know, if you want to talk about Brandon, if you, yeah, one of the most common, uh, things we’re doing right now would be headlights. So we sell Oracle headlights and most of our JK customers, um, the second they hear we’re selling Oracle, like their soul on it. Cause Oracle is such a great brand, obviously super high quality, uh, headlights and just a massive upgrade for all JKs to get a new, new set of projector, led headlights in there. Um, so yeah, we do that and we do Baja designs fog light upgrades. Um, just super cool. We put it on both of our rigs and what a huge difference that makes from the OEM lights that are on the Rubicon’s for sure. Yeah. Massive upgrades.
One of our favorites would be the grill lights. So we got Oracle grill lights, um, that we’re doing now, which are like pre-runner style, um, just the Amber led in there and just add some really cool character to the Jeep. And I don’t know, we really like those. I like the look of those and, um, yeah, we recommend them. They’re sweet. How about the Oracle tail lights?
Oh, the flush mounted or those are so nice. Yeah. And just, just, and that’s the cool thing about Jeeps. You can really, you know, there, there’s not a Jeep that we get and we’ve done 117 services this year so far. And I can tell you that like none of them look exactly alike, same packages, same colors, but they all have their own little uniqueness. It’s different, something on the bumper, on the rear tail lights, you know, different running boards, which we’re doing go Rhino running boards, which have been, you know, so far pretty popular as well. Um, so yeah, it’s fun to really, and people get like, we, we just installed a Sunrider, best top Sunrider top earlier today. And our customer was just, she was just beyond thrilled. Oh sure. Just to have the ability to flip that thing back whenever you want to. It’s very nice. Yeah. She was just, she couldn’t hold her. And our customers is so funny. Like our customers are typically never, ever late. They’re always early because they’re so excited to get their hard top off and get their soft top installed that they’re always, Oh, I came a little early, you know, and they’re, and they just love, love being here and love seeing the transformation that happens in their, in their, their Jeeps. So is there ever a situation where somebody comes in, has their, their hardtop removed and they, they drive away naked. They don’t have a soft top or anything on it. They’re, they’re trusting nature enough or their ability to dry things off.
Oh yeah. Yeah. For sure. I mean, I think we have, we have a fair amount of customers that that’s their summer ride and they, you know, they roll around. And as we know, anyone’s had Jeeps before and you get stuck in the rain, maybe you got a couple of garbage bags in your glove box. That’s what I used to do with my TJ and you just put the seat forward, throw the plastic bag on it. You’re good to go for a while. Make sure your drain plug, your drains are pulled.
But I think some people, you know, there’s, there’s a variation of customers that obviously a lot of them want to need to have some protection or bikini or what have you. But it’s funny too.
Like some of our customers describe it, they come in, they might store their hardtop at home, but they don’t want to deal with their soft top. That’s above their, their comfort level. So there’s, there’s some people dressed up like Eskimos coming in with their tops in for a service. Wouldn’t you agree? Yeah, for sure. Even last fall we had people coming in when it was snowing out with no top on just to come get their hardtop. Minnesota’s we’re hardos up here, but we love it. So do you guys have any cameras set up like security cameras or something that may, may be a good, a good way to catch some video? I think people driving up in the snow would be a cool Instagram video. Well, we, well, we, we post a lot. I don’t know. I think, I know you follow us on Instagram, but we have a huge, beautiful. Jeep wave mural. Oh yes. Absolutely.
All the rigs sit there and that’s where we, we pull them around. Our customers come in. We do, we do pictures with, with, with the customer with their rig. And we usually tag them, but yeah, there’s, there’s been varying scenarios of snow and rain and, but we prefer blue sky, beautiful days. Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s Jeep and weather for a lot of people. Of course, when it gets a, when it starts flooding down here in Southeast Texas, I call that great Jeep weather too, because you have a vehicle that can go and do things that then the little forewinners can’t do.
So getting back to the, the accessories you have here, I see a toughie security products I can well imagine having a lockable storage center console is, is, is probably a big item for you guys.
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And you know, you’re open air and your, your top is down and you know, obviously people have valuables. And I think that’s a, that’s an amazing solution and they do some rear seat boxes that we have, like we have one in one in the, the OG that we, we installed a while ago, but yeah, those, those seem to be pretty popular as well. Those are bomb proof and really a nice, nice solution for people looking to secure their, their, their valued goods. Now, is it specific accessories from these companies or is it anything that, that they offer? What would you say? I mean, we want to do basically anything they offer.
