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Max Gardner is the Founder of Tire Max, which has six retail locations in North Carolina. He has been in the tire business for almost 40 years and opened his first Tire Max location about 20 years ago. Max believes in building a culture that employees feel comfortable in, which translates to customers feeling comfortable in-store.
In this episode…
How do you keep everyone on the same page if you own or manage a tire and auto repair shop with multiple locations? How do you build a welcoming and positive culture that customers sense the minute they walk through the front door? What do your customers expect from you when they let you take care of their vehicle? If any of these questions resonate with you, you’ll want to listen to this episode of Gain Traction!
According to Max Gardner of Tire Max, the essential thing to have in your shop is a great culture where employees feel comfortable working and, in turn, make customers feel comfortable. Max says, “as a business owner, we can create a culture where people feel wanted, valued, and needed. And if we can do that, I think other things will get easier.” Are you ready to make people feel wanted, valued, and needed?
In this episode of Gain Traction, Neal Maier sits down with Max to discuss the keys to successfully building a local chain of tire and auto repair shops. Max emphasizes a relationship with employees based on trust built over a period of time. He discusses the importance of proper training and the enormous value of a positive, welcoming culture, advising that “you can get people to do things better than you can.” Don’t miss it!
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Max Gardner explains how he got into the tire business and what led to founding Tire Max
- The role that culture has played in the growth of Tire Max
- What Max considers to be most important to the customer
- Empowering new employees to handle problems
- The steps Max takes to make sure all employees at all locations are on the same page
- The biggest challenges faced by Tire Max
- The best advice Max has received
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Transcription
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.
Neal Maier:
Hi, I’m Neal Meyer and I’m the host of Gain Traction, where I talk with top automotive business leaders about their journeys. I’ve had the great fortune to interview lots of founders and CEOs with some great stories. Today’s guest is no different. Before we jump in with today’s guest, this episode’s brought to you by Tread Partners. Tread Partners is the home of ReTread, our new customer re-engagement program by using targeted digital ads and communications will help win back your best lost customers and guarantee a 10x ROI. So what are you waiting for? Visit us at treadpartners.com. Today I’m joined by Max Gardner, founder of Tiremax, with six retail locations here in North Carolina. Max, welcome to Gain Traction.
Max Gardner:
Thanks, Neal. It’s good to be a part of it.
Neal:
Thank you for joining us. Max, you’ve been in the tire business for quite a bit. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.
Max:
Well, I’ve been in it for almost 40 years now, and so I grew up in it. My father started in the business in 1944, started his own business in 1960. So I was one of those little kids that you see running around the tire shop and the recap shop, climbing in and out of tires, annoying all the guys that had to work. And then, my dad had to [inaudible 00:01:43] whenever we come home, we would be having grease on my clothes and tire dust and carbon black on it stuck to my hand, so it’s been in my blood since I can remember.
Neal:
So what point did you decide you wanted to make tires a career?
Max:
I never wanted to make tires a career. It’s where I worked whenever I got old enough to work, and I’ve seen it as something I enjoyed and I was good at it. And started helping out, started out changing tires, then went back to working in the cap shop. Some despise working in the cap shop. Came back out and started messing around helping people with cars, and then started working on cars. Kind of just one of those things that it happened and it was the path I was most comfortable with.
Neal:
Well, fast forward to today, where’d you get the idea for Tiremax?
Max:
Well, I was in the family business and I had a cousin, and he’s still in the business, and we’re fast friends, but his tolerance for risk was different than mine. I knew that I probably wanted to expand. So about 20 years ago, he and I were in business together. I went to him and I said, “I’d like to buy you out or you buy me out, and so here’s the way I think it should happen.” And I said, “I think that I would be willing to take this amount, but I’d also be willing to pay you the exact same amount.” So he said, “I think I’ll buy you out.” So that’s the way it happened and I went into the wholesale business for about a year, and then the opportunity came for our first store, was up in Madison, which was out of my non-compete zone, so I was able to open up there and that’s where we started operations at Tiremax.
