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Scott Weeden is the Vice President of Sales at Barnwell House of Tires. With over two decades in the trucking industry, he previously managed his own freight company and oversaw the New York City market for a commercial tire manufacturer. In his position at Barnwell, Scott has cultivated a team of 22 sales representatives, leading to a 60% increase in revenue. Additionally, he serves on the Tire Industry Association board, contributing to the safety of tire technicians, drivers, and pedestrians.
In this episode…
How do you convince potential clients it’s worth partnering with your company? According to Scott Weeden, who leads the Barnwell House of Tires sales team, it starts with an efficient process and eliminating mistakes in the transaction paperwork. After that, it comes down to the performance of your product. Scott says a refined process combined with reliable product performance drives profits, resulting in partnerships.
In this episode of Gain Traction, Scott talks to Mike Edge about what makes a shop attractive to potential clients. He explains what providing reliable and exceptional service means, offering a mistake-free transaction process, ensuring product performance, driving profits, and gaining partnerships. Lastly, Scott shares a crazy story about a memorable experience with a customer and discusses some classic movie scenes.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Scott Weeden talks about growing up in Seattle
- How Scott began to work at Barnwell House of Tires
- Scott provides insight into some of his major accomplishments in the tire industry
- What sets Barnwell apart from others in the industry?
- Scott’s story about an intimidating experience he had with a customer
- Which scenes from Glengarry Glen Ross and The Usual Suspects are Scott’s all-time favorites?
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Scott Weeden Biography
- Barnwell House of Tires
- Kevin Gorman on LinkedIn
- Jimmy Gorman on LinkedIn
- Mason Hess on LinkedIn
- Purcell Tire and Service Centers
- Mike Edge on LinkedIn
- Tread Partners
Transcript
Mike:
Hey folks, Mike here. I want to invite you before we get started today, to join us in Durham, North Carolina, September 28th through the 30th at the ASTE Show. That’s the Automotive Service and Technology Expo. You can find out more about it at asteshow.com. That’s A-S-T-E-S-H-O-W.com. Look for me there, Mike, with the Gain Traction Podcast. Hope to see you there.
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, the Gain Traction Podcast is where I talk with top tire and automotive business leaders. Gain Traction Podcasters, I would like to give you a heads-up on a future guest Don Detore, editor of the publication we all know well, Tire Business. He will be on in a few weeks, and I look forward to interviewing him on Gain Traction. Our sponsor today is our parent company, Tread Partners. Tread Partners is in the business of designing and developing custom websites for tire dealers and auto repair shops with more than five locations. What Tread has learned over the years is that when you have five or more locations, your business is really like five businesses under one name. So the website needs to do a good job of promoting each location’s strengths.
To learn more, visit treadpartners.com. Also, I’d like to encourage you, if you haven’t already, to listen to an recent interview I did with Mason Hess, the man in charge of mining tire division for Purcell Tire. And ironically, Mason Hess is also the one that introduced us to our guest today, Scott Whedon. Scott is Vice President of Sales at Barnwell House of Tires based in Long Island, New York. Scott, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast.
Scott:
Hey Mike, thanks. Appreciate it. And good to hear you talk about Mason Hess. That’s one heck of a guy.
Mike:
He is. He’s a lot of fun too. I mean, we had quite a few laughs when we prepared for our podcast. And he highly recommended you, so I was excited to get you on the podcast. Not to get ahead of ourselves because I know we’ll cover this, but he said that you guys have served on the TIA board together.
Scott:
Yep, we certainly did. I’m in my third year, so it’ll be my last year on the board [inaudible 00:02:24] served under… Mason, was the president. Real good things we did there in the tire industry, and that was a lot of fun.
Mike:
That’s awesome. Well, to back up, let’s let the audience get to know you because our podcast is biographical in nature, so tell us about yourself, where you’re originally from, how’d you grow up, what sports you played maybe growing up, et cetera.
Scott:
Okay. Yeah, thanks. And again, thanks for having me, Mike, I appreciate it. Grew up in a suburb of Seattle, Washington, it’s called Bellevue, Washington.
Mike:
Oh yeah.
