Episode 240

Keith Redford

JAM Best-One Tire

Keith Redford is the Director of Fleet Operations at JAM Best-One Tire, a commercial tire and fleet service organization with locations across Michigan and Ohio. He began his commercial tire career at Belle Tire, moved into tire wholesale, and joined JAM in 2005.

Redford brings more than two decades of experience to fleet tire management. His work focuses on controlling operating costs, strengthening preventive maintenance, and building service relationships that support fleets over the long term.

In this episode…

Commercial fleet customers need more than a shop that responds when a tire fails. They need a service partner who understands their operations, monitors spending, and recommends products that make sense for their equipment.

Redford’s approach is built around predictability. A structured program gives fleet operators a clearer view of annual tire expenses and the maintenance decisions driving those costs. Regular account reviews compare spending with prior years and connect the numbers to changes inside the customer’s business.

That creates a real tension for tire dealers. Good fleet tire management often means helping customers purchase fewer tires. Redford treats lower customer spending as the foundation of a longer relationship rather than a threat to immediate sales. Trust creates room for fleet growth, referrals, and deeper service partnerships.

Consistent execution also depends on culture. Technicians, salespeople, and managers bring different skills to the operation, but no role succeeds on its own. The work ultimately supports drivers carrying goods and returning home safely.

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

[01:26] Career progression in commercial tire sales and fleet operations

[03:43] JAM Best-One’s commercial tire business formation and growth

[07:38] Extending national-account service standards to smaller fleets

[12:01] Employee retention through a people-centered service culture

[18:04] Commercial truck utilization as an economic indicator

[20:26] Reducing fleet operating costs through long-term service partnerships

[23:53] Applying a seek-to-understand leadership approach

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“We cannot be successful apart from one another because we all have different skill sets.”
“At the end of the day, I want my people to know that they’re valued.”
“Our job is much more important than that. It’s about people keeping people safe on the road.”
“We’re looking for those 20-year relationships.”
“The more we understand their business, the better we can help them.”

Action Steps:

Create a fleet tire management baseline by pulling the previous 12 months of tire and mechanical-service invoices for each fleet account. Separate recurring maintenance from unplanned replacements and identify the accounts with the largest spending changes.
Schedule account reviews with key fleet customers. Compare current spending with the previous year, document operational changes, and agree on the next maintenance priority.
Standardize a small-fleet service program across every location. Define inspection intervals, reporting expectations, product recommendations, and the person responsible for customer communication.
Review handoffs between sales, technicians, and location managers. Assign ownership at each stage so recommendations reach the customer and approved work reaches the bay without delay.
Measure the relationship beyond monthly tire sales. Track annual customer spending, maintenance consistency, account retention, and referrals to show the long-term value of the program.

Transcript

00:00
Speaker 1
My most recent new hobby I think I told you about was that I am a Bigfoot enthusiast.

00:07
Speaker 2
Yes.

00:07
Speaker 1
So I like to be in the woods. If you physically experienced anything and you believed it to be real when you tell that story, there is no question that something happened.

00:21
Speaker 2
Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, the official podcast for tire business. I am Mike Edge, your host and I have the privilege of interviewing the tire dealers, shop owners, counter sales reps, technicians, industry executives and other thought leaders of our industry. This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. Tread Partners is the leading digital marketing agency that specializes in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. Tread Partners works with clients that have hundreds of locations, down to five locations. Get a professional, unbiased opinion and let Tread Partners review what you’re doing. It starts with a simple conversation. To contact tread partners, visit treadpartners.com so let’s get started. Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast official podcast Retired business. My guest today is Keith Redford, Director of fleet Operations at JAM Best 1 Fleet Service with 15 centers in Michigan and Ohio.

01:14
Speaker 2
Keith, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast.

01:17
Speaker 1
Well, I’m excited to be here. I appreciate the opportunity to come on and speak with you and tell you a little bit about JAM and the excitement about the commercial tire industry.

01:26
Speaker 2
Awesome. Tell me a little bit about yourself real quick. You know, how did you migrate your way to JAM and where’d you start out in your career?

01:37
Speaker 1
Yeah, so oddly enough, I started my tire career at Bell Tire, actually did Bell Tire commercial sales for about four and a half years and towards the end of that I had gotten a phone call from a person with Hercules Tire and Rubber. There’s an arm that they had called Tire Dealers Warehouse at the time and it was just a wholesaler. And long story short, I took that role and enjoyed it. But an absolutely. A year to the day, as I tell people, the Lord said, I don’t want you there anymore. And he took me out and I had nowhere to go. I said, well, they’ve been working for a while and so spent some time trying to consider do I stay in the tire business? Do I do something different?

02:26
Speaker 1
And looked at everything from buying a Christian bookstore to getting into financial services. None of which really excited me a whole lot. And and so I ended up at JAM because one of my Bridgestone sales reps, Brody Jones, his cousin who owns Jam, Jim Jones, was looking for a salesperson back in the market. And so I started there in May of 2005 and went back into sales and spent a lot of time There did about, for about four and a half, five years again and I was just kind of ready to be out of sales. I really spent most of my life wanting to spend time with people and sales gave me that opportunity, but it didn’t give me the opportunity to help grow and develop even. And so that was really my goal in life.

03:24
Speaker 1
I had no education to do so I had been in the military for four years, got out, tried to go back to school, didn’t work out. And so long story short, worked my way back through things, got to learn a lot out on the way and now I’m the director of food operations through Virginia.

03:43
Speaker 2
Fantastic. Where does the name Jam come from for our audience? Jam best one.

03:49
Speaker 1
So Jam is just the two owners that started with Jim and Mark. Jim Jones Jr. Is the president in OMA today we call him Coach, who prefers to be called Coach, doesn’t want to be called Jim. Many of our employees don’t even know his first name. They only know him by Coach.

04:06
Speaker 2
That’s a great title.

04:10
Speaker 1
We talked about this a little bit, maybe before, but from the Big Book of Small Business is very where he kind of got that idea. Terry Gagax created a company that he sold off, the Bridgestone at one time and that was kind of how he created things for his team. And he wanted to use sports analogies and so that’s kind of where he’s been. He’s also been a high school wrestling coach as well. So he’s got a little bit of extra facet in there. But so Jim is the primary owner today. Mark Krebs was the original owner with Jim and Mark had spent most of his career Goodyear and ran some Goodyear commercial centers and did a lot of different things with them, moved around a lot, ended up back here in the Toledo market.

04:58
Speaker 1
And he was working for a group called World Tire at the time and Jim had met him there because that’s where Jim was working at the time. And basically they created the idea of Jam on a napkin as I sat down and had a drink about what it could be. And today Jim would tell you, never imagined that we’d be a $65 million company today. Maybe on our way to being a billion dollar company someday, we don’t know. But we’re enjoying loving what we do, loving seeing people get excited about the tire business and watching them succeed and grow and develop. And that’s really what we’re all about, is that part of it. And you know, as Paul Zircher would have said years ago, we are A service company that sells tires. We take care of people.

05:55
Speaker 2
I remember that. I read his book, when the Rubber Meets the Road.

05:59
Speaker 1
Yes. And I have a copy.

06:01
Speaker 2
But the great thing about that book, and I. I touted. I know he’s passed on, but the book for the industry is exceptional because of his philosophy, what he built with the best run brand. But he. I mean, he tells. He tells some of his story, you know, through World War II and then returning, and you just have a great appreciation for his life. And he never. He just went out there to start, you know, taking care of his family, selling tires and taking care of the community, and the next thing you know, it just kept going.

06:34
Speaker 1
Yeah. It’s amazing, you know, and for your viewers, you know, I’m a Christian, and so I’m very much in that realm of Paul. And it’s amazing to me as such to look at Paul’s life and to realize just how much God blessed him and all that he did. Because Paul’s heart was first for people. If he could help people, he knew that God would bless him.

06:58
Speaker 2
And he did in droves. I mean, he was. He built, I mean, a massive organization, and he did it by being people oriented, which is a great lesson for all of us.

