Tires Are a People Business With Kent Coleman, Owner at Big O Tires

Kent Coleman is the Owner of eleven Big O Tire stores in northern Utah and various other commercial properties. He has the ability to ask the right questions to get to the root of an issue and solve problems. As a result, even though Kent is not an avid car enthusiast, his Big O Tire stores are some of the highest-producing in the nation. Kent is also author of the book It’s Not About the Mangos.

In this episode…

Is it absolutely necessary to be a car enthusiast to be a successful business owner in the tire and auto industry, or do you just have to be able to understand people? To hear from someone who has a definitive answer to these questions, check out this episode of Gain Traction!

If you don’t know the actual size of your car engine, is that a sign you should avoid owning a business in the tire and automotive industry? Not according to Kent Coleman, who owns eleven successful Big O Tire locations and admits that when he bought his first store, he didn’t know there was a difference between a tire and a wheel. Kent says he’s overcome his lack of passion for cars by building a culture centered around people — and it’s worked!

On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge is joined by Kent, who shares his unique path into the tire and auto industry. Kent talks about his lack of knowledge and passion for cars and how he worked around it by establishing a culture that attracts employees who work well with customers. As a result, Kent says those customers become friends and want to come back. Don’t miss it!

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

• Kent Coleman talks about his experience doing door-to-door sales as a kid
• How Kent benefited from serving internationally for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a young adult
• Why Kent decided to get into the automotive industry despite not being a car enthusiast
• How the culture at Kent’s Big O Tires locations has made a big difference for his business
• The experience and skills to look for when hiring customer service providers at a tire shop
• Kent tells the story behind his latest book, It’s Not About The Mangos
• Why cutting salary isn’t always the best way to fix a struggling business

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Kent Coleman on LinkedIn 
• Tire Guy Kent 
• It’s Not About the Mangos by Kent Coleman 
• Mike Edge on LinkedIn
• Tread Partners

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast, where we feature top automotive entrepreneurs and experts and share their inspiring stories. Now, let’s get started with the show.

Mike Edge:

Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast. Mike Edge, here. I am the host of Gain Traction, where I talk with top automotive business leaders about their personal experiences in the tire and auto repair industry, as well as extract some words of wisdom. Today’s episode is brought to you by Tread Partners and the Retread program. Tread Partners has designed a product called Retread that is a full scale customer re-engagement program to win back a shop’s best lost customers. It is a one-time 90-day program that generates a guaranteed 10 to one ROI on investment. To learn more, visit treadpartners.com. I’m excited about today’s guest. Today’s guest is Kent Coleman. Kent is the owner of Big O Tires of northern Utah, the Coleman Group. They operate 11 Big O Tire stores in Utah, and Kent is the author of the book, It’s Not About the Mangoes. Kent, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast.

Kent Coleman:

Hey, thanks for having me.

Mike:

Yeah, we’re looking forward to talking. So, tell the audience and myself a little bit about yourself. Where did you grow up?

Kent:

Yeah, I grew up in the western United States. We moved around every few years with my dad’s work, but I was born in New Mexico. We hit southern California, northern Utah, and I actually lived out of the country in Mexico during some of my high school years. So, moved around a lot. Both of my parents were teachers.

Mike:

Okay.

Kent:

And so, yeah, had a diverse background as a kid.

Mike:

What teaching were they? What level?

Kent:

Yeah. My mom was a US history teacher junior high, and my dad was a teacher for our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormons. He taught college level religious curriculum.

Mike:

Okay, excellent.

Kent:

Yeah, yeah.

Mike:

Yeah, I love American history. Your mom would be one of my favorite teachers, probably.

Kent:

Yeah.

Mike:

So, just curious, how many siblings do you have? And how big was your family?

Kent:

Yeah. So, I’m the youngest of six kids. And so, I grew up in a house with older siblings and learned plenty of what to do and what not to do from that group. So, I had the benefit of being the younger one. I also had the benefit of being the spoiled one, of course, according to them.

Mike:

Of course, yeah.

