Brandon Tracey is the President and Co-owner of Bay Area Point S Tire & Auto Service, which he started working for at the age of 16, initially sweeping floors at Yingling Tire Service before it was acquired by Bay Area. Under his leadership, Bay Area Point S grew and became part of the Point S network, significantly expanding its buying power and industry influence. Brandon’s success is built on a foundation of customer care and employee respect, values instilled in him from early mentors in the industry. He leads with a vision that prioritizes quality customer interactions over mere pricing competition. Brandon’s motivational leadership style mirrors the proactive spirit he’s fostered throughout his career.
The tire and auto repair industry faces a significant challenge with the low expectations customers have regarding service quality. How can businesses in this sector elevate their customer service to exceed these expectations and foster lasting relationships?
According to Brandon Tracey of Bay Area Point S Tire & Auto Service, the key to addressing this issue lies in adopting a customer-centric approach that emphasizes hospitality and consistent communication. He suggests that businesses should focus on treating customers with respect and gratitude, ensuring they feel valued for choosing their services. By prioritizing customer satisfaction, maintaining open lines of communication, and leveraging tools like Google reviews to gauge and improve service quality, businesses can effectively raise the bar in an industry where customer service expectations are traditionally low.
On this episode of Gain Traction, Brandon joins Mike Edge to discuss his journey from sweeping floors at Yingling Tire Service to becoming the co-owning Bay Area Point S Tire & Auto Service. They explore the importance of mentorship, the value of trade schools, and strategies for finding and nurturing talent within the industry. Brandon shares insights on transforming customer service expectations and emphasizes the significance of a hospitality-driven approach in tire and auto repair.
Announcer:
Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast where we feature top automotive entrepreneurs and experts and share their inspiring stories. Now let’s get started with the show.
Mike:
Hello folks. Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast. I am Mike Edge, your host. Today’s guest is Co-owner and president of Bay Area Point S Tire and Auto Service, Brandon Tracy. But before we get started, you know we got to do our sponsorship. So this podcast is brought to you by Tread Partners, the leading digital marketing agency in the tire and auto repair space for multi-location operations that have anywhere from five to hundreds of shops. Why work with Tread Partners? To put it simply because they know the industry and they can make your digital marketing more predictable and more profitable. They saved multi-location shops, thousands of dollars because they know how to optimize and maximize the budget. They specialize in business to consumer tires and auto repair services in the digital marketing space. They are a partner, not a vendor. Why wait? Find out more at treadpartners.com.
So if you haven’t already, I like to give a shout-out to previous guests. I’d like to encourage you to listen to a recent podcast I did with Seth Sands, Co-CEO of Good Turn Tire and Auto. It was a great podcast, a lot of fun. I enjoyed getting to know Seth. So without further ado, Brandon, welcome to the Game Traction podcast. Glad to have you.
Brandon:
Hey Mike, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Mike:
Well, let’s put this out there up front. Just to be forthright with everybody, you have been a customer of Tread Partners. That’s how we met.
Brandon:
Yep. We’ve utilized the Tread, the ReTread program. I guess the last two, I guess you want to call it in our industry, the slow seasons. So January through March we run the ReTread the last two years. And you definitely… Those returns are, we definitely have, I think blown them away both times. So we appreciate that and it’s helped us build a good relationship with you guys for sure.
Mike:
Well, we appreciate you giving it an opportunity and obviously been a repeat customer. And ReTread is one of those things that most people when they encounter us say, I don’t believe you. Or is this true? Does this really Work?
Brandon:
Yeah, I’m not going to say I didn’t believe the same thing, but the results speak for their self, and then especially when I’m the one giving you the data and you’re doing what you’re doing with it and we can match back and verify. I mean the results are there. So it’s for real.