Scott:
A city of about 90,000 people and whatnot. Grew up a Sonics fan, played basketball. Ultimately, at the end of the day, sister, mother, father. Father was a World War II vet.
Mike:
No kidding.
Scott:
Yeah, it was World War II vet. And the interesting about him was he was a go-getter. He grew up in Memphis and he had his grandmother sign over a waiver that he could go fight in World War II when he was 16.
Mike:
Oh my gosh. They don’t make him like that anymore, do they?
Scott:
No, they certainly don’t. And so he asked about family, so he did that. He went on the Navy GI building, and then when he came back from the war, he went to University of Pittsburgh and graduated from there as an electrical engineer. So yeah, so kudos to him.
Mike:
Absolutely. I appreciate you sharing that. I’m always intrigued by World War II vets, and that just says a lot about him. I mean, at 16, man. Wow.
Scott:
Exactly. So growing up in my household was interesting to say the least with a guy.
Mike:
Yeah. There’s probably not a lot you could whine about or cry about. I mean, yeah, I mean at 16, I mean that guy grew up fast.
Scott:
Yep. Super fast, super fast. But then continued to play basketball and whatnot. And then I came to the East Coast on scholarship, played basketball out here, and then stayed on the east coast doing the opposite of Lewis and Clark. I came east and then I went-
Mike:
Backtracked, right?
Scott:
Yep, yep, exactly. And then I went and played some ball over in Europe and whatnot. Had a great time over there and still have some good friends over there in Europe. So came back to the East Coast then after playing, decided I wasn’t making enough money over there. They weren’t paying the guys like they’re paying them now. They weren’t paying us like that now back then. And then answer the ads and the star ledger for when this is back in the day when you had your resume and you read the newspaper and where all the ads at, where do you want to work. And I answered the ad for Roadway Express.
Mike:
Oh, okay.
Scott:
Yep. And ended up being one out of… I think it was 1100 ads they took and I was the one that they hired. I started in Kearney, New Jersey.
Mike:
Fantastic. That’s awesome. So you got in that… Were you just strictly on the distribution side or were you helping with logistics? What was your role there?
Scott:
So what Roadway did back then, they had great training program and great people in that company, later they were ended up bought out by YRC Yellow and now they’ve just went out of business. So it’s been a tough two weeks once they went out. But I started as a management trainee, they had a trainee program, and then you started on the dock after you finished that program. It was back in the day, then they’d send you out to Akron, Ohio. You had to take a test and if you didn’t pass the test, they didn’t pay for you to get back. Had to get back on your own. Jesus. They said that?
Mike:
That’d be a motivator though, right?
Scott:
That’s right. But then started on the dock as a supervisor and then you ran inbound, outbound and moved up to dispatch. We were dispatching a hundred drivers out there and then… I don’t know, I think I kicked somebody off. They say I got promoted, but I kicked them off, they moved me to sales in Brooklyn, New York.
Mike:
As a kid from Washington [inaudible 00:06:47] right there in Brooklyn. Yeah, no kidding. So that’s how you entered sales then?
Scott:
Yeah, I entered sales in that facet where… And they had a great sales program. It was called TOPS where they teach you features, benefits, advantages, how to sell to someone who was driving a forklift and all the way up to the owner of a company, and things of that nature. And it was a value sell. Roadway was never the cheapest trucking company out there. And you’re selling space on a truck basically. I’ve been around trucks and tires and stuff like that for… Oh man, going way back, 28 years.
Mike:
So then how’d you get over to… I’m assuming you made a transition eventually to Barnwell?
Scott:
Yes. So what happened then was I’m moving freight, if you will, with Roadway, and I’m doing that and I had an entrepreneur spirit in me, much like how my dad did. And then I jumped and I went to a trans group, Worldwide Logistics, which is based out of Seattle. And I’m managing a territory in New York, New Jersey, and I’m seeing how you move the freight and how you can make some money. And I’m like, “Man, let me open my own thing up here.” So I opened my own freight logistics company. So I did that. I did that for about nine years and it was really good. I had some real good years in that. I used to tell people I can import, export, I can move anything but your mail.