Neal:
So as Tiremax has grown you, you’ve gone north and south and opened up across that region. I know that as you start to expand, it’s really hard to maintain that same culture and level of service. What do you think’s been your secret in opening and growing successfully?
Max:
Well, I think the big thing is is you got to understand mistakes are going to be made. You’ll make mistakes, you’ll do things that you wish you hadn’t done, but the best thing to do is learn from and make adjustments quickly. So if you can make those adjustments quick enough, they won’t cost you too much money. And being able to identify your weaknesses is a big, big part of being able to grow.
Neal:
Well, as you’ve grown, I’ve seen your staff, you’ve managed to grow a team and also retain a team. How big a factor has culture been in that growth process?
Max:
Well, so I think it’s the most important thing, having a great culture that people feel comfortable coming to work. They will make your customers feel comfortable when they come in, as well as your other employees. So I think that is the biggest thing as a business owner we can do is create a culture that people feel wanted and valued and needed. And if we can do that, I think other things get easier. Doesn’t make it easy, but they do get easier with that.
Neal:
Well, in that same thread, I’ve watched Tiremax’s commitment to your customers as well. So talk a little bit about how you’ve instilled that path.
Max:
Well, I think the one thing with customers is that they know that we’re going to be honest. And that doesn’t make us any different than most operators out there. I think the most operators that I see are very honest people. But I think that we need to tell our customers, we don’t need to say how honest we are, what we need to say is, “We’ll make a mistake and when we do, we’ll stand behind it and you can believe that.” But if we’re going in to say, “We’re not going to make any mistakes,” that’s not believable, is it? So just making the customer know that you stand behind what you do, whether it’s your fault or whether it’s the part failure or a tire that’s bad or whatever it is, just make no excuses. Just take care of it. The most important thing to a customer is just being taken care of.
Neal:
This is one business where it seems like on a routine basis, you end up taking credit for problems and situations you didn’t create. I think how those situations are approached and handled ultimately has a tremendous impact on your reputation. When you’re bringing on somebody new as the company’s growing, how do you empower your staff? How can they work hard to make things right?
Max:
Well, I think the one thing you could do with your staff is that you could make sure that they’re trained properly so that they know how to handle situations, they see this, so they’re not frustrated whenever there is an issue that occurs, through training. And then, give them the freedom to make a decision. And if they make the wrong decision, look back. I probably made that decision 10 times incorrectly before I corrected it, so then let’s sit down. But don’t make it threatening. Just make it say, “This is where we can do to get past this. This is what we could do to do it better in the future.” And I think with that, it gives them the comfort of being able to make a decision in the future. Because worst thing you can do is freeze an employee up where they can’t make decisions. And if you do that, all they’ll be is the person that runs back and forth to you and ask questions all day long.
Neal:
Years ago, I remember seeing a magazine ad from a European repair shop and the ad said something along the lines of, “You’ll never know how good we are until we make a mistake.” And I think that’s something nobody wants to go out and profess that they’re going to make mistakes, but at the same time, I do think it really is critical that your team knows how Max wants it done, knows how Max would handle a situation like that. As organizations grown bigger and bigger, how do you convey that to everybody? How do you keep everybody on the same page?
Max:
Well, I think that’s my biggest job is I tell everybody, my only job is make sure the French fries tastes the same at every location. That is the only thing. So I do have a lot of set downs with employees. I try to make sure that whenever I’m in a shop that I know all the employees names, I know a little something about them. And let’s just face it, until a person’s been there for a little while, you really don’t get to know them or the person, and they don’t get to know you. So you have to build that trust over a period of time.But I sat down yesterday with a young lady that came on board about a month ago and just had a conversation on how it was going and talked about some of our values. And I said, “Just one of the things I want to know is, if you ever see a situation where somebody’s trying to sell something a customer won’t need, you got the power to stop it then.” And she said, “That is so different than where I come from.” And she said, “That’s part of what I love about this,” because that’s the first thing that her manager had told her whenever she came on board. But we have to reinforce the same message multiple times to be able to make sure they know what our culture is all about.