Mike:
It’s a fun one to run because in all my life around marketing, you’ve never been able to guarantee anything. But I think the power of it is the fact that people go to their phones so much and if we’re able to target certain people with your advertising, then it works. It’s almost like it’s too good to be true, but every time we do it, we never are less than a 10 to 1 return on investment. Yeah.
Brandon:
And I think it’s important too. So many people don’t realize how many of those people maybe come in once, twice a year or whatever, and then they get busy. You get busy whether it’s not advertising to that customer group or whatever, and the next thing you know, they just need to see your logo and hear your name again and be like, “Oh yeah, remember those guys. I need to-
Mike:
It is wild.
Brandon:
Get this checked out.
Mike:
I was going to say in the program itself is a cool way to clean up your books a little bit, bring back the lost sheep in a sense that have gone missing and then all of a sudden they recognize, oh yeah, I haven’t been there in a little bit, but appreciate the kind words, but let’s talk about you guys and Brandon, how you got in this business. When did you start or first enter the tire and auto repair space?
Brandon:
So I guess that’s pretty much the only thing I’ve ever did, I can say happily. I guess you could say happily. But I was 16, just turned 16 years old actually. And for any of the Marylanders out there, they’ll remember a company called Yingling Tire Service. So-
Mike:
Is that’s about the same way the beer is?
Brandon:
A little bit different-
Mike:
Okay.
Brandon:
But we used to get that mixed up a lot. People would be like, “Do you have any relationship?” No. But they were around probably, I don’t know, 50, 60, 70 years. They were around a long time. So I started there sweeping the floor, honestly when I was 15, 16, started changing tires, learning the industry. The owner of that company was or still is, he’s a great guy, taught me a lot as a younger person of how to treat employees. And it always isn’t about the money, it’s a lot about how you’re treated. Worked there, was there for about four years and then actually Bay Area acquired Yingling Tire Service in 2006 came along with that acquisition and I did just about every job from there on up, whether it was a technician, manager, service manager, area manager. And then in 2017 became general manager of Bay Area Tire and evolved from there, learned a lot of… Thrown into the mess of learning everything on the fly and that was great.
But to all the Goodyear people who’ll probably remember I got to learn from two of probably the greatest in the industry, Jerry White and Craig Arch, both of them coming up through. Learning from, whether it’s my initial experience with Yingling to coming up learning a lot from Jerry White through my time. And then Craig being owner of Bay Area, learning a lot of talents from a lot of different people. And I think that makes you. When you have a bunch of great leaders, you can learn a lot from them and definitely learned a lot from those folks. And then really in February of ’23, had the opportunity with two business partners of mine, John and Michael to acquire Bay Area. The company means a lot to me. So that was a huge step for us. And yeah, it’s where we’re at now and it’s been going great.
Mike:
Well, that’s an awesome story. I mean, first of all, when you tell me and you tell the audience that you were sweeping floors when you were 15, and now you’re president and co-owner of the same organization you started at at 15, 16 years of age, how cool is that?
Brandon:
It means a lot to me and it means a lot to, I think our, a lot of our employees when they see me, I’m 37 years older. And so I think a lot of them when I bring them in and I explain my story and what I did, and that’s why a lot of trade schools mean a lot to me, pushing any trade, whether it’s automotive, HVAC, those trades, that means a lot to me. Not everybody has to have the same path that’s always pushed these days. So that means a lot to me that I can show them, hey, there’s other paths out there that can get you where you need to go.
Mike:
No, seriously, while you talk, I’ve got a sixteen-year-old son. I’m just thinking of a couple of folks that I’d like to introduce him to. But yeah, I’d love for him to have that type of experience. And whether he stayed with it or not, it’s just the fact that you learn a lot at an early age and then you probably got to see the interaction between company personnel and customers and how to treat them like you said, and having the mentors that you had, it seems like I have a lot of respect for people like yourself that still recognize the people that were before them and that gave them that knowledge.
Brandon:
I think a lot of people sometimes don’t take that chance at that opportunity to learn from people, to take everything in. And there’s still things we run Bay Area to this day that Craig had been saying for years. I think one of my… It sounds crazy, but one of his stories that he would tell me probably, I don’t know, every time I talked to him was you want to know how to find a good employee, go into the grocery store and ask somebody to show you where the peanut butter’s at. And if they walk you to the peanut butter, that’s somebody you want to hire. And that’s somebody that we want. And if they just tell you where it’s at, then you don’t give them a business card and you don’t try to hire them.
It’s just simple things like that that you pick up along the way. And it’s simple, but it means a lot because your employees going to, you take care of them, they’re going to take care of the customer, and that ultimately is what’s most important. And I think it’s just things like that along the way that I’ve picked up.
Mike:
I love, I love, I love little insights from older guys that have figured out a way to size somebody up for whether they’re going to be focused on customer service, because that’s a great one. And you’re right. I mean, I can think of just some recent experiences where I get somebody that does the whole arm point thing and just is, “That’s over there in aisle 14.” Oh, okay, thanks.
Brandon:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it’s big. We can teach people tires, you can teach people everything about them, but you can’t teach that work ethic or that sales side.
Mike:
So I’ll tell you a pretty cool… You made me think of a story. My mom told me that her mom told her that she had listened to some, I guess some gentleman that was doing some business interview and he said that he liked to take his new prospects that he was going to hire to play golf, and whether they could play or not wasn’t the point. He wanted to find out, He said, you can learn a lot about somebody if you take them on the golf course because if they’re keeping score, he said, I want to know if they count every shot or do they cheat? And if they cheat, then that tells you they’re always looking for that little angle or whatever. And he said it wasn’t interested. It was a qualifier for him.
And I thought, and I don’t remember what company it was or anything like that, but no matter what level, I thought that was an interesting way you’re saying how Craig did that. But it’s an interesting way people come up with ways to filter the human aspect of somebody they’re hiring. And if a guy cheats on his golf score because he goes, “I’m not interested whether he scores a great game, I just want to know if he’ll score it honest.”
Brandon:
Yeah, score it honest and be able to count that high. Right?
Mike:
Exactly. But no, that’s pretty cool that you picked up on that. I met a guy, Lance Bullock, he’s been on the program before, he runs Four Wheels that are down the… or Four Play Wheels, I’m sorry, down in Florida. But his staff, when I met him, they told me, they said, “Oh, he loves to find diamonds in the rough.” And one of the girls that they have at their office now, been with them five, six years now, she’s solid. I mean, they brag about her big time. He found her at a car wash and because she just gave great service all the time, was super friendly and everything, he said, “I can teach her the rest.” And now she’s an integral part of their business, but that’s exactly what he does. He looks for people anywhere and everywhere that just show good human skills, communication skills, they care. They work hard. He said, “I’ll train them if they’re interested in my business.”
Brandon:
Oh yeah. And that’s… The training’s best part of it. Your customers today are definitely different. Yeah, that’s all they’re worried about is, hey, are they going to call me when it’s done? Are they going to keep me informed? Are they just going to get me in the door and take care of it? Yeah, training tires and learning point of sale systems, that’s all pretty easy nowadays, but it’s finding the elixir, that diamond in the rough.
Mike:
Well, I’ve got friends in the automobile industry and they’re part of big brands and stuff, and I’ve got one of my cars that’s under warranty, so it’s getting repaired. It’s a newer one, but they do a terrible job of calling me to tell me when it’s ready, so then I’ll have to call. “Oh yeah, Mr. Edge, I’m sorry it’s been here two hours.” Great. Thanks for letting me know.
Brandon:
I tell our employees all the time that the bar set for our industry is set extremely low. So anything you can do to just raise that bar, the customer’s going to notice it quick. And that’s what we… We try to get that more of a hospitality aspect is what we try to go at it as, and we speak volume to the Google reviews and stuff like that, and that’s what we try to push that message consistently, but people don’t expect much from us. So whenever you’re following up and keeping track of those people, it means a lot. And it’s unfortunate that the bar in our industry is set low and people don’t expect a lot because cars are pretty important. So I mean, it’s a shame, but it’s-
Mike:
No, you’re right, it is. And it’s interesting how it got there, but I think that old mentality of the guys that at least I remember growing up around and then my dad taking me to the shop or whatever, there wasn’t really a customer-centric focus. It was just, he’s a mechanic, he runs a shop, and by the way, your car’s ready, go grab it and give me your cash. That was basically it.
Brandon:
I think a lot of it was the reversed feeling. It was almost like the shop felt like they were doing you a favor by being there. And that’s what I tell a lot of people is we look at a lot of acquisitions. I mean, we had one recently and my partners or whatever, they’re like, “Well, how do you think you’re going to turn this around?” I said, “It’s simple. We just flip it around, and we make sure the customers know that we’re there for them. It’s not that we’re doing them a favor, they’re doing us a favor by coming here. And I think we can be pretty successful in just flipping that one switch.” But yeah, no, like you said, that mentality has swung a lot and you get a lot of competition that’s trying to do the same thing. So it’s that Chick-fil-A effect. You got to be the Chick-fil-A of the automotive industry. Once you can get to that standard, I think it’s pretty easy from there.
Mike:
Well, I probably told this story before, but at the risk of being redundant, I’ll tell people again. But I knew this guy named Chris. He owned a place called Import Autos, and he had just always been trained on the import cars, because that’s what his dad fixed. And when I was in his shop, there wasn’t anything special about a shop. I mean, it was just your typical shop or whatever. And his little lobby area wasn’t super nice or anything, but he was super nice and he would walk these little ladies out to the car, open the door, had them laughing and getting in the car, and I said, “Man, you got this thing figured out.” And he goes, “What are you talking about?” I said, “Dude, you had that lady laughing while you put her in her car. She probably just spent a fortune with you.”
He goes, “Oh yeah, she did.” And he said, “But I figure, if she wrote an $800,000 check for me,” he said, “the least I can do is go open the door and be nice to her.” And he said, “But the thing is that,” he goes, “The hospital’s two blocks away.” And he said, “A lot of these nurses, they don’t know who to trust,” he said, “but they talk.” And he said, “And they’ll all bring their car here if they just know that I’m a nice guy and I’m going to treat them right.” And man, his business boomed, God rest his soul, he passed away because of COVID, but he was ahead of his time in regards to this whole thought process. But he was just a super nice guy with everybody and he cut up with them. But the way he looked at it was, “Man, if I figured they can write me a big fat check,” he said, “the least I can do is try to make them laugh today and walk them to their car.”
Brandon:
No, that’s a good point. And I think to the other thing is so many people these days, whether it’s big box stores or whatever, they’re all worried about competing price-wise with each other. And that’s not something we really spend a lot of time worrying about is the price. If you feel like you’re taking care of somebody and they feel like they’re being taken care of and your employees are being taken care of, I mean the price doesn’t really become a factor at that point. They’re not going to go and check five places when they know, hey, I can go to Bay Area. I’m going to get good service. I got good service last time. And the price really means nothing at that point. And that’s, I think so many people spend so much time comparing prices. Am I cheaper? Am I more expensive? I just don’t think it’s worth the time. It’s more worth the time to spend it on making sure you’re taking care of the customer when they come in.
Mike:
Man, you drilled it right there. There was a mechanic here in my hometown, his name was Darrell, and he was an old guy. He was actually one of my best friends’ great uncle. And this guy, literally, if he fixed your car, you knew it was fixed and you felt great about it, but he wasn’t the least expensive around. The only thing you knew when you left him is it was fixed. And if it wasn’t, you could bring it back, no questions asked. And he would make sure that it was just, that’s the way he built his business is just do it right. That’s it. And here’s my price.
