Today we’d like to introduce you to Raul Baray.
Raul, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Growing up into my teenage years, wondering and trying to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up, I always knew I didn’t want to fall into an 8-5 job where I was doing the same thing day after day. I never thought of that as being a bad thing, but I’m a very impatient person and I knew that kind of routine would not work for me.
I landed my first official job at the age of 18, as a car salesman at a dodge dealership in Richardson, TX. At the time, my sales and customer skills where non- existent and after just a few weeks I had to quit in disappointment.
From there, I went on to work for a remodeling company that was also located in Richardson, TX.
This company specialized in light remodeling for apartment complexes. My job there was resurfacing countertops and bathtubs, they trained me for 2 weeks and I quickly picked up on something that at the time I enjoyed doing. Unfortunately, after about 4 months I found that the job had become routine and I was no longer satisfied with the pay. I turned in my notice and once again parted ways from another job.
I then went on to work for a highway construction company based out of Roanoke, TX. The 6-8 man Group that I was part of was in charge of removing and re-installing highway guardrail through-out the entire state of TX. This was a fun job where I was making decent money and developed manual labor skills. A little over a year after starting my job there, the company faced financial problems and shortly after had to shut down its doors, I was once again in the search of what to do next.
At this point, I was almost 21 and decided that I wanted to take on the challenge of being one’s own boss and with my savings, I invested in buying a few things to start a handyman- like service.
I started by advertising on craigslist and started landing a few jobs, the first few years where very rough and unpredictable with lots of ups and downs, but I managed to hold through it and after about 3 years my remodeling company had grown to a more stable and steady company. By this time my company had become a specialty company where we built outdoor patio structures such as cedar covered patios, arbors and pergolas. Throughout the years of having this business I slowly perfected my sales and customer service skills and became very well connected with my customers.
The transmission shop idea came to me in 2015 at the age of 25. My dad has been a transmission tech for over 20 years and had worked for big name transmission shops all of that time, after many talks and planning, we decided to give it a shot and open up our own transmission shop. We took on the challenge without any loans and started from the bottom, buying additional shop equipment as we grew. When I opened up the shop my marketing and customer service skills where very refined thanks to the experience gained from my previous business, so I had no trouble bringing steady business through the door almost as soon as we opened up for business. Our business model is based on top quality work at fair pricing and honesty, we’ve come a long way and have become very well known in very little time thanks to great customers that have taken care of us.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Every business has its owns set of problems and struggles, and this is no exception. But, considering the scale and type of business that we are in, I think it has been a fairly smooth ride thus far.
I think the biggest challenge in the beginning was trying to keep up with how fast the business was taking off the ground.
I refined my marketing, sales, and customer skills very well over many years of owning my previous construction company, so getting customers through our doors has never been a problem. The real challenge was keeping up with as much work as we were getting, before the grand opening our expectation for the business was a steady climb where we would adjust to the business as it grew. Instead we were overwhelmed with more work than our shop could handle due to limited shop equipment and staff, a very good problem to have, but also very stressful due to tight deadlines and timely repairs.
We opened up our shop with just one lift, but quickly installed 2 more and shortly after another 2 for a total of 5.
Over a short period of time, We were able to acquire miscellaneous shop equipment of different sorts to maximize the quality and efficiency of our jobs.
Hands down, the biggest challenge we had was finding the right people, before we had the team that we do now, me and my dad spent many weekdays working from early morning to 10-11pm at night just trying to keep up with the workload that we had. In the beginning many people came and went, but now we have an experienced team where everyone knows what they are doing and takes pride in it.
Please tell us about TX Transmission Repair.
TX Transmission Repair’s foundation is honesty and integrity. We take pride in being and honest shop, that performs top quality repairs at fair prices, our business model is “upfront pricing without any surprises” and our customers have shown how much they appreciate that by referring and recommending us to others, they have taken good care of us.
I’m proud of how much we’ve grown in so little time, I’m proud of our hard working team and thankful of our customers who have helped us get to where we are now. I’m confident that with the support of our growing customer base we will continue to grow and expand our business. It feels good to know that in an industry as difficult as transmission repair, we have managed to achieve such a high success and satisfaction rating. Our main source of revenue and main focus is the general public, but we also welcome the occasional business that we get from companies such as Dallas Habitat for Humanity, LBJ Express, & other companies that operate within love field airport, we are proud to say that even Jerry Jones’ personal pilot is our customer here.
I think the main things that sets us apart from other shops is our upfront pricing system, our free towing service, and our unlimited mile lifetime warranty on all of our complete transmission rebuilds, which is what we specialize in. I think the good quality of our work and our great customer service is what our customers appreciate the most when they hire us.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I don’t think I have just one favorite memory of my childhood, for me it’s mostly the childhood stage in general. The innocence and simplicity of life that is perceived when you are a child is what I remember and miss the most growing up. I had a very good family oriented childhood, and now that I have a boy of my own I want to make sure his childhood is even better than mine was.
Contact Info:
- Address: 9120 King Arthur Dr., Dallas, TX 75247
- Website: txtransmissionrepair.com
- Phone: 2145003618
- Email: txtransmissionrepair@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/txtransmission/
- Other: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Txtransmissionrepair
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