Each, each product will come with its own boat basically for time and everything. But yeah, I mean, ideally we want, we want to install everything that these companies offer. We’re a little limited with our like equipment we have. So yeah, in the future, we want to get to the point where we’re doing everything they offer pretty much. So we’re making, making steps towards that. So don’t order, I’d always say it wrong. Is it elephant, elephant, don’t order a himmy and ship it to the, that not kind of kind of design, but figure it out, man. I’ll figure it out. Yeah. That’s, and that’s, that’s the way I do it too. So anyway, the, the companies that you have listed on your site, you mentioned a couple of these Baja designs, Oracle, go Rhino, WeatherTech, Bedrug, Tuffy, Mopar, I guess Mopar is the OEM extreme recon package, fender flare extension. I don’t know if you have, if you do other Mopar accessories, like I think I found out recently that, um, um, RockSlide engineering has partnered, partnered up with, uh, with Jeep and, uh, I could see you guys maybe doing some, uh, some RockSliders with the dropdown for, for customers. I don’t know if you’ve, you’ve heard about this or done any of this. We haven’t, but I’ve, I’ve heard of them, but I just, I really didn’t. I didn’t know that they were connected or correlated. Yeah, I didn’t either. I recently, I did a, an interview with Tanner, a RockSlide engineering out at EJS and he pointed out the new logo and it wasn’t until I was editing the video just the other day that has a big Jeep where they used to have the star for the RockSlide engineering and then I went, Oh, okay. And then I did some checking around and now they’re part of the Jeep performance parts stuff. So I saw your Mopar and thought that that might be something that you guys are doing. And if you don’t know, great. I told you, maybe you can start pushing that because I think that’s, I think those things are fairly easy to install and, uh, um, a great product to be able to put on a Jeep for people. Uh, people like steps. Do you guys ever, uh, uh, talk to people about the steps that hang down all the time, the ones that hang down all the time or when you open the door and hit you in the shin? No, they hang down all the time. They’re driving around in a Jeep, a lifted Jeep, and they have this six inches or seven inches of drop metal. That’s good for kitchens. Thanks.
I think to reach his or her own. Absolutely. But I mean, I like cautioning people about that. You know, why have an off-road Jeep? If you’re not taking it off road, just to limit yourself. Uh, much lifted. It’s it would be, uh, end up being trailer. Um, in a lot of cases, we do have some of our customers that’s sometimes I think some, some female customers. And I know there’s men that are sometimes a little shorter, but our female petite customers, a few of them have a little steps, steps to move in their back of their Jeep. Oh yeah. You get the little folding thing, 20 bucks and put some, put some rope on that thing and now you can just, you know, hold on the rope, get up in there, pull the thing up and then same thing for getting out. Yeah. Uh, my wife has one of those for her TJ with a four inch lift on it, uh, for, uh, for our neighbor, uh, which is, I think it’s so funny. My wife has no problem getting in and out of her TJ. Uh, but anyway, there’s a shout out to my mom who’s 87 who gets in and out of, uh, our gladiator with 37s on it and two inch lift, um, rock rails, no sidestep. And she just, she just wheels over grabs, grabs the handle and shimmy. I tried to help her. She goes, I got it. I love that. I was hoping that’s what you were going to say. Maybe, maybe slap your hand. Get away from me.
Don’t you worry. I can, I can get in this thing. Yeah. So, uh, rough country and, uh, rugged Ridge to, uh, wind up the, the list there. Do you guys have any other companies that you guys are doing with? Is that, uh, that’s at the entire list? Yeah, that’s it for now. Really, you know, Tony, we really try to start, I mean, Really important to us is that everything we do, we want to do it with, with excellence. Uh, you know, we really kind of, even with the services we’re doing today and, you know, in the, in the, in the soft top world, your world is, is a, is a, isn’t it is a, is an element that we, we grew into, right? So year one, the SARS service packages were pretty limited based on what we thought was going to be in popular, but it also was based on what we knew we could do well. We could execute consistently well for our customers. And we, we developed and added new packages in year two and then year three where we’ve added quite a few new packages and then adding accessors. We felt like we’ve gotten the other components of our business to a place where we can really, you know, execute every experience consistently, safely managing timelines and, um, just ensuring that we’re doing a really good complete job for our customers. And we really, that’s, that’s the model we’re going to continue to follow as long as, oh, you have to, you have to be consistent and you don’t want to take something on, uh, that somebody is not going to be happy with. Uh, nobody wants a bad Yelp review. Um, but, uh, but I think it’s a great idea. I’m sorry. We’re not, I mean, God bless Yelp and Google reviews. Those are really critical to business that’s growing and existence anywhere. But like, what really motivates us is that we, like, it’s our, it’s our own commitment to our, ourselves and our customers trust us so much that losing, like disappointing, like, well, I’m lucky. I’m fortunate to say, I can’t think of any experience we’ve had in three years where I’ve had to look at customer in the eye and say, Oh, I’m so sorry. Like failing them, you know, and we want to keep going down that, that road and continue to be, you know, some, I always thought that, and I hate to say it. I was like, gosh, and you’re one, like we had some extra R and D hardtops, one for JK Ford, our one for jail for door. And I was just kept them on here in case something happened to one of our customers, hardtops. Of course. We would have one that they would not go without. Yeah. I mean, you could immediately fix the problem and that’s the customer service. It might not color match or whatever, but I’ve got a, an operational solution for you to get you taken care of. And thank goodness.