Well, there was a backlog of people that wanted Darrell to fix their car because you knew it was going to get fixed. It wasn’t a question of price, it was just, I just want it fixed. And I think you’re right in regards to the whole process of customer care and the car care, I just want to take it to a place that you’re going to take care of me, and I’m not worried about the five or 10 extra bucks or 20 extra bucks or whatever on a tire. I just want the service.
Brandon:
I just want to know that you’re the expert and you’re going to pick out whatever tire might fit their car, what brakes might work for their car or whatever. And that’s what we try to push by. And I always tell everybody, what other industry can you be in when you’re driving down the road that everybody you’re driving around is a potential customer? We’re pretty lucky to have that aspect of, hey, I’m driving next to this person and I’m always peeking over at their tires, whatever, at the stoplight. And you see a lot of opportunities when you do that. It’s surprising how many people you pull up next to and you’re like, “Wow, wish they would come see me.” But everyone’s like, oh, well, the phone’s not ringing or this is not happening. It’s like, yeah. But there’s a lot of opportunities out there and we’re pretty lucky to be in an industry like that.
Mike:
Absolutely. What about… I’m looking at your Point S shirt that you’re wearing. Why did you guys decide to join Point S here recently?
Brandon:
Yeah, I mean a little bit of the history of Bay Area, we’ve been a long time Goodyear Tire and Service Network member, and we still love the Goodyear brand, but when it comes into thinking you’re a modern day tire dealer, you’re competing against a lot of these… You can look at top 100 tire dealers and a lot of them aren’t guys like us. There’s not a lot of us on there, but so we got to looking around and what Point S offered to us was, hey, we can be seven locations in Maryland, but we have the power of whether it’s, I think we’re closing in on 350 Point S dealers in the US. Point S is also, I think, well over 6,000 globally. And you’re part of a much bigger plan, but you’re still the local guy in your community.
And whether it’s buying programs that you’re part of, just the group in general, I mean Walter and Clint, they’ve been great bringing us on. Any questions you have, but you feel like you’re part of a family, a big family, and that’s what we were looking for to have those buying advantages.
You can compete with those box stores, whether it’s the commercials that Point S shoots or whatever. It’s hard to do that when you’re just a seven guy tire dealer. It is pretty hard to compete in today’s market. And that’s one thing that they’ve really brought to us. So that’s why I can definitely say if you’re a single tire guy, a multi-dealer location, and whether you’re struggling or your door’s getting beat down by all these PE guys calling you or whatever, give Point S the shot to give you the spiel. And I think a lot of people would change their mind pretty quick in seeing what they can do for you.
Mike:
Well, it’s pretty refreshing to hear you say that because you’ve only been in Point S for what, a year now? Just about a year?
Brandon:
I think, actually, yeah, August, it’s been a year. We’ve had a little bit of a slow start for us. We rolled it in location by location and getting used to how we… Purchasing and the different programs to be part of. And it’s not just tires. I mean, it’s tires, batteries, parts suppliers, that you’re building those relationships with to have better deals. And so yeah, we’re on a year and I think all of us can probably, safe to say, that it is probably one of the best things that we’ve did in a long time.
Mike:
Man, that’s awesome. Well, congratulations on that. I will say a shout-out to Walter. I’ve had him on the podcast. He was a great interview. We had a lot of fun. He was funny, had some good stories. Then we had, well, Clint, I got to meet Clint. He hasn’t been on the podcast yet, but then we recently had Craig Bruneel with Bruneel Point S, he’s also the chairman of Point S. Just you’re getting to know those guys, they got a winning vibe, put it that way.
Brandon:
We had our first owners meeting that we were a part of this year, and it was very refreshing to be… Being part of, tire dealers, we’re our own breed is what I say. We’re not the normal folk to be around, but to be part of that owner’s meeting and be in the room with a lot of those guys, it was very refreshing to be in a room with a bunch of people just like you that had the passion to take care of the customer. And that’s all that everybody was worried about.