07:10
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Yeah. And this family continues that. That continues the tradition of that they are doing the same things every day, helping to grow people and develop a culture within Dust One. And we’re. We’re excited. I’m excited to be a part of the Dust One family because we’ve done so much with them and they’ve been there to help us along the way. And I think we’ve learned or benefited from each other so much over the years. It’s just been a really great marriage in those.

07:38
Speaker 2
Well, I’ve got a question for you that I’m sure a lot of people want to know. What. What made you guys steer towards commercial and not, you know, PLT or, you know, any other area? But what. What did you guys see in the fleet business that made you want to, you know, go down that lane and stay in it?

07:56
Speaker 1
Yeah. I’ll tell you. I would say originally, Coach had come out of basically a retail world. Mostly it was full sale, but they had a lot of retail centers, also called Tireman, so Carryman Auto centers that are still in existence today as some of the Bell Tire stores. Bell Tire bought them out. But he had been doing that for so long that he saw some opportunity within the commercial market, folks. And as I understand it, from all the years that I’ve known him, Mark and he both had this idea of being able to provide something to customers who are not national account customers, not big, larger organizations. And they had a desire to take care of them in the same way, provide the same level of service and commitment and to them as. As those national accounts were receiving.

08:54
Speaker 1
And so as I understood it from their perspective, that’s where they started. I, from my perspective, for me personally, getting started in the tire industry. I started in commercial because a friend of mine asked me if I would want to sell commercial tires. And so I had never even thought about getting into anything automotive. But as most people might.

09:18
Speaker 2
You didn’t go to bed in high school at night and dream about being a commercial tire salesman.

09:22
Speaker 1
No, actually, I didn’t even know that was an opportunity for that. You know, Coach, who would tell you himself that he used to do section repairs on third shifts years and years and years ago. And so none of us knew we would end up in this. Right. But there’s an old saying that once tired gust gets in your blood, it’s hard to get rid of it. And we’ve just really enjoyed the industry and the people. And so for me, I got into it because that was where I started. And the other one piece that’s so much different that I think from my perspective that I enjoy the most about it is I’m looking at business owners and trying to help them figure out what are the best ways to help them be successful. Yeah, well, when you’re getting. Go ahead.

10:14
Speaker 2
I was going to say you guys go after. I mean, you target small fleets too, which need a lot of help and support that. That the major fleets already have. Right?

10:23
Speaker 1
We do. Right. And our goal is to help them figure out how can you budget this out so that it makes sense that you’re. I have a fleet years ago that when I had left the commercial and went into the wholesale apartment, I came back and he said, you know, you have put together a program that anybody can run, and I never have to spend any more than X number of dollars a year on my tires because of that program. If we could get to that point where we can help them realize that just that one piece that would be such a great blessing for those people that run those businesses because now they wouldn’t have to worry about where that’s going to be and they should have a pretty good idea. And the larger the fleet, obviously, the harder that becomes.

11:08
Speaker 1
But, but you also have people that are much more dedicated to see that Every day. And so for me, that’s the, that’s why I got into the commercial tire industry, because I just love the people and I love helping out those businesses, find ways to make it.

11:23
Speaker 2
It’s interesting to me because I’ve interviewed so many people that’s what they love about this business, is the people. And I say the same thing. But there is something special about this industry and the connectivity, the motivation to really even help anybody, I mean, in the industry. And we’re very blessed. There’s a lot of good people in this industry.

11:49
Speaker 1
Yeah, I would agree. I’ve made a lot of great friends over the years, and some have long since retired, but I still run into them here and there, usually on LinkedIn or Facebook or something.

12:01
Speaker 2
So one of the things you and I talked about was talking about people, but talk about your all’s culture at jam, because you, you seem to take a lot of pride in that and in being in the commercial space. What does that do for you guys and what are you trying to accomplish with good culture?

12:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, I, you know, culture was kind of a buzzword, maybe give it 10, 12 years ago. And I grew up in a household. My dad was in a union. And when I was in high school, I would get up early in the morning. My dad worked for a small food company called Foodtown. And I would get up in the mornings and I would go to the warehouse and I would actually lump loads. So I’d take them all off, we stack them on pallets, and then I’d get paid by those drivers to do that. But while I was there, what I noticed and what I. It just kind of disheartened me was that you had people that were in a union that some of which didn’t feel like they worked as hard as others. And so it was kind of a frustrating thing to me.

