A Voice for Independent Tire Dealers With Jason Rook, President and CEO of Independent Tire Dealers Group

Jason Rook is the President, and CEO of Independent Tire Dealers Group, where he leads a network of 1,000 independent tire dealer locations across the U.S. Jason specializes in strategic planning, business development, customer relations, and team building. His mission is to provide independent tire dealers with the best products, services, and resources available while striving to foster a collaborative and inclusive culture within ITDG.

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In this episode…

Many customers within the tire industry have found the place they go for all their tire-related needs, and it’s often a local mom-and-pop shop they’ve been frequenting for generations. Why? Because they can simply drop the keys on the counter and walk out the door. It’s not a corporate entity, just a place owned by a trustworthy local.

According to Jason Rook of Independent Tire Dealers Group, these small business tire shop owners have a valuable resource available in ITDG. Jason’s group negotiates programs with manufacturers, insurance companies, and different vendors. Even if you have one location in a small town, Jason says once you become an ITDG shareholder, you have $350 million in buying power behind you. All shareholders receive the same benefits, no matter the size or quantity of shops. ITDG is not a marketing group — it simply exists to put opportunities in front of independent tire dealers.

On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge welcomes Jason for a discussion about the benefits of being a shareholder at ITDG. They talk about Jason’s small-town upbringing, how he started in the automotive industry, why ITDG exists, and the benefits it provides. Jason emphasizes the importance of smaller, independent tire dealers and shares how they can gain value from ITDG. Don’t miss it!

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• Jason Rook explains how he came to realize his best role was in sales and leadership
• What is Jason’s five-year outlook for ITDG?
• Jason discusses the value of having both large and small tire dealerships as ITDG members
• Why local, smaller independent tire dealerships are important
• How ITDG is different from a marketing group
• What type of support does ITDG offer a new entrepreneur in the tire business?
• Jason shares a funny story from his career

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Jason Rook on LinkedIn
• Independent Tire Dealers Group
• Dave Marks
• H-E-B
• CDC International Group
• Mike Edge on LinkedIn
• Tread Partners

Transcription

Announcer:

Welcome to the Game 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 Game Traction podcast. I am Mike Edge, your host today. The Gain Traction podcast is where I talk with top automotive business leaders and we’ve got a great guest today. But before I begin, I’d like to give a shout-out to Modern Tire Dealer and editor Mike Manges for having me write an article in May’s publication. The title of the article is How to Boost Sales Through Digital Marketing, why Digital Marketing Is As Important as Your P and L Sheet, on page 49 of the publication. I’d also like to give another shout out and encourage you if you haven’t listened to it already, one of our podcasts recently with Sam Felberbaum, president of Fortune Tire, which is also the official tire sponsor of USA Pickleball. It was just a great interview and I encourage you to listen to it.

This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners and the Retread Marketing Program. So what the heck is a retread marketing program? It is a full scale customer re-engagement program to win back a shop’s best lost customers. It is a one-time 120-day program that generates a guaranteed ten to one return on investment. That’s correct, a ten to one guaranteed ROI, no tricks or gimmicks. These are customers that are in your POS system right now. So for example, if you were to invest $4,000 today, what we’re saying is that you’ll see a $40,000 return in 120 days from that list. So what are you waiting for? You can email me at [email protected] or you can learn more about [email protected]. Our guest today is president and CEO of Independent Tire Dealers Group, also known as ITDG, Jason Rook. Jason, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast.

Jason:

Hey, it’s great to be here, Mike. I appreciate the invitation.

Mike:

Yeah, glad to have you. You and I have tried for a while, haven’t we?

Jason:

We’ve tried, we’ve scheduled it, we’ve knocked it off the schedule and put it back on. I started with ITDG in February of this year working alongside the retiring CEO Dave Marks, and I’ll let you know, it’s been a little bit busy schedule. I’ve been running around. At the beginning I said, “Dave, in the first 90 days when we’re working together, my schedule is your schedule. So you just put me down for whatever you’re doing.” Little did I know, Dave was a busy, busy guy. I’ll have to tell him I talked about him, but it’s been a lot of travel and it’s been a lot of fun and I’m glad that we’re finally able to come together.