Kent:

Yeah. But yeah, grew up in a big family, a great family environment. My parents were hard workers, and they instilled hard work in us. So, really a wonderful family environment growing up.

Mike:

Well, see, I’ll pick on you a little bit. I’m the second of seven. So, yeah-

Kent:

Okay.

Mike:

… we look at the younger ones as being less disciplined.

Kent:

Yeah.

Mike:

They got spoiled a little bit more.

Kent:

Yeah.

Mike:

We talked about how bad we had it before they came along.

Kent:

Yeah, I’m incredibly lazy. Yeah, that’s who I am, by definition.

Mike:

You the routine. So, yeah, we’re on opposite sides there. Yeah. But I came from seven, so that’s good. A lot in common. We know what that feels like. I will say something funny that you could probably relate to. I’ll go out with friends, and I know I’m talking about childhood friends, as well as just older in life friends, people I met, and they’re like, “Man, there’s one thing I picked up on you, Mike, that you do not let your food sit there very long. You’re a fast eater.” And I said, “Well, when you come from a big family,” I said, “it was always a rule if you liked something, you couldn’t go get more of it until you ate what you had. So, you raced to get it.”

So, mom made you eat whatever was there, and you had to have a little portion of everything. But then, if you wanted whatever was the good thing out of the four or five things being served that night, you knew it was a limited resource. And being one of the older ones, I knew, “Man, I’ll just, I’ll get through this, and I’ll go get me more of,” whether it’s a biscuit or whatever it was. And I don’t know if you guys experienced that same thing.

Kent:

Yeah. No, yeah. It actually was very similar. You had to blow through the broccoli in order to go get some more mashed potatoes and gravy. So, yeah, that’s an identical situation, for sure. It’s funny.

Mike:

That’s it. So, it’s funny how it’s carried over to my just normal eating habits. I can’t help myself.

Kent:

Yeah.

Mike:

But if you put it in front of me, I eat it. I don’t let it sit there.

Kent:

That’s funny.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, so tell me, what was your first real job?

Kent:

So I was fairly industrious as a kid. And so, in the summers growing up, there was a guy in my neighborhood who was a representative of this chocolate company called World’s Finest Chocolate.

Mike:

Oh, yeah. I remember that.

Kent:

And they would, yeah, like a fundraising type group, right? So, everyone does fundraisers of world’s Finest Chocolate. Well, I went to him when I was about 10, and I said, “Hey, Larry. I want to just go sell chocolate and make money.” And he said, “Great, go for it.” So, we had a deal. I’d get a box from him of 20 chocolate bars, $21, these long skinny chocolate bars, and I could keep half the money. So, a box had 20 bars in it, and I could make 10 bucks. So, I’d go around and sell those things. And in a Saturday as a 10-year-old, I could make 30 or $40 because people will give a dollar to any kid, any 10 year old kid. And so, I had a lot of success. That got the juices flowing on salesmanship and work and the ability to create income at a young age. So, all through my adolescent years, I was selling door to door all the time, whether it was chocolate bars or other things. I’d figure out magazines had certain promotional programs for kids to do. Boys Life Magazine had some stuff.

Mike:

Man, I love your story. That’s awesome.

Kent:

Yeah. So, I drove my neighbors completely insane, I’m sure, knocking on their door. Yeah.

Mike:

Here comes the Coleman kid again, don’t answer it.

Kent:

Here he comes. Oh, great. Don’t answer the door. Yeah, that was me a hundred percent. And I knew it, and I didn’t care. I just kept doing it anyway. It wasn’t like I was-

Mike:

But that’s the best part about it.

Kent:

Yeah.

Mike:

You figured that that out at a young age that it doesn’t matter.

Kent:

Yeah. Yeah. I was fine with it. I was very self-aware that I was probably very annoying, and it was fine. I’d have my dad drive me to some farther away neighborhoods to give my own neighbors a break sometimes. But that was back in the day. I’d go into another neighborhood and walk the streets for four or five hours on a Saturday if it was a summer. I’d go every day in the summer, and I’d get done. And I’d knock on somebody’s door, I’d try to sell them something, and then I would ask them if I could borrow their phone to call my dad or mom to come pick me up. And they’d let me in, because we didn’t have cell phones. And it was just a great skill that I learned growing up that I really enjoyed. And then, my first real job, I’d say, after high school, I painted as a commercial painter.

