Core Values Drive Success With Dave Christopher, Co-founder and Co-owner of Tread Partners

Dave Christopher is Co-founder and Co-owner of Tread Partners, a leading digital marketing agency specializing in tire and auto repair operations with locations spanning from five to hundreds. Under his leadership, Tread Partners’ success and reputation has flourished over the past 14 years. Dave grew up immersed in the automotive industry, as his father owned a repair shop — where Dave himself became a passionate advocate for the industry’s growth and development.

In this episode…

The automotive repair and tire service industry faces unique challenges in fostering company culture. What role do core values play in shaping a business that thrives in this competitive space?

According to Dave Christopher, who co-founded Tread Partners in 2010, core values are the foundation of a thriving company culture. He emphasizes the importance of aligning these values with daily operations, from hiring to customer interactions. By living out principles like excellence, humility, and growth, companies can create a cohesive team environment and make impactful decisions, even amid challenges.

On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge welcomes Dave to discuss how core values shape company culture, empower teams, and foster success in the tire and auto repair industry. Dave shares his experiences as a shop owner, insights into building strong partnerships, and the transformative power of community involvement. Mike and Dave highlight actionable steps for businesses aiming to build a culture rooted in integrity and growth.

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

• [02:00] How growing up in auto repair shapes careers
• [02:42] Why genuine industry stories resonate with listeners
• [05:10] The key role core values play in success
• [07:05] How regrets indicate personal and professional growth
• [08:15] Why making mistakes is crucial for learning
• [20:04] The importance of evolving core values with growth
• [22:40] How community involvement impacts business success

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Dave Christopher on LinkedIn
• Tread Partners
• Dustin Dobbs
• Dobbs Tire & Auto Centers
• Mike Edge on LinkedIn

Quotable Moments:

• “Core values are crucial; they guide decisions, especially when you can’t always be there to make the call.”
• “Mistakes are beneficial. Make a mistake but learn from it, right? Don’t make the same mistake twice.”
• “Culture is as big as anything. People who get it right, get it. It’s simple, but not easy.”
• “Company values should evolve over time, just like personal values evolve as life changes.”
• “If core values aren’t genuinely followed, they crumble, and the culture becomes fake.”

Action Steps:

1. Establish core values: Begin by defining the core values of your organization or personal life, such as being an excellent partner or staying humble.
2. Live by your values daily: Ensure that core values are not just words on a wall, but are actively practiced and reflected in everyday actions.
3. Embrace mistakes as learning opportunities: Encourage a culture where mistakes are seen as a chance to learn, not something to fear.
4. Community involvement: Actively participate in community activities and encourage team members to do the same, whether through sponsorships or volunteering.
5. Regularly review and adapt values: Schedule annual reviews of your core values to ensure they still align with the organization’s goals and growth.

• David Christopher
• Gain Traction Podcast
• Mike Edge
• Tread Partners

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, where we feature top tire and auto repair professionals, shop owners, industry executives, and thought leaders, 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. This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners, the leading digital marketing agency for tire and auto repair operations that have five to hundreds of locations. Our exclusive media partner is tirebusiness.com. You can find this and all Gain Traction Podcast on tirebusiness.com. It’s going to be relatively easy. Just go up to the navigation, or you might find it in one of the ad spots on the site as well. Our guest today is Dave Christopher. He is the co-founder and co-owner of Tread Partners, our sponsor. And Dave, it’s great to have you back on the Gain Traction Podcast.

Dave:

It’s great to be here being interviewed by you one-to-one because I’ve been on it, but I’ve never been interviewed by you. And-

Mike:

How did we do it last time?

Dave:

It was with Neil, and I believe the other time was Jeremy interviewing all of us.

Mike:

That’s right.

Dave:

Yeah, so this is our first one-on-one, and I got to say I love the podcast. I listen to all of them. It’s just that beginning music. I don’t know who picked it, and the old music was so much better, but hey.

Mike:

Listen, maybe we’ll get some feedback from some listeners because, folks, Dave liked the original song we had. It was a little bit more-

Dave:

Dave also picked the original song, so I may be a bit biased by the original song.

Mike:

And that’s okay. Everybody’s got their taste, Dave.

Dave:

That’s it. That’s it.

Mike:

I got the little country twang in there and you had a little more of the hard rock.

Dave:

Yeah, yeah, a little more in my bones. Kind of a ’90s child, so was pulling my inner Nirvana, if you will, and just feeling good about Nirvana at the time.

Mike:

Oh God.