13:12
Speaker 1
And in that, what I learned from my dad over the years was there was always kind of a power struggle there, the kind of the worker versus the management portion. And so they were always butting heads on who was getting the best, this or that. And so I had grown up thinking to myself, there’s gotta be a better way for us to do things. And so culture, that word is kind of where it came from for me. And, and so my goal was always to figure out how to help the two of them work better together. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if I’m the guy changing the tire, mounting the tire, or the guy that’s running the store trying to make sure the customer is taking care of.

13:56
Speaker 1
We cannot be successful apart from one another because we all have different skill sets.

14:02
Speaker 2
100%. And it’s. How crazy is it? Like, it’s amazing, the simple understanding or self awareness of that fact between all the members or the employees once they recognize that how smooth things can get right. I mean, just recognize that we need each other and all of a sudden we can work better together.

14:22
Speaker 1
Well, yeah, just the idea that people would realize that they have value beyond. They’re not a number. And I’ve seen that a lot, Michael, over my years here. Even just people that come in and go and the ones that have been around a long time, they truly recognize the difference in the culture. We’ve had people that have left and gone to other service providers and they’ve returned because of the culture, because of what we’re trying to accomplish. And we’re not perfect by any stretch, but we work really hard every day to try to stay focused on our core values, make sure people understand what they are and try to fight forward so that we can work really well together. And so that for me, from a cultural standpoint is the most important piece.

15:13
Speaker 1
And you know, we could get into a lot of the details of that if you wanted to. But at the end of the day, I want my people to know that they’re valued, that I care about them, I care about their families. I want them to go home safe every night. I don’t want to have to worry about them getting injured. I want them to make sure they’re giving everything they need to be safe and that they’re excited to do it. I want them to come to work and have fun. Right. I think I probably have it on my LinkedIn page. You’re going to spend 80% of your life working. Don’t be miserable doing it. Right.

15:47
Speaker 2
That’s right. I mean, it’s interesting. The audience probably has heard me say this a million times, but I try to tell my kids, you’ve got to love the daily grind. And I know grind sounds like a negative word, but I guess, I mean, sometimes it seems monotonous, but there’s something beautiful in that routine and you’ve got to find a way to like it. You know, waking up on same time every day, getting to work, doing your checks, checking on whatever you’ve got to check on do. Create your list and then follow through with it or start addressing customer concerns, etc. But you’ve got that, you kind of got that Protocol in place, and you got to love it. And then you got to take the.

16:27
Speaker 2
The good and the bad every day and really enjoy the bad just as much as the good and trying to solve problems. Because how many people say it this way? I think it’s. Problems aren’t necessarily problems. They can be opportunities.

16:39
Speaker 1
Well, yeah, that’s a true statement, without question. Everything’s an opportunity. Right. And you could take that negative or positive, but people need to see things that way. And I really. I want to be able to focus our people in the understanding that most people. I shouldn’t say it that way. There are people that come to their job and they see it as nothing more than a job. I have to be there because I have to make money. And if I could find some other place to have this job, that’s what I would do. But in every job, there is a purpose that is beyond what that act, what you’re actually doing at that moment. And for us in our industry, our job is to make sure that people are safe on the road.

17:24
Speaker 1
They’ve got safe tires, and if there’s a mechanical work we can do to make sure they’re safe on the road, whatever those things are, because they’re transporting goods and other things that our families need, whether that’s food, whether that’s clothing, whatever those essentials are that we’re looking for. Sometimes they’re luxuries, but they’re things that people want and don’t need. I want to be able to make sure that they get to their destination safely so they can unload those goods, they get home safely so they can get to their gangs. Our purpose is much greater than just selling a tire and putting out a grape shoe. Our job is much more important than that. It’s about people and keeping people safe on the road.