I didn’t love it, but it was a great experience painting some commercial buildings with a group in the construction industry. And then, I did a two-year mission service for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Madrid, Spain. So, I went over to Madrid for a couple of years, as is somewhat customary in our church. It’s a volunteer thing, but it wasn’t work per se. But it was incredible life experience, talking to people, providing service in the various communities, having to learn Spanish. So, I now speak fluent Spanish. And just a really selfless way to launch adulthood that was unique that not a lot of people get that has a lot of value for me in my life to this day. And then, after that, I went to college and, again, did sales through college.

Mike:

Yeah. That’s awesome, man. And that’s one thing, I mean, I admire about you guys, you doing the two years of service. I think that’d be, obviously, it’s a time of your life that you’re just getting to figure out yourself in a lot of ways.

Kent:

Right.

Mike:

And you’re forced to. I would bet it’s two years of self awakening, I guess, maybe. And realizing your place in the world.

Kent:

For sure.

Mike:

Yeah.

Kent:

Yeah, for sure. It’s incredibly difficult. You set aside everything. You set aside work, education. I had a girlfriend that I left, and you don’t date when you’re doing that service. It’s a full-time deal. You don’t date or work.

Mike:

Yeah.

Kent:

You just really do that full-time. And so, it’s a very selfless type thing. In fact, my oldest son, he’s 20. He just got home from Chile. He was in Santiago, Chile for the past two years. He got home about five days ago. So, we’re pretty excited about that. And just seeing the transformation in him going out as a high school escapee, 18 years old, and he comes back as a 20-year-old, and he is just totally different, much more mature at a time of our lives when most of us are rather self-absorbed and self-indulgent. It’s just what we are at that age. It’s pretty normal to be that way.

You, then, go and do something that’s completely outward focused and completely focused on others, serving others, and trying to make the world a little bit of a better place. And it’s a pretty unique deal, but it’s incredibly, incredibly hard. I mean, my son got down to Chile, didn’t speak a word of Spanish, and they do a two-week training of Spanish. It’s worthless, basically. And you get down there, and they pair them up with another person, another guy his age, another missionary, and they live together. So, they’re always two of them together for safety purposes and training purposes and things. The guy’s from Chile. He doesn’t speak a word of English. So, you’re thrown into this new environment, new culture, you don’t speak the language, you have no idea what you’re doing, and can’t even communicate, and it is brutal.

Mike:

Yeah. Well-

Kent:

It’s brutal. Yeah.

Mike:

… there’s a sense of loneliness to it. I mean that you have to-

Kent:

100 percent.

Mike:

Yeah. And it’s a great way to mature, too.

Kent:

Yeah.

Mike:

How many kids do you have?

Kent:

I have four. Him, and then three daughters. Teenage girls, yeah.

Mike:

So, we’ve got a lot in common. I have five, and they range from 25 down to 15 now.

Kent:

Okay. Great. Yeah. Similar type world, then.

Mike:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, let’s get to the part about tires. How did you get into tires? I mean, did you just get a dream that I’ve sold everything else. It’s time to sell tires?

Kent:

Yeah, you’d think so. But actually, I have a unique story of how I got into automotive. I am not a car guy. I don’t really know what size motor is in my car. I’m not into that at all. So, my brother met a guy randomly on a cruise, and they were chatting. And this guy happened to have a Big O Tires franchise for sale. He was retiring, he’d been in the business for decades, and they were just chatting and he was talking about how he’s retiring and selling his franchise.

Mike:

Yeah.

Kent:

After college, I started a small business in the world of scrapbooking, and it’s basically, mostly, a women’s hobby. My older sister is a really talented artist and designer, and she was in that world. And I said, “Hey, we should start a company with your designs.” And so, we did, and it actually did rather well. I was in my early twenties, mid-twenties, and we built this little company out of nothing. We basically designed and manufactured stickers and wholesaled those to craft stores, and did pretty well. Got it up to a couple million dollars in sales-

Mike:

That’s awesome.