Mike:
That’s awesome.
Brandon:
How can I get my customer these tires? How do this to make it better? Nobody was just sitting there to talk about profits or this or that. It was everybody had a common goal and hey, if I’m in Maryland and your customer comes to me from Arkansas or wherever it may be, hey, I’m going to take care of them. And hey, if my customer’s on a road trip and they end up in your location, I can say no doubt about it that my customer’s going to get taken care of and be impressed.
Mike:
Man, that’s awesome.
Brandon:
That’s something that’s hard to find out of a large group that everybody has the same goal.
Mike:
Yeah, that’s refreshing. Well, on a personal note, the audience knows, I like to ask a personal question and let people get to know you a little bit better. What’s your favorite movie of all time?
Brandon:
I’m definitely-
Mike:
Or movies. We’ll give you a couple.
Brandon:
Yeah, give me a couple. I guess, I’m a war movie person, so I would say it leans towards Saving Private Ryan, really shows the greatest generation of all time. It really highlights that. That’s a good movie. I like Glory, an old good Civil War one there. But nowadays, I feel like with my kids, I feel like I’m like a Godzilla and King Kong fan all of a sudden, but probably because my son has me watch it just about every night. So I feel like I’m moving into the Godzilla, King Kong stuff now that I’ve seen them all about a hundred times. But no, I definitely, anything that’s Revolutionary War, Civil War period up to World War 2.
Mike:
Did you like The Patriot?
Brandon:
Yeah, The Patriots definitely, that’s on my shelf of watched many times and will always pull it out and watch it. That’s a great one. But anything that falls in that category and then even whether it’s a documentary, you’ll catch me popping on the History Channel probably is about the only channel I’ll really watch and always catch something on there.
Mike:
Man, that’s awesome. I love history too. One of my favorite war movies is actually Patton. It is older, but it is just such a… I don’t know what you call it, but it’s a biography movie on great general that we had, and you almost feel like God blessed us with that guy at the right time because you had to have him.
Brandon:
You could write a book on the quotes from him. I mean, you could fill up an entire book and definitely probably run out of pages.
Mike:
Some of his are the best on leadership. One of the ones I really like, you and I were talking about mentors or whatever, but he talks about when you hire somebody, he said, “Tell them what you want. Set the expectations and then let them go do it.” He said, “Get out of their way. That’s why you hired them.” He said, “Now you hold them accountable for the results, but let them do what you hired them to do and don’t basically helicopter over them and tell them every detail. That’s not why you hired them.” And I think that’s a great lesson for all, any of us in some form of leadership that, hey, I put you in this position. I expect you to do it. We’ll talk after you… Whether you hit the results or not.
Brandon:
Yeah, they might get to the result but just a different way than you had in mind.
Mike:
I’m always amazed at how somebody’s way more creative than me anyway. I mean, I’m just like, lt them go. They’ll figure it out probably better than I can.
Brandon:
I run into that a lot. I think I’ll have this great idea how we’re going to roll something out or whatever. Then I go to the first store, I go, “What do you think about this?” And then they’ve already recreated my idea. It’s better than what I said. I was like, “All right, well fine. We’ll do what you got. That’s fine.”
Mike:
That’s where you just pat them on the back and say, good job. Nice.
Brandon:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Right.
Mike:
Well, Brandon, I got to thank you for being part of Gain Traction. It’s been awesome. Thank you for being our guest.
Brandon:
No, I appreciate it and had a great time.
Mike:
Good. Well, before I close out today, I want to give another big shout out to Craig Bruneel, chairman of the board for Point S Tire and Auto Service. He recently did a podcast for us. If you haven’t heard that one, please check it out. To all our listeners, thank you for being part of the podcast. We are grateful for you. If you’d like to recommend a guest to me, please email me at [email protected]. Until next time, be safe, be grateful, and have a great day.
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