You know, we, we really go to great lengths and stress the importance that even if we’ve got customers that might’ve come in a little late and someone show up early or someone just walked in, like if our schedule gets a little tight, like the, the timelines and the precision and the process is unchanged. And we’re always going to continue to follow that. And we’ve got enough, uh, means with additional resources that we can make it happen, but like I said, it’s like doing an excellent job and our commitment to excellence is, is foremost for us. And that’s Brandon, when he trains and new people. And the good thing is we don’t have a lot of new people because we continue to be blessed with people coming back every year, but just, you know, everybody knows that if, if, if the screws feel like it’s going to cross thread, it’s, we’re backing it out. We’re going to replace that screw, replace it fitting, like don’t force stuff because we, we’ve got tools that could, could force and, and, and wreck things. Well, you know what they, you know, what they call a cross threading a bolt or a screw, right? That’s nature’s lock tight. Yeah. And guess what? That’s our, that’s our, guess what?
Nature has to get it out.
It’s so embarrassing whenever they cut the power off. Cause you didn’t pay the bill.
There’s, there’s motion activation. I know. I’m just making a joke. Yeah. Resourceful non-renewable resources. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So now this may be new for this, for this, this interview as well. I’m not sure, but plans and pricing, I’d like to give people an idea. Of course they can go to the website, joiiio.com and see these, but maybe there’s some plans that you guys would like to talk about. I mean, feel free to talk about all of them, but maybe there’s the plans that most people get or the ones you guys recommend.
I don’t Brandon, why don’t you, why don’t you go through, I’ve asked a question that Ken can’t answer.
Brandon Brandon handles our inbox and he books the books and schedules and everything. And I want to, he’s coming to give him some, some, some of my time. Yeah.
So one thing that we’re like super happy to have as a package this year is our signature package. So basically for 3000 bucks, we will, you’ll, we’ll sell you a brand new best-top super top ultra or trek top ultra, which is valued at 2,500 bucks.
And then in that $3,000 package, we will also install it, remove your hard top, store the hard top, and then do the fall swap as well.
So yeah, for now, much more than you would pay just for a super top ultra. We’ll also do your hard top and everything that goes along with that.
And aside from that package alone, we’re this year just now offering free install on any soft top purchase through us, which we’re also really excited to be able to offer that because yeah, we get a bunch of people interested in soft tops. And then once we, once we tell them it’s a free install, they’re like, sure. Oh, I can have what I want and I don’t have to install it. And I don’t have to lay it out in the sun so I can put the damn thing on. Yeah.
We save them four to four plus hours of work and yeah, we just include it in, in the purchase of a soft top. That’s great.
And really, oh, for a second. And we really, you know, when in year one, that was not a package. It was not even complicated, contemplated. In fact, I talk, people would ask about it. I like, oh, no, you want a Timberline package where it includes all the branding described, but it at least the top. But there’s a lot of people, a lot of customers out there that want to buy a top and any, anyone,
anyone who knows has ever installed a soft top regardless of your core competencies. It’s a lot of work and it takes a lot of time. Oh, the first time. It’s like trying to figure the damn thing out. You know, on the TJ, I didn’t know to hook the side. I had the, we got the, the best top. I think it’s NX Trek top for the TJ. And when I installed it, I didn’t know that those, the bottom of the side panels had to be hooked under this little, that lip that was on the top. And I’m driving around with that thing and I’m going, why is this, this is noisy. Why is this like this? You know? And I mean, I always could have read the instructions, but who’s got time for that?