Mike:

Oh, me too. And you do a great job on at least LinkedIn. That’s really the only social media that I do personally, consistently. And you’re always talking about who you’re meeting with, the members in your group and it’s impressive. So I’ve noticed, without even trying that you do a great job on the traveling. I almost thought, man, this guy, does he not stay in a hotel any part of the week? This guy’s on the road constantly.

Jason:

There are times, there are times. And yeah, LinkedIn, the same with me. LinkedIn is the only social media I really use. I like it for a couple reasons. It’s not profit-driven. Nobody’s making money on LinkedIn. So it’s a little bit more of a community-driven, a real machine to expand your horizons and business. So that’s why I like it.

Mike:

Tell us a little bit about yourself. This is a podcast where we start out, we’re a little biographical. We like to learn a little bit about our guests and let our listeners learn more about you personally and who’s running the organization ITDG. So where are you originally from? What was your family like, et cetera?

Jason:

I grew up in a really poor part of Missouri, southeast Missouri, a little town called Potosi, which folks in the tire industry know Potosi because of the Purcell family. Purcell Tire still has its headquarters there. A lot of their OTR retreading is there, but it’s a town of 2,500 people. It was always small and like I said, there was a lot of poverty around me. We were always okay. My father was in auto body and so he did well for himself. My grandfathers were both miners, which was the industry there, the lead mining industry. So I grew up out in the country and I loved it and we always had farm animals and things like that. And when I got old enough, I moved to St. Louis to go to college, which was the closest metropolitan area, about an hour and a half away.

And from St. Louis, I went to college. Strangely enough, I went to college to be a mortician. That was my major. It was mortuary science. After a couple years I learned that that was not for me and I tried to strike out and find out what was for me. I ended up living in Europe for a couple of years, in Eastern Europe. I was working for some schools there, writing curriculum for business. I bounced around in a couple of different sales jobs and then I came back to Missouri. I started working alongside my father, had a small car lot by then. He had a body shop and a mechanic shop and he was getting older and he asked if I would take it over. And I took over that family business and ran it.

We did some tires, we did farm tires. But in Missouri back then, farm tires meant 11.2×28 rears and 616 fronts. You stock four tires and you’d be covered because everybody had a Ford or a Massey Ferguson. They were all from the ’40s and ’50s. And my father’s health started to flag and eventually I ended up selling that business in order to give him a better way to retire, better nest egg to retire on after his health went downhill. I sold that business and that’s when I got into wholesaling tires. I started out in the specialty side of the industry, wholesaling tires to dealers and I loved it. It was a great job. I always wanted to be one of those really great sales reps. Those guys who could get out, man, they got out and they just dug ditches every day. And I worked alongside a lot and that’s not who I am. It took me several years to realize it. I was always a good sales rep, but I would notice that these guys would do repetitive things that would put them in the position they need to be in.

And I was always trying to figure out a way to get there. I wasn’t a natural talker. I wasn’t a guy who knew a lot about sports. I wasn’t a lot of the things that make up a good tire sales rep. So I was trying to figure out different ways to get that business and I would be a little bit unique and I always stayed on the technical side and so customers would come to me for that. But at the end of the day I started to build graphics and catalogs and things like that to try to help with the marketing and other things. That’s when I moved to Texas about 10 years ago. I was offered the role as VP of Sales for the Dobermann Corporation in America. And I came down and it was the first role where I took off where I was doing sales, but I was also managing a sales team.

And the De Filippo family is the family that owns that. And they did a whole lot for me, honestly. They saw potential in me and they kind of let me run with this program. We ended up creating a new brand of tires called Canine that launched in 2016. ATV Tires, farm Tires, lawn and garden. It’s still a great brand that that’s out there this day. And from there I became the CEO of Dobermann North America and ran the organization. And then at the end of last year, I was ready to make a change. And this position, this opportunity came up with ITDG, which is a group that I had known for about six years. I knew Dave Marks, I knew Sherry Bily, and we had been a vendor to the group.

