Expanding Your Portfolio To Meet Customer Demand With Lance Bullock of OE Wheels

Lance Bullock is President of OE Wheels, where he has worked since early 2006. He has used his background in finance and operations to contribute to the company’s overall modernization, direction, and growth. Under Lance’s leadership, OE Wheels has become North America’s largest independent replica wheel distributor and is the parent company to 4Play Wheels and Defiant Wheels.

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In this episode…

What should you do when demand outgrows what you have to offer? You expand your portfolio. That’s precisely what OE Wheels did, according to Lance Bullock. He said when wheels started flying off the shelves, OE forged a path to manufacturing: changing finishes, sizes, and some offsets. Eventually, OE Wheels evolved into an aftermarket replica company and started adding brands. Lance hired a designer and brand manager, and OE Wheels became the parent company of two new wheel brands: 4Play Wheels and Defiant Wheels.

On this episode of Gain Traction, Lance joins Mike Edge to discuss the growth and evolution of OE Wheels. Lance tells the story of how he left the corporate world to work and learn from his uncle. He talks about the blunt mentoring he received when he arrived and the operational improvements he recognized were needed. Lance explains how and why OE Wheels expanded its portfolio and grew the brand. Don’t miss it!

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

• Lance Bullock explains where he first became exposed to the automotive industry
• Why Lance left the corporate world to work for OE Wheels
• Where Lance first applied his vision upon starting with the company
• How OE Wheels chooses the brands it sells 
• Lance shares his proudest moment during his time with OE Wheels
• What makes OE Wheels confident the new wheels it sells will be popular among consumers?
• Why having a mentor can be more valuable than reading a book

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Lance Bullock on LinkedIn
• OE Wheels
• 4Play Wheels 
• Defiant Wheels 
• Mike Edge on LinkedIn
• Tread Partners

Transcript

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.

Mike:

Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast. I am Mike Edge, your host today. Gain Traction is where we talk with top automotive business leaders. But before we get started, I’d like to give a shout-out to Modern Tire Dealer and editor, Mike Mangus, for having me write an article in Maze publication for Modern Tire Dealer. The title of the article is How to Boost Sales Through Digital Marketing? Why Digital Marketing is as Important as your P&L? You can find it on page 49 in the hard copy.

So, today’s episode is brought to you by Tread Partners in the ReTread Marketing Program. What is a ReTread Marketing Program? It is a full-scale customer re-engagement program to win back your best lost customers. It is a onetime 120-day program that generates a guaranteed 10:1 return on investment. That is correct. A 10:1 guaranteed ROI, no tricks or gimmicks. These are your customers. They’re in your point of sale right now. So, for instance, if you were to invest $4,000 today, what Tread Partners is saying is that you’ll see a return of $40,000 within 120 days from that list of best Lost customers. So, what are you waiting for? To learn more, just visit treadpartners.com.

All right, so getting into my introduction today, I’d like to encourage you first, if you haven’t already, to listen to a recent interview I did with Sonny McDonald, national trainer for Toyo Tires. It was a great interview, and it was a lot of fun. It just so happens that Sonny introduced me to our guest today, Lance Bullock. Lance is the president of an outstanding wheel company, OE Wheels.

Lance, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast.

Lance:

Thank you so much, Mike, for having me on. I got to tell you, Sonny, Michael Cooper, all the guys over at Toyo, just a great bunch of people. And it’s always great that they would recommend me for something like this. You do a great job, and I’m excited to join you.

Mike:

Well, we’re glad to have you and you came highly recommended, so let’s do this as they say.

Lance:

All right.

Mike:

So, let’s get started with your career. I mean, all the way from childhood to where we are today, but where are you from and what’d you do as a kid sports wise growing up, et cetera?

Lance:

Well, I was born right here in Sarasota, Florida. I’m actually third generation, which is really rare down here in Florida, beautiful area. Grew up in a working class neighborhood, had great parents, very supportive, really taught me at a young age the value of hard work. My dad always had time to take us fishing and throw the football around right. Just a great childhood.

