Wills Amstutz
Wills Amstutz is the owner of Windows and Wheels Auto Detailing. He is an Arizona native and grew up in the east valley. Driven by his passion for car detailing, he, and his sister Daniella, started a mobile detailing service in 2012. As the business expanded and through a series of events they opened their first industrial location in 2015. They have since expanded into paint protection film and window tinting all while growing into a team of 6. Wills is motivated to grow their business so, in turn, they can add more jobs and value to their community.
Episode Transcription
Guiding Growth. Conversations with Community Leaders. In this podcast we'll explore the human journey of leaders, their stories of humility, triumph roadblocks and lessons learned. Come join us as we journey together and uncover the questions you've always wanted to know. This podcast is brought to you by the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce providing resources, connections and belonging for business professionals and modern moments, an event and meeting venue in the heart of Gilbert and here we are with another episode of guiding growth today I'm excited to dive in because we have the opportunity to get to know someone that I actually don't know very well.
That never happens actually on this show. She always knows everybody well. Always a new opportunity. This Arizona native grew up right here in the East Valley. He left traditional school after the eighth grade and achieved his G. E. D. At the age of 23. He shares a close bond with his sister and together they started windows and wheels auto detail in 2012 while the business and the team continues to grow, this guest believes the best is yet to come. Please welcome wills and studs. Yes, I appreciate that. I wanted to emphasize the s after Will's.
Yes, I got it. I was thinking to put a Z at the end like your last name. So the wheels that'd be cool. That might be more gangster pop star. Yeah, thanks for being here. I appreciate you guys inviting. Like this is kind of unexpected but I really appreciate it and it's exciting too because I mean the other podcasts I've done in the past like strictly industry related, it's not so much about you. Mr Cool man, that's cool, I'm really excited about it. All right, so we start with what we call rapid fire around.
Okay, would you rather sing in public or dance in public? We're going to go sing on that one. Don't ask me to though, we'll never say never. What is one of your nicknames and it can't be Wills. My sister called me Junie, she called me june bug as a kid and she now just calls me Junie and it's stuck forever. That's adorable real quick. Your official real name is Wilhelm Wilhelm super german and that's why I go by wills I understand. Would your 12 year old self think you are cool today, totally.
My 12 year self be scared to talk to me today. I think I was very much so introverted, but I think, I think my 12 year old me and my current, we will get along well, have you ever won a contest? A contest, like one that actually counts for something. Uh so for a period of time I was doing martial arts with my girlfriend, she has a martial arts on the west side and she'll probably literally kick me for not having gone back because it's been about three years, but but yeah, I used to compete with that and I got a couple of first place and like the lower level, so Okay yeah, that counts as a content.
I mean Sarah usually things like cake walks and stuff that I never want, stuff like that. No, absolutely favorite movie of all time. The first one that comes to mind is bird. It was like a Clint Eastwood documentary with Forest Whitaker on charlie Parker on the saxophone player was really big into jazz music when I was younger. So it was, it was an awesome movie. Very, very well done. How do you overcome failures? I think part of it is expecting them to start with. And then the fact that I've done it plenty and plenty of, plenty of times helps a lot, but I just try to keep in mind like what comes next after that like I only counted a failure if I quit.
I love that fill in the blank. Joy is so much for rapid fire. Ok, Joy, I don't know like I think joy is like an inner peace like kind of being content with yourself and knowing yourself is is a, is a happy place for me is a joyful place for me. This will be interesting because you kind of hinted to this already, but maybe you've changed. Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert? Oh yeah, I'm like I'm an introvert that moonlights as an extrovert like I can I can, I can pass now and come and do stuff like this, but 10 years ago.
No, I'm not coming in here. No way, no way. I think most of us are actually that that same. Do you have a favorite book? I probably got to like I've got one on, on the business side that I really liked, that was called a prophet first profit first and the E myth revisited. Those are probably my two favorite business books and on the personal side I really enjoyed the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, I was actually thinking about the book the other day. It's really funny that you asked me about that but that's one that I want to recommend to my daughter because she's getting a little bit older now and I think it would be a good one for her to read but it was, it was a very in capturing book like the one that I just wanted to keep going with. Yeah.
