Easy Money for Tire Dealers With Mike Edge, Director of Business Development With Tread Partners

Mike Edge is the Director of Business Development at Tread Partners. He has had a lengthy career in his field, having previously been the Owner and Business Development expert for Resource Connection Inc., Director of Business Development at Upright Communications, and Owner of T.M. Edge, Inc.

In this episode…

What is the best group of potential customers a tire dealer could possibly reach out to? According to Mike Edge, it’s past customers who haven’t been in the shop for a while. Mike describes those people as “low-hanging fruit that people really don’t know how to go after.” The ReTread program reaches out to past customers on behalf of tire shops. To understand why the ReTread program comes with a guaranteed 10-to-1 return on investment, check out this episode of Tread Partners!

On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge is interviewed by Chad Franzen of Rise25 about Tread Partners’ ReTread program. Mike explains why he’s so confident in the program that he’s willing to guarantee a 10-to-1 return on investment. They also discuss ways tire dealerships can improve their websites and why dealerships tend to lose touch with past customers. Tune in!

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

• Mike Edge provides a broad overview of Tread Partners’ ReTread program
• What are some of the top questions customers have before utilizing the ReTread program?
• Why businesses who don’t reach out to past customers are not communicating to the right people
• What gives Mike the confidence in ReTread to guarantee a 10-to-1 return on investment?
• Improvements Mike would recommend to improve most tire dealer websites
• Mike explains what the ‘About Us’ page on a business website is really supposed to be about

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• ReTread Customer Re-engagement Program 
• Mike Edge on LinkedIn
• Tread Partners
• Chad Franzen on LinkedIn
• Rise25

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 Edge:

Mike Edge here. I am the host of Game Traction, where I talk with top automotive business leaders about their journeys. I have Chad Franzen here of Rise 25, who has done hundreds of interviews with successful entrepreneurs and CEOs. And we have flipped the script today, and he will be actually interviewing me.

This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. At Tread Partners, we provide digital marketing for multi-location tire dealers and auto repair shops. By using our strategy, branding, and marketing services, we help all kinds of shops, in particular large dealers, sell more tires and put more cars in bays. So what are you waiting for? Check us out at TreadPartners.com.

My guest today is Chad, as I mentioned. And Chad, I’m going to let you take it away from here and we’ll flip that script.

Chad Franzen:

Okay. Great. Hey, great to be here, Mike. Thanks so much for having me.

Hey, I want to talk a little bit today about your ReTread program and some of the top questions that your customers often have for you regarding it. Can you give me a broad overview, a general overview of what the ReTread program is for those who aren’t familiar?

Mike:

Yeah. I think the easiest terminology to use is customer re-engagement. These are your customers that are lost, we categorize them in that category, that haven’t been back for say, six months to 30 months. And we want to reach back out to them, because they’re already brand aware, right? They already know us. They’ve already been in the shop before. So how do we get those folks back that may have been good customers in the sense that they had good repair orders with us, they were spending good money with us on an average basis, and all of a sudden they’re just not there anymore?

Chad:

So some of your clients might hear about this, and then they say, “Okay,” but then they have some other questions before they want to maybe really get involved. What are some of the top questions that your customers have before working with you on this?

Mike:

Well, obviously, they want to know it works and they want to hear a case study or two. Then they obviously… I think this industry is very price sensitive, so that they’ll ask what kind of fees are associated with a program like this to know if they can get a return on investment. And they’re wondering, “Hey, does this work better than anything I’ve done in the past? How effective is it?,” et cetera.

Chad:

And you guys offer a 10 to one guarantee on ROI. Is that right?

Mike:

Yeah. So that solves a lot of those questions that people have. They’ll sit there and they have all these tough questions. But when you hit them with that, they really don’t know other than to say yes after that point, because when you’re 10 to one guarantee, we’re literally telling them, “So if you invest with us today $5,000,” we’re saying, “in 120 days, you will see 50,000 in return from the best lost customers that we created that list off of your point of sale. It was customers in your database that had not been back in six to 30 months.” And we’re saying, “We’ll go back after them, and that’s the guarantee, and help you bring them back to your stores inside your base.”

Chad:

So a 10 to one guarantee on ROI is pretty good. Would you say that most people who aren’t doing this or aren’t involved in this type of a program, or even specifically a retread, are not advertising to the right people?

Mike:

Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a group of people… One of the ways this program came about was it’s low-hanging fruit that people really don’t know how to go after. Your most effective way is for an owner of a shop or somebody that’s well-known in a shop to pick up the phone and call these people. But usually, that person is so busy they don’t have time to call all the missing customers.

And then the other old traditional way is, and we still utilize it in some capacities, it depends on what part of the country somebody might be in, but is the mailer, the postcard. But the problem with the postcard is it’s a lot of work to get it produced, then you got to mail it out. And if you mail three in three months, that’s only hitting them one time on one day. And that first time, they usually get that thing, it goes to the trashcan if they’re like me.