I did play sports, was horrible at baseball, played a little football, eventually made my way to University of Florida. Graduated with a degree in business administration finance. And it’s funny because it was that time working myself through college that I got my first exposure to the automotive world by working for my uncle, who was the founder of OE Wheels. And it was one heck of a job, Mike. We would go to salvage yards in this, the 1986 Dodge Ram van faded yellow with some rust, four speeds [inaudible 00:03:36]-

Mike:

Nice.

Lance:

… about eight inches of playing the steering wheel to pick up dirty salvage yard wheels. So, that was my first introduction. This is one of those micro dirty jobs, I think.

Mike:

So, yeah, you could have made that show easy, huh? Did it strengthen your hands? Did you have great grip on things and whatnot working for [inaudible 00:03:58]-

Lance:

I got to tell you. Okay. You always find when you have cuts when that acid gets in there, okay? And my little scrub bugged it out there on that 4X8 piece of plywood on the side of that 1200 square foot facility that we thought was magnificent. So definitely had a tan on my back. I’ll tell you that.

Mike:

Well, I think I know the answer to this. We’ve talked about this. So, what was your first job though, right after college?

Lance:

So, after graduating, I was lucky to go into the corporate world and work at L3Harris, which is actually today’s a $17 billion company, about 50,000 employees, Department of Defense contractor, and… I got to tell you the experience I had there. I was there for five years, and it really opened my eyes. In the automotive industry, you come from a blue collar. You’re not exposed to something like a corporate world. Had my own office looking at the different disciplines, different departments, the overall infrastructure, process, procedures, goal setting. It was just a lot of infrastructure that I’d never really been exposed to that I think really helped me once my uncle started calling me over and over to come work for him again.

Mike:

So, you took that experience back home. I mean, back to Sarasota with your uncle, and I know based on me and you talking, you really liked process, I mean and efficiency, so you were able to integrate that in basically a homegrown company.

Lance:

Yeah. It’s funny because you see a lot of these companies, small companies, and they get to a point where that lacking infrastructure or software, whatever process procedure really starts to cause problems, the lack of it. And I really came back at the right time where I think he was a great businessman. He’s the greatest mentor I’ve ever had. But a lot of those procedures and process software, a lot of that we were lacking, so it was a great marriage at that time. And I got to learn how to drive a forklift because we finally got one.

Mike:

Didn’t have to just use your bike, right?

Lance:

Yeah, yeah.

Mike:

Or some cart but that’s [inaudible 00:06:20]-

Lance:

Yeah, yeah. We have plenty of carts though. We can afford those.

Mike:

All right. So, you get back there. And how does your uncle put you involved in the company? I mean, obviously, you’re cleaning wheels in college and now, he want you back and help and run the company. Did you get a lot of latitude right away, or how’d that work out?

Lance:

I’d probably call them daily mentorship. It was close to beatings at time like what did you learn in college, so it was maybe a little unproductive mentorship at first, but yeah, it’s funny because right off the bat I was in the warehouse a lot of the time again, so it was important for me to get out there, really put my hands on a lot of the products. We were doing less and less OEM and more manufacturing or establishing manufacturing relationships at that time. So, it was back and forth between the warehouse and the office. And over the first couple years, I could really start to see the potential that he kept telling me was there really what this could become.

Mike:

Well, let me ask you this. I meant to ask you this a minute ago. It crossed my mind. I mean, to make that leap back to your uncle, you’re at a stable job. I mean, I’m not saying you love it or anything, but you know, you got a stable job where you’re at, but you’re going to go back to your work with your uncle. And what gave you the foresight, or what did you see that you knew that, “Man, I can contribute here, and I can see some dreams unfolding or real good opportunities unfolding at OE Wheels?”

Lance:

Mike, that’s really a great question. I think a lot of people in their careers at some point, they feel like they want to… When they’re younger, it’s okay to take a risk, and I knew that it was somewhat of a risk, but I could always go back to that corporate world at some point if things didn’t work out. But again, once I got involved and I really started looking at the potential of this, I was just so excited, and I was willing to do whatever it took, whatever hours, whatever hard work, whatever it took to help my uncle establish this business in a much greater way.