Alright, last one. Here we go. Ready. What is one thing you're grateful for today? Yeah. And just any day I can wake up and you know have another day with the people that I love and that I care about and hopefully meet some new cool people as well. Like I'm always grateful for that first of all, thank you for looking at sarah but also well I love you already, this is going to be great. Yeah, this is good. Alright, let's dig into it. Do you ever feel like your business is stuck?
It's time to get traction and move it forward. Call Chris, spear your business coach and certified us implementer will help you use the entrepreneurial operating system to get traction and achieve your vision. Call Chris today at (480) 848 3037, that's 4808483037. All right, so let's talk a little bit first, you talked about um you shared with us earlier some of your childhood and specifically your best friend and Godfather turk and I just wanted to, he came into your life at a young age to share with us a little bit about your childhood and also the influence of this individual.
It was, I don't know, like childhood was kind of kind of crazy. It was never like I went without or anything like that. But um like my dad divorced my mom when I was pretty young, I think I was four at the time, my sister was around two. Um my mom was like stay at home mom, right? So she kind of got thrown into turmoil, but she always, she always worked her butt off, like she never let us go without and my dad was still in our life, so not speaking ili on him or anything, but my mom started going back to church around that time and she was introduced to my, my Godfather what turk is his name basically.
Um she was introduced to him from somebody that she didn't even really know at church and they're just like, you know, Michelle, I know you're going through this and that you really got to, you got to meet turk. It was just a really weird situation of how the two of them met, he had just gotten divorced, he just moved out here from Chicago. Um and so it was, it was never like a romantic relationship between them. It was just a like a really good friendship and he made a big step into our lives as far as raising us, myself and my sister, like he was very much so like a strong father figure, a strong dad figure in our lives.
Um started out kind of, you know, just periodically see him at church kind of thing. And then by the time The point I remember most, by the time I had about 12 or 13, um like I was actually kind of overweight at the time, so was my sister and he found out he had diabetes, so his diet had to change, he was never overweight, but he had diabetes and had to change his diet. And so we told my mom, look start bringing the kids over, I want them to eat the same diet that I'm eating.
And next thing I know, like that was 12, 13, we started trimming out, we started getting into working out and we were just seeing him every single day. It was an everyday thing that we would go over there for dinner and spend a few hours with him. And I mean that transitioned into 30 years later. Like he's really like the most prevalent person in my life as far as my foundation, like who I feel like I am as a person he's been and still is amazing. Like he's eight years old now.
And I look at him like, dude, you look like you're about 59, like what, what are you doing your genetic freak? But he's awesome. Amazing. I mean, really that this individual oh yeah, I still, I asked him sometimes to like, like, like why man? Like you had just gotten out of a rough relationship. He was very much so because he had a lot of foster kids back in Chicago. He was, he was very big into helping Children back there. He moved out here and he told me as I got older, he was like, you know, at that point when I moved out here, I was like, no more kids.
He's like, I just, I need a break. He was like, I said, he's 18 and he was about 50 at that point and then bumps into my mom and I joke, but I'm also kind of like, I think my mom could literally like stare at these walls if she were here and she could talk to them and the walls would talk back like she could get anybody to communicate. She was, she just had that gift of God basically. And so they clicked very, you know, pretty much immediately and for whatever reason, I still can't say why.
I mean it was, it was a huge blessing. It was definitely the biggest turning point in my life, like looking over long term and even short term, um how much of an impact he had on, on raising myself raising my sister and then also helping us to forge a really, really strong relationship together. That was also really huge. Well that's what I wanted to dive into as well. Um, that you and your sister have such an incredible relationship and so much so that you could even go into business together totally.
First I'm going to give her like a happy belated birthday, her birthday was on the 26. But yeah, we, we've always done everything together. Um, we didn't, we didn't plan to go into business. We just worked together doing side jobs and we happened to fall into liking to work on cars the most like detailing cars and you know, making cars look pretty and I think part of it was because we, we didn't grow up with a lot of money. So when our mom finally got her first new to her car, uh, actually had paint on, it was like, oh, this is great, we can make this thing look pretty all the time.