Kent:

… and within about a year. Yeah, it was great. We had product in Walmart and on QVC, the TV show, and it was good. And I was selling that company, and my brother knew I was selling that and looking for a new project. So, he got home from this cruise, and he said, “Hey, there’s this guy selling a tire store. Do you want to partner up on that, and you can run it?” And we looked into it, and we liked it. And so, we bought a franchise. So, when I bought a tire store, I am so non-mechanical and so non-automotive, I didn’t know that there was a difference between a tire and a wheel.

Mike:

Oh, boy. Yeah.

Kent:

Yeah. No exaggeration. I’d go down to the tire store and I’d say, “Yeah, I need to buy wheels.” And I’m thinking I was buying tires. I didn’t even know that was a different thing. Yeah, I was just completely ignorant.

Mike:

And now you own 11 stores, right?

Kent:

Yeah. So, now we own 11 stores where the number one Big O Tires group in the nation in revenue. We’re the top producing group in total revenue and in revenue per store. So, yeah.

Mike:

Wow.

Kent:

A little bit of a change in the past 16 years, yeah.

Mike:

That is incredible. Well, I love it. And you obviously ended up liking the industry, right?

Kent:

Yeah, for sure. A great industry, super steady, lots of people need our product and services, and great people to work with. And so, I’ve grown to really love it over the years.

Mike:

Yeah, and I’ve told people for years, I mean, the thing about the tire industry, or let’s say auto repair service, “Look, it’s not the happy sell.” I mean, people aren’t really excited about being there. The best that you can do when you run a shop is make that experience of that expense or unwanted expense as pleasant as possible. That’s it.

Kent:

Right. Yeah, that’s really what we’ve dialed into is people. Yeah, you’re right. People do not want to spend money with us. Most people, unless maybe it’s a fancy wheel package or something, but generally-

Mike:

Right, right. Yeah.

Kent:

… they don’t want to come to us. And so, the way we’ve battled that is our whole thing, our whole culture, is attracting employees who are just great with people. We seek out and hire people people, and we’re very deliberate about it. And that’s basically what I talk about in my book that I wrote this past year is that it’s all about people, and it’s about putting people onto our teams who understand how to connect. And so, even though people are not super thrilled to have to spend money with us, they have such a great experience dealing with us that they enjoy it, they become friends, and they want to come back. And so, the average Big O Tire store, there’s about 500 franchises nationwide. The average store does about 2 million in sales, and our stores average between 6 and 7 million per store. Yeah, this culture thing is a real deal that we really have keyed in on, and it’s made an incredible difference for our business.

Mike:

I’d say you found out, I mean, you’ve obviously found the secret sauce there. Do the people you hire, then, I mean, you’re not as worried about their industry knowledge as long as you have an expert with them, and you’re probably just wanting to find people people, is that right?

Kent:

Yeah. Yeah. When we hire, what you would call, service writers or customer service, or we basically call them salespeople, we hire people, I would say half of our salespeople. So, with 11 stores, we have about 45 salespeople, and I would say about half of those have been hired with zero automotive experience. They have been hired because of their people skills and their sales skills. We just hired a kid with a marketing degree from the local university, University of Utah. He gets out of college, I ran into him, he was selling cell phones at a T-Mobile kiosk in the mall, and he was just wonderful. He was pleasant, he was outgoing, he was good at asking for the sale in a tactical way. And I said, “Hey, what’s your career plans?” And he’s like, “Oh, I’m not sure. I’m trying to figure it out.” We hired him on. He knew nothing about automotive whatsoever. Within 90 days, he was selling a hundred thousand dollars a month, and he was a top performing salesman.

Mike:

Oh my goodness.

Kent:

Yeah.

Mike:

You’ve got to take great pride in spotting that, and then him coming in and doing so well.

Kent:

Right. Yeah.