Mike:

So, when you got involved, did you immediately clean up? You used the word cleanup loosely here, but did you get involved and notice like, “Operationally, I can help fix this. This will streamline this, and then, we’ll sell more wheels because we’re more streamlined or introducing a software?” Or did you get on the sales side immediately and think, “Hey, we’ve got more opportunity out there.” Where did you apply your vision first?

Lance:

When I first worked with him during college sales was like, “Hey, let’s send out a fax,” with Hollander numbers on it and write down on a piece of paper. And he was an early adapter of e-commerce, but they were still writing orders, jotting them down on paper. There was no use of software. There was no inventory system. I mean, everywhere you looked on the infrastructure side, there was the ability to improve. But I had to start to learn the products and the business to really understand where to start. There was a lot to do, but sales were good because we had products manually entered one at a time on eBay. So, sales were good. We’d sell it and it didn’t matter if we had it in stock or not.

Mike:

Yeah. You were going to get it.

Lance:

Yeah.

Mike:

So, tell me about… I’ve got some of your other brands here that you guys carry. Tell us about how that evolved. What you started as is OE Wheels, and then, how you added to that. And then, I tell you, I got a burning question to ask you, and you can get to it later, but just on my mind, how do you know a good will from a bad will? You know what I mean? Who to buy from. I thought that might be a good question to ask you too.

Lance:

Okay. Well, I’ll start out with the brand question. Starting in OEM, of course, OE Wheels was perfect. Going to salvage yards, we were OE Wheels, eventually, the demand was so significant, we forged a path to manufacturing. We started changing the finishes, changing the sizes, maybe changing some of the offsets. And so, OE Wheels evolved into kind of an aftermarket replica company. We started adding brands and 4PLAY Wheels, which was a brand we added about four or five years ago that was launched at SEMA, has been extremely successful for us. I hired a designer brand manager who actually is the previous founder of ADV.1 Wheel, who’s really helped us greatly in our marketing and our wheel design. And most recently, we launched Defiant Wheel, which are some direct bolt-on applications for a lot of what we feel are underserved markets. So, we’ve steadily increased our portfolio of what we offer.

Over that 20 plus years of forging these manufacturing relationships, you start to really understand factories, their capabilities, what they’re good at, what they’re not good at, what pricing is really worth it. We always try to deliver premium product to our customer. I think we do a very good job of that. You can go look at our Google reviews and Better Business Bureau, and they certainly support that. But really over the years, we just worked with several factories and really found the very best factories that produced the best product for us.

Mike:

That’s awesome. I mean, and that takes time, and it takes experience and then… Oh, you were talking about the 4PLAY Wheels. You had mentioned to me when we talked earlier that you guys actually have patents on wheels, correct?

Lance:

Yes, yes, we do. Thank you for bringing that up. That’s a piece that we learned honestly in the replica business, something that we had to learn the hard way. And when we came up with these unique designs, I decided to patent them, and we’ve enforced our patents at times. So, when you have a design that’s unique, you want to protect it. And we’ve been able to establish patents on just about every cast wheel we have. And they’re not only patents in the United States, but we hold patents in some other countries as well.

Mike:

Man, that’s fantastic. I mean, you really have your own, I’ll say your own product. You really have your own product. I mean, somebody can’t go get a knockoff of your designs in a sense.

Lance:

We try to make it hard.

Mike:

Yeah, absolutely. Here’s a good question? I think somebody’s probably… What’s an easy place for them to find your products if someone’s sitting here thinking about it, listening to us right now?

Lance:

Every product line has a website. I definitely would recommend following us on our @4Playwheels Instagram. I think we’re up to about 250,000 followers there. I know that-

Mike:

That 4PLAY folks, that 4PLAY is the number 4PLAY.

Lance:

It’s the number 4. Thank you. We have 4PLAY Friday here. I have my T-shirt on, and 4playwheels.com, defiantwheel.com, and oewheelsllc.com, so those are our websites. We have products on all of those.

