It’s All About The People With Eric Gill at Gills Point S Tire & Auto Service

Episode 145

Eric Gill

Gills Point S Tire & Auto Service

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Eric Gill is the President and CEO of Gills Point S Tire & Auto Service. A seasoned entrepreneur, Eric masterminded the expansion of Gills Point S Tire & Auto Service from a solitary tire store to 71 locations across 24 years. His background includes a marketing and accounting degree, state tax return filing for Weyerhaeuser’s corporate department and an impactful tenure as a manager for Target stores. At a young age, Eric pivoted to the tire industry through a merger that set the stage for his current success.

In this episode…

The tire and auto industry constantly evolves, with businesses needing to adapt and grow to remain competitive. How do some companies manage to expand from a single location to a large chain in this dynamic environment?

According to Eric Gill of Gills Point S Tire & Auto Service, the secret to his business’s growth lies in focusing on people and seizing opportunities. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing and nurturing talent from within, which allows for organic expansion by promoting capable individuals to managerial positions. Additionally, strategic partnerships and acquisitions, such as purchasing stores from retiring owners, have expanded the business while maintaining a strong team culture. This approach has enabled Eric to grow his business from a single store to a network of 71 locations over 24 years.

On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge welcomes Eric to discuss his journey from managing a single tire store to overseeing a network of 71 locations. The conversation touches on Eric’s initial steps in the industry and his strategic approach to growth. They also explore the importance of company culture, mentorship, and the challenges of managing a rapidly expanding business. Eric shares how collaboration and shared values have been instrumental in his success in the tire industry.

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

[00:03] Eric Gill details his transition from filing tax returns to steering a multi-location tire business
[02:32] How Eric’s early family ties to the tire industry influenced his career
[03:03] The valuable management and retail skills Eric honed working at Target
[05:12] Eric’s strategic approach to business growth and acquisition
[10:43] The importance of creating opportunities for employees within an expanding organization
[16:47] How Point S Tire’s co-op model benefits independent tire dealers
[23:34] The unconventional path to corporate growth and the down-to-earth moments that keep the tire business real

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“If you look back at the end of the day, week, or year, it’s amazing how much stuff we do right.”
“The door is always open, but I want everyone to find their own path.”
“Enjoy all of it — enjoy that journey and create fun memories for everyone that’s around you.”
“Our focus is just making it fun and enjoying what we’re doing.”
“Once you take that leap of faith, the next steps aren’t so scary.”

Action Steps:

Seek out seasoned professionals who can serve as mentors to learn from their wisdom and experience: This exposes you to invaluable insights and shortcuts which can help you avoid common pitfalls and achieve your goals more efficiently.
Embrace a people-first approach to business, investing in relationships with both employees and customers: Strong relationships build loyalty and create a collaborative environment that can drive sustainable growth.
Cultivate adaptability and a willingness to step outside your comfort zone, just as Eric transitioned from the corporate retail world to the tire industry: Being open to change can present unexpected opportunities that spark significant development in your career or business.
Leverage your experience from other industries, applying those principles to build a successful model in a new field: Eric’s retail expertise from Target enabled him to create an effective business and growth strategy for his tire stores.
Identify and focus on your strengths while delegating tasks that are outside your expertise: Recognizing your strong suits and trusting others with tasks they are skilled at can improve your business efficiency and performance.

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:

Hey folks, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast. I am Mike Edge, your host. Today’s guest is Eric Gill. This interview, believe it or not, has been two years in the making. Eric owns Gills Point S Tire, where he has led the organization from one tire store to 71 today in the past 24 years. But his greatest accomplishments, he says, is being married to his wife of 30 years, Kimberly, and they have three sons.