Dave:

But no, I love the podcast. I love what you’re doing with it. It’s really good just to listen to it. And then everything you’re doing for the industry, you’re doing such a great job. And for me, my father owned a repair shop in ’83 he started it, and it was just closed down about five years ago, which I was an owner in as well and a partner, and I took it over from him. So I’ve grown up in the industry and just what you’ve been able to do is just fantastic, bringing everybody together. So I got to give you your kudos. It’s been great and glad we’re able to put this together and you just took the ball and ran with it.

Mike:

Well, I appreciate that. And I really just, I appreciate the opportunity. You know me, man, I like people and I like to talk to people and it’s fun in this industry. This industry has the best people, bar none. Everybody’s down to earth, but it’s fun to listen to everybody’s story about how they got their start or what bumps in the road they hit. And the best part too is hearing from dealers that tell me they like to hear from other dealers. They really like to learn some little tidbit. And it’s funny because a lot of the guys that grew up in the industry, they like to hear from other guys that grew up in the industry. Hey, did your dad make you sweep the shop? That type of thing.

Dave:

Yeah, that’s how we all started, right?

Mike:

Yeah. I just recently interviewed, well, it’s been a little bit, but Dustin Dobbs with Dobbs Automotive, and he said, “Man, I thought I was making a lot of money when my dad gave me 20 bucks.” That was 20 bucks a week. And he said, he goes, “I might’ve worked 20 hours, but I was a little kid.” And he goes, “Here you go.” And he’d give me the 20 bucks. Well, not until I got a little bit older, I realized this wasn’t matching up with child labor laws.

Dave:

Well, I’m owed money then because in the ’80s and ’90s, I was not paid a dime, and I was the best floor sweeper and nut and bolt organizer on the east of the Mississippi. I can promise you that, because that was my weekends, that was my hanging out with my father. He’s a great guy, passionate about cars. Still to this day our conversation is around cars with him and it’s fun, but he just loved the work, just that old school mentality, just always working and providing. And I wanted to be around him because he was cool, and cars were cool, and [inaudible 00:04:34] be there, well, sweep and organize some nuts and bolts and do a little bit of detailing.

Mike:

That’s awesome. It’s cool to hear the experiences that everybody has in growing up in the industry or around it or how they got into it, but I know today, we wanted to just talk a little bit about culture and just what it takes. And even from our perspective, my parent company is Tread Partners, obviously I’m heavily involved with the podcast, but what our culture is, what you guys strive for, why it’s important, and how it’s contagious, either way, good or bad, right?

Dave:

That’s it. Yeah. And it starts with core values. And for me, core values, I never really understood the importance of them, especially through the auto shop that I owned. And then even the first five to 10 years of Tread Partners, honestly, we’re 14 years in now, and I’d say over the last five years, we’ve really embraced our core values. That’s the reason you’re with Tread Partners and with Gain Traction because you perfectly align with what we stand for.

So just to give you an example of ours, it’s be an excellent partner, be dedicated to success, grow, and stay humble and be insightful. And each one means a lot to me. Really, the big one would be, be an excellent partner. It’s in our name, and that works both ways, right? And as you know, we’ve fired clients that weren’t a great partner, they weren’t an excellent partner.

Mike:

Yeah.

Dave:

And grow and stay humble, that’s another big one. Each day we all want to get a little bit better, but you got to let that ego get out of the way because if you’re not looking back and going, what I did five years ago, I’m kind of cringed by that, that means you’re not growing. But if you are growing, you’re leaving some other people behind.

Mike:

Well, it’s interesting you say it that way. I’ve come to this conclusion in my life, you know Frank Sinatra’s famous song, I did it my way?

Dave:

Yeah.

Mike:

And he’ll say, “Regrets, I’ve had a few.” I disagree with that. I think if… Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about, look, I know there’s a lot of wonderful life decisions we make and we don’t want to change them, even with the hardships that went with them, that sometimes they’re the best things, but you got to have some regrets in your life, otherwise you’re not growing, right?

Dave:

Learn.

Mike:

Yeah.

Dave:

That’s the only way to learn. If you’re continuing to do everything perfect, which nobody does, but if your mind, you think everything is sunshine and rainbows, you’ve got it wrong because you should, one, be doing something that gets you out of your comfort zone so you do grow and you’re learning something. And you’re going to make mistakes learning something, you’re not going to do it perfect. And two, it’s just to me, mistakes are, they’re so beneficial. And we say it all the time at Tread Partners, make a mistake, but learn from it, right? And don’t make the same mistake twice. It’s that simple. If you’re dedicated to success, you’re going to try something that might not work, right? And that’s one of our core values, be dedicated to success. Elon Musk did not just launch a rocket and have it come back down onto a launch pad by not having a ton of failures to get there.