And the same thing with emails. So a lot of these dealers, they have email collections or they have text and all that is… It can be effective. It has a certain place in the business. But at the same time, I don’t know about you, Chad, but I’ve opted into a lot of texts and emails that all of a sudden, within a short period of time, and let’s say short period of time, I mean within 60 or 90 days, it’s white noise to me. Do I still do keep them before I unsubscribe? Absolutely. But I’m not jumping to look into the email, if that makes sense.

Chad:

Sure.

Mike:

And I think part of that reason is I know them, I don’t need them right now, or whatever the case may be. And does that make sense?

Chad:

Yeah, yeah. Definitely.

Mike:

Yeah.

Chad:

So would you say that people who aren’t doing this or maybe putting their advertising dollars not into this are misspending their advertising dollars are misspending in a big way?

Mike:

Well, so most people think about advertising dollars and they go after new customers. We’re always thinking in acquisition mode. That’s the other side of our business. We help people with PPC budgets and SEO budgets. And we do see a lot of inefficiencies there in this industry, because most of the tire dealers, distributors that we know are managed by, more or less, let’s call it a general practitioner in marketing, whereas this is all we do. This is the only industry we’re in, is the tire and auto repair industry.

So I think we spend money very efficiently and get a great return for people. But when you say the best place to spend your money or could you spend it more effectively, I haven’t found a better place than our ReTread program, because we’re literally giving a 10 to one guarantee.

And you might ask yourself or might ask me, “How did you guys come up with that?” Well, it was to the point where we were having so much success, we looked at the lowest level that we could be at a guarantee. We’ve always achieved 10 to one or higher. So we just got done with the customer and they did a 14 to one return. We’ve had them as high as 19 to one. So it’s insane, because people wouldn’t believe you if you said, “Hey, I’m going to give you a 10 to one ROI.” They’re like, “Yeah, whatever. This is another gimmick marketing strip.”

But when you guarantee it, when we put it in writing, well, that takes a lot of risk away. It takes a lot of questions away. And it’s a lot of fun when you see people get these kind of results. And the best thing about it, Chad, is when we market this thing, we go out there, we’ll do it with an ad, and this involves IP targeting. But when we do it with an ad, we may have these groups of customers, like your best lost customers and the bucket of A and then the other ones in bucket B, and then all the lower ones, we don’t even target.

But we’ll take those A and Bs and maybe one of them will get a better offer than the other because they’re a better spender, right? And they’re worth more to get them back. Well, it’s the only time in marketing that we actually don’t want to see redemptions. It’s funny, but you always measure it by redemption rate usually. Well, in this case, you don’t have to. And most people that get these ads, since they’re digital, they’re more or less… they’re already familiar with your name as a dealer. They get the ad that reminds them of it, but they never redeem the ad. It’s like less than 1%, way less. And so we crack up about it, because we’re rooting for them not to use the ad, but to come back in, right?

Chad:

Mm-hmm.

Mike:

And they come back in, and that’s the easiest measuring tool to literally measure… You start with a list. You got your, say, it’s a list of 500 names. That’s the minimum we got to do. And you got these 500 names that you go after. And then at the end of 90 days or through the process every 30 days, we’ll measure it. But you’re just looking to see in the point of sale, “Did any of these people come back in and what did they spend?”

It’s so easy and it’s the great greatest measurement tool. Did they come back in and did they spend any money, and how much? And then that total is measured against your investment, and it’s always 10 to one or greater. It’s that simple.

Chad:

So a 10 to one guarantee, that’s a pretty good guarantee. This is a relatively new program, but it’s not totally new. What, based on your experience, makes you guys so confident that this isn’t going to come back to haunt you?

Mike:

Well, okay. That’s a great question. So at the end of the day, we decided, “You know what? Let’s just go for it, right? Because it’s never been less than this.” And until we get burnt, we’re going to do it.

And we may do it after we get burnt. We may learn something. But we’ve been doing this many years, and this is the first time that we actually took it out of a… and made it an individual product, if that makes sense. So now we’ve made it and named it ReTread, because everybody in the tire industry knows where to reread tire is. Well, this is retreading your marketing or retreading your customer base.

And so far, I think and I’m confident that we’re going to see success in this for a long time, because the technology’s so good, we know the industry, we keep seeing great results, and the results is just right… The proof’s in the pudding. It’s right there.

So right now, we’re not worried about it. I guess you could say I’m a little maybe overconfident. But it’s the one program that I’ve done over, let’s say… I’ve been doing this since 2002, internet marketing, digital marketing. It’s the most favorite program I’ve ever sold. I’m giving somebody a 10 to one. More than likely, it’s going to be greater than that, but I’m giving you a 10 to one on your marketing money, going after people that you’ve already had in your stores. What could be better?