So I understood it inside and out. I was attracted to that space. I wanted to be in the independent dealer space. And I like the idea of community-based organizations like ITDG. Honestly, it’s a privilege to have a position where at the end of the day, it’s not a 100% profit motive. There’s also a motive of keeping independent dealers on a level playing field and things like that, where you kind of get to do some good things that aren’t 100% tied to profit at the end of the day. So that’s a nice thing.

Mike:

Yeah. Well let’s go into ITDG. Tell us the listeners that don’t know, because I think we’ve all known the group, at least if you’re in the industry or whatever, and some know it less than others. But tell the listeners about the objectives and short and long-term goals and really what your goals are for the organization and the members.

Jason:

No, I T V G started out 29 years ago. Next year will be our 30th anniversary. 29 years ago in Southern California, tire dealers got together and they said, we think there might be a better way to do this. We’re having trouble making things happen. What if we consolidated our purchasing? Which it’s not an unusual idea now. 30 years ago it was a little less common. The group is still very, very strong in California. It started out in California and then started spreading out to the east. At this point we have about 170 members with about 1100 locations across 45 states in the US. And basically ITDG members, we negotiate programs with manufacturers, we negotiate programs with insurance companies, we negotiate programs with all of these different vendors and we allow someone like Mike’s Tire, if you had one location in a small town, you can go and your one location can buy within ITDG and you have the $350 million buying power of ITDG behind you.

So you get the same program as another ITDG member who has 40 locations up in the Northeast. And it really does help to level the playing field for independent tire dealers. We have small dealers, we have large dealers, and our program is designed so that having small dealers in the program is very beneficial to our larger dealers. And obviously having larger dealers in the program is beneficial to the small dealers. There’s a very good balance there. So ITDG has been growing and it’s going to continue our continual growth over the next five years. My five-year plan’s-

Mike:

I don’t want to interrupt you. I love the fact that-

Jason:

No, go ahead. You might have to.

Mike:

But I love the fact that you’ve got large dealers and small and both can realize the benefit of the other in the organization because collectively the little ones make up a lot. But the big ones bring a lot of good name recognition probably and value and educational maybe opportunities, working together there. I think there’s a lot to be said there with the balance in that group.

Jason:

Absolutely. It’s an important thing. And we have members in our group, everyone’s a member and some of our group members are shareholders. So when you get to a certain size, you’re offered, you can buy a share of ITDG and you can be a shareholder and that enables you to get a dividend from ITDG. At the end of the year, every penny that we make that doesn’t go back into running ITDG, which is a very small, we keep it very tight on running ITDG. Those dollars all go back to our shareholders as dividend after we pay the volume bonus for what they purchased. So it’s a great system. It’s growing. Right now, it’s growing because everyone’s looking for an umbrella to get under and everyone’s under a different umbrella. Some folks are franchisees, they might have a Big O franchise, and that’s a certain umbrella. And then they might actually step into ITDG also to have a little more coverage there.

Mergers and acquisitions are on everybody’s mind right now, and that’s something that’s swallowing up a lot of independent dealers who don’t have succession plans in place, or some that do. That was their succession plan. But the fact is that same M and A activity that is sometimes taking dealers away from us is also driving new dealers towards us because they want to have a place where they can collectively bargain, where they can feel like they have a voice with manufacturers and it’s not going to be changing. ITDG is going to be there and it’s going to continue to grow and continue to get stronger.

Mike:

I think mean the whole M and A business, it’s excellent. I get it and I get why people do it and everything, but there is a definitely large percentage of people that they don’t want to sell. They don’t plan to sell and they do have succession plans. And there’s a certain point in the marketplace where people still like going to that mom and pop tire dealer that they’ve always known with one or two stores in their hometown. Why? Because it’s just that place they can drop the keys off on the counter and walk out the door and know it’s not corporately run. It’s the guy they go to church with, it’s the guy they play ball with, whatever.