Mike:

I know. No.

Dave:

I remember 10 years ago those things were just blowing up on launch. Right?

Mike:

Yeah.

Dave:

So you continue to grow, you continue to grow. And you know that’s in their company culture, right? I don’t know their core values, but I would guarantee you can make mistakes, just don’t make them twice, and make sure you learn from them.

Mike:

Ain’t that the truth. The best coaches, the best managers, the best owners of company, when you talk to their employees or talk to a player that played for a coach, you’ll ask them what makes them great or why did you have a profound experience with them? And I’m not talking about the ones we all know that are written up. I’m talking about the daily coaches we know in our lives where people will talk about them and say, man, Mr. so-and-so was great to me because he did this, this, and this.

Usually it comes down to the fact that he let me fail and he let me learn from my mistakes, and he didn’t clobber me for it. Now, if I made a mental mistake on something we had discussed, yeah, he’d chew me out. I’d get my butt kicked or I had to run extra laps, but I deserved it, right? I went dead at a moment or whatever, brain dead that is. Excuse me. But the reality is, those kind of guys that empower you to succeed but also empower you to experiment, make a mistake and learn from it, man, that’s where companies, that’s where teams, that’s where people take off.

Dave:

That’s exactly it right there. It’s the only, to me, it’s the way to get better. That’s 100% it. And yeah, that’s really all. Sometimes it’s easy just to say it’s that easy, right?But there’s also this, it’s simple, but it’s not easy, right? So it’s a simple concept, but you got to live by it.

Mike:

And I think where your core values comes in is that if you don’t have them listed out in front of you, when you have those decisions that affect you, for instance, how are we going to work with this hard-headed customer, right, that’s not helping us? We’re trying to help you, but they’re not helping us help you. It’s kind of like-

Dave:

That’s it.

Mike:

… what do we do here? And then you look at your core values and you say, excellent partner. Well, sometimes you got to check up and be honest with yourself and go, we’re being an excellent partner here, right?

Dave:

They’re not. Yeah.

Mike:

And then what do we do about it? Well, obviously we’re going to be classy about it and we’re going… But obviously it’s a relationship that doesn’t work. So what do you do? You just move on. And everybody’s had time. If anything, you and Neil will give plenty of time for people to express themselves, make things right, whatever. And from a customer standpoint as well as an employee standpoint, just let’s get it right, let’s get it right, let’s get it right. But eventually it may not get right.

Dave:

Eventually you got to look to your core values as well and go, you know what, this just doesn’t align with where we want to go. We’ve given every shot on the planet and it’s just not going to work. And to your point, thinking about teammates, how many decisions they have to make every single day, right? And that’s the auto repair. Every business on the planet. You’re not always going to be there. And if they don’t have someone higher to turn up to, they need to be empowered to make choices. And if they understand what the core values of the company are, it’s going to make those choices that much easier because they’re going to go, what would so-and-so do? What would the company do? What would we talk about?

In our weekly meetings, we always review the core values and we try to at least talk about somebody that made a really good decision based on core values. And that’s one of the things, you’ve got to highlight them as well. You can’t just have them and just they’re there to be there. It doesn’t work that way. I’m going to give you an example. So communication, respect, integrity, excellence, these all sound pretty good, right?

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dave:

That was Enron.

Mike:

Enron?

Dave:

Yeah. Yeah, that was Enron. So it means nothing if you don’t actually live by them. Clients see it, teammates see it, everybody sees it. And obviously Enron, it’s an anomaly, right? But so many businesses, they have core values that they don’t live by. So just recently over the last month, I ran into two separate clients, and one of theirs was community involvement. And I just asked them, because this has been really on top of mind for me is, “Well, what are you guys doing in the community? How do you do that?” And they’re like, “Well, we’re involved.” I’m like, “Yeah, but what do you do? Do you sponsor events? What do you do?”

Mike:

No.

Dave:

And it’s like, “Well, we’ve got a sign on the baseball field.” I’m like, “Well, that’s not community involvement. That’s not commitment. You need to be sponsoring local events. You need to be offering free car safety checks once a month. You need to actually be out in the community if you’re going to say you’re in community involvement.” So your core values, and they don’t live by them, and again, that’s one of the pieces, and we’re working on it with them. That’s one thing we like to do is just call out, hey, here’s also a bad part of the business.

Mike:

Yeah.

