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Matthew Peters is the Business Development Manager at Tread Partners. He joined Tread Partners in November 2022 after serving in the same role at Tireweb Marketing for more than three years and at Icon Internet Media for nearly two years. Having worked in the tire industry for more than 30 years, Matthew possesses a wealth of knowledge and experience.
In this episode…
As a B2B business owner, how do you view your relationships with your clients? Is it a transactional, one-and-done relationship or is it a potential lifelong partnership? For insights on building and maintaining long-lasting client relationships, check out this episode of Gain Traction!
What is the benefit of building long-term relationships with your customers? According to Matthew Peters from Tread Partners, it not only results in repeat customers, but new customers as well. “My business, over the last 30 years, has been built on building relationships and a referral system,” Matthew said. “Everything that I generate typically comes through those relationships — it’s that referral partnership.”
On this episode of Gain Traction, Neal Maier sits down with Matthew to discuss the importance of building long-term client relationships. Matthew says he views his client relationships as partnerships who are likely to result in referrals. “Those are the very best referrals that you can get,” he said. He talks about the effort required to cultivate and develop those relationships and to make sure clients know he is there to help them succeed. Don’t miss it!
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- How to help tire dealers build successful ecommerce platforms
- How Matthew has benefitted B2B dealers by working with them
- Something people in the tire industry might not know about Matthew
- The career path Matthew left in favor of the tire industry
- What has Matthew built his business around over the past 30 years?
- How to build a successful company culture
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, this is Neal Maier, and I’m the host of Gain Traction. Where I talk with top automotive business leaders about their journeys. Had the great fortune to interview lots of founders and meet people with tons of experience in the industry. Today’s guest won’t disappoint. Before we jump in with today’s guests. This episode’s brought to you by Tread Partners. Tread Partners is home of retread, our new customer re-engagement program. By using targeted digital ads and communications, we’ll help you win back your best lost customers, and even guarantee it with a 10x ROI. So what are you waiting for? Visit us at treadpartners.com. Today I’m joined by Matt Peters, who is recently joined our team here at Tread Partners. Matt brings a wealth of industry knowledge and experience to tread, and I’m excited to dive right in. Matt, welcome.
Matthew Peters:
Hey, Neal; thanks for doing the podcast today. Glad to be part of the team.
Neal:
Well, Matt, we’ve had the luxury of working together in a variety of manners over the years on different projects, and one of the things I’ve always admired you for is your experience in the industry. You’ve done a few things in the tire and wheel business. Tell us a little bit about your background.
Matthew:
Yeah, so Neal, I got into the wholesale tire business in 1992, and from there I moved into software. I was eventually introduced to a software program while I was working with a tire wholesale distributor. The Soft Wheels Visualizer Program is what I was introduced to. I eventually went on and started working with another distributor of tires, wheels, and accessories, and the Soft Wheels Visualizer Program really complimented the relationships I was forging and developing with those type of dealers.
And then eventually I made my way into working with tire dealers, distributors, and manufacturers in a more profound way, helping them with business to consumer website, eCommerce websites, business to business websites, manufacturer websites that dealt with container programs, truckload programs. So through the years, I’ve been able to meet a lot of different people from all walks of life, small mama and pop, single lunar operators, to multi-location operators, to large corporations with a wealth of business experience around their business and working with them to help them with technology services that we offer.
Neal:
One of the ways that we’ve worked together in the past and will continue here at Tread is helping dealers build eCommerce programs, helping dealers get their inventory online and for sale. That’s traditionally a really complicated process, or can be. Talk a little bit about your approach and some of the key pieces to making that successful.
Matthew:
Well, Neal, it’s really important for dealers, distributors, and manufacturers to align themselves with good technology partners. And part of what I’ve been able to do is offer some suggestions through the way, help guide the clients and prospective clients towards technology partners that might be good for them. The B2C eCommerce is grown and grown and grown and continues to grow. More and more dealers are finding it that they cannot not be online. And more and more dealers are looking for ways that they can transact orders online. Oftentimes, I run into dealers that have… They got big dreams. They think that they can put a site out there and put a payment gateway or a shopping cart on it, and there’ll be instant millionaires overnight. The reality is its much, much more complicated involved in that. I typically will tell people that I find the easiest part of that whole solution is the build out of the website itself. It’s the strategy, it’s the marketing, it’s getting people driving them back to your website where all the real work and money comes in my opinion.
So having a really effective site that doesn’t have any marketing behind it doesn’t really become effective at all. It just becomes a glorified business card that people will happen to find when they’re searching you online. But investing in developing a brand, a strategy, a marketing solution that’s targeted for the type of customers that you want, and then approaching it in various phases and not trying to be everything that everybody right from the door is really my strategy. I think we take a look at what the initial objective is, and we can talk to them about how we can help them achieve that. And part of the way achieving that is taking it off in small chunks, phase it out, let’s focus on your nearest market. Let’s build out the processes, let’s build in the tools that are needed to get really successful at the local level. And then from there we can start the branch out. It has always been sort of my approach for B2C eCommerce.
Neal:
Yeah, giving dealers the ability to one plan for success, all right? Identify what the long-term goal is, but also the means to get there, I think is really key to building successful projects.
Matthew:
Yep. Absolutely.
Neal:
So your experience and expertise extends far beyond just B2C eCommerce. Something I had little experience with up until the past few years is on the B2B side. Talk a little about your approach there.
Matthew:
Yeah. The B2B side, I really enjoyed it. It’s something that I feel I have a good understanding of and generally works out pretty well if the dealer works within the suggestions that I can bring to the table for them. But I’ve worked with a variety of customers through the years, single owner operators that want to get into some local B2B, more regional distributors with multi warehouses that are mature and established, and they’ve entered the B2B market and they’ve gone through a couple different technology partners. And not everybody has everything that everybody’s looking for and including the services I’ve provided through the years, we don’t have everything that everybody’s looking for, but we have a good part of… Or have found a way to deliver a good part of what it is that they need to help make their business successful.
Clients that have never gone online with their B2B business, they’ve got to grow it, got to get some awareness and drive their dealers back to that B2B portal. Sometimes it requires an incentive or two along the way they get them back in. But it’s been my experience that most established B2B distributors are experiencing at minimum, 40%, 50%, 60% of their overall business is coming through the B2B portal. In some instances, I’ve known clients that have achieved better than 80% of their total overall business through a B2B portal that we helped develop for them. When I was in wholesale tire sales, I would’ve loved to have had a B2B program for myself to help me grow my business. As it was, everything that we did when I was in wholesale tire sales was all very manual. We took a phone call, we handwrote, we didn’t even have a computerized system that generate an invoice. We handwrote everything.
We did, however, actually print out an end of month statement generated by computer, so everybody could read everything, but it was pretty bad sometimes. I mean, we had a guy in our office that I thought was a genius in the tire business, but he wrote like a doctor, I mean, a really good surgeon, let’s say, that has horrible handwriting. And we kind of joked around that we needed to have, his name was Tom, we had to get the Tommy Dakota ring out. But yeah, like I say, I wish I would’ve had a B2B solution back when I was doing wholesale tire sales, or even when I was wholesaling tires, wheels, and accessories. I tell clients at the B2B level that they’re outside salespeople that are knocking on doors, generating and building relationships. The B2B tool really, it’s like a silent salesperson for them. It’s somebody that’s running 24/7, 365, when you and I are off asleep, or on vacation, or off on a holiday if a dealer still needs to transact an order and get it in online.
So yeah, like I say, I wish I would’ve had a B2B, but B2B today, it’s really easy for people to get on and check their distributor’s on hand inventory and place orders. And even in some cases, I was just talking to a dealer the other day, and he share with me, and I won’t name the distributor, but he works with multiple distributors and we’re going to build a B2C eCommerce site for him.
So he is kind of struggling with one of his distributor partners. He isn’t really feeling the attention that one would think that should be delivered to the distributor as a supply partner. And in that instance, he started sharing with me the details of another relationship and how excellent that relationship is with that particular distributor. And then one thing that he shared with me that I had not heard of before is that if they go on the dealer’s B2B portal, and they can’t find the tires that they’re looking for, they have an option that allows them to communicate the tire down to the skew that they’re looking for, and they can send that communication back to the branch or the head office. I’m not quite sure where it goes.
But usually within five to 10 minutes, he gets a phone call back and he said it’s been really consistent with this particular distributor. Gets a call back, and in most instances, the distributor has already sourced that tire that is, in this case, outside of their network, but they’ve sourced the tire, they got the price, they can give them the delivery time, if there’s freight involved, they give them the freight cost. And I thought, “Boy, that’s a really fantastic service.” I mean, this is a distributor that is taking the extra step. And as competitive as it is in today’s business, especially with distributors, it’s cutthroat out there. If you can find a distributor that will go to those extra lengths like this one was or is doing for this particular retailer, I think is phenomenal. And he couldn’t say enough nice things about that particular distributor.
Neal:
There’s a lot of lessons in that. And I think having come from the retail side, those are things that we would do for our customers. If we had someone’s vehicle in the shop, gosh, we’d bend over backwards to do whatever we could to help the customer and get them back on the road. And I think if you’re a retailer, you’re a service provider, you deliver that level of service, you come to expect the same thing from your distributors and your other partners. That’s an excellent idea, and I understand why it works.
Matthew:
Well, Neal, I’m going to take that experience from that conversation, and I’m going to apply them to my next conversation with the next B2B project that comes across my desk. I mean, I’m going to make the suggestion to the distributor that they at least consider the idea because I thought there was a lot of merit to it. And as I say, this particular retailer couldn’t say enough nice things about the distributor. That really set them apart from his other supply partners.
Neal:
So thinking even back to the retail side, if we’re displaying inventory, maybe our in-house inventory plus inventory, we can source from a couple of distributors. But if there’s something missing, chances are dealers and distributors are pretty resourceful. They can find about anything, but just because it’s not listed, it doesn’t always mean that it’s not available to us. So I think there’s something to be applied there on the retail side as well.
Matthew:
Yeah, listen, I mean, it’s all about how the retailer delivers the message to the consumer. If they don’t put it out there that they can help them and they’re not extending the helping hand, then the consumer may just move on to the next site and not even consider asking. But yeah, listen, it’s true. I mean, in today’s market, it is nearly impossible, I find for retailers to be independent without multiple supply partners, and those supply partners relationships, they change at times for a variety of reasons. In this particular instance about the conversation I had with that retailer and that distributor program, he’s probably going to replace the one distributor that he was belly aching to me about. He is going to go with somebody else. So you can’t get complacent. I mean, I’ve knocked on doors, and I’ve delivered tires, and I’ve worked in a warehouse, and I’ve worked the phone, and I’ve cultivated relationships.
And relationships, they need to be handheld. I mean, you got to stay in touch with people, and that’s what I think we will be doing or what Tread Partners does best with their customers. It’s not a set it and forget it and we’ll come back to you down the road. We try to maintain and keep communication going in between our clients, and that is really important to me, maintaining and managing that relationship.
And oftentimes over the years, these relationships have turned into friendships for me. Tire industry itself is really fantastic from my point of view. Been doing this for over 30 years now at this point, and have met a lot of people, and have made a lot of really good friends, made a lot of really good acquaintances, people I’ve known in the industry, but keeping and maintaining those relationships with clients so that they understand that we’re there, and we’re part of their business, and we’re part of their success, and we’re driving ourselves to help them be successful because their success is tied to our success. And if we can help ensure that they’re successful, then we can be successful jointly together. That’s sort of my attitude.
Neal:
Matt, that falls perfectly in line with our name. When Dave and I were coming up with the idea for Tread Partners, we kept coming back to the partner term, not only in the ways that we want to work with our clients, but we want our clients, of course, to look at us as partners in their business. And I think that it’s so key that our team is perfectly aligned on this because, again, we’re working day in, day out with retailers, distributors, even manufacturers, all who have that same view. They share that same view, that it’s not just a transactional relationship, one and done and never see their client again. It’s far more long lasting, and I think we all go into this with the intentions of it lasting a lifetime.
Matthew:
Yeah,. I mean, I oftentimes will have conversations with clients and they’ll call and ask me, or they’ll email me or text me and ask me for my opinion on something, or ask them, “Hey, can you help me navigate this? I know this isn’t what you do, but I feel like maybe you might have a better understanding of it.” And listen, at the end of the day, those conversations are part of the relationship, the friendship. If I can help them be successful, they will remember that. My business over the last 30 years has been built definitely on building relationships and a referral system. I have clients that I work with that volunteer referrals. I have clients I work with that I ask for referrals. Very little in the way of lead generation from whoever I was working with at the time, ever generated anything of any significance. Everything that I generate typically comes through those relationships. It’s that referral partnership.
And this is a relationship that we’re not exchanging money or anything like that. I’m getting a referral or asking for a referral freely based on the relationship. And those are the very best referrals that you can get. If you have to pay somebody a referral. It isn’t, in my opinion, the same quality referral as getting one through a relationship that they’re excited to turn you on to their buddy that they met on the tire trip over the summer vacation that lives three states over, so he doesn’t feel like it’s going to hurt his business. So he is inclined to make the introduction. So yeah, relationships are extremely important.
Neal:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. Well, let’s talk about Matt Peters for a second. I know a lot of people in the industry know you and know you pretty well. What’s something that they probably don’t know about Matt?
Matthew:
Oh, you put me on the spot here. I don’t know, Neal.
Neal:
You can take a second. Think about it. We’ll edit it out.
Matthew:
I think I’m pretty transparent. I don’t know that if you know me or if you’ve talked to me, you probably have a pretty good sense of where I stand on things. For me, family’s important. That’s a priority in my life. God is a priority in my life, without God and family, everything that we do in our businesses and our professional lives, in my opinion, are for nothing. So those are important priorities for me in my life. Listen, I take very personally the success of the people I work with. I take very personally that even in my role with Tread Partners, there is success and failure that is tied to each and every one of us in the Tread Partners organization. If we’re doing well individually, then the company does well. That to me, holds true with our clients that we work with. If I can help them do well in their business, we’re going to do well.
Neal:
I agree.
Matthew:
That’s my general attitude on that.
Neal:
Yeah. No, I agree. And, again, that goes back to is I’ve done several interviews about company culture and approach to success. And I firmly believe that’s the key to all of us being successful is we go in it with a mindset that if we bring our best game and everyone on the team does the same, then it’s really hard to lose.
Matthew:
I’ll share… So one thing that people may not know about me, but early on I did start to get on a path of radio and TV production at the-
Neal:
No kidding.
Matthew:
Yep. I had the fortune of attending a high school where we had our own radio station. We had our own TV station. It was very independent. We could assemble teams on our own and go out into the local community, and solicit business, and check out the equipment from the studio, and do projects. I was living in Tucson, Arizona at that time, and we had the Davis Month and Air Force base in Tucson, and we had a number of large corporations in the area. And some of the corporations I was able to get inroads and introductions to, and they would bring in guest speakers.
One guest speaker I can think of was Lute Olson, the former head coach of University of Arizona Wildcats. They would bring in Lute and other speakers into their organizations to speak to their employees, and we would be hired, and I would put myself out there to be hired out to record those sessions from a video standpoint. And then in some instances, we did some radio production for some of those corporate clients. But it was pretty fun. Yeah, I really enjoyed it, but got into sales instead of pursuing the career of radio and TV production. I do have some friends from high school that went that way, graduated from college, and they’re actively involved in radio and TV production today.
Neal:
Man, so are you saying you’re still available to do voiceovers?
Matthew:
I don’t know. Do I have the right type of voice for a voiceover?
Neal:
I think you’re better suited for it than I am.
Matthew:
Oh, well, I appreciate the compliment. Yeah, my business manager is my wife, so if anybody out there has any prospects, contact me and I’ll put you in touch with my wife.
Neal:
I love it. I love it. Well, Matt, it’s been a pleasure talking, and look forward to a lot of good things. Look forward to bringing together your expertise in data and building inventory connections and B2B, B2C websites and marrying that with Tread Partners marketing. I think we’ve got the recipe for success. So looking forward to a great new year.
Matthew:
Neal, thank you very much for bringing me on board with the team. I’m looking forward to a good 2023. We’re going to do a lot of great things, I think, in the coming year.
Neal:
I agree. Thank you, Matt. Great talking to you. And thanks for joining us on Gain Traction.
Matthew:
Thank you, Neal.
Announcer:
Thanks for listening to the Gain Traction Podcast. We’ll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.
Transcript
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