Mike:

That’s awesome. Is that the best place that people can order from you guys?

Lance:

Yeah, absolutely. But they can also call us, email us, whatever’s easier. All of our information is on all of those websites. Like a lot of us in the industry, we want to make ordering as easy as possible.

Mike:

So, one of the things I’ve noticed, this company’s been around since when, 2001?

Lance:

2001 we were officially in incorporated. We might have hit the salvage yards before that.

Mike:

Yeah, right. So, I mean, you come a long way in 22 years. What’s kind the proudest, or I guess, turning point or milestone that you’re most proud of being there that this whole ride? Because I mean, it’s impressive. I mean, even looking on your website and I haven’t been to your facility, but your facility looks impressive.

Lance:

I certainly appreciate that. There’s been so many proud moments over all the years. Just probably one of the most recent ones that I’ve had here is when COVID hit, there was a lot of diversity, and a lot of people arguing, and you could see it causing problems all over the place. And I can’t tell you how proud I was.

Mike:

You mean, internally?

Lance:

Well, with other companies internally.

Mike:

I got you.

Lance:

I just saw our team support one another, be understanding of different beliefs. I guess, as a leader is really one of my proudest moments is how the entire team work together to get through that and just respect one another’s views. It was really a proud moment for me.

Mike:

That’s fantastic. And it’s something to look. I mean, I think about this, but it’s like we don’t wish hard times on ourselves or adversarial moments in our lives, but it’s really the only true place where we find out about ourselves or in this case, your employees and how well they did through it. So, it’s like you know your team in a sense, and you… I don’t know. Does that make sense? You got strength from that, I think. And then you’re like, “When we can do a lot more together because if we got through that.”

Lance:

100%. I look for those guys and girls to have each other’s backs, and that’s what happened. They do it over and over, and that’s really what I want from my team.

Mike:

How many employees do you guys have total?

Lance:

We do quite a bit of business for only having 40 employees, but we’re obviously with all our different websites and alternate channel marketing places. We can do a lot retail and wholesale.

Mike:

Well, in regards to going back to designs on wheels, can we expand on that a little bit? I know it’s hard to tell people what you guys have in this audio podcast, but kind of the market that you cater to, what does 4PLAY Wheels cater to to give people a visual as best we can?

Lance:

I’ll give our designer a lot of credit because at that time, a lot of people were doing the flat face, big lip wheels, and he came in and said, “We’re not going to do that. We’re going to make a deep concave wheel that fits trucks, jeeps, possibly some modified SUVs.” And it really had a lot of influence on our industry. Now, depending on the fitment, you might need a small level or a lift depending on what you drive, but 4PLAY wheels are truck wheels. We’re coming out with a less concave sports series wheel that should fit more SUVs, but really that great job by our designer marketer to create such a kind of changing brand in our industry.

Mike:

That’s awesome. Well, it sounds like you trust him a lot too.

Lance:

I do. I do. He’s pretty good at what he does.

Mike:

Yeah. No. Well, tell us the process. I mean, how do you roll out a wheel? You know what I mean? Do you test market drawings first and say, “Hey, how many of you guys would like this?” Or what do you to go out and… Because I’m thinking, man, if I’m inventing wheels, man, it seemed like it’d be a gamble every time, man. I think they’ll like this. Let’s make this one. And then, when do you choose to say, “Okay, we’re going to make a thousand of these.” You know what I mean? How do you get to that point when you see a design that you like from this guy? What makes you guys confident that that’s the wheel the public’s going to like, and you take it to SEMA or whatever?

Lance:

So, that’s another really good question. Our relationships with our manufacturers make it very easy. We’ve had those relationships for so long, very easy for us to develop a wheel, very affordable for us to develop a wheel, and it really comes down to trust. I allot a budget for the development or the investment, and then, I trust our internal team on what we’re going to make, and we move forward with it. And as long as it pays off and we’re having that return, I continue to extend that trust to them. So, really, I hand the design over to them and let it happen internally, and then, we move forward typically straight to a cast wheel.

Mike:

That’s awesome. So, do you guys have actual… I guess, is it a mold that you create or the folks making [inaudible 00:19:21]?