Just take it to the professionals. No offense, Tony. It’s obvious you’re not platinum certified. Yeah. No, you, do you want to talk a little more about some of the other, yeah, yeah. Just packages. Another package we have is our Timberline package, um, which is renting a soft top. So basically we will remove and store your hard top for you. And then we’ll lease you a best top super top or Trek top ultra. Um, which is the other highest end top. Um, and that package is 1400 bucks, 1399. Um, so yeah, that’s basically just like,
the customer wants no hassle, no nothing, like not even have to think about owning the top or swapping their hard top, soft top, whatever that this is the package for them. Cause we could just handle everything. They don’t have to worry about installing anything like that. And we just rent them a top for the summer and then we do the false swap as well.
So I could see somebody coming in and trying the thing out and getting a soft top, buying one of the packages. And then, uh, then they, or maybe they say that, or maybe they come back next year and go, you know what, I’d like to have my own soft top. They get the package for the soft top. You’re storing their hard top. And then now they don’t have to rent a soft top. They can just go back and forth and you guys just switch them out and they don’t have to store anything. Um, so yeah, so I could see that’s, that’s a really good overall plan. That way people don’t actually have to do anything except enjoy their Jeep. They’re not working on the tops.
Exactly. And enjoy your Jeep. Right. So, uh, is it now, do you have a package for people that are like that where they have the soft and the hard? Yeah. Yeah. That’d be our frontier package. Um, and that one’s priced at 799. Um, and yeah, that’s basically just hard top removal and storage. And then we install your soft top for you. And then we do the false swap as well. Um, and with all these packages, we do a full tutorial on your top. So we’ll, we’ll spend 20 minutes like teaching you how to use it, teaching how to do the windows. We’ll give all our pro tips on it and everything. Um, cause yeah, customers when they have confidence and how the top works and functions and easiest ways to, uh, fold it back and do the windows and everything, if they have that confidence, they’ll use the top more. And also you’re, you’re trying, you’re doing more getting more trust from the customer because you’re teaching them. It’s not, I’m going to keep this from you so that you can come back. We’re going to, we’re going to teach you and we’re still here available, uh, to assist you with the rest of the stuff. So do you guys, do you guys also do top cleaning or instruct people on how to do the, the, the, the soft top cleaning? Because those can get really nasty over time. Right. Do I have, yes. Well, I got this one. So absolutely. So first and foremost, when we, when we, when a customer comes in in the fall, that top often, like there’s, um, would, uh, on it snow, there’s leaves, there’s dirt, there’s people live on gravel roads, all those other things. Um, we, we, we have, we have kind of a patented secret sauce that we use to clean the top secret sauce. And we have, yeah, we have a couple different versions of secret sauce and we, um, clean the windows, um, with a microfiber towel inside and out, um, make sure that we, again, when we put them away, nice flat surface, we put craft paper in between the, the, the, the actual quarter windows and rear windows as well. So yeah, that’s, there’s a putting tops are expensive and they’re durable, but they last a lot longer and they look a lot better if you maintain them. And we sure help people do those kinds of things. We tell them, you know, do’s and don’ts about, um, how to clean their windows, how to store the windows during the summer. Um, and then like Brandon said, the pro tips around just, you know, elevations on your vehicle, when it’s in sunrider mode, making sure that you’re, um, re raising and lowering your top from the rear and locking out the rear, lifting arms properly and unlocking them properly and in unison, making sure that they get a lot more aware out of their top. And then really just familiarization with how to use their top. Cause that’s really the goal. If someone’s intimidated by their soft top, which happens, they’re expensive and you don’t want to damage them. Do you also tell them that there’s a, uh, a certain speed? I mean, I think you would need to be, you should be stopped, but sometimes people may be flipping these things. These sunrider was back at 50 miles an hour and learning the hard way. So I was assuming you guys instruct them on that as well. Yeah. Grad low garage doors. People forget they’re on there and bicycles when they’re carrying them on top of other vehicles. Back to really familiarization. Like I said, that is so such an important part of the experience you have here at Zoya, really at Zoya being, being just familiar with how to use your top, how to safely maintain it and those kinds of things. And we, even the spring had a customer that was in year two or year three, he was a repeat customer. And he mentioned as he was, you know, getting ready to drive away, like, yeah, I really never take the rear windows out. It just seems like a, and we’re like, well, hold that thought. Do you get 10 more minutes? Next, you know, we had blankets on the ground and we’re pulling windows out and we’re showing them how, and really our goal is to make sure that people use their tops, their soft tops and really get to enjoy their summers. Yeah, absolutely. And the, uh, well, first off, was there any other packages you want to talk about before I go onto this next thing? No, I, I think that’s it. We’ve also been like, like I mentioned, we’re doing a fair amount of repairs, broken parts and, you know, use tops of people purchase that they have a, they have no idea even what part goes where and what’s missing. Um, but we’ve also been, Brandon’s been quite the magic man when it comes to sticky doors,
sticky Jeep doors that, uh, that takes three people to open and close. And heaven, heaven forbid people wanting to, uh, take their door off, which is not an, so Brandon’s got superpowers. And he is a, I would call him the door whisperer. He can get the door off. Um, we have a, uh, I would say some more secret operational sauce that’s behind the scenes that we, we clean out the male and female ends of the door and the, and the hand, the, the, the, the, they can get stuck in there sometimes. Absolutely. Oh my goodness. They do. Yes. And, uh, like just the ease in which the door swings when we’re done and cleaning everything out, sanding, lubricating, and, uh, getting the customers back. People noticed that too, because now it feels more solid. It feels more like it did whenever they first got it, if they got it. So that’s real good. Um, so the thing I was going to ask you about, which I thought was really cool. We talked about this last time. I’m almost certain, um, mobile installation. You don’t even have to go to the, to the shop to get this stuff done.