Jason:

Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s the key to it. Being able to shop independently, it’s important to a lot of people. I live in the Texas Hill country and I shop at HEB, which is a big grocery store, but it’s a San Antonio based grocery store. It’s kind of our local grocery. And I choose that over shopping at Walmart. I don’t know why I do. I like their service, I like their products and they have a lot of good, but I’m driven toward those type of things. So I think that the consumer is also, and it’s always important to have those independent dealers around. And what we want to avoid when I say that the small dealers are important to us, just like the big dealers and ITDG is set up that way where the dividends work in that way, because we want to avoid ever getting to a point where some large dealers can come in and kind of run the group.

You don’t want someone who’s too big of a piece of what you’re doing and they have undue influence. You can only buy one share of ITDG. If you’re a shareholder, you can only own one share. So every shareholder is equal in that way and that’s an important part of what we do. But of course just doing that’s not important enough. We need to make it where the little guys benefit the big guys and vice versa.

Mike:

Oh, absolutely. But you have a great name recognition out there and I think especially from the little guys scenario. I like your word umbrella. I think it kind of gives a picture of coverage. I’m in a good family in a sense, and my little piece of the world is protected in the sense that I’ve got a buying group, I’ve got in a sense business friends out there that I can lean on for advice. I know you guys had a conference, et cetera, where they can pick up things, learn things, but the networking I think is always invaluable. You can always learn from your associates that you’re not competing with, you’re in the family with. So I feel like your organization gives off a good positive vibe for everybody involved.

Jason:

Yeah, I say that a lot, that we’re the good guys and we enjoy being the good guys. And you’re right, we have an annual meeting every year that our vendors are generous enough to help us put on. Our vendors are very important to us. And we’ve had some of these vendors for a long time in the group, I think the longest one, we have a major vendor who’s been with us for 28 years selling to ITDG continually. That annual meeting, it’s a huge networking event. I see young people, not only are folks, the succession is passing down to the next generation. At our last meeting, we just had our meeting in the end of April, we had a couple of new members who are young guys in their 20s, late 20s, early 30s, who were just starting tire businesses from scratch. These aren’t guys who have passed down to, they’re not franchisees, they just went out and started the tire business.

And I tell you, it was really great. One of the fellows was people who, he did a lot of auto parts and he was just getting into tires. He looked like he’d been to tire college by the time he got through the event because so many people were reaching out to him saying, “Hey, if you need help with this and help with this.” And he was sitting in on forums and it was a very, very positive experience. I really thought that was a great part of it, but the fact is that you-

Mike:

That’s cool.

Jason:

Yeah, young people are still getting into this and we’re looking for the true independents. We don’t have to have any type of certain branding, you don’t have to have any type of, we don’t ask people, and that’s the hard part of running ITDG. We don’t ask people to conform, so we don’t even really ask people, we’re not a marketing group, we’re not telling people what to buy. We are just putting these opportunities in front of them and making sure that they know what’s available and they choose what’s best for them. So that makes it a little hard because all of our members are fiercely independent, I’ll tell you that much. In the best way and the worst.

Mike:

Oh, I hear you. But it’s very American, right?

Jason:

It is, it is. Rugged individualism is 100% alive and well in ITDG.

Mike:

Hey, you need to remind me after this. I might have somebody that needs to know more about you guys. If it’s all right.

Jason:

Yeah, absolutely.

Mike:

How successful is-

Jason:

Absolutely.

Mike:

But again, you’ve made me think of it because they’re young. I won’t say real young, but they’re entrepreneurs and they’ve never owned a tire shop. Just got into it, doing very good. And if they’re not already associated with you guys, I think they probably need to be, just based on what you’re talking about and everything. Well, let’s go in little bit futuristic. Where do you guys see yourselves for membership purposes and growth? And do you have any goals of new offerings you’re trying to work on that maybe that you can be public about and that may happen in a year or two? Do you have anything big in the wind?

Jason:

We are adjusting our staffing a little bit, which is ITDG, I’m not afraid to say is run by five people. Our entire staff is five people. Myself, our VP of sales, who also handles the western region, our director of eastern region sales. And then we have a person who does all of our administrative work, our administrative manager, and then the director of programs. So everybody’s job is clear cut. We are going to add some more support this year because we are growing to the point where we’re a little bit at a tipping point, where we need to be a little bit bigger on the employee side. We’re going to add some support that’ll allow our salespeople to go out and sign up more members. The fact is we’ve been signing bigger members over the last few years and we need to play a little bit of catch up with the small tire dealers across the USA.