18:04
Speaker 2
Well said. I got another question for you in regards to the commercial side or fleet business. I’ve got a note here. We talked about this in our preliminary call, but how is being in the commercial business a very. It gives you kind of the. Well, the bellwether to the broader economic conditions in. In the nation in some ways, and at least regionally speaking.

18:30
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, if trucks are moving, then, you know, the economy is doing something.

18:35
Speaker 2
Yes.

18:36
Speaker 1
Now, it may not feel like that, and certainly today, I would say many people probably feel that way. My wife texted me yesterday and said it cost me X number of dollars to fill up my gas tank. Yep, it did, because it’s not cheap. And so there are factors within our economy that we Stay focused on and we forget about the things that might be happening out there around us. But if you see trucks and trailers on the road, that means if they’re moving goods, that means that something good is happening in our economy. That means that there’s some manufacturing more than likely going on. There’s stuff coming in either from overseas or from our own branch that are in the states and we’re getting that stuff going.

19:15
Speaker 1
So when you see that, you know that the economy is moving in some direction, either positive or negative, the fewer trucks and trailers we see, it might be more negative. I just checked yesterday, a couple days ago, and our truck utilization rate in the commercial industry today, semi trucks and trailers is around 100% and it’s expected to stay around 97% as we get throughout this year. And for those of you may not know, 80% is pretty typical. Normally you’ve got some trucks and trailers that aren’t always moving because you’ve got to kind of moving things around. Today they’ve got a lot of utilization. Now there’s other factors that might play into that. Maybe they had to get rid of some trucks and so they’ve got fewer trucks to use, whatever that might be.

20:04
Speaker 1
But what it also says is that those fleets are out there and they’ve got stuff to haul and to move, which is a really good sign for all of us. And I know my wife doesn’t like driving next to those big semis and trucks and trailers. She doesn’t know which way to go sometimes. Right. Because they are big. But folks, they are definitely telling us good things about our economy, at least a lot of them.

20:26
Speaker 2
Amen to that. Philosophy wise. I think you guys, I think this is cool and I think a lot of people try this, but you guys seem like you’ve succeeded at it. And the fact that you’ve been there 21 years, you like to emphasize long term relationships as you get your clients. How do you show them that you’re committed that way? Because obviously in the initial part of a relationship it’s interesting. Everything can start out well, everybody feels good, all that stuff. But how do you show, hey, we’re here for the long term and we’re not going anywhere.

21:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, that can be done in several different ways, I think. You know, as it comes to national accounts, best one is a group creates an opportunity for those leads to have kind of one stop shopping. They have better connections with people in the group. And so you have lots of different people working to make sure everything goes well. Every day from my perspective. And I would say, I think Coach would say the same thing. We’re looking for those 20 year relationships. We’re looking for ways that we can help people and help companies get better and better. I think I may have mentioned this on our call before.

21:49
Speaker 1
We’re one of those industries where we’re doing everything we can to help those fleets minimize the cost of operating from the standpoint of what we can do, whether it’s tire related or mechanical, with preventative maintenance services, those types of things. Our goal is to help them figure out how to operate more efficiently, effectively and cost effective. And so that’s the first part for me is that we need to stay in constant communication with our police. We need to be talking with them and giving them some reports back. Here’s what you spent last year. Here’s what it looked like the year before. Here’s what we saw. Can you. Let’s talk about what was happening in the market for you last year. The more we understand their business, the better we can help them.

22:39
Speaker 1
And we have a company that has been with us really since I came back. I had rent in and was able to secure the business because I had it at one time. They have been with us now for this whole 21 years. I’ve done the jam. And for that very reason, we’re looking for ways to help them manage all of this and maintain their fleet much more cost effectively than just anything else. I don’t want to just sell you a tire to sell you inspector. It needs to make sense on your fleet. And so for me, Mike, that’s what I’ve always been about. I’ve always been about going in and seeing how can we help you get to that point. And people would.

23:21
Speaker 1
I used to have people laugh at me and say, well, if you keep selling them less and less, you’re probably not going to have a job. And I said, well, the goal is hopefully they grow, right? Or at least they can pass me, my name on to somebody else who might be looking for that. And so that’s how we’ve really grown our businesses. We’ve created those client partner relationships as well we like to call them because we want to work with them as a client and we kind of want to partner with them the best way we can to get them to where they want to get to next.