And so I’ve never been able to… Chad, you’ve been around a long time. Have you ever heard of anything like that?

Chad:

No.

Mike:

He’s in marketing. No.

Chad:

That’s why I asked.

Mike:

Yeah. So it’s like how much fun… It’s fun when you can do that for your clients and be that confident about it.

Chad:

Sure. And so it sounds to me like, in the tire industry, that when a store loses touch with its customer or a customer doesn’t come back, it’s often not because of dissatisfaction. It’s because of some other reason. Would you say that’s accurate?

Mike:

Yeah. So that’s the other cool thing that we’ve learned in this process. We realize that your immediate thought is, “We’ve lost that customer because we ticked them off somehow. They got mad. We had poor service. We did something wrong.”

Well, they come find out it wasn’t any of that. They got distracted. Something else came up. A coupon did come their way and they took advantage of it, some type of discount somewhere else. Maybe it was a tire discount that got them to another shop, and then they went there for service. Or it could be any number of things that just weren’t negative. But the bottom line, we used the word, “They just got distracted.” They just went…

Or maybe one of them I thought about, too, is that they may have called one of your locations, couldn’t get in that day, it was an emergency. They go somewhere else, they have a great experience, and they just go back to that place, forgetting you temporarily until you send these IP targeting digital ads. And then they’re like, “Oh, hey, I forgot about those guys.”

But the beauty about the targeting ad is you know who you’re targeting and you know what you can say to them, and you know it’s only going to this group, which is… And that’s an isolated message, right? It’s awesome.

Chad:

So, hey, switching gears maybe just a little bit, maybe not, but I was wondering, you look at tire dealer and auto shops’ websites all day long.

Mike:

Yeah.

Chad:

As you do so, what do you see that often needs improvement or that you wish maybe that these guys knew that you know?

Mike:

The biggest thing that I can tell, if I go on a site right away and I look at it, I can tell if they’ve thought about it and they’ve had customization in regards to the business or if it’s just some standard thing they threw up. There’s several companies out there that just throw up, call it the boilermaker website and… or boiler plate. I’m sorry. And it’s just like they shove information into this framework and it’s launched. And it’s got decent aesthetics to it and looks okay. But typically, the owners or the dealer might be excited about it.

But in the end of the day, it’s not a website that’s going to work for you because you didn’t design it with the processes that are important to you, your products, et cetera. You just gave your information over to an agency that just shoved it into a box and then put it out there. So those are pretty easy to spot. But you can tell the folks that really care about their marketing, because, A, you’ll see them in Google searches for keyword terminology related to the industry. But then when you get to their site, you can usually see really good call to actions. It’s not boiler plated like a lot of sites are. It looks like it has some customization to it. They can direct you where they want you to go or the information they want you to have. Does that help?

Chad:

Yeah. Sure. So there’s some pretty common blind spots, would you say?

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. The easiest ones to spot are just in the About Us or the way they talk about themselves or whatever too much, or even on the homepage. Or they only have the initial call to action, “Look up tires.” Well, what if the guy doesn’t want to look up tires or the woman? You’ve got to have multiple call to actions. But you can tell there’s companies out there that produce, like I said, the standard boiler plate sites, and they’re all laid out identical. It’s just the only thing that changes on them is color and somebody else’s logo.

Chad:

You mentioned something About Us. I would think for a mom-and-pop type store that the About Us page could be valuable. I think people like to have a little bit of a connection. Would you say that’s true? Or what do you mean when they say they talk about themselves too much?

Mike:

Well, really, the About Us is supposed to be about you, but it’s really not about you. It’s about the customer, right?

Chad:

Mm-hmm.

Mike:

And everybody loves a good local story that somebody’s been in business since 1949 and et cetera. That’s nice. And it does build credibility, and it shows like community roots. Those are all important things. But you could even have a category called History for that.

But the About Us, it should be that point where you’re trying to build trust fast, “Hey, we’ve been in business since 1949. These are the things that we do well,” or you got to cut to the chase of really why are they looking on me About Us? It’s really they want to trust you.

And over my 20 some odd years of doing this, the key aspect of internet marketing is you’re trying to build trust. And it sounds weird, but you’re trying to build trust as fast as possible, because that back button is actually your competitor.

And everybody’s spoiled, right? We’re all spoiled with internet information, Chad. If I don’t get information on a site where I just search for information through Google and then I get to a site and they don’t seem to be providing me what I look for, what do I do? I hit the back button. Why? Because I know I have too many other options. I don’t have to wait. It’s your job as a dealer. It’s your job in the sales world if you’re selling tires, services, whatever you’re selling, really, to basically speak clearly to your customer so that you can build trust quickly that they’re getting answers to their problems or questions.

