But the reality is a lot of these owners are just eating those increases, but they're not increasing anything themselves.
And the biggest fight I have is on labor rate.
And it's funny, it sometimes takes me one hour to convince somebody to raise their labor rate if it was too low.
And sometimes it takes me three months to get them off the schneide to say, okay, I'm tired of hearing from you.
I will raise my labor rate.
And inevitably I always hit them at the end of that week after they've had their labor rate increased.
And I said, did one customer say anything?
And they go, no.
Nobody said boo.
Well, it's a miracle.
Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, the official podcast for tire business.
I am Mike Edge, your host and I have the privilege of interviewing the tire dealers, shop owners, counter sales reps, technicians, industry executives and other thought leaders of our industry.
This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners.
Tread Partners is the leading digital marketing agency that specializes in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops.
Tread Partners works with clients that have hundreds of locations down to job locations.
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To contact tread partners, visit treadpartners.com so let's get started.
Hey folks, welcome to the Gain Traction podcast, the official podcast for tire business.
Tony Abilovich is our guest today.
He is the guy that leads the master shop program for Point S Tire usa and I couldn't be more excited.
Tony, welcome to the Gain Traction podcast.
Hey, thanks for having me.
I really appreciate you having me on here, Mike.
It was a great podcast and it's a privilege for me to be here.
Well, you and I always talk easily, so I know that our challenge is going to be to keep it within the timeframe, but we'll do the best we can.
You know, you and I touched on several important factors, but I think it's important people know a little bit about your background because you've run a lot of stores before.
You want to tell us about that or just tell me a little bit about your career when you how you got into the tire and auto repair.
Yeah, I got into out of college and when I was done with football I was just basically working in a warehouse and a family friend told me that there was a retread company looking for an outside salesperson.
It was a family friend