So that’s something we plan to do. Really, the goal from a philosophical standpoint is I talk about competition a lot with our members because people go and they compete. You and I were talking a little bit beforehand about Warren Buffet, something Warren Buffet said about competition stuck with me. Years ago, he was talking about the chess champion, Bobby Fischer, and he said, “Oh, I could beat Bobby Fischer easy.” And the interviewer said, “How would you beat Bobby Fischer, Warren?” He said, “Well, I’d challenge him to a game of anything but chess.”

That stuck with me always. I think a lot of people, they want to compete. They want to go and they want to sell. We’ll say Goodyear because Goodyear’s the most recognized tire brand in the world. They want to sell Goodyear and they think that competing is being a little bit better price on Goodyear. Or it’s like being in traffic where somebody, you get in front of them for a little while and then two minutes later they’re in front of you. And I think a lot of people look at competition that way. What we’re trying to create with ITDG is kind of a set of programs, like I said, from insurance to, we do office supplies insurance, we do everything that you would need to open a tire or automotive shop. We’re trying to create a shield from competition. We’re kind of trying to become immune to competition, if you will. Which I know it’s a-

Mike:

But I think I understand. But it’s like this guy I know that had his tire store for, or just required this tire store, he could basically turn to you guys and say, “What do I need?” And then you’re going to be able to say, “Well, if you haven’t done this already, we can help you here,” or et cetera. And he can feel at ease that he’s getting experience. It’s not like it’s guesswork here. You’ve taken the guesswork-

Jason:

And he’s a guy who opened his own business. So we want him to be able to not follow a set of rules, but to operate inside his own space and make his business better and more profitable in the way that’s the best way for him to do it. Like I said, we want to shield him from competition. We don’t want him to be worried about the guy down the street. We want him to keep expanding and doing what he does that gives him that unique edge. So yeah, that’s a big push going forward.

We’re looking at the USA. We’re in 45 states right now. We plan to be in 50, but we also in ITDG, we’re fiercely protective of our members. We don’t step on anybody’s toes. That means if Mike Edge Tire was in Kentucky and there was another member looking to work in Kentucky, I would call Mike and say, “How’s this going to work for you to maintain your footprint?” And if it doesn’t, we don’t get into our dealer’s footprints, which is a great thing and it helps with the loyalty, but it also means we’re going to fill up the United States. So one of the things-

Mike:

It’s going to become an exclusive club soon, in the sense that, “Hey, we’re going to get to a certain level where we’re still not going to step on toes and you have a sense of protected market under our umbrella.”

Jason:

And you will run out of space. I plan to run out of space. We’re working toward running out of space. And so one of the initiatives, of course, is to expand into Canada and into Latin America. Working with the CDC International group, which owned Dobermann North America, I had a lot of experience working in the South American, Central American markets and internationally in general. So expanding into those directions are important to us. And that’s something you’ll see coming up shortly.

Mike:

That’s awesome. Basically, once you start doing that, your buying level goes up a whole nother level. It’s just more protection under a bigger umbrella is all it means, right, for each member.

Jason:

Correct. It is. It’s more protection and the good news is it’s more members. It’s hundreds of members who are driving this. And so it feels good to add those folks under that umbrella. It feels good to have those people driving the industry, as much as we can, of course.

Mike:

Well, and this is a good question, I’m thinking, maybe it’s not, but are you in some ways an advocacy group for your members?

Jason:

You know, as a byproduct, we are. Because we have to be looking out for what independents are doing. So it’s not necessarily in the charter, but you’re correct. We are like an advocacy group as a byproduct of our DNA, and our DNA says we’re going to offer good competitive, compelling, consistent programs. And we do gatekeep our membership. That’s a tough thing. We don’t have members that are corporate owned or big box stores or things like that. We could chase those numbers and they’re numbers, but at the end of the day, we are committed to the idea of what ITDG started as, which is it’s for true independents. It’s a good thing. And it’s like I said, it’s challenging every day because there are paths you can go down to increase the revenue that aren’t necessarily within the ethics, and our ethics are top priority around here.

Mike:

Well yeah, obviously, I think with a group like yours, and that discipline is important because you could run down a lot of rabbit holes, I’m sure. And you probably have some members that want to lead you down some and you’re like, not necessarily beneficial for the group as a whole or whatever. But I could see that being a challenge as well. But it’s an awesome group and I’ve enjoyed getting to know more about it. I know our listeners have as well, and I’m going to kind turn the corner here and throw you a tough question here about, we’re going back a little more biographical. But can you tell us something that’s funny that’s happened in your career, started this little segment on this podcast and I’ve gotten some really humorous ones and I ask people, I say, “Make us laugh.” What’s something that happened to you maybe in your career that’s funny or self-deprecating if you will, is there anything out there that you could share with the audience?

Jason:

I’ve learned over the years the hard way that we have a very dynamic industry. That’s a really nice way of saying it. Yeah, we have a very dynamic industry, and all the planning in the world and all the things you want to do are never going to save you at the end of the day. It might not even be that funny. I remember years ago I was putting together a golf outing. I thought, “We have so many customers who are up north in the northeast, who are in the Midwest, who are up in the northwest. Why don’t we bring them down to beautiful south Texas in March.” Yeah, it was in March. Bring them down to beautiful south Texas. Give them all a break from the nasty weather and the rain because I had an office in San Antonio, it was only about a four-hour drive down to South Padre Island.

And so we got together, our 40 best and brightest dealers and said, we brought them all down to South Padre and gave everybody a choice. We said, all right, we’re only here for a couple days and we want to be able to hang out and things like that. So you can either go play a round of golf here on beautiful South Padre Island, or we’ll go out and do some deep sea fishing. And people were split. I tell you Mike, I’d never give people that choice again because they were all, everybody was split. They wanted to play golf, but they didn’t want to miss the fishing. So all the golfers, even when they got there, they kind of left grumbling like, well, I guess we’re going to go play golf. And we go out, I chose fishing. I put a couple of the other people in the golf, I’m not a very good golfer. I get out there and yeah …

We get out on the fishing boat and the captain of the boat, we got about 20 people on this boat at this point. He seems a little uneasy and I’m okay. I’m like, “Okay, well he does this every day.” And we start getting out there and some folks start feeling a little … so we go out on the deck, and I never had problems with motion sickness. So we got on the deck and I looked down and we’re a good 40 minutes out at this point. Look down at the water and it’s dirty. The water looks dirty. I go to South Padre all the time because it’s close by. That is unusual. Why is this? And so we get out and the waves are big and we start fishing. Nobody’s catching anything. Nobody’s catching anything.

Finally I go to the captain, “We’re out to …” We move over. We find a shrimp boat. They’re sleeping during the day. So we pull up behind a shrimp boat where they have all kinds of stuff in the water. We’re trying to catch something. I finally go to the captain and I said, “Man, people are getting sick. We’re not catching anything. What is going on?” He said, “I didn’t want to say, I hoped it would be better. There was a little hurricane that it came right up to the coast. It came up within a couple miles of the coast and it moved away. But you know, can look down and see it churned up. All the bottom. Fish aren’t biting, they all moved further out and things like that because that’s why the water’s muddy.”

And then people started getting sick. Oh man, we were out, eventually we turned around, we came back two hours early. People started getting sick at that point because the waves were just huge. All this water was still moving and we put our tails between our legs and we dragged our way back in and all the golfers were coming in cheering and high-fiving each other and having a good time saying, “Hey man, how was fishing?” They were ready. They had found a restaurant right there on the beach that was going to cook whatever we brought back and we were all going to have it for dinner. Man, they were nice enough to think of us while we were out there. Man, we walked off of that boat, all 20 of us green around the gills. Not a fish in sight.

Mike:

Basically you had a four-hour miserable boat ride.

Jason:

We had a four-hour boat ride that was kind of nice at the end because we knew we were going to get back on land pretty soon. And the only fish we saw were bait fish.

Mike:

That’s brutal. I can’t believe the captain did that. And what stinks is that I would’ve been one of those people that would’ve said, “Yeah, let’s go deep sea fishing.” And then, oh, that’s brutal.