23:53
Speaker 2
That, that is well said as well. On a personal level. Give people a little idea who you are. Do you have a quote that you like or kind of live by?

24:06
Speaker 1
Well, there’s probably been lots of them over the years. The one I’m. I’m kind of focused on today is a quote that I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have picked up on this years ago. But first of all, I like the.

24:17
Speaker 2
Fact that you say today because I think it. I think we do evolve and change, and then new quotes come along. We go, oh, man. And I think it’s almost like a God moment because he gives you one that almost like you need it, then. You know what I mean? Or at that particular point, it is.

24:32
Speaker 1
Well, and so when were building our culture, and we’re always building our culture, but in the beginning days, we had our phrase, go seek to be understood before or seek to understand before. Seeking to be understood. Today, that’s evolved to seek to understand three times before you seek to be understood once, ask more questions so that you’re getting to the root of what you’re trying to get answered. And today, for me, I have never had that one on here before.

25:03
Speaker 2
That’s a new one for me. That’s a good one.

25:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. That actually comes from a book, actually. Seeking to be Understood. Seeking to Understand before. Seeking to be Understood. It comes from how to Win Friends and Influence People.

25:18
Speaker 2
Okay.

25:19
Speaker 1
So if you’ve read that book.

25:20
Speaker 2
I’ve read that. So that tells you how well my reading comprehension skills are.

25:24
Speaker 1
Well, that’s. Well, I might not remember it either if we hadn’t used such an amazing saying all these years. But we do use that a lot, and we often will start emails that way. Stu. Seeking to understand what’s happening here. But today, one of my favorites is by Jane Goodall, actually. And what she stated was, what you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. And so every day I get up with that thought process.

25:58
Speaker 2
Very nice. What do you like to do for a hobby?

26:03
Speaker 1
Well, I’m like most guys, right? I like to play golf and do those type of things, watch sports. My most recent new hobby I think I told you about was that I am a Bigfoot enthusiast.

26:16
Speaker 2
Yes.

26:16
Speaker 1
So I like to be in the woods. I like to hear people’s stories about their encounters, experiences, and I’m hoping one day I get to have them, but I haven’t had one, so.

26:27
Speaker 2
Not. All right. You’re the first one to come on the podcast and have that as a hobby, which is great. It’s interesting. I’m. I’m. I’m curious if you’ve been in it a while. So what do you say to the folks that say, well, then why don’t we see. Why don’t we have more hard evidence? What makes them. What makes it so elusive, if it does exist?

26:50
Speaker 1
Yeah. I would tell you. My. My personal opinion is I think they are so closely related to humanity, to mankind, that it’s hard to differentiate. They could, in fact, maybe, in my viewpoint, be maybe some sort of a human species, a humanoid species. I don’t know for sure, but they are very elusive. And so that you’ve got plenty of people that have taken photos and videos and found footprints and all kinds of things. Much of it we don’t even hear about unless you’re really into it and you’re getting out websites. But.

27:27
Speaker 2
All right, I got another question. What’s the most compelling evidence that you saw that made you a believer? I guess, or that somebody showed you.

27:35
Speaker 1
Or something to be really? I have. The only evidence I’ve seen physically are footprints, and I’ve seen lots of them. And I’ve met people like Dr. Jeff,.

27:47
Speaker 2
Like footprints on the earth itself, on the ground.

27:50
Speaker 1
I have seen. I’ve seen a footprint that I believe could have been. We weren’t able to cast it because I didn’t have them as stuck with me, but we believe it could have been. And it was about 16 inches or something. We don’t know what it was, but I could see that there were, you know, toe prints in it. Now, I laugh about it today because I’m like, well, they could have been wearing those stupid tennis shoes with the toes in them. I don’t. So I’ve seen a little bit there. But I’ve also Dr. Jeff Meldrum, who recently passed away, who’s a primatologist. I’ve seen tons of his castings that he. Some of them he’s done himself, many of them. I’ve met many people through different conferences that have their own castings and people that have had their own physical experiences.