And it never surprises me anymore, but people still don’t do that. For the example About Us, yes, it’s good to talk about yourself and everything, but it’s not about you in the end of the day. And if you just go on for paragraphs about, “Yeah. Now, we’re in the fourth generation. And Mike, he’s doing this now and he has…,” nobody cares. Right?

Chad:

Yeah. Yeah, I could see that. Hey, I have one more question for you. I know at Tread Partners, you have three buckets for marketing: acquisition, retention, and re-engagement. Can you elaborate on that last one? I know that has a lot to do with your ReTread program.

Mike:

Yeah. So re-engagement is just what it is. You’ve already had these people as a customer, they’re somewhere in your point of sale, and you’re really just trying to re-engage them. It’s the best group of people to go after for new dollars in a sense. I know you think of them like, “Well, they’ve been in and they’ve been in before.” But if you’re able to get back a lost customer that hadn’t spent anything with you for a while, that’s new revenue, but it’s an easy group to target. So that’s the word re-engagement. You’re re-engaging an old customer or a lost customer.

Chad:

Would you say that’s often the most overlooked group?

Mike:

Easily. Now, I think everybody tries and they think they’re doing a good job. But their problem is they think their email campaigns or their text campaigns are solid, and they’re not. And the reason I say they’re not is I just speak from a…

The good thing about marketing, granted, I always want data. Now, I can prove data, but I can also tell the entire audience that’s listening right now think of yourself and how many emails you ignore and how many text messages you ignore, even from people that or companies that you’ve opted in to receive that from. Same thing’s going to happen to you.

But the difference is, with IP targeting, we target them with ads daily with your brand, and they’re going to see an ad anytime they go on a web browser. So people go on that web browser on their phone every day, and they’re looking up for different pieces of information. But if they’re going to get an ad, why shouldn’t it be your ad once or twice a day over the period of 90 days? And that’s going to stimulate something in their brain that says, “You know what? I’ve got a car issue,” or “I’ve got this. I’ve been putting this off,” or whatever, “I know those guys. I’ve had a great experience there.” And it’s like that subliminal message saying they just end up back in your store. They didn’t even redeem the coupon and everything. Everybody’s happy.

Chad:

So often, it’s just a reminder of your existence.

Mike:

That’s it.

Chad:

What kind of ads do you offer? With my car, I basically take it in for an oil change, unless there’s a major problem with it. Then I go get it fixed. Do you often advertise for those types of services, or what kind of ads are they?

Mike:

So what we’ll do is, say, in your point of sale, we’ll look at your entire customer list and we’ll see what the average repair order is, and then we’ll take those customers that haven’t been back in six to 30 months and we’ll compare that list of customers to your average repair order, what they’ve spent. And usually, that group that’s right at your average and above, we call the A group, if they haven’t been back in a while. And those that are just slightly that and below, then we’ll put them in the B group.

And then each one of them will get maybe an ad that one ad could be, “No strings attached, $50 off.” So that could be a free oil change in a sense. Or the lower group, just because their average is less, but you still want them back, “$25 off, no strings attached.”

But like I said, less than 1% actually even redeemed the ad. They’re coming back because they don’t even remember the ad. They just came back because you’ve hit them so frequently. And the other thing, and we’ve never gotten any pushback like a customer’s seeing too many ads or it was grossly overused or… One or two ads a day, they don’t even really know they’re getting it, because we see so much advertising on a daily basis.

Chad:

Okay. Hey, we’re just about out of time here, Mike. Ten to one guarantee on the ReTread program. Anything else that’s important for people to know about it?

Mike:

It works, and the risk is on us. Give it a try. 2023 is booking up. We’ve got a lot of people that want to do it, and we’ve got distributors that are pushing it now. They want to do something really big with their dealer network. And this is an easy program, because it has a beginning, it has an end, and it has an ROI to it, and it minimizes risk. And so for distributors out there that want to give it to dealers, it’s been a home run, because for them, it’s a measurable success. And like I said, we’re the ones taking on the risk. So why wouldn’t you not give it a try?

Chad:

So you must be pretty confident that 10 to one is almost a baseline.

Mike:

Yes.

Chad:

If it’s a guarantee.

Mike:

Yes.

Chad:

Okay.

Mike:

That’s exactly it.

Chad:

Sounds good. Hey [inaudible 00:21:19].

Mike:

Look, I hope somebody ends up with the 15s and the 19 to ones that we’ve had, but baseline, yeah, 10.

Chad:

Okay. Sounds good. Hey, Mike, it’s been great talking to you. I really appreciate the time today. Thank you so much.

Mike:

Chad, thank you. Appreciate the role reversal here.

Chad:

Absolutely. So long, everybody.

Announcer:

Thanks for listening to the Game Traction Podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

• Chad Franzen
• Gain Traction
• Gain Traction Podcast
• Mike Edge
• Rise25
• Tread Partners

Transcript