And it became like a fun hobby for us to do. And we were always um, like active as far as doing stuff outdoors, whether at that time detailing or landscaping working on the yard and to help us a lot of that as well. Like he always had his yard immaculate and guess we've got to help. Yeah. And it was, it was at the time was like we gotta go again. But now I'm looking back at him like I know it helped us structure a lot of character and a lot of a lot of driving and then also just that time together with her just doing things side by side all the time.
Um We complement each other very well. I'm very much so one way and she's I'm like let's go, let's, I'm I'm pretty much driving forward and she's like, all right, let's pause and take this 10,000 things you just said and pick two of them that we should maybe focus on first because otherwise yeah, I'm bouncing off walls all the time so that we complement each other really well, both personally and and in business. Yeah. How how is that relationship evolved over the years? I mean, I'm sure there's been some road bumps along the way, but yeah, it was it was probably more road bumps when we were younger.
Honestly, like we were typical siblings, we bump heads and argue and all that kind of stuff. Um But trick didn't play that really. Like he's like, look, you're you're the older brother, you gotta grow up, you gotta, you can't you can't be harassing your sister all the time and like you gotta you gotta get yourself together. And he was always in my ear about that like all the time, he was very much so an advocate, like first of all it's your sister, but also just you know have have respect for women in general and he's like that's something that uh he was he was raised by five women and so he had a very different upbringing than you know what a standard man would have and he was you know, very much so emphasizing to me like you need to get this, get this together, like you need to get your attitude to get the young and you'll you'll thank me later on when you're older and I don't want to say like I got to practice with Dani, but Dani was kind of like my sounding board if I screwed up, she very much so let me know she kept me straight, but I mean those, we got those kind of out of the way early not to say we don't have like disagreements now, but we're pretty good about knowing each other well enough to where okay maybe we just need 15 minutes, let's simmer down a little bit and come back together and you get back from our time out and and work it out, but you make me hopeful for my own Children someday 15 and 11, boy and girl, okay, they'll be fine.
I hope so. Are you sure? I'm totally sure as long as they're away from you all right alright now, even more so, turk was kind of a father figure, but your dad wasn't involved at all that my dad was there. Um like it was it was shared custody, so it was like Wednesdays and weekends kind of set up. Um Then again, like my dad, he was like, I love him to death. I feel like our relationship is better today than it's ever been. Um but we're definitely two very different people, like our thought processes about things and how we look at certain things.
Um we're very different and I mean, he was younger at that time as well and I'm not gonna lie, like, I'm sure I held a grudge about the whole divorce at that time and but yeah, I mean, it was it was a point where we didn't see him for a while from from about 12 to 16 and then he actually reached out to us and he's like, you know, I'd like to rekindle some things with you guys and, and it was turmoil the first couple of times we met, but oddly enough, like turk was very, very strong about, you know, look, I know you guys are bumping heads right now, but try to your, your teenagers, but you know, try to grow up a little bit, try to be, you know, a little bit more mature in the relationship, even if you've got a burden, some of the things right now, I'm like, all right, So we went and we called him back and I still remember that my sister and I called him back and he wasn't expecting us to.
Um and it kind of like, all right, let's let's have dinner and get it together again. And it it was one step at a time. It was very much so one step at a time. But um, I definitely get some of my traits from him. I know my my short patience is from that side of the family, But I I know our relationship is much better today than it was, you know, 20 years ago and that was again, like giving her credit for that. He was very much so helping to support us with that and and just being patient and letting things kind of fall into place and not force a relationship to happen again.
Being understanding of, you know, you're not the same, but you can still you still get along with each other and he kind of came to the same realization on his side. Like, I've seen changes on his side. Very much so on my dad's side. Um, over the years, as far as how accepting he is of us and our differences. So it took time and it's still a work in progress, like anything else, I guess, but I'm grateful that it's there when you're a dad yourself and so maybe how do you carry some of that perspective into?