No, not at all. And I’m gonna let Brandon describe that a little more in detail, cause he, he, he always hogs the mobile, the mobile like the guys love doing mobile services. Um, especially this time, even now, even when it’s nasty, you guys like doing mobile service. So tell him, and maybe you might even describe one of the services that you did this week in that apartment with the ground. Oh my goodness. Um, yeah. So these mobile services, like we have this beautiful gladiator right here. Um, it’s outfitted with a bed rack. It’s custom fabricated and we can basically transport a hardtop, um, to and from our shop to the customer’s house or apartment or wherever they’re at. Right. Um, and aside from that, like we pack, pack all our tools up with us, pack a soft top with us. If, uh, if the customer is doing a soft top as well. Um, and yeah, we basically just take a field trip to the customer’s house or apartment and then swap their tops and bring them back their hardtop to our, to our location. She, that’s sweet. I mean, good Lord. All you have to do is wake up. Uh, you don’t have to do anything. Not even that you don’t even have to walk up. Um, but yeah, and then this week we had one where basically the customer had, she lived on the fifth floor of an apartment and she had a little storage room basically on the fifth floor. So luckily she had a Bronco top and it was a small, basically the smallest Bronco top you can have basically. Um, and we basically brought it up the elevator up into her storage area. And I never expected to be carrying any hardtop through an apartment hallway, but it happened. And I guess, I bet you guys some interesting looks, especially on the elevator.
I sent Ken the picture right away and he was like, Oh my God.
Like you don’t expect to see a hard time on the fifth floor. We are, yes, man. I joy. Oh, like we want to, whatever the customer wants. Like we want to get it done. We want to do whatever it takes to obviously gain their trust, but help them out and get them ready for summer and anything they need pretty much. We, we want to make it happen. And we, we, we, we hit zero walls with that hardtop. I wasn’t going to ask. I was thinking it, but I wasn’t going to ask. So let me, so this, this ad mobile installation, and then I think that’s the click, the key part here. It’s a two 99. And I would assume that that means that if you, you have a soft top, you have a hardtop, you’re storing, but maybe the hardtop, uh, at your facility. And for, for 300 bucks, you bring the heart, their hardtop out to them, collect their soft top and then either they store it or you bring it back to your facility and store it. So they literally, all they have to do is call and schedule a mobile installation. And they don’t even have to leave their, their house, their apartment.
Exactly. Yeah. There’s variations to where someone, we’ve had customers that they ordered a top from best top and they said, you know, we unbox it, get it ready for installation. And they go, holy crap. Where did I get myself into? Yeah.
And we’ve also, we’ve had customers, I think last year we had a, we had a very nice lady called and said,
and I might screw up the quote, but the gist is correct. And that my husband and my son are right now in my driveway trying to attempt to install a soft top. And I need your help. Like now. So did they know she was calling you? I suspect this was a, yeah.
And on mobile services, like I always love, like we always take bets. Like we know it’s, we know what year it is. We know it’s a jail. We know it’s a two door, four door, but we’re always, we bet on like, what color is it? Or what is it? A Rubicon package or Willie? What is it? And then there’s also the variables of like, okay, we’re like, if we’re in a store, they’re hard top onsite. Where’s that going to be? Is like, there’s always some cool, fun variables that like we, we always come back smiles on our faces and our customers are happy, but there’s some, some hurdles sometimes with the variables exist. Some customers just don’t understand the, they, they assume what could be easy is not, but we, we do everything. We can just make it look easy. Right. So, so Brandon, um, I want to ask you this and keep in mind you’re sitting next to the boss. What is the most interesting, uh, request that you’ve had from a customer?
I mean, it’s a, it’s a family show. So as long as you don’t use the, the, the, the, the full, uh, whole milk words, it’s okay.
I’d say, I mean, it has to be that apartment.
That has to be number one. No, I mean, aside from that, I can see some cute girls coming up there and saying, can you help me with my top? I’m trying to get it off, you know, and, and doing all these things. Yeah, that doesn’t happen. Luckily. Um, but, uh, just showing up at mobiles to random scenarios. Cause like, you really don’t know what’s happening. Like the other day we went to, uh, someone’s barn and they were like, cause they just said, all right, I’d like my hardtop on the ceiling, but they didn’t have anything mounted to put it on the ceiling. So we basically had some eyebolts. Um, and we had like a short window to get back to the shop for the next service. And I, I looked at Nick was with me and I was like, Nick, we’re doing this. Let’s go. So we just got the ladders out, got on the ceiling, got the eyebolts in there, got the ropes and everything all connected. And then we got it. We were basically, we had that thing hung on the ceiling within 22 minutes or something. So we had a half an hour to get out of there to leave for the next service. And we got it all wrapped up in 22 minutes. Um, but yeah, definitely unknown circumstances like that, where you just don’t know what you’re showing up to. And then, yeah, I mean, I’ll, I’ll be real honest, Ken, if somebody was asking me to do that, I’d go, I like, we can’t do that. We don’t have the time for that. And, uh, and also too, I’d be concerned about it dropping, especially with their, their, their own provided equipment. I’m sure you looked at it Brandon and you figured it was safe. Uh, but I mean, that’s really going above and beyond. That’s really nice. I basically had, I looked at the eyebolts she had and the rope system she had. And I was like, like, I had seen that, used that at my parents’ house and my house and stuff. And, um, I just knew, with the circumstances that it would work because I’ve done it before, I guess. Um, so now she’s got to call you back to get it down, right?
Exactly. The time’s easy.
Yeah. In one piece though. So, uh, let me, let me ask you this. Now we’ve, we’ve talked about the packages, we’ve talked about the service. I’m sure we’ve missed something, but, um, how do you start this process? I mean, where, uh, what’s your area, your service area? Uh, and, and then how do you actually start the process? I mean, going to the website I would think would be one way, but I, do you get calls on the phone? Do you have a form that people fill out online? What, how do they, how do they start the service, uh, to get, to get this thing done? They’re, they’re sold. They want to start.
I think all of the above it. I’m going to defer to Brandon again.
Yeah. We have an awesome marketing team that, um, has ads out on Instagram and Facebook and everything. So we get a lot of traffic through that. Um, so they’re clicking through to our website and then once they get to our website, they can either fill out a form to request like an a la carte service or just request to learn more about our business. Um, or they can just straight up book a service right there on the website. They can pick the package, they can pick the time, they can add that mobile service on there. Um, and then once they book through the website, we get the info of what year Jeep they have, if it’s a four door, two door, um, all that good stuff. We don’t get the color of it, but, um, yeah. So basically they can book through the website. They can call us or they can fill out a form on a website. Um, and things like our ducks, they can scan right through on the QR code. So that takes them like right to the, right to the packages page on a website. So they can, yeah, basically click through the website. You can book on the website. You can pay on the website if you’d like, or you can, yeah, or you can call exactly. Um, and they can call, they could call our email or, uh, probably, maybe there’s a way to chat online and they can, if they have any questions about the service, people like checking things out or maybe talking to somebody fast. Yeah. And I think we found it more, more the case in year one, Tony, now that people, you know, now if you do a Google search, we pop up right away. But in year one and in the year two, really these services didn’t exist. So there just wasn’t enough generation lead generation to make that happen. We also have a fair amount of people that come in, like, you know, they’ll, I can hear them, you know, chat on the phone with Brandon and they have a ton of questions, Brandon answering all the questions, but they come in and we’ve got displays that, you know, show the, about all the best top products. We have fabric samples, we have catalogs, and I think there’s a fair amount of customers that want to just want to see where the heck is my art. Well, you want to see, make sure this isn’t some barn, uh, all dusty, nasty barn where my stuff is going to be stored.
Exactly.
Once they come in there, they’re like, Oh my gosh, this is great. Yeah, absolutely. I can well imagine that, but I can understand why somebody would want to have some idea of what, who they’re dealing with. So let me ask you this. I’m sure it depends on how busy you are, but generally speaking, uh, when you, when you book something, whether you’re coming in or mobile service, uh, how long is it from book to actually have getting it done?
Oh, as far as like lead times. Yeah. Lead time. Yeah. If you don’t mind. So, so people, um, Minnesota is as hardy as we are. We live and die by weather and forecast and such. So we find that when there’s really warm weather windows, that things get booked up pretty quickly.
But we tend to, we roll, we don’t stress out that like, for example, the week after next is pretty wide open, but next week is starting to fill up and that just is what happens. Right? So it’s about a five to seven day average booking, uh, window we found and that’s been consistent from year one. Yeah. So it gives people a good idea. And I just got to mention really quick. I know that, uh, you haven’t been at this for, you know, 10, 20 years. You gotta be excited when you can say, Oh, that week is full.
Cause cause that means you’re making payroll and keeping the lights on and everything else. Yeah. So I’m glad to hear that it has, it’s been growing for you. Um, you know, we’re flexible too. Like we, like if people are really, if you can just sense on the phone, they’re so excited. We’re like, gosh, you know, and our services, we used to, for example, the Timberline package, which Brandon describes a hardtop removal and they, we install a least soft top for them. You know, we were doing like hour and a half, two hours, year one, and now we’re down to like an hour, a few hour window. Um, so we’re able to do more handle more customers during those peak times. And we’re also flexible around seeing a little later or start a little earlier to just make sure that we, they can realize their,
their weekend fun and get them, get them on the road with soft top on. So you mentioned the customers getting really excited and they want to get the, the top on or off or whatever. I’m thinking of another way that you could really excite them. And I think you’ll like this idea cause it doesn’t cost a thing. You tell them, do you know that there’s a Jeep show that you can listen to while you’re in your Jeep?
Shameless plug.
When you get this up on YouTube, we’ll definitely, we play Jeep YouTube videos all day, every day, overlanding. Oh, it’s a good idea.
And you know that this will be in our playlist. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that’s great. All right. So we mentioned a little bit about the social media earlier, uh, Instagram, but working, uh, where, you know, the kids love the social media. They live and die by social media these days. Where can they find you guys? And adults, Tony, like social media. I like it. I don’t understand the question as much as the other folks do. Where can they find you on social media?
Yeah. At joyo.mn. J O I I O dot M N is our, uh, handle for Instagram and for Tik TOK. And then we also have a Facebook page as well. You can just search and joyo and we’ll come up there. Oh, and did you, did you say what your service area was? Cause that, that was the thing that I noticed earlier. Um, we’re, we’re typically the seven County metropolitan area of Minnesota as, as a crow flies, we’re calling it a, um, from a mobile standpoint, we’re 50, 50 to 75 mile range. We’ve, we’ve gone as far as Duluth to, we did a follow up for a customer that came in and there was some circumstances that didn’t that required a second service for her. And, uh, who’s in year three with us, by the way, that was year one, that Brandon went up there on a, on a Monday morning and, and did a, did a follow up with, with her. But you know, if, if, if the schedule will allow it, we’ve done services down by Rochester, which is like 80 miles, 90 miles away. We did a mobile. In fact, had to do a repeat cause there was an issue with some damage to the top. So, um, but typically the Minneapolis, St. Paul metropolitan area, 50 mile radius. That gives all our listeners that are in that area or maybe want to drive to that area. Maybe it’s all on their route or something where they can reach out and schedule this. I think this is really cool. Uh, oh, I’m sorry. I got one more question. I can’t remember. I think we talked about this on the last interview we did, Ken, um, about you branching out and getting to more locations. And I can’t remember what you said, if that was something that you were thinking about doing or you said, hell no, never mentioned it again. And I’m screwing up. Uh,
I was somewhere in between. I’m still there. So what we’re doing, well, we’re finding that, you know, it takes, it took longer for us to create and generate awareness and in the Minneapolis market. And it’s just, we’re, we’re just pinching ourselves this year with the amount of just word of mouth, the, the, the organic searches, Google searches that are, that are leads for us, just the lead generation from dealers, accessory, mod shops and such, and just like the Jeep groups and communities, social and web, you know, web-based communities. So to answer your question, we were getting, like, we’re gonna, we’re going to be super happy at the end of this year from a profit and loss standpoint. And from there, then we, then we’ll decide what’s next. Sure. You know, do we, do we continue to, you know, go down the path of expanding our accessory business revenue stream, you know, cause it’s, it’s small and not really, I would call it super meaningful yet, but it’s,