And then a buddy of mine was Marvin Andrews who used to work for Michelin, and he was at Michelin at the time, he said to me… And I was looking to get out and go back into the corporate world, and he suggested I try Michelin and that’s what I did. So I went through the whole Michelin training program again, learned these tires, studying. I’m in this training class with these kids who were fresh out of college and this and that. I just hung on to them because they knew how to study and we didn’t know how to study when I was growing up.
Mike:
And it’s always hard getting back into it, right?
Scott:
That’s right. That’s right. And then the thing with Michelin, how they did it back then is you went to South Carolina and you trained there for 12 weeks, and I think there was 26 of us that came in, and much like Roadway, they would cut you right then if you didn’t keep an 80 average. And I think there was 26 of us, and I think 14 of us made it out. And I think maybe they still have five or six of them left. And then they would place you IN the area that they thought… Anywhere across the country. And so-
Mike:
You literally had to be open to ending up anywhere.
Scott:
Yes, you did. And they had an area that was open in Montana, and man, I’ll never forget when they pulled that kid’s card and he came out from the back room and they told him he was going to Montana, he did not look happy.
Mike:
Oh my goodness. Where was he from? Was he a city kid or something?
Scott:
He was from Ohio, I want to say. But yeah, that’s how Michelin used to do it. I don’t think they do it like that anymore. But at any rate, then they pulled me, New York City. No problem, I’m back.
Mike:
Nice. So you messed around in New York City for a while and I guess that’s where you maybe got to know Barnwell.
Scott:
Yes. So it’s interesting. So you land, you get in your territory, you’re there. And I knew New York very well obviously and whatnot, and they teach you, you have a whole go-to market strategy, which we also have at Barnwell. You knock on the door, you go see the customers. And I kept hearing this deal at Barnwell, Barnwell, Barnwell. And I’m looking in my box, they’re not in my computer box. And I’m like, “Who is this dealer?” And so after hearing that, the first four days on the job, I found where they were and I went and went out to Ronkonkoma, which is one of their ship tos. And I talked to Joe Campbell, we call him Soup, and he was like, “Oh, Michelin?” I said, “Yeah.” He says, “We haven’t seen a Michelin person here in a long time.”
And I opened them up as a dealer and we did a lot of business with Michelin and them. They’re a Goodyear dealer and became very good friends with the ownership, which is Billy Gorman, Jimmy Gorman and Kevin Gorman. And they wanted to take Barnwell to the next level. And we put our heads together and oh, here I am.
Mike:
That’s awesome. So I got to tell the audience here, I got a little background on you, I got a little cheat sheet here, but man, you have done some impressive things, especially at Barnwell, but you have doubled… Or No, it’s 2.5x revenues in eight years. Man, that is impressive.
Scott:
Yeah, that’s out there. That’s true. And we did that organically. We had some acquisitions in there, obviously when we sat down and wanted to come up with a plan of what we were going to do with Barnwell. We had some goals that we wanted to hit and we were aggressive on it. And it’s been fun. It’s been a heck of a ride.
Mike:
No, I can tell. And then it looks like you’ve been involved in a lot of different things, I mean there, but helped develop the Road Hazard Program, conducted the first Barnwell TIA Fleet Symposium. Looks like you served on a lot of… When you attended a lot of Goodyear conferences, you were on a lot of panels for different topics. Yeah.
Scott:
Yeah, sure. Terry Budzinski, who’s now heads of consumer for Goodyear, he was head of commercial for Goodyear. He had a decentralized and a centralized panel talking about fleets and how they buy and how they’re able to go about their business. And that was an interesting one because you have a decentralized fleet, that means that person, say they have 50 locations, each location is decentralized, can buy and purchase whatever they want to purchase. And then you have the other version which is centralized where it’s like the riders, or no, you have to buy Goodyear and whatever the case may be. So it was an interesting topic, a lot of feedback on that as well when we presented.
Mike:
I noticed another one, you successfully bidded on the New York City Sanitation. Man, I’d say that’s a big account.