So I mean, so like full can is like, it's it's my stepdaughter, but I've been in her life since she was six and she's gonna turn 15 next month, so I consider myself like being in that role, I never want to take the place of her, of her biological dad, so I try to be respectful of that, but as far as that figure in her life, I try to do as best as I can, but I'm. I never wanted kids to be totally candid, like I was very scared of it, um scared of screwing up, you know, and putting, I don't know any type of negative impact into somebody's life or not being the best that I could have been, but my my girlfriend, fortunately is the polar opposite of me.
Like she's very patient and mellow and great with kids and I've learned a lot from her over the years, as far as how to how to mellow things down a little bit. Um things honestly in business have helped with that type of relationship to like how to deal with people in different personalities and uh I know chris is one of the sponsors here with the os, but he when we do business coaching with chris, he's like, you know, it's just like parenting with business, you gotta say something seven times before it's heard once and I know he said that to us from a business perspective, but I'm like that's I'm going to remember that dealing with with Camila is her name.
I'm like, I'm gonna remember that dealing with her because it's, it's one of those things where I'm like this is the problem, here's the solution done, let's get out of here. And that's not always the case. No, no, it is not the district parenting I feel is the same in that it is about how you make people feel they'll remember that and you know to be okay, not always having the answers, but just knowing that you're there for them and that's the part that I've had to start to learn.
I'm always like the, I want to find the answer or the solution to whatever. And my sister and she and my girlfriend have been kind of like, you know, sometimes we just need to listen to us. You know, you just listen to us actually, please don't try to stop. Just listen exactly. So you made a big transition in 2015 in your business. Yeah. So transition from mobile service to an actual shop and a whole different level of responsibility and I love the way you put it because you said pressure makes diamonds and talk a little bit about that pivotal moment, for you it was unexpected.
Um like we were heavily mobile to begin with and then as we started getting, we went from like a standard detailed shot to, we really started to specialize in exterior work, like polishing paint, getting it to look. I mean pristine and on point was kind of our go to thing. Like we became very, very good at that. I actually, I just have to say, I don't ever want you to see my car right now because I like challenges. Like it would be your biggest challenge. I like a challenge.
I have a 12 passenger van with, oh we just did one of those challenges. It was not accepted if I could pressure wash the inside. We're good not to derail your story just became a little self conscious there. So that was our roots that where we started was with the disaster cars and and a lot of retired people's cars. We worked a lot out of leisure world in Mesa, that's where my mom got her business going. And um, but once we finally, once, once I found out what a polisher was like how to polish paint and I went down that rabbit hole.
Our business took its 1st 1st transition of, we're gonna specialize in this. But those types of jobs were like my sister and I were nuts, we would spend 40 hours on a car. So we have a car for 23 days, like combined 40 hours of work on it. So we eventually started having people just bring the car to our house, we would work on it there and somebody in our neighborhood, even though I love you Gilbert, but even though it was one car at a time in our garage with the doors closed and we cut everything off at like five or six o'clock, somebody reported us to the town and they're like, you can't do that type of work even though it's not automotive, mechanically related, it's still automotive, you need to get a brick and mortar to do this out of.
And I'm glad I listened to one of your podcasts like before I came, cause I know it's okay to swear now because we were like ship man. Oh, we were scared man. Um, but again, like the blessings kind of fell into place and uh, we ended up finding a location literally right across the street from us. So if you know where Mesquite High school is, there is a business complex right on the backside of this or the backside of Mesquite and ended up meeting an owner of the building.
It wasn't somebody who had multiple properties. He was an owner and ended up being a car guy. Cool, okay. And he was willing to take a risk on a couple of 20 year olds that had basically no business credit whatsoever. Um, and, and be okay with leasing us the building and we were smart enough financially to stockpile over the years that we had been detailing. We, we never spent a lot of our money, we would always just reinvest it. Uh, so when we went into the building were like, all these thoughts and the one day we're gonna do this, all those things were like, we finally have a space to do it and there was a lot of sweat equity, like we were in there painting and laying flooring and lights and kicking down walls and our dad came into town to help us with that.
Um, but it was, we were able to kind of put all those things into, into play and um, now here we are, six or seven years later and we need a bigger space because we've grown that much when we never thought we would use all that space. So yeah, I'm super happy about it. I love to hear the story. I'm curious though going backwards. How did you get into this? Like was this something you did in school or how did you get into this? It was like I mentioned earlier when, when our mom got her first, uh, new to her car, basically it was 96 tourist, like nothing special.