we think in, you know, at the end of the end of this year, it could rival, you know, 40% of year one revenues for just joyal services. So I think there’s, there’s a lot of things we want to consider. We also really love our partnership at Bestop and we’re really starting, I really enjoy some of the dealer partnerships we have and definitely would be interesting to see what like a, a contractual relationship with some of those parties might be where we could really help each other out and service their customers in a way that they’re not able to and kind of bridge the gaps with some of the gaps, bridge the gaps to some of the things that, that they can’t provide for their customers. So I could see people getting really excited about this. And then, you know, we, we just talked about the service area and now they’re a little, aww. So that’s the reason why I was asking about, you know, moving out to further more places where people could get this service. So, it’ll happen when it happens. It’s definitely in our launch, our five year plan, I would say. It’s a part of our five year plan. Yeah. So keep listing. You’ll hear it here. I’m sure on the show, we’ll be talking about it. Ken will probably say, Hey, I need to get back on the show. I got to tell him about this new location that we’re, that we’re opening. Guys, thank you so much for being here with us. A great interview. And we don’t normally do two guest interviews and I thought this worked out very well. So yeah, absolutely. So thank you very much for being here. And again, Ken, you guys come back anytime you got something that you want to talk about, or we can remind the folks about the great service and company that you have. It’s a privilege, Tony. Thank you so much. It’s great to reconnect with you and talk about Jeeps, talk about our business. Thank you so much. Hey, if you missed it, we have announced a winner for the G tops giveaway. It was Anthony, also known as Tony Bitten on our discord server. Jump over the discord server and give Tony a hard time.
This doesn’t keep you from getting your own G tops for your J K J L or J T. Go to G tops.com and purchase a set today. That’s J E E T O P S.com. You know, while you’re there, have a look at the panoramic G top for the hardtop. So you can actually get something goes all the way across the back hardtop. So even your passengers can get the thrill of seeing up and out of the Jeep and that beloved back seat. You know, I have a set of freedom panels on the 21 2021 Jeep talk show gladiator, and eventually I will be getting that parrot panoramic rear top as well. Solid, beautiful, and so unique for an off-road vehicle.
Hey, thanks again to Ken at J O I I O.com. I’ll risk it. Just enjoy. Oh, I was still nervous. A great business of making it easy. And in some cases possible for people to use their Jeeps the way they were meant to be used topless. Hey, coming up next week, Randy of progressive suspension, progressive suspension.com. Check out that website. These are some really cool shocks that Randy talks about in his interview. And you know, he actually had some out on display for the, the, the YouTube audience that we have. Yes, we’re on YouTube. If you, if you aren’t aware, I guess I need to talk about it more. I just assume everybody knows everything that’s going on with the Jeep talk show. There’s quite a bit. And YouTube is one of those things. I would say for the last three or four months, maybe longer, every episode has been available on YouTube. And I’m not talking about a static image. I mean, moving people, uh, uh, clips, all kinds of things that are there in our YouTube videos. So, so check it out. Just go to youtube.com and do a search for Jeep talk show.
All right. That’s a wrap for today’s episode of the Jeep talk show. And I want to give a big thank you to our special guests for joining us today. Remember we have five episodes a week and it’s understandable. If you may have missed past episodes, that’s a lot of episodes. We work hard here on the show to give you great content five days a week. You know, you can always find us in every episode on your favorite podcast platform or on our website, Jeep talk show.com with over a thousand episodes. There is plenty of Jeep talk show to entertain you while driving to your destination, working out at the gym, mowing the grass, improve your day by listening to more Jeep talk show. I, you know, I can’t help but think that mowing the grass, especially in the summer, it’s hot, it’s miserable. Uh, you’re getting something done, which is good. Getting out and taking care of the yard. But my God, uh, have a little entertainment while you’re doing it. Listen to the show. I think it’ll make it better from you. If you mow the grass and listen to the show, uh, call in, send us an email, um, let us know and let us know what it makes your mowing of the yard better or worse. You know, we love hearing from you. Reach out to us via email, uh, phone or social media. We use your voicemails on the show.
So until next time, keep on jeeping and we’ll see you on the trails. Oh, Fridays are red. Remember everyone deployed. Broadcasting since 2010.
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