28:35
Speaker 1
One of the things I will tell you is that it doesn’t matter what your experience is. If you. If you physically experienced anything and you believed it to be real, when you tell that story, there is no question that something happened. Now, you and I might both look and go and say, well, you bet you didn’t see a Bigfoot. I have no idea what they saw, but they claim to have seen those things. When I’m talking to them and they’re telling me about that experience, there’s a difference in that. And it’s not just a joke. It’s not just A, you know, a story for the day. They. We met a guy one year at a conference who was home. He was in the military. He came home, he and his friends went out. They lived in the Cleveland area somewhere. They went up.

29:24
Speaker 1
I don’t know if you’ve seen those, probably in Kentucky, where they clear the lines for the electrical lines and stuff, but they were back in one of those areas, and there must have been water back there. But he said he saw it there. And when he’s telling that story, you could see just kind of the experience on his face. You could see how scared he was, how frightened he was with the whole experience. He lost his best friend over it. His best friend would never talk about it again. His brother eventually came back around and talked with him about it because they were all standing there looking at the same thing. So it can create a lot of. Of challenges for you in life as well. I mean, I love doing it because I like the what ifs.

30:10
Speaker 1
I like looking at things and seeing what’s. What’s possible out there. I believe in a supernatural God. I certainly can’t believe he couldn’t create that 100%.

30:20
Speaker 2
That’s interesting, though. I like your perspective and I like. I like the way you. You trust some. Somebody encountered something and I mean, because, you know, when someone’s that convinced on something and they believe it to be what it is, whether it’s not or is they. They did encounter something, that’s the reality.

30:41
Speaker 1
Yes. Yes. It’s either that or we have a lot of people that are running around the country that are schizophrenic. We know that there are some, but I don’t think they’re all quite that good at hiding things. So. Yeah, so, I mean, they’re. They are experiencing some things, Mike, that, you know, people ask me, what are you going to do when you fight them? I have no idea. I have no idea. I may be so scared I can’t speak. I may pass out. I don’t know. I have no idea. But. But I look forward to it. We’ll see what happens.

31:13
Speaker 2
That’s fantastic. Well, I really appreciate you being on the podcast. It’s been a pleasure getting to know you, Keith, and I hope you stay connected with us.

31:21
Speaker 1
Well, I look forward to. To seeing this and then spending more time with you guys in the future and learning more about your organization as it to grow. And. And I’m really excited about you having a platform where people can get to know the tire industry and the people of the industry, because as we said earlier. The people are really the biggest part of it and the rest of it’s just all us trying to figure out how to sell a hoop.

31:42
Speaker 2
That perfectly said. I couldn’t agree with you more. Well, have a great day and thanks for being on the podcast.

31:48
Speaker 1
You’re up. Thanks Mike. You too.

31:49
Speaker 2
Hey folks, Mike Edge here with the Gain Traction Podcast. Real quick we get a lot of people ask us, they know Gain Traction, but who? Who’s Tread Partners? Well, Tread Partners is our parent company and they’re a marketing agency dedicated strictly to tire and automotive repair shops. Anywhere from five locations all the way up to hundreds of locations. And primarily one field that is always a pain for most people is paid search or PPC or Google Ads. We see enormous amount of waste in it and we see inefficient spend in it. If you want to know if you’re doing well or not, give us a call.

32:21
Speaker 1
We’ll help you.

32:22
Speaker 2
We’ll audit your account. We’ll look under the hood and tell you if you’re doing things the right way or the wrong way and help you optimize that spend. You can reach me and I’ll direct you in the right [email protected] or feel free to go to treadpartners.com the website. To all our listeners, thank you for being part of the Gain Traction Podcast. We are grateful for you. If you’d like to find more podcasts like this, please Visit Gain Traction podcast.com if you’d like to make a guest recommendation, please email me@mikeread partners.com this episode has been powered by Tread Partners, the leader in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. To learn more about tread partners, visit treadpartners.com.

[lwptoc]