But before we get started, we always do our sponsorship. This podcast is brought to you by Tread Partners, the leading digital marketing agency in the tire and auto repair space for multi-location operations that have five to hundreds of locations. Why work with Tread Partners? To put it simply, because they know the industry like no other. They know the online nuances and how to attract tire and auto repair customers on Google. Tread Partners makes digital marketing effective and predictable. It is about winning in your digital marketing space, online, and increasing car count and revenue. Tread Partners knows the industry and makes everything transparent on why Tread does what it does. Start winning today and learn more about Tread Partners at TreadPartners.com.

So, you guys know that I like to encourage you to listen to previous podcasts. I recently had Craig Bruneel, another Point S Tire dealer, and he’s also current chairman of the board for Point S Tire Dealer Group in the USA. We had him on, I believe it was last week. And I highly encourage you guys to listen to him. Great interview. All right. So, let’s talk with Eric Gill. Eric, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast. Man, we’ve worked on this thing for a while, haven’t we?

Eric:

Yeah. Thanks, Mike. Yeah, we started during kind of the thick of COVID and I can’t tell you, I remember I was about to get on the phone call and I realized I was about to miss a flight, so I had to run off and we’ve played phone tag ever since. So, I’m glad to be here.

Mike:

Well, your right hand, Nicole, she was telling me that I never want to travel with you or her, that you guys are guaranteed in airports for delays. Is that accurate?

Eric:

That is 100% accurate. I think I’m about 90% delayed this year. In fact, I just came up about a trip … Yeah, last week, first flight was 12 hours delayed. So, don’t follow me.

Mike:

Man, I’m actually worried about talking to you right now. I do not want this to be contagious.

Eric:

Yeah, it could be bad karma, but let’s hope not. I think I already took one for the team, so you should be good.

Mike:

Oh yeah, good. Good. So, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from originally and let’s bring it up to the date. But you grew up, I know in Oregon and-

Eric:

Yeah. Born and raised in Oregon. Actually my father owned Northwest Retreaders. So, from about the age of 10 through about five, six years ago, he owned that company. And so, I kind of watched from afar. I wasn’t really too involved. It was a manufacturing company, so quite a bit different than a lot of your guests. Meaning they’re more in the commercial and tire retail space, but-

Mike:

Yeah. Not a lot of places for kids to run around in that environment.

Eric:

No. No. I got to clean the showers one summer, which turned me off to that manufacturing side of the things, but anyway. Yeah, so anyway, after college, my degree was in marketing and in accounting, went and filed a few state tax returns for warehouse or corporate department. And I really quickly learned I didn’t like a desk and didn’t like state tax returns.

So, went to work for Target stores and moved up their management training and became their youngest store manager in their chain at the time. So, at 25 I was running a $30 million Target store and I really enjoyed that part of my career. They’re great retailers. They’re great merchants. They have a great training program. And they really, really taught me, I think, just one that I loved retail, I love people. And then two, that they really taught me that to have great retail or a great company, you got to both treat your people great, you got to train them, and then you just got to execute the game plan. And I really admired what they have built.

And once I decided that my corporate career of executing someone else’s plan was done, I had an opportunity to buy a store. Actually, I always call it a store and a half. It was a store in Hood River and a store in The Dalles, Oregon. And those were my two first stores. The Hood River store, I think it was about a half a million dollars at the time. So, that’s my half a store.

Mike:

That’s funny.

Eric:

Anyway, it was great. I bought it from a great family. Kind of an interesting story is those two stores were started by a guy named Norm Nelson, and Norm Nelson was … Him and Phil Wick and Les Schwab had founded Les Schwab.

Mike:

Oh, okay. What a small world.

Eric:

Yeah. And so, Norm had left after, I don’t know, a 30-year career with the Schwab organization, and he and his son, Mark Nelson, decided to take some of their money and they, I believe, started four or five stores and two of them are what I own today and was the foundation of Gills Tire.

Mike:

That’s a cool story. Well, I think it’s great that … I mean, look, you were 25 years old and in a position of a lot of responsibility, and not only that, like you said, Target trained you extremely well. And those corporate environments, as much as they can be a pain, I think, when you go through them or have been in them, the training can … Especially from a good company like Target, you learned a lot that’s applying to today, for sure.