Neal:
I really like that, that making sure the French fries tastes the same. It is really hard, especially when we’re in such a variable business, one location to the next, especially if there’s distance in between them. You’re doing an admirable job, for sure. As you look towards the future with Tiremax, what do you see as your biggest challenges?
Max:
Right now, the biggest challenge is there’s not a lot of people coming into our industry. So matter of fact, my general manager, Jonathan, as you know, Jonathan is at one of the local high schools for career day. So I think we have to, as business owners in this industry, start developing our future workforce organically. It’s just not happening in schools. Whenever I come along, you had the vocational classes and you had all the mechanics in bricklaying and carpentry and multiple of other things, but you don’t have the same thing going on now. And so, we’ve got to figure out a way to develop that future workforce if we’re going to stay in this business.
Neal:
We’re fortunate in North Carolina, I know groups like ASTA have worked really hard at developing programs and to be able to help solve a fraction of that need. Sounds like as people come into Tiremax, have you spent time building out training and do you help them figure out what they want their career path to be?
Max:
So that’s another thing. When we start interviewing these people coming into this industry, they want to know what their future is. And if you can’t answer that question, then you’re probably not going to be able to hire them. And I like people that think that way. I like people that think a few [inaudible 00:11:51] road the road, as opposed to, “I just want to be there and change tires.” Those are the neat people to hire and the people you know, can build a business upon.
So what we tell them, “This is a career path, you come on board and learn your skill. And then, the next thing, we want you to teach that skill to the person below you and we want you to learn the person above you’s skill, so that you’re always moving up.” And when we’re able to do that, I think that makes people feel like they’re appreciated, they’re valuable, they’re valued. And making people feel valued is just so important in the world today. I think that’s where we’re going to be able to compete against the car dealerships and the big chain stores in the future, is how we make our employees feel.
Neal:
Oh, I couldn’t agree with you more. Well, Max, I have one final question. Of all your experiences and mentors, what’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?
Max:
So the best piece of advice I received was it was a bitter pill, Neal. A bitter pill, but it was absolutely the best thing. So I knew I wanted to expand, so I had two stores and was building a third store, and a gentleman who’s a dear friend and was very good business man told me, he said, “Max, you’re going to have to change the way you do things because you can’t be in charge of everything and be in multiple locations.” I could juggle the ball pretty good with two stores, but I couldn’t do it the way I ought to.
But I did have to learn to give up control. I had to learn I couldn’t do everything. And guess what? Then I found out you can get people to do things better than you can do. You don’t have to be the guy that does everything. For example, you handle our advertising. I couldn’t handle our advertising. The way I handled my advertising was I called the newspaper or the radio station. I don’t know how to deal with the new social medias and all the dot coms and all the websites out there. That’s why we depend on really good partners to do that.
Neal:
Well, I appreciate that, but I also agree with you completely, that mentioned self-awareness. Seems like one of the best ways to succeed is build a team to support your weaknesses, take care of the things you can’t do or don’t want to do.
Max:
And life gets better whenever you’re able to do that. It’s tough to give up. If you got that type A personality, it’s tough to give those things up, but life really does get better. You can do other things.
Neal:
Oh, absolutely. Well, Max, I thoroughly appreciate your time today. We’ve been talking with Max Gardner, owner of Tiremax. Max, where can people learn more about Tiremax?
Max:
You go to tiremaxnc.com, that’s our website. And if anybody’s got any questions, they certainly can get in touch with me and I’ll be glad to answer anything they have and we’d be glad to help anybody along in this industry.
Neal:
Well, thank you again for your time today. It’s been a pleasure talking.
Max:
Thank you, Neal.
Announcer:
Thanks for listening to the Game Traction podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to quick subscribe to get future episodes.
Transcript
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