Jason:

Yeah. And we got back and I realized then all the planning in the world, all the planning in the world, the weather, at least the weather will keep you humble. The fact that there was a little hurricane a week before.

Mike:

That did it, man. Actually there is a great humbling sense of humor in there for sure.

Jason:

Yeah, there’s a lesson there for sure. I don’t know how funny it is, but there’s a lesson.

Mike:

Well, from the outsider, I get a kick out of it, but I’m brutal. Yeah. Well, another personal question. What is something that Jason likes to do? What’s your favorite hobby?

Jason:

Like I said, I grew up in the country and when I started off, I can do auto body work. I started working with my dad when I was young. So I do auto body work and bolt-on mechanic work, I’m not going to rebuild your transmission, and things like that. And even selling cars and things like that. When I changed over, started doing wholesale and then I started getting into more executive positions and marketing and planning. I had this, I put on a little bit of weight and I was missing out on the physical side of the work that I did. And so what I do, honestly, for the last 15 years, I’ll buy a little farm somewhere. This one, that’s where I live right now. And I’ll renovate the farmhouse myself and I’ll take the land and take it back to what it was.

So I go out on the weekends, I don’t play golf. I go out on the weekends in Texas and I cut down cedar and juniper trees and clear brush, and I lay floors in an old farmhouse. And I did it before in Missouri, before we moved to here. So it’s an unusual hobby, but it keeps me busy. And I tell you, if you don’t have that physical activity in your life, you feel so much better with it than you do without it. Now being a Missouri boy, moving to tech-

Mike:

I was going to say it’s a nice way of working out. You don’t have to go, but you get a right workout without getting on what I call a rat wheel or something like that.

Jason:

And I’m a small town guy, so I don’t ever live where there’s a good gym around. But no, I agree with that. But I will say, moving to Texas from Missouri, this is a rough country we live in, scrubby country. I remember when George W. Bush was president, they would ask him, “Wait, what did you do over the weekend?” He wouldn’t go to Camp David. He said, “I was at my ranch in Texas clearing brush,” and I remember thinking, how much brush could this guy clear? I thought he was making it up. I tell you what, you want to clear some brush, you move to Texas, it comes back as fast as you can cut it down. It’s like weeds except it’s made of wood. So yeah, just on six or ten acres you can clear you brush every week.

Mike:

I thought the same thing. How does he have an endless project here, clearing brush? It’s funny that you brought that up. I used to think, damn, you got to be finished sometime.

Jason:

Nope, you do not. If you have mesquite and you have juniper, it is going to come back and it is not a easy process to get it out of there.

Mike:

Our nitro element is very similar to Missouri, so we’re in the middle of that road. So hey, clear brush, you clear brush. It’s done for several years.

Jason:

Done, yeah. Yeah. Not around here. Yeah, it’s just keeping your fences up. You got to keep the trees out of them. So I do miss the Midwest. Kentucky’s a beautiful place. I had some good friends who lived in Lexington for years. Kentucky is someplace I’d always come for vacation, go down to the Land Between the Lakes and stuff like that. And yeah, I do miss the tall trees and the nice weather and the green summers in the Midwest. So yeah, here we are.

Mike:

Jason, I want to thank you for being part of Gain Traction podcast. You made it easy. It’s been a great pleasure and I wish you guys all the luck in the world at ITDG. Let’s get you back here sometime in the future and regroup and see where things are and maybe next year.

Jason:

That’d be great. And I appreciate the opportunity. Like I said, any opportunity I have to put independent dealers in someone’s mind, in someone’s mouth, in whatever, get them talked about, get them thought about. That’s really my goal, is to build that community, continue building that community and have a community-based business. So I appreciate the opportunity.

Mike:

You’re welcome. So to all our listeners out there, thank you for being part of the podcast. If you’d like to recommend a guest to me, please email me at [email protected]. We take all recommendations seriously and until next time, be safe and have a great day.

Announcer:

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• Gain Traction Podcast
• Independent Tire Dealers Group
• Jason Rook
• Mike Edge
• Tread Partners

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