Eric:

Yeah, for sure. And it was kind of fun, when I did come into the tire industry, I think I had a huge amount of respect, I just watched my dad in the industry. And again, most of his customers were a lot of the people you interview. I mean, everything from-

Mike:

Tire dealers. Yeah. [inaudible 00:06:08].

Eric:

Yeah. Tire dealers and that kind of stuff. So, I had a respect for the industry and as soon as I started working in the industry, a huge respect for everybody who had grown up in the industry and participated and had been technicians. And then, overlaying what I had learned, which is how to be a merchant and how to be a salesperson and how to run retail. It really worked out well because again, I didn’t try to tell a technician how to do their job and they had a little respect because I came out of an industry that knew how to sell stuff and knew how to merchant and look good. So, it’s been fun. It’s been a fun ride.

Mike:

Well, and the fact that you were a manager, man, you and I were talking about this before we started recording, but you had to wear a lot of hats, so you learned to wear hats and then you also probably learned how to delegate at a young age and realize, like you just said there, “Hey, this is not my lane, so I got to have somebody else that knows how to do it.”

Eric:

Yep. Absolutely. There’s a lot of things that aren’t my lane, that’s for sure.

Mike:

I probably said this on this podcast a million times, but it almost took me till I was 40 to let go of the things I was bad at. Where I felt like I was always that type A personality, I had to overcome it, “I’m going to get better at this, that.” And my dad would always say, “Forget it. Just play to your strengths.” And once you do it, man, that’s liberating.

Eric:

Yeah. Well, you don’t have to stub your toe as many times today.

Mike:

No, you don’t. And you go to sleep a lot easier too because you’re not beating yourself up that you still can’t get over the hump of one of those annoying tasks or something that you just don’t like to do.

Eric:

Yeah.

Mike:

So, you got started with two stores and then … I mean, because you’ve been on a tearer, I mean, it’s 71 stores now. So, how did that progress? I mean, was that the end-

Eric:

Yeah, kind of just a highlight. First of all, I decided when I started, I wanted to grow. It’s just kind of a personality. It maybe my ADD or just my hyperactivity that I want to build something. And what I learned is because I wasn’t a technician, I had to find a different path, meaning I couldn’t grow the services or that wasn’t my deal.

And so, I really enjoyed the people, the people that worked in the company, and it was fun to give them opportunities. And all of a sudden, I found an assistant manager that was really good, but we needed another store for him to manage. And so, I kind of got it in my head that like, “Gosh, this would be fun if I could just keep growing.” And as you know, there’s been a lot of opportunities. I mean, in our industry, there’s a lot of guys that have done an awesome job of building a business, but now they’re ready to go fishing a little bit more. Right?

Mike:

Yup.

Eric:

And so, things just kind of started to fall together. I’d lived still kind of in Portland when I owned those two stores, which is up in the Columbia Gorge, which is an hour away. And so, I heard of a guy that was trying to sell a store by me. One foot in front of the other and just kept buying a store or two a year. And fast-forward, that’s where we’ve gotten.

One of the fun highlights along the way was I bought the Vianor stores, which were owned by Nokian Tire. Nokian’s been an important partner for us, really for the last 20-plus years. And they gave me an opportunity to buy those stores and it was great. It helped us go from a single-state mindset to multi-states. So, we had to learn how to file tax registries and all that stuff. And my poor-

Mike:

Local planning and zoning and all that stuff.

Eric:

Yeah. Yeah. My poor office manager who’s been with me, our controller, Amy Robertson, she about killed me a couple of times, but we both grew a lot through that. And then once we’d done that, once you kind of go that leap of faith, like once you gone into three or four stores, fifth or sixth isn’t quite so scary. And once you go to three or four states, fifth or sixth state isn’t such a big deal.

So, we’ve been really fortunate. I attribute a ton of my success to … Well, in fact, all my success to the people that have built the company. And so, we’ve obviously had a ton of tenure. Like any company, we’ve had a few people that come and have gone, but our senior management team has been around for a long time, and I always say Amy and I started this company. Again, a fun story. She is the wife of our first store manager, John, and John’s still the store manager of The Dalles store. And so, he gets full credit for recommending an amazing person that’s helped grow with us.

Mike:

That’s cool. Well, I mean, you told me before that you love the tire industry, but you love the people in the industry. So, for you, it’s almost like collecting people to help them grow and advance within the organization and let them find their lane.

Eric:

Yep, for sure. And yeah-

Mike:

Yeah. Well, where did you … Oh, go ahead. I was going to ask you where did the relationship start with Point S because I know that you’re a big part of Point S.

Eric:

Yeah. When I first bought my first store from Mike Manning, he was already part of the Tire Factory Organization, which is what became Point S, and he encouraged me to get on the board of that organization because it’s a member-run organization. Again, the company’s owned by all the members, so we’re a co-op. And so, I did that.

I mean, like I said, I was young and didn’t know the industry that well, and so, I was kind of just using any opportunity to learn from the people that were around me that were a lot smarter and faster and all that for me. And so, again, I got on the board and really just sat there and listened and then contributed when I could. And then, one thing led to another that I sat on the board for I think almost 20 years.

Mike:

Oh, man. Okay.

Eric:

During that board run, I kind of held all the positions, everything from the chairman to the vice chair to when we had no CEOs available to run the company, I was volunteered to run the company. And that turned from one-month appointment to a two-year appointment, along with a good-

Mike:

Hey, funny how that always works, right?

Eric:

Yeah. Volunteer work. Anyway, and a good friend of mine, Bill Spencer, who co-chaired that company with me or co-CEO-ed. It was great. It was a great partnership. Learned a lot about running at the time, a much larger company than I was. So, again, using opportunity to learn and educate and get better. And then, the last three or four years I’ve kind of gone back to just really focusing on my company. I’m no longer on the board. And like you said, Craig Bruneel has stepped up and taken that chairman role and he’s doing a great job. And Craig and I have been good friends for a long time.

Mike:

That’s awesome. What a story. Where do you guys see yourselves in the next five years? Do you have a five-year plan?

Eric:

Yeah. I mean, everyone used to kid me about, in fact, my kids said, “Well, dad, how many stores are you going to get?” And the answer was always, “Well, if I get 10, I’ll go to my dream job and open a restaurant.” Because I always wanted to open a restaurant. But then at 12 and 15 they said, “Well, Dad, where’s the restaurant?” I said, “Well, I’ve learned that restaurants are really hard. They’re a lot harder than a tire shop, so let’s just keep going with tire shops.”

Mike:

Got it.

Eric:

But sometimes I got to pinch myself. Half the time I don’t know how many stores we have because again, it’s not important for me to keep track of number of stores or all that. It’s more important for me to keep track of just our wins, seeing people develop. I mean, we’ve got three regional managers and every one of those regional managers started as a store manager. And it’s fun to see them put more of a true leadership hat on and really train and coach the younger guys and basically see their success. I mean, that’s what gets me fired up during the day.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, and I’ve had another Point S dealer on that’s now part of your organization, Nick Fox.

Eric:

Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah. So, he’s-

Eric:

He’s an amazing guy. And what’s fun about Nick is, as you said, he was a great interview for you, and he’s just energetic-

Mike:

Oh, yeah.

Eric:

… fired up. But we really aligned on our core values and he wants to grow, but his dad was also ready to retire, and it’s tough. They’d grown an organization that wasn’t just a small company, they had four stores. And so, his dad kind of wanted to say, “I want some chips off the table.” So, with us partnering, he’s now an equity partner in the Gills organization along with five or six other ex-owners who have put significant money into our company. And again, I just view this as just one big happy family, and we just keep rolling that way.

Mike:

Man, watching it from afar, it’s been fun to watch. That’s why I was excited about this interview. But you are obviously doing something right, and I can tell you’re a people guy because, well, A, it’s easier to be a people guy in the tire industry. I always tell everybody, the people are great in the industry. But what you’re doing and how you’re involved in growing, it’s not PE, you’re not trying to be private equity and just buy people up. You’re strategically trying to just find the like-minded people, and you mentioned earlier, row in the same direction and make it work for everybody.

Eric:

Yeah. I mean, our focus is just making it fun and enjoying what we’re doing, and we’ll see where it goes.

Mike:

Yeah. You only get one pass at this, right? Where do you see Point S going? Because you’re a big part of it and you’ve seen it from, I mean, from the Tire Factory days to now. So, what do you see going on with Point S in the future?

Eric:

Yeah, I think they’re on a good growth trajectory and we hope that we’ll continue to help that growth. We’re in negotiations to buy a company that’s got quite a few locations and they’re all non-Point S, and we have full intentions to brand them Point S from the get-go. So, our commitment is to continue to try to do our part to help them grow.

And as I said, Walter, I know, he’s been on your show. And he’s also a very people-minded guy. He’s created a great team, and he understands the balance between running a business and also being a support agent for the independent tire dealers. The mission statement for Point S is to basically have all the tools to help an independent tire dealer be successful. I mean, we’re member-owned, member-run, so there’s no corporation skimming profits out of that company. That’s just 100% trying to help all of us as independents grow and win.

Mike:

Well, as you know, I’ve interviewed quite a few Point S guys now, and there’s just nothing but true optimism. I mean, and I can feel it, and the co-op feel of it is just, it’s nothing but positive. So, it’s kind of refreshing.

Eric:

Yeah.

Mike:

Well, back on the personal side, you told me, obviously you listened to Walter’s interview. Walter had a great, funny story. Can you top his? Do you remember his?

Eric:

I don’t remember his off the top of my head. What was it again?

Mike:

Oh man, that guy was talking about an interview he did, but this is before Point S days.

Eric:

That’s right. Yeah, I do remember that.

Mike:

And his shirt was hanging out his zipper. I couldn’t believe he said that.

Eric:

I don’t know if I can top that, but you did ask me about a funny story that happened in the industry, and anyone who’s worked with me or watched me work in the shop knows that I was not a born technician, and I just didn’t come up through the industry. But anyway, I like to help out. I always say that I’m willing to do anything from take out the trash to mount a tire, and I have done all of that.

But I was driving a minivan onto a old pit lift, and I was really careful. The guy was down in the pit guiding me on, and I thought he was telling me to just come slowly and slowly, and I was just rolling forward slowly, looking out the window and make sure I was lined up on the tracks. Well, I guess that machine has two tracks, there’s a left and a right. Apparently, the right wasn’t so lined up. So, as soon as I hit that pit, that minivan went right down to the frame. And then, my face was beet red for probably three days, and my technicians couldn’t laugh hard enough.

So, I gave everyone a good chuckle. Knock on wood, I actually didn’t damage the car too much and we got everyone happy. But yeah, that was a little embarrassing.

Mike:

That’s good for the techs to see the big guy make a mistake, right?

Eric:

Yeah. The other good one was … I don’t know if you know what beet juice is?

Mike:

Uh-uh.

Eric:

Beet juice is a ballast for farm tires. You pump it in big farm tires to make sure they have enough weight to go on slopes and get traction. Well, beet juice is really just decomposed sugars and basically wastes of any kind of farm product. Well, beet juice does not smell good, and accidentally, the hose slipped out of my hand before I got it on the tire, and I had a beet juice stripe from head to toe, and I think I smelled like a skunk for at least, again, three days.

Mike:

Man, that’s brutal.

Eric:

Yeah. I threw away my clothes. Couldn’t handle it.

Mike:

Could your wife smell you when you got home?

Eric:

She smelled me a mile before I got home.

Mike:

Well, real quick, we kind of touched on this, and I think people are always interested in potentially if it’s going to be generational. Any of your sons thinking about being in the business?

Eric:

Yeah, I’ve got three great sons. One’s just out of college. He’s in the banking world. One’s just got into college this year. And one’s in the middle. And I told them all that, “There’s always opportunity in the business, but at the same time, I want them to go find their own skillset.” So, they’ve kind of got a mandate from me to go find a job for a few years before they ever come back and see if there’s still room for us to have them work for us.

But yeah, like I said, the door’s always open, but at the same time, I want everyone to find their own path. I did the same thing. I went out and did my own thing. And even though I didn’t come back into the family business necessarily, I think that was really useful.

Mike:

Yeah. And I think it’s important for them to realize they came back on their own, right? I mean, made that decision, made that determination, got to rule out some experiences. And hopefully, if they do come back, then they know, “Hey, man, it’s game on. Dad’s in charge and I want a part of this.”

Eric:

Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah. Do you have any words of wisdom for the audience, what you live by?

Eric:

Our industry’s tough at times, right? And we all have those days, but if you look back at the end of the day or the end of the week or end of the year, it’s amazing how much stuff we do, right? Whether it’s how many customers we help. I mean, I’m sure everyone listening has that story of helping the customer on Christmas Eve, or a Sunday, or whatever it is. And so, I always just say, enjoy the journey because it’s a journey.

And then, the second thing is, I’ve always lived by create great memories for all around you. And so, whether that’s fun holiday dinners, company picnics, getting personal. I mean, I can’t tell you how many excitements we have when we have an employee that buys their first house or has their first baby or whatever it is. I mean, enjoy all of that stuff with them. And I think we’re in an industry that’s real and we’re doing a real thing every day. And I think, again, enjoy that journey and create fun memories for everyone that’s around you.

Mike:

Man, that’s spoken like a lot of wisdom right there. So, one of the things I like to ask people is something about what they like to do, a place to visit. Where do you like to visit or go? Or, if you got to go somewhere again, where would you go?

Eric:

Yeah. So, funny story, Mike, you and I were talking just a little bit before the interview, and our family summer house is in Northern Wisconsin. It sounds like you and I might’ve been on the same piece of parcel-

Mike:

It’s crazy.

Eric:

… 30 years ago, right?

Mike:

Yeah.

Eric:

We’re going to tie this out eventually. But yeah, we have this little lake house and it’s probably my favorite place in the world is just coming up here and relaxing and getting away from everything. And again, it’s just full of real people and great families up here. Basically, I have 50-plus years of memories.

Mike:

Man, that’s awesome.

Eric:

And our kids have done the same thing. But if I’m not at the lake house, basically anything on water, lake, an ocean, a sea. I love water and boats and all that stuff.

Mike:

Yeah. That’s my wife to a T. But yeah, the lake up there when we would go, and we’re going to find out if it was the same one, but yeah, that’s some of our finest memories. The one thing I do remember about that place, y’all got some pretty big mosquitoes.

Eric:

Yeah, they’re huge.

Mike:

Yeah, I don’t know why, but I can distinctly remember that in the summer. But no, the family we hung out with, we would see them for every summer for several years. And yeah, we’re going to close that out. I’ll figure out where that lake was and we’ll see if we weren’t in the same parcel at the same time. That’s crazy.

Eric:

That’d be fun.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, Eric, I got to thank you, man. I know it’s been two years in the making, but it’s been a pleasure having you on Gain Traction.

Eric:

Perfect, Mike. Well, it was nice to get to know you and I’m sure we’ll talk again.

Mike:

Absolutely. So, to all our listeners out there, thank you for being part of our podcast. As usual, we are very grateful for you. If you would like to recommend a guest to me, please email me at [email protected]. Until next time, be safe, be grateful, and have a great day.

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.

Contents hide

1 In this episode…

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

1.2 Resources mentioned in this episode:

1.2.1 Quotable Moments:

1.2.2 Action Steps: