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Jay Adams is President at MaddenCo, widely recognized as an industry leader for tire industry software. He started working in sales there in the late 90s after graduating from Wabash College with a history degree. After two years, Jay left for law school and then worked as an attorney for four years before returning to MaddenCo in 2006.
In this episode…
What should tire and auto repair shops consider when implementing or changing their software systems? Should data collection be a primary factor? What hurdles often come with the switch?
According to Jay Adams of MaddenCo, data collection can be an advantage over the competition — but you have to know how much data you want to collect and when. When switching to different software, Jay says it’s most important to remember you’re changing for a reason — so trust your installer, trainer, and the people you signed with.
On this episode of Gain Traction, Neal Maier and Matt Peters sit down with Jay for a conversation about all things related to tire industry software. Jay shares his thoughts on what’s ahead for this software, what it can do in real-time, data collection, reporting and KPIs, and essential considerations in switching software. He also gives some great advice on looking for a parking spot. Don’t miss it!
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Jay Adams tells the story of MaddenCo and why it’s considered an enterprise software business in the tire industry
- MaddenCo’s affiliations within the tire industry
- What does Jay see with tire industry software in the next five years?
- Business analytics that tire dealers should be looking at
- The value of getting employees to master your software
- What are the major considerations tire dealers should consider when switching software?
- The best piece of advice Jay has received
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Transcription
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.
Neal:
Hi, I’m Neal Maier. Today I’m joined by Matt Peters. We’re the host of Gain Traction where we talk to top automotive business leaders about their journeys. And I’m excited about today’s discussion. Before we jump in, this episode’s brought to you by Tread Partners. At Tread Partners, we provide digital marketing for multi-location tire dealers and auto repair shops. By using our strategy, branding and marketing services, we help shops sell more tires and put more cars in bays. So what are you waiting on? Visit us at treadpartners.com. Today we’re joined by Jay Adams, president of MaddenCo. Widely recognized as an industry leader for tire industry software. Jay, welcome to Gain Traction.
Jay:
Thank you, good morning.
Matt:
Morning.
Neal:
Well, Jay, we’ll jump right in. Tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into the tire software industry and where you are today.
Jay:
Okay. Well, I’ve been president of MaddenCo for 14, going on 15 years. Through a series of circumstances, but I actually started with MaddenCo back in the late 90s, right out of college. Something of a funny story, I was looking around for jobs, just anywhere that I could find one and do word of mouth. I found out that this company in my hometown was looking for a new salesman, and I sent in my resume and got a call back and had an interview and I met Tom Yeager for people who were long time in industry they know that name. And I had an interview and he says, “Well, do you know anything about tires?” And I said, “No.” “But do you know anything about software?” “No.” Then he said, “Well, can you start a week after you graduate?” I said, “Sure, I’d be happy to.” So like most people by accident is how I got into the tire business.
Neal:
I love it. Sounds like you were the perfect blank slate.
Jay:
Yeah, that’s right. And that’s exactly what he said. So it worked out well and I did sales for two years, then I left and went to law school actually and became a lawyer. And I did that for four years at a large law firm up in Indianapolis. And just over time I had to decide, well, I wanted to go on the partnership track or if I wanted to do something else, and got in touch with Greg Madden, the owner of MaddenCo, and said, “You know what? I think I want to come back. I enjoyed working with the people in the tire industry and if you’ve got a spot for me, happy to do it.” He said, “Come on back.” And kind of took off from there.
Neal:
No kidding. I’ve told this story a time or two before, but I’ve fell into the tire industry, somewhat similar circumstances, and I decided I was going to take a year off between undergrad and law school and ended up working in the tire industry and never went back.
Jay:
Okay, yeah, so my story’s similar. And also for the people that were a long time in the tire software business, Greg Madden, he was obviously president and owner when I came back… Well, when I started and then when I came back as well and when he got sick and had cancer and when he passed away, that’s when I took over as president and that was probably two years after I’d come back.
Neal:
Got it, that was a quick transition then.
Jay:
It was. At 30, well, 31, 32, yeah so I took that over and went from there. We had Kim Pointer was here as well, and her and I kind of ran separate parts of the business and she took over as CEO and we just sort of ran the company like we did before Greg passed away.
Neal:
Well, for those of our listeners who aren’t familiar with MaddenCo, talk a little bit about MaddenCo and what you do.
Jay:
Okay. Well, MaddenCo, we are, I call it an enterprise software business in the tire industry. We’ve been in business since 1977, so 45 years as an IBM house, if you will. We started with the old IBM servers and have continued with the IBM platform, which has separated us from our competition, I think in terms of stability and things that we can do with the IBM mid-range platform. And I probably should move back just a little bit, when Greg started the business, he actually like me coming in was sort of by accident in the tire business, he got in the tire business by accident. He was a programmer at heart and he would program for the bakery, the furniture store, the bank, whomever would pay him because he was a poor college student too. And he got a foothold in the business with Raben Tire, he was a fraternity brother of Phil Raben, who was a well-known name in the tire industry. And anyway, he started down that road and actually worked there for a time and wrote a software package for Raben Tire.
Neal:
No kidding.
Jay:
I think over time through word of mouth, there were other local tire stores that found out and started working with him too. And just over time he narrowed his focus to the tire business and he hit it big when TCI found him. For those, again, who have been in the industry a while are very familiar with the name TCI. And through that working with them, it really spread out sort of nationally. And today we have about 2,400 locations running our software in the United States and in Canada. It’s a little bit different model than when Greg originally started, usually at that time you were selling servers and software, so you had to be proficient in two areas. About the year 2000, 2001, not long after Y2K hit, he started the, we call it ASP, application service provider, or now I think it’s more SaaS, software as a service. He started that model and that really helped move the business forward as well and made it a lot easier for us to service our customers.
So that’s kind of where we are. We’re multi segment in the industry. We do retail, wholesale, commercial, retread. I think we’re one of the few softwares that have our own retread production software, so that kind of helps us with retread businesses that aren’t affiliated with your Bridgestones or Conti’s or Goodyear’s, Michelin. But that’s kind of what we do, we’ve got about 25 employees here and there. We just brought a new one on today. That’s why I’m hesitating a little bit and looking for a couple more actually. So that’s kind of where we are. Located in Evansville, Indiana and going strong.
Matt:
Hey, Jake, talk about your affiliations with the tire industry, Michelin and those folks. What’s your relationship?
Jay:
It’s simple but complicated. A lot of those relationships revolve around national account processing on the commercial side for dealers, meaning when the national accounts come in, we can process the delivery seats and their credits electronically. We also do some purchase orders and automatic receivers with these folks. I mean, those are the big things there and Matt, I’m glad you brought that up because that kind of separates us from a lot of our competition. We do those things to certain levels with Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear, Yokohama, Continental, I think we even do some [inaudible 00:08:59] with Hankook and Coopers and a few others. So yeah, that’s a big piece of what we do. It can be complicated, there’s a lot of a back and forth with the vendors. We’re talking to these folks on a weekly basis, so that’s a lot of what we do and a lot of what we spend our time on here.
Matt:
Yeah, I know that this is an area that separates you from the others in the pack out there, so I wanted to help make sure that we covered that with you today.
Jay:
Yeah, it is important and they’re good partners to work with. We knew a lot of folks in those areas and at those companies for a long time. They’ve started to turn those groups over more routinely now. So it can be a challenge sometimes to maintain the relationship, but especially here recently after COVID we’ve really started to pick up with the rubber vendors again and enhancing those pieces that we interface with.
Neal:
It seems like over the years, especially on our side on the website side, but I feel like it’s the same in the software industry that integrations become a more and more important piece of the business. That seems like that’s been a big focus for MaddenCo, clearly through this. Am I right in that assertion?
Jay:
Yes, you are interfaces are very important and we’re getting asked to do more of those all the time. We’re careful to look at these because we want to continue to grow organically as well and build our own things, separate us from the market because at some point you become just a bolt on software and there’s several others out there that can do that. So we want to… Anything that we can bring in-house, we will. But yeah, absolutely, there are things that we can’t do and aren’t going to do. And a good example would be a warehouse management system. We have some things where we can track bins for customers, and I’m talking about on the wholesale side, but a warehouse management system that tracks down to the pallet. That’s something that we’re just not going to be able to get into and the algorithms that go into to pulling tires from certain places. So built ons like that we’re getting into, texting websites we’re not going to do, so we kind of know our place and we’re comfortable there, but we do try to grow and build things as much as we can.
Neal:
Well, looking way on down the road. What do you see coming in the next five years or so?
Jay:
Well, it’s going to be more… Some of the interfaces, as you alluded to, the interfaces are flat files versus, I think folks are moving to APIs and web services, so you’re going to see more automation there rather than doing a polling or having the data updated nightly, it’s going to be realtime. Realtime data is super important to folks now, you’re also going to have more… The business analytics are important, I’m concerned on that piece, that it’s almost getting to be too much analytics and some of the feel for what’s going on from the human concept, if you will. Some of that’s going away almost too much I think. But nevertheless, it is a big part of what’s going on and obviously the social media and the texting that’s already happening, that’s not going to slow down at all, those are the big ones.
One of the trends that we’ve seen that I think we’ll continue to is you’re having these retailers that are starting up that are carrying very little inventory and just being able to hit their supplier as quickly as possible and have that online and have that delivery done that day or no later than the next day. That type of automation is just going to continue as well.
Neal:
In a lot of cases, the tire supply and inventories followed the path of the parts industry where it’s almost hotshot deliver even in some instances. So I can see the value in having real time inventory connections for tire inventory for sure.
Jay:
That’s a good analogy, yep. It’s getting more and more like that all the time.
Neal:
Interesting. Well, Jay, let’s talk a minute. You touched on business analytics and quite often our clients find themselves on one of two sides. They either don’t have enough information or they have a system so complicated they can’t get the information out. What should a tire dealer look for when they’re thinking in terms of reporting, in terms of KPIs, but in particular under that classification of business analytics?
Jay:
I think there’s a couple things, and I’ve mentioned this actually in a couple trade journal articles before anybody gets to this point where they’re really getting into the analytics and that, you got to make sure that your data is good, and I’m sure that there’s [inaudible 00:14:55] out there shaking their head, yes. You can grab all the data you want, but if it’s not any good, what are you going to do with it? That data has to be good, your people have to be trained to put the data in appropriately. And then let’s assume for a minute that, that happens and you have data that’s worth analyzing. Do you have the support and the infrastructure inside your business to actually do something with that? Because it’s one thing to have the data, but if you can’t… You don’t have the people and the infrastructure to put it to use, then what have you done?
So I don’t know that I can give a whole lot of sage advice past that, but I think that sometimes we hear buzzwords in the industry and we hear business analytics and we hear somebody’s going to want to do the latest and greatest as far as software and technology, but if you don’t have the infrastructure and you also don’t have the training and the impetus to do this at the counter and grab that data appropriately and efficiently, then you really haven’t gained anything. So my wisdom would be to make sure you can get those two things done first, and then from there you can do some pretty powerful things.
Neal:
That makes complete sense.
Matt:
I agree, Jay, garbage in, garbage out. If they’re not managing the data from its onset, then the data that they’re going to pull through analytics is not going to be effective for them. And then also it’s true, businesses oftentimes don’t have the staffing that understand how to really leverage that data. So whether you give them the tools, if they don’t understand how to use it, then it’s not being used the way that they had hoped for.
Jay:
Yeah, and in defense of the tire dealers, as I say, you got to get this stuff in. It’s hard, one, just to hire people at all right now. Then you also have to recognize as the owner of the business, and I’m talking more in a retail environment, you’ve got a customer standing there at the counter, you got to get them in and out. So how much data do you want to capture while people are standing there and what are you going to be able to do with it? And those folks at the counter, I want to put in, I’m going to describe what this person is driving or whatnot, and I may call it a truck and you may call it a TRK and the next guy may call it a TK, and it’s all the same vehicle in your system and what does that look like when you spit it out in your business analytics model?
Those are things that you really have to hash out before you can take not just reporting, but take it a step further with the business analytics and say, “Hey, what do I have here?” It’s a tough thing to do, but boy, if you can master it, you do have an advantage over your competition and I think that’s been borne out multiple times.
Matt:
Jay, real quick. I’m sorry, Neal, I just want to ask this question. Staffing that is a big, big issue with dealers that we work with and I’m sure that you work with as well. I’m asked on a daily basis questions about staffing, how to attract or recruit. I would imagine that you and maybe your team also get those kind of questions from clients. Any thoughts on that in today’s work environment?
Jay:
No, it’s interesting… Well, I guess I just have one thought there as MaddenCo related is you’d be surprised at… With all the mergers and acquisitions going on, we lose a MaddenCo dealer, there’ll be employees from that location or locations from that business, if you will, will end up at another MaddenCo customer just because they have the ability to navigate our system. Our system is a little bit more robust and a little bit more complex than most. So being able to grab the people that can do that, you’re seeing a lot of that going on. Internally, we have the same issues, chasing folks down and finding new hires as well. I don’t know that I really have an answer for the tire dealers out there. I know that it’s… I’ve heard multiple large customers of MaddenCo say they’re 10% understaffed at the counter and they would do anything they can to find new folks too. So it’s tough out there.
Neal:
Well, Jay, I want to switch gears for a moment. Changing software in any business, especially core software, is a major, major decision and has all sorts of ramifications. If I’m a tire dealer that’s growing and multi-location, potentially into multiple different areas of the industry too, what are the major considerations when I’m debating switching software?
Jay:
How much time do we have? When you get into what we see now, especially in these mergers and acquisitions, you’re seeing a lot of private equity that’s attached to retail stores, and then all of a sudden they end up with a warehouse or a wholesale business or a commercial business with a retread plant and the software that they’re on, which has served them well or reasonably well on the retail side, can’t handle that new industry segment very well. And then they’re kind of getting hung after the fact, so you want to make sure that you can see how you’re going to use your software broadly in the case you expand, make sure that it can touch multi segments and go from there. But I think that’s the big one is people get caught right up front with software that’s limited in capacity, limited in scale to what they could do at the time they bought it or started to use it or inherited it and now you’ve got a problem because you’re in water that you’re not really familiar with.
Neal:
No, that makes a lot of sense. I imagine in migrating systems that your team has seen all sorts of different situations, different preparations. So if you’re heading in that direction, of course, clean data is vital regardless of what stage you’re in, but what would you advise a group to do to prepare? We’re thinking that 2023 or 24 is our year to switch. What should we start doing?
Jay:
Well, if you’re switching to MaddenCo, I would say trust your installer, trust your trainer, trust the people that you signed with. And what I mean by that is we’ll run into situations where we’ll take national account process for example, and we can make a suggestion on how best to handle that using our system. And they’ll say, “Well, but that’s not how we do it or that’s not how we handle it.” Well, you’re switching for a reason, so listen to us. Let us tell you the best way to do it down the road if we need to make some tweaks we can, but listen to the people that know the software that you’re switching to. You need to be prepared to… I guess the way to say it would be from the top down, make sure everybody’s on board or make sure they understand that they need to get on board. Because if you let folks drag their feet because it’s changed, they will drag their feet because it’s changed.
So you’ve got to get over that hurdle. You’ve got to understand that there’s going to be pain in learning a new system. It’s not magic, the data that you provide your new software vendor is the data you provide. We don’t magically clean that up for you, you’ve got to help us do that. So I would recommend purging data, eliminating data you just don’t need. It’s a good time to revisit your customer roles, your products, if you’ve got discontinued products, don’t send it to the new software to be input. So you just got to be committed to the process. You got to be committed to the training, you got to be committed to the fact when things get a little bumpy and if you’re a multi-store, multi-segment, they will get bumpy, you just have to be prepared for that and willing to roll with the punches a little bit and give it a chance.
Neal:
I understand. Well, Jay, as we kind of wrap up our conversation, I want want to ask you one final really important question. I’m sure through your role you’ve received all sorts of advice through mentors and even going back to the company’s founders. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?
Jay:
I’m going to be a little lighthearted with you on that piece, but it’s actually going back to our initial segment, talking about Tom Yeager. We spend a lot of time in cars driving around, seeing dealers, meeting with folks, and he always told me, “There’s always a place to park up front if you’ll just look.” And you know what? He’s right, you’d be surprised. Just go up front and you’ll find a place to park. So that’s my lighthearted saying of the day, I guess.
Neal:
I love it. And having been in the industry long enough, I agree 100%. Well, thank you Jay. It is been a pleasure. Today we’ve been talking with Jay Adams of MaddenCo. Jay, if our listeners want to learn more about MaddenCo, where should they look?
Jay:
You can find us at www.maddenco.com or you can always call our office, we don’t have voicemail, you’ll talk to Susie at the counter and she can certainly pass you my way or another way. And that’s 812-474-6245.
Neal:
Fantastic, well thank you for your time today.
Jay:
Thank you, Neal. Thank you, Matt. I certainly appreciate your time and glad we had this opportunity to talk.
Matt:
Thank you, Jay.
Announcer:
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Transcript
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