Scott:
Yeah, that’s probably… Dave Beasley from Goodyear said after we won it, he said, “That is the Super Bowl of tires right there, winning that bid.” And at the end of the day, it’s the low bid wins. So it’s tough because when you don’t have the bid, you want it. When you have it, you want to try and inch that up, so you’re making a little bit more and more. And we did not have it. And we worked really hard with Goodyear on that. There’s only four of us that worked on that together. We kept everything hush-hush, was Billy Gorman, of course, myself, Jason Stein, who was then head of government sales for Goodyear and Dave Beasley. And we kept that number quiet. And we gathered intel across the country on where we saw different products and where their pricing was. And then of course my reps in our area gathering where our competitors are and what price levels they were at. And man, they opened that up, that bid’s about this thick, and man-
Mike:
And folks, he’s showing me. Because this is audio, he’s showing me about a stack of pages about three inches thick.
Scott:
Like a New York City phone book, and you can get thrown out with one mistake in there. And my regional sales manager, Rich [inaudible 00:14:48] went when we had the bid. There’s two bids actually for the new tires. He went on that one, I went on the retread bid along with Billy. And the retread bid, we end up… We sat there and you’re in there with your competitors and they open them right there and they tell you what the number is. And we just both were just smiling. I think we won by $3 on the tire, something like that. And then went downstairs. There was… I can’t remember the name of the steakhouse. There was a steakhouse down there. We went down there and that bid opened at 11:00 AM, we were at the steakhouse 11:30 ordering steaks and having our thing. And it was really good time.
Mike:
That’s a great victory. Well, tell the audience a little bit more about Barnwell and the brand. I know you’ve been around a long time, I think 83 years, and obviously, you’re operated by three brothers, it seemed like they’re very entrepreneurial and have a lot of foresight. What’s Barnwell like in the marketplace where you’re at?
Scott:
Sure, sure. Wait, great question. It’s three brothers, Billy Gorman, Jimmy Gorman, and Kevin Gorman. And it’s a service oriented dealership. We’ve probably got 270 employees, 11 locations throughout Connecticut, New York, New Jersey. We’ll do this year… We’re primarily commercial, but we’ll bill out or we’ll sell 120,000 passenger light truck tires mostly to Con Edisons of the world and things like that, utility companies and whatnot. We’ll sell a hundred thousand truck tires. We’ll sell close to a hundred thousand retreads, 10,000 light industrial and thousand OTO and solid tires. So we’re a service company that sells tires.
Mike:
Man, that’s some good volume right there. Well, I think as you and I have gotten to know each other, you’ve mentioned to me that one of the things that sets you apart in this kind of commodity driven marketplace is service. So tell us a little bit about what you guys do, I guess, and how you go the extra mile in convincing your clients that it’s worth doing business with Barnwell.
Scott:
Yeah, and another great question, not to give away all the secrets and whatnot, but for road service, you call us, we’re coming. And when we tell you we’re going to be there an hour and a half, we’re going to be there an hour and 15 minutes. We’re not always perfect, but we’re doing this in New York City and Tri-state area. And like I said, you call, we’re coming. The other thing that we do and what’s helped us grow is we look to partner with companies, and everybody says, “Oh, we want to be your partner. We want to do this, we want to do that with you.” And it sounds great to say it, but the way we take it is what are we doing to partner with? And number one, you have to have the product right? You got to put the right product in. We have a wealth of products that we have.
We have all the majors, Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear, we have Hankook. You have everything that customer could possibly want, we have. And then what we do is we put that product in and we track the performance of it. And while we’re tracking the performance of it, we go back and look at a process on how they’re buying and how they want to buy and what’s the most important thing as far as the backend transaction and the paperwork accrued. I sat on… Or I didn’t sit on this panel, but Goodyear had a presentation down, I want to say it was three years ago, possibly four, and they had five major fleets on this panel. And the biggest thing that they said was the process, billing and paperwork on the back end.
Because it takes… If you got to touch a piece of paper one time and there’s a mistake on it, now somebody’s got to touch it again, and then 10 other people touch it, and then by the time, you’ve killed all your profitability. So that’s one of the things that we do. And then when you continue that, now you get the performance of the product that you put in there. And these are a lot of peas, you see that I got going on. Product performance, and then that gets the profit. And then you talk about partners because now Mr. Customer, we put the correct product in, it ran, we got your process, the performance was good, now you’re profitable, we’re profitable. Now we’re a true partnership.
Mike:
So really, in a way, the one word that stands out to me is you really come off reliable. And then when people feel like they can trust you, it seems that… Like you said, they profit, you profit, and it becomes win-win because you’re just not slacking in any area in particular. You just made me think about that billing. I can think of a couple of companies I work for and where we might’ve been poor in billing. And yeah, if you do that to yourself, it’s like a self-inflicted wound, but it also builds a little bit of distrust. I mean, on the other side. And if your partner or your customer feels like, “Man, they do their job, they invoice us, we pay, everything’s clean all the time,” that just builds that trust from that kind of confidence of, “You’re just reliable. We just count on them.”
Scott:
Yeah, exactly. And to take it further with that, once you’ve developed that and gone through that process with that customer, whoever they’re doing business with before, they turn the lights off, because if I’m able to be profitable and I’ve got the right products and the process is there, they fixed my problem, whatever the case that is, why am I going back to that other-
Mike:
Vendor.
Scott:
… dealer or distributor, whatever.
Mike:
Yeah.
Scott:
And we try and find those angles, and that’s who we try and partner with to go back with organic growing and us growing in volume, that what helped us do that. And I’ll tell you, the three brothers, and Jimmy, especially out there in Jersey, the road service that he’s in charge of, you just tell them, “Hey, these guys need X, Y, and Z.” Boom, when you hang up the phone, you know it’s done.
Mike:
And it’s such a big deal. But I think… I don’t know if people really fully appreciate, when you’re roadside assistance like that, I mean, you’re basically telling your customer, “Look, I’m willing to get up at 2:00 AM.” And then when you really do show up and you do solve their problem, it’s almost like another hook of confidence you put in them that they don’t want to not do business with you because you just… Look, it’s like anybody, when that truck’s not running for them, they’re losing a lot of money, and they need you guys to support the fact that I got to have my trucks running, or if I got a breakdown, I know Barnwell is going to be there and I know they’re going to be there with the right tires.
Scott:
Yeah, yeah. No doubt about it. And one of the things that’s helped push us with that and give us our own matrix is Goodyear rates us on their Fleet HQ. So they rate you on how many calls you took, how many you denied. And we take… I think we’re at 97%, we accept those calls. It’s 97% on… We’re doing, I want to say 12,000 calls for them a year.
Mike:
Oh my gosh. Are you really? That seems like a phenomenally high number to me. That’s awesome.
Scott:
Yeah, it is. And they also rate you on how fast you get to the call. And if you say you’re going to get to the call in two hours and you get there two hours and 10 minutes, they ding you for that. So it’s a good matrix for us. And they rate the dealer and then they give the calls out accordingly. That’s fine with us. No problem. Because we’re coming.
Mike:
That’s awesome. Hey, I got a question for you. When I was looking over some of the information I had on you guys, one of the things that said is that some of the relationships you guys have with tire dealers around the country, like Mason for instance, he works for Purcell, do you guys exchange work or something?
Scott:
We do. So they do some retreading for us on OTR tires. They do a real good cap for us and whatnot. So they’ll pick up tires out here in New Jersey, send them back to their plant, retread them, and then we get them back and then we sell them to the customer.
Mike:
Gotcha.
Scott:
Okay.
Mike:
Yeah.
Scott:
So they’ve been really good with us on that. Every time I see them come across the dock, I take a picture of them, send them out to Mason. He always gets a kick out of that.
Mike:
Well, so that’s… Then in essence, some of these other names that I see on here, that’s what… For whatever reason, you’ve got those other relationships that you’re trading off services and somehow or they benefit you somehow.
Scott:
Correct. Correct. And we get ideas from them and they get ideas from us. And they’re typically dealers that aren’t in our footprint, so we don’t compete with them. So what works for us, we try and help them, and then they try and help us with things and whatnot.
Mike:
That’s awesome. Well, we’re actually coming up on a hard stop, so I’m going to ask you one of my favorite questions to ask everybody is tell us… It’s my segment called Make Us Laugh. Do you have a funny story for us in your career that you can share with us, and by all means, you can be self-deprecating or embarrassing, just keep it clean.
Scott:
Okay. I’ve got one. This is New York, and we have a lot of tough customers out here, but great people, and it’s one of the things I love about this job. And I had a situation when I was with Michelin and we had a fleet that had some tires they wanted casing credits for. And the dealer that I used to pick up the tires, took the tires and scrapped them and said, “Well, none of these tires were good.” And so I got told some certain things by the customer, and so I said, “Man, I got to bring somebody else in here from Michelin to take some of this heat from me. I don’t want to do all this on my own.” And I brought in Justin King, who was the business development manager at Michelin. So we came in, rang the buzzer, and I know where this guy is, he’s sitting in there like Scarface with all the cameras and he can [inaudible 00:26:03] all that stuff.
And I’m like, “Yep.” And I… Buzzes us in. And his wife says, “Go right ahead in the back.” And Justin’s pretty big, and I’m a decent sized guy too, and we go and we sit down and there he is, he’s sitting there and behind him is the TV cameras with everything going on, all his locations, GPS and everything. [inaudible 00:26:21] is him. And he’s sitting there, he goes, “What do you want? I want to bring in…” And as I’m saying it, he’s going into his drawer and he’s pulling out gloves and he’s pulling out this big plastic body bag, puts it on the table, and then he pulls out a hammer and he puts it on the desk like this. And he goes, “I don’t want any problems.” And Justin immediately just goes like this, “You never have to use that dealer ever again.” And he says, “Okay, great. You have no problem.” He put everything away and back in his drawer. It was unbelievable.
Mike:
It’s hilarious. Oh my gosh. You’re going to be one of my top Make Us Laugh stories. That was fantastic.
Scott:
Yeah. Well, it wasn’t at the time. It wasn’t funny at the time. No.
Mike:
Little tense moment, that’s funny though. Oh my gosh, what a way to express this. Oh my gosh. That one crack-
Scott:
That’s the real deal.
Mike:
Yeah, no kidding. He was getting a point across for sure. All right, one more question. What’s your favorite movie of all time? It doesn’t have to be your… I mean, number one. I know everybody’s got multiples, but one that comes to mind.
Scott:
Well, one that comes to mind… Well, I’m going to do two. One is Glengarry Glen Ross the scene with Baldwin, who-
Mike:
Put that coffee down.
Scott:
Put the coffee down. That is great. Love that. But the Usual Suspects is a good one with Kevin Spacey, and talking about Keyser Söze. Keyser Söze, that was a super intriguing movie. I love that.
Mike:
You bringing that one up makes me want to see that one again, because it is an older one, but it was a very good movie. And if I remember right, it was pretty intense.
Scott:
Very intense. Very intense, and a super good twist at the end. And-
Mike:
Yes, yes, yes. I got to see that one again, Usual Suspects. And just from being… Look, every sales guy [inaudible 00:28:23] that’s ever been in sales need to see Glengarry Glen Ross, but they really… That movie in particular, I mean, they had a lot of big names in that.
Scott:
Oh yeah.
Mike:
You kind of forget that, but if you go back and look, you’re like, “Oh my gosh.” They had… Wasn’t Al Pacino in that, and Ed Harris.
Scott:
Yep.
Mike:
Who was one of the… Jack Lemmon, he was in there.
Scott:
Jack Lemmon.
Mike:
Have you said Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey.
Scott:
Spacey too, yeah.
Mike:
I mean, they had a… It was pretty jam packed with some [inaudible 00:28:55]. And I can’t think if there’s some other actors that you’ve seen their face a million times in other movies, but they had a good group. But yeah, that whole scene with the speech and everything.
Scott:
It’s like six minutes and 41 seconds. I think I got it all memorized.
Mike:
Oh, that’s awesome. Well, I got to tell you, man, it’s been a pleasure having you on here.
Scott:
Yeah, this was great. Mike, I appreciate you having me here. And this was great, and good luck with your next guest and going forward and whatnot. This is a real good thing you got set up here. Appreciate it.
Mike:
We enjoy it and we enjoy getting good guests like yourself. And I say this to you, respectfully, by all means, just like Mason did, he thought of you and said, “Man, I got a great guest.” If you think of one, let me know. And then to all our listeners out there, thank you for being part of the podcast, as usual. If you would like to recommend a guest, don’t hesitate to email me at [email protected]. And until next time, 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.
Transcript
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