Mike:

That’s awesome. And that’s exciting for him. I mean, he’s gaining confidence at a very young age that, “I can sell.”

Kent:

Yeah, he’s making money, too. We pay well, and so he’s making a really good wage, and he’s ecstatic. Yeah.

Mike:

That’s awesome. Well, so let’s go back to the book a little bit. So, It’s Not About the Mangoes. Spoiler alert. Tell us what that means as brief as you can.

Kent:

Yeah. The quick story is that I hired a guy. So, when I didn’t know anything about automotive, the first three or four years, we were doing very badly. I was about running the business out of business. We actually had two stores early on, and one was a very high volume store, and I was ruining it pretty badly for the first few years, and I didn’t know what to do. And that was when I had this epiphany where I made a decision that I was going to find great, talented people to help me dig out of the hole that I had dug. And I figured out that there was this guy named Jose Cordova. He worked at a tire store. On the West Coast, there’s a chain, it’s called Les Schwab Tires. Great chain. They do very good, well-trained.

And he was working there, and he was supposedly the top salesman in their group. And I reached out to him, and I brought him on. I recruited him and got him to come to us. And early on, he taught me this really important lesson. He was telling me this story, and I’ll try to be quick with it, that he was born in the United States and moved to Mexico with his family at a young age when he was 10, and to help with the family’s produce business. And he, as a 10, 12, 13 year old, became this amazing salesman of fruit at the wholesale market. I’m sorry, they were wholesalers, and he would take it to the fruit stand markets and sell. And people started lining up to buy mangoes and other fruit from Jose. And so, there were other people at the same market selling the same mangoes for the same price from the same wholesalers, but people would line up 10 and 20 people deep to buy specifically from Jose.

And I said, “Well, why was that? Were your mangoes better?” He’s like, “No.” I said, “Did you have a cheaper price?” He’s like, “No, Kent. It’s not about the mangoes.” And then, I’m like, “Okay, well then, what was it? Why would people line up to buy from you?” And he said, “Well, I figured out how to, at a very young age, how to connect with people. I would, as they’d walk by, I would say something about their T-shirt, or I’d make a funny joke about the hat they were wearing, or I’d ask them about their family and their work and their children, their grandchildren. And I started connecting with people, and they started to line up to buy mangoes from me, even though there were 20 other mango vendors that they could have bought from, and not having to wait in line.” So, that taught me this really crucial, crucial lesson of this value of people connecting with people-

Mike:

Yeah.

Kent:

… and how it’s so much more relevant than technical knowledge. Technical knowledge plays a role-

Mike:

Yeah.

Kent:

… but that ability to connect is paramount.

Mike:

You mentioned a little bit ago about the biggest challenge you had, you just talked about hiring Jose, and you figured your way out of the hole going after talent. You, obviously, bought the business and you had it at a certain level, and then it went down from there. What was it that you guys did that sunk it a little bit that might, you might help somebody out there prevent the same mistake if you-

Kent:

Yeah. Yes. I got sucked into the idea that when things aren’t going great, the solution is to find cheap labor.

Mike:

Okay.

Kent:

And so, what we did, I’ve heard the phrase, “Oh, we want to save on payroll.” I’ve heard people brag about how low their payroll is, and I would guess that that person probably doesn’t have super high revenue and gross profit. So I was, when things, back in ’07 and ’08 with the economy, were going down a little bit with the recession, my solution was to terminate our top paid people, top mechanics, top salespeople. Because I was 27, and I just didn’t know.

Mike:

Yeah.

Kent:

And I’m like, “Well, they’re the most expensive, and so I need to get rid of them to save on payroll.” Well, I got rid of our best talent, and sales went down, just completely plummeted at that point, and went down at an even faster rate because we had no talent. And so, that’s when I figured that out, and I’m like, “Whoa, I’ve got to flip this the other way and actually find the best talent.”

Mike:

Yeah.

Kent:

“And I’m going to pay them whatever I need to pay to make it happen, because I want the top, top people in my business.” And then, we went from one extreme to the very other extreme of finding the most talented, amazing people that we could find.