Lance:

Sure, sure. Very easy for us to create a mold. We have engineers on staff that go back and forth with some of our overseas engineers.

Mike:

That’s awesome, man. I’m impressed. I really am. I think it’s so cool. You guys can’t see, but I can see some wheels behind Lance right now.

Lance:

Well, you’re going to have to come down to Sarasota when it cools off a little bit and visit us, okay?

Mike:

I definitely intend to. That’d be great. We’re coming up on our time, so I might as well take it this direction. But this is going to be a tough question here, but I love to do this little segment called Make Us Laugh, and some of the stories have been absolutely fantastic. Sonny had a great one. Let me ask you. So, you make the audience laugh. You could tell us a funny story of your career, something that happened in your career in the company, or you can even be self-deprecating. Just you got to keep it clean though.

Lance:

Well, that really limits the number of stories, Mike. I’ll try. And everyone in the automotive industry knows that. So, it’s funny because working under my uncle, really, really tough guy. Not a super educated guy, but he could ties someone up in about two minutes. He’s also a third degree black belt, owned a dojo, just a tough guy. You didn’t want to get in his way, right?

Mike:

Right.

Lance:

So, I come back after working for that corporate job, and I’m learning how to drive our new forklift. And he’s teaching me, and I’d shoot him up on a pallet. I’m up to one of the top of the wheel stacks, and he’s leaning over the top. You can call it encouraging, but it was like, you dumb. This ain’t going to move faster left, right just on me that day. And so, it’s actually making me a little more nervous operating the forklift back forth, up, down. And so, as he’s yelling at me, I’m not sure, I just spun it around too quick and slammed his head on one of the overhead pipes. And he is about 20 feet up in the air, and I’m doing the math in my head about how fast I can get off this forklift and run for him to climb down that. So, fortunate for me, he cooled off pretty quickly. I gave him credit on that day. I think maybe he was giving too much of a hard time on that day.

Mike:

How long did you leave him up there before you lowered it, or did you have to do that immediately?

Lance:

Oh hell, Mike. He’s still up there.

Mike:

Yeah, yeah. I could tell him I see that. I’ve got some funny stories along those kind of lines with brothers and cousins and whatnot, and it’s like, “Dude, I’m leaving you in that locked closet until you…”

Lance:

Yeah, I know. Yeah. You better run fast.

Mike:

Oh, that’s great. On a personal note question, what is your favorite book that you’ve ever read or books that have made an influence on you?

Lance:

I’ve read several books. Mindset, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a couple other ones. Right now, I’m reading Unreasonable Hospitality that was recommended to me. I’ve enjoyed all the books. I usually get a lot more out of the books. Just like most people when you’re reading it along with coworkers or other supervisors or whoever it is and you discuss it, right? That’s really how I get more out of it. But I got to tell you, I really don’t think that there’s any substitute for finding mentors. That’s really what I always look for people that I can listen to and through their perspective, learn from their lessons. I really think just like my uncle that those mentorships are the real accelerators whether it’s personal growth or growth in a business or just mental growth. Really, that’s what I would recommend is finding those mentors.

Mike:

That’s awesome. Well, I got to tell you, it’s been a pleasure having you on the podcast. I mean, you came highly recommended, and you really informed me a lot on the wheel side. And I love the fact that you guys design your own wheels and have your own patents and have done your own thing out there. It’s very cool.

Lance:

Thank you so much. You do a great job. Love the guys over at Toyo as well. Certainly, appreciate it, Mike.

Mike:

Absolutely. Well, maybe we’ll have you back one day. You’ll be open to that?

Lance:

Anytime. Unless you’re down here first.

Mike:

That’s right. To all our listeners out there, thank you very much for being part of the podcast. If you’d like to recommend a guest to us, please email me directly at [email protected]. Till next time, have a great day and stay safe.

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.

• 4Play Wheels
• Defiant Wheels
• Gain Traction Podcast
• Lance Bullock
• Mike Edge
• OE Wheels
• Tread Partners

Transcript