But I had paint on it like, all right, we're gonna turtle wax the hell out of this thing. Like every weekend. It's gonna be great. But why, I mean, what got you doing that. Where is this motivation coming from? I think both from my mom and from turk growing up, it was like, you take care of the things you have and even though we were teenagers at the time, we didn't have money for our own car. So when our mom got one, like all right, we're gonna take care of this for her.
Like it's a way to, you know, pull a little bit of weight at that age and show some like respect for what she did. But so is your lawn pristine in your house is super clean or is it just cars that this fell into curious. It was it used to be all of the above totally candid. And then when the cars, like when the business started taking over now it's like, okay, I need help. So yeah, like we have a landscaper that helps us with the lawn and and like house, house depends upon the day.
Um but like it still bothers me, like, like that's what I appreciated about the studio when I came out, everything set up really, really nicely and it looks very clean. I like that, it's awesome. It's awesome. So it bothers me still, if it's a house is messed up or you know, this cup got put in this cover instead of this cover, That stuff still kind of Exactly. But I've back to that growing up a little bit like I'm a little more understanding of it, but it still bothers me to answer your question.
Okay, well, I was just curious how you got into that because there's always a story behind that and then we're involved, that kind of money started coming and you started falling into this and it sounds like the dream started to grow from there. Well, I'm equally intrigued by your sister's passion for it because that's really nontraditional for a woman. Yeah, auto detailing. So pretty cool, very cool. She was actually the one that knew more about cars than I did when we got that we'd be driving down the road and she's like, oh, that's blah blah, blah blah.
And they sold this many of their cars and that's the best selling, I think that's the best selling convertible in America right now and like what car are you pointing at? Because if it's not a Corvette or something that's got a standout body, I have no idea what you're talking about. Um, but yeah, she was, I mean she was very much so not to play on the term, but detail detail oriented in terms of everything. Like she's very clean and organized and precise. Um, and I was like the go getter of, okay, let's turn this into a business.
Eventually, Like eventually I started wrapping my head around that, but we did a ton of side jobs to begin with, but all of them kind of revolved around landscaping or retired people. Like we'd go in and organize their garages or we detail their cars or how we got the name windows and wheels as we would wash residential house windows and detail their cars mostly. So windows and wheels is how we initially came up with interesting but the wheels part was a lot more fun, like especially when I started getting some fun cars to work on and we really honed our skills on that.
But I think everything that we did kind of, you know, worked around that Keeping things clean, keeping things organized, keeping things looking pristine or taking something that looks bad except for 12 passenger vans and making them look great. Again, it's tough to do. And I love how scrappy you two are. I mean amazing that you guys like just continue to put work into it into life. And I mean, I feel like especially at a young age it's really easy just to what life happened. And it sounds like you guys had a different approach.
Yeah, it was like when you're doing that intro and you're like, yeah, you stopped going to school at eight grand. Like that sounds so horrible, but I wanted to be candid in the questions that you asked. Well actually I was really inspired by the fact that you I mean in your twenties you achieve your G. E. D. And like you didn't give up on that. Yeah, it was I like, my birthday is on the 24th, I was coming up to B 24. I'm like all right, I want to do this before my golden birthday, basically, I was like what I had in my head and like I went through and I blazed through it.
Like that part was schooling was never like hard, hard for me, but it always depended upon the teacher. And so when again back to younger will that you were asking about, that was like, I was very much so the introvert I was, I was always tall, so it wasn't heavily bullied, but to a degree, it was like I'd never fit into school and so her mom pulled us and she wanted to homeschool us. Um my dad was very much against that and so, but she did pull us um it was the most unorthodox homeschooling ever, I think, like it was not, it was not like super structure, it's like, here's your book, I'm trusting you to do this, I'll be back from work later kind of thing, but we got a lot of on the job training, um like a lot of, a lot of things that we did day to day were very much so, it was like, I was in class every day no matter what, but it wasn't necessarily a classroom, if that makes sense.
Um so I think that's where a lot of our, our foundation as people came and then we figured out the rest later on, it was very much so reverse of usually you go through high school and figure out what your career is going to be and it was we kind of figured out who we were as people first and then figured out our career as it kind of fell into place. I love it. It's inspiring and it's not easy to be a business owner. It's a brave, bold thing to do.
It's a crazy thing to do. So psychotic agreed. So where are you going now? What's, what's on the roadmap for you guys? Um for you, 12 months, like we want to have a larger location, so we're at about 2500 square feet right now. Um which how many cars can you get into that comfortably four with creativity? Six. Yeah, we're we're all valet parkers that at night, it seems like like we can squeeze things and squeeze things in as needed. And how many people are doing this work with you?
Um Like with myself, sister and myself, there's a team of seven of us. Yeah, so there's seven of us right now. Um I'm probably gonna need number eight to help with the front office. Um like I say on the sales side, but I really hate using that word, like I need somebody that's going to be more like somebody who's going to listen and cultivate correct services for the people in sales, but I don't want it to be sales if that makes sense? It's okay. It's okay to call it sales. Yeah.
You know, you know what you're talking about. Yeah, so we need that but um yeah our space is the main thing we need to improve on right now, so hopefully more space and what keeps you, what keeps you driven and inspired to continue to grow and move forward. It used to be like honing my own craft right? Like I really wanted to be the best at what I did whatever it was and now that I will say older, not old, but as I'm getting older, it's like I've really enjoyed Helping to cultivate other people's careers and not just give them a job, like I want to, I want to give them a literal career um but also there as any type of mentor if they're open to it, like to help them not make the mistakes I did when I was younger um to help them to to you know, think further than what's in front of their face right now, especially our youngest guys, 19 Nathan, I'm giving you a shout out bro, you asked me to give you a shout out, I'm giving out.
But yeah, he uh he's 19 years old, our oldest one of 27, so everybody is you know, almost 10 years or more younger than myself, um very talented guys, very very very talented guys. Um but I just, I don't want them to fall into what happens a lot with our industry from might have seen to wear you start making money right? You start doing well in your career and you just blow it and next thing, you know, you're in your forties or fifties and your body's not doing what it was doing 20 years ago and you can't keep that up.
So I'm in their ear like, like prepare, prepare guys, not just on the money side, but like as a person who are you going to be, what are you gonna think about? And I like that part, I like the cultivating of people portion well and I appreciate the fact that somebody poured into you and now you're inspired to pour into somebody else. A very good point. Yeah. Do you find yourself still doing a lot of the tactical work or you now like, like you said pouring into the people and guiding away a lot of my, like I've heavily transitioned into that front office role right now, so that's why I need somebody to kind of feel that it's been like constantly switching hats.
It used to be dan and I used to just wash cars and we polished and then we coded and then we learned how to do film and like it was always learning a new trade and now I'm to the point where I'm like, you know, it's okay to hire somebody that actually has that skill set already. It's just, I didn't get into this to be a business owner, I got into it cause I like cars that works and then it's funny because you don't actually do the thing you were passionate about because your business, right?
Right. It's, but it is still like every once in I'll get to go in there and get my hands dirty and you know, do some film or something along those lines, but uh it's, it's definitely more spaced out than it used to be. So I just leave that to the professionals now that my guys handle it, but I do still enjoy it when I have the time to do it. That's awesome. Well this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you for inviting us on your journey. I know time flies, doesn't it?
Yes. Any final words. I just, I appreciate the time. Just about every episode. Yes, Yes, Ben, Special guy. This one, I appreciate learning more about you and I appreciate your support of the business community and your involvement and I just um it's always great to dive into someone's journey. So thank you, appreciate the conversation, It was very fun and I know I enjoyed this, so thank you for being on the show with us. If you would like to get more of these, please subscribe to our tribe so you can get them in your inbox and learn more about these amazing individuals that we get to talk to, guiding, growth conversations with community leaders.
Ben, let me ask you a question. How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast, This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us. So I think there's many opportunities at hand whether you want to again be on the show, reach out to us, let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it.
We'd love to hear from you, reach out, let us know and we'll see if we can make that connection.