Dave:

And the employees see it. Everybody. If you’re trying to say, we’re doing community involvement, we don’t, we just have an ad for a baseball field, then your other core values don’t matter. Right? Who cares? So then another client had safety, we’re committed to safety. So I was just like, “Well, how are you committed to safety?” And they’re like, “Well, we just do a good job every time.” I’m like, “Well, of course everybody does a good job every time.” It’s like, “But do you have a checklist, a quality checklist that you could show a customer like here’s what safety means to us?” Right? And, “No, we just do a good job.” So every other core value they have is out the door to me.

And you don’t think the employee or the teammates don’t see that either? They literally are just like, this is a joke because we don’t live by these core values. So it really keeps the whole team in lock and step together because it really needs to, you need to live by them, right, like we were talking about. It’s just so important and they need to be just ingrained in your principles of how you do it every day. And if you don’t, then just don’t have core values. It just doesn’t make sense to have them. You don’t need them.

Mike:

Well, and it’s bad leadership because, look, if you put them out there and you don’t follow them, and what you mean by follow them, review them, you got to review them to the point where it almost gets memorized, right? I know what my boss is going to say. He’s going to say, go back to core values. That should be the key. But employees are just like anybody else. They pick up on it. And then if you’re not keeping them, then they don’t trust you necessarily. And I’m not saying maybe a complete lack of trust, but there’s a hesitancy that he’ll let that slide or he’ll let that go.

Dave:

100%.

Mike:

And once it starts, man, it’s just a slippery slope, right?

Dave:

That’s it. And early on in the conversation, I talked about how I didn’t have core values at our repair shop, and for the first 10 years or so with Tread Partners, and now that we have core values and we’re actually following them, think about everything we’ve been able to accomplish in the last four years since you’ve been here. There was a lot of, before you got here, the team was always fluctuating. We were hiring people that they could do the work, they contributed, but they were just horrible culture fits, and they just didn’t fit our values.

Mike:

Yeah.

Dave:

So from a hiring standpoint, now we make sure that we have a lot about their personal values. Do their personal values fit our core values? We need to make sure that because every candidate that get screened through and we know that, okay, they can do the job, but can they do the job and also collaborate and work with our team because we have such a tight-knit team and if we bring in a new bad apple, and it literally does spoil all the apples.

Mike:

It does. And you think about that from a tech standpoint, if you’re in the base with people you don’t get along with.

Dave:

Yeah.

Mike:

Man.

Dave:

It’s brutal.

Mike:

And here’s the other thing. Here’s the flip side that I know what people are thinking right now. And some of these owners are thinking, yeah, well, you guys say that and it’s easily said, but heck, I’m having a hard enough time hiring somebody.

Dave:

Yeah.

Mike:

But here’s the thing, and I’ve seen this happen over and over again. If you’re willing to go through the pain of the initial phase of getting your base employees, the cores fixed and the culture right, man, it becomes a contagion the other way. You’ll start drawing in all the people that you want and hopefully to the point where you’ve got a drawer full of resumes of future candidates as well.

Dave:

They want to work with you.

Mike:

I think cream rises to the top. And I think that’s exactly what happens. And I’m not saying it’s easy. I think that initial phase of establishing this is difficult because you got to go through a little pain.

Dave:

It’s simple in theory, right, but it’s not easy. That’s always the thing. That’s most things in life, simple but easy. It’s really simple to lose weight. It’s not easy. Just eat less calories than you burn, right? The concept is simple, right? It’s not easy to do. It’s not easy to pass up that donut, right? It’s not easy to pass up that tech because, man, we’re so behind but you bring in a tech that brings everybody else down, all right, now we’ve got a problem, right?

So company culture is as big as anything. And the people that do it right, they get it. And the people that just try to shoehorn it in, there’s no reason to have it. That’s my biggest piece. And your values should evolve over time just like personal values. As you know, I just became a dad, a new dad four months ago, and my values as a person have changed dramatically. They’ve evolved having a baby, right?

Mike:

Yeah.

Dave:

Things I didn’t even think about.

Mike:

Yeah.

Dave:

And the way I see the world has evolved and my values, again, I still think about it a lot of, wow, I wouldn’t have thought that way four months ago. Right? [inaudible 00:18:39].

Mike:

Oh man, it is. It’s the strangest thing. I remember thinking in my life prior to having kids, how I used to think. And this is something you just can’t convey it to everybody. You either have kids or you don’t, and you either know or you don’t know. But once you cross the threshold of having kids, your whole thought process, like you said, changes, but it’s almost like you define your life like BC or before children.

Dave:

Yeah, exactly.

Mike:

That’s what it is. And it’s such a distinct line because I truly quit taking the risk that I would do if it was just me. You know what I mean?

Dave:

Yeah. That’s it. So think about that in business, right? So as your company grows and evolves, some of your values should evolve. That’s just the reality of it. It shouldn’t be, well, this has been our values for the last 20 years. Yeah, you can still have your values, but maybe they need to be evolved to fit what you’re doing now or your next growth stage or whatever that looks like. It is important to just make sure, review them. We review ours once a year now and just, is this still everything we’re doing, does this make sense? Should we tweak this a little bit? And we’ve made changes.

Mike:

Oh, yeah.

Dave:

And not to the principles, not to that, just little words here and there that convey the message to the team better. Right? So I think that’s very important as well.

Mike:

Well, man, I think you’ve nailed it in regards to culture, but the key to culture is core values. Because if you’re not standing on those values, then everything kind of crumbles and you can’t have a culture.

Dave:

That’s it. There is no culture or it’s a fake culture. It’s an Enron of culture, and everybody just knows that. Again, the trust piece, right? If we say that we’re committed to community and we don’t do any community involvement, then why have it on there?

Mike:

Well, and like you said, but everybody in the company sees it, then they know you’re full of it. And it’s like, guess what, like you said, the other core values start to crumble because this one’s not sticking. And then everybody’s like, well, [inaudible 00:20:50]. It’s just whatever.

Dave:

Yeah. That’s exactly-

Mike:

I’ll tell you, I’ll brag on this bank that I know, I’m not going to mention the name, but they make all their loan officers in our local community be on a local board. It’s your choice. They don’t even care which one it is. Just go be involved. And look, I know it serves the bank well because their person gets out there and is rubbing elbows, but that’s not an easy task to always be on a board and volunteer your time monthly and all that stuff. But in the long run, it pays off because they’re so involved. They feel like they’re everywhere. Does that make sense? But they’re not a national bank, but they feel like in our area, they’re everywhere. It just feels like they’re always involved. And so I think to some concept, I’m not saying a shop owner has to do that, but to some level, that’s what you’re trying to encourage your people to do. Go coach a baseball team. Go coach a basketball team, go get on a board or something, and we’ll support you when you got to leave early or something like that.

Dave:

Yep, absolutely. I like that a lot. That’s a really good idea.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, I’ve seen it work and I’m just blown away by what it does. It’s a long game play in a community to the point where there’s no one that doesn’t have a positive vibe looking at this bank because of how much they’re involved. So I tip my hat to them.

Dave:

Yeah, and think about how important it is for auto repair tire dealers to be out locally. It’s everything. We know the clients we have that are committed to the community and do it right. And right now, everybody’s down, not everybody, but the industry is down about 20% versus 2023. And the people that are doing it right in the community, they are still rising. They are-

Mike:

That’s amazing.

Dave:

… positive. And it’s always going to be that way because they are ingrained in the community.

Mike:

Yeah.

Dave:

And they’re trusted. And that was number one on their core value is community, community, community. And they actually live it. And we’ve got multiple clients that do that, and it’s great to see. And core values when done right and followed, it’s just a complete game changer.

Mike:

We’ll leave it at that. That’s awesome. Good way to end it.

Dave:

Very good. Well, thank you, Mike. I’ve got one more thing for you because it’s been a while since I gave you a really good dad joke and-

Mike:

Oh, let’s go with it.

Dave:

We’re deep in the football season here. Unfortunately, my Phins can’t keep a quarterback alive or healthy. But next year’s our year, as I always say, since 1981, next year’s our year.

Mike:

That’s right.

Dave:

That’s when I was born. So I still have never seen a championship, but next year. All right, Mike.

Mike:

Yes.

Dave:

Why don’t football players wear glasses?

Mike:

Oh, man. Why don’t football players wear glasses? Tell me, please.

Dave:

It’s a contact sport.

Mike:

Oh, yes.

Dave:

Yes, sir.

Mike:

That’s another great-

Dave:

I knew you’d love that one.

Mike:

That’s another great Dave Dad joke. I’ll tell you what-

Dave:

You go to love it. You got to love it.

Mike:

You never disappoint.

Dave:

I do my best.

Mike:

Dave, thanks for being part of Gain Traction, man. I love the way we got a chance to do it one-on-one this time, and we’ll do it again and we’ll talk about-

Dave:

Absolutely. Thanks, Mike.

Mike:

Maybe next one-

Dave:

I appreciate it. Keep on doing what you’re doing or as Will Ferrell, just keep on trucking.

Mike:

Amen. To our listeners out there, thank you for being part of the podcast. We are grateful for you. If you would like to recommend a guest to me, please email me at mike@treadpartners. Until next time, just smile, have fun, have a great day.

Announcer:

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