Mike:

But what a lesson that, I mean, you had to learn, obviously, the hard way. But now, you’ve got stores producing at record rates compared to other stores in the franchise, which, I mean, I applaud you for that. That’s awesome. But, man, I commend you, too, on just having the guts to plow through. Because as I was reading your book, I could feel it in my own gut the pain you must have felt-

Kent:

Yeah.

Mike:

… going home at night watching the bank account.

Kent:

Yeah. We had a line of credit I was maxing out. I’d moved money from a line of credit to make the payroll. I would lie awake at night wondering, “How am I going to make payroll? How are we going to cover these expenses?” And we always did. I always did pay my bills and never left anyone high and dry. But it was dicey-

Mike:

Yeah.

Kent:

… it was tight, it was stressful, it was dark. And the people on my team at that time, who I had left, were not great uplifting personality types. I didn’t really have anyone I could rely on or talk to. It was a very, very anxious, very dark time of my life. And then, this Jose person, really, he’s the opposite. He’s super dynamic, super light, full of light, great personality, optimistic, positive, and he helped me turn this idea around of creating a culture that I needed that was full of light and positivity. And then, we just started taking off from there. But it was hard because those people cost money.

Mike:

Oh, yeah.

Kent:

And I was at the point where I didn’t have money. And so, it was this huge leap of faith to even bring Jose on because I really couldn’t afford him unless he produced, unfortunately.

Mike:

That’s what I commend you for. I mean, I’m sitting there thinking, when I read that, I thought, “Yeah, but even taking on Jose, you didn’t know what the result was going to be.”

Kent:

No.

Mike:

So, man, I tip my hat to you. You have a great story, but I guess it goes back to that old adage about experience is the best teacher. But, man, that was a tough one. That was a real tough one.

Kent:

It was. It was. Fortunately, he was a rockstar on the first day. So, sales started turning around really quickly, and then we were off to the races.

Mike:

So, did you own one or two stores at that point?

Kent:

It was two at that time. We bought two in the first year from the same guy. Yeah.

Mike:

I’ve got you. Okay. Well, we’ve come up on our hard spot here, but I like to throw out a real tough question here at the end. What’s your favorite hobby, if you have one?

Kent:

Yeah. I’m a runner. I like to run you.

Mike:

Do you?

Kent:

So, yeah, I run. Nothing crazy, a few days a week. But I did a half-marathon a few weeks ago. And nothing elite or anything, it’s just a fun thing to get the blood flowing. And then, I do not read business books hardly ever. I wouldn’t read my own book, probably, if I saw it. But I read Old Western novels, Louis L’Amour type stuff to [inaudible 00:24:30].

Mike:

Oh, man. Yeah, one of my best friends loves that Louis L’Amour stuff. I mean, that’s all he reads.

Kent:

Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah. I need to-

Kent:

Yeah, I like that stuff, too. Yep.

Mike:

I’m a biography guy. I like biographies. So, that fits my personality running this podcast here. Let me ask you another one. What’s your favorite place to visit? If you had to go back and visit any place, or a place you’d want to visit, what would that be?

Kent:

Yeah. So, in the United States, I loved Washington, DC, all the history there. I really loved living in Spain for a couple of years. There was a couple of cities that I lived in that have old Roman architecture and ruins, aqueducts, and just gorgeous, gorgeous, ancient history type things of old Europe that I love. For vacation, I love Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Mike:

Okay.

Kent:

It’s close, it’s easy to get to, it’s affordable, and it’s just an awesome spot.

Mike:

That’s awesome. Well, Kent, I can’t thank you enough for being on the Gain Traction podcast. It’s been a real pleasure.

Kent:

Equally. Thanks so much for your time, Mike.

Mike:

Absolutely. So, to all our listeners out there, thank you for being part of our podcast today. If you’d like to recommend a guest to us, please email me at [email protected]. Till next time, be safe 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.

• Big O Tire
• Gain Traction
• It’s Not About the Mangos
• Kent Coleman
• Mike Edge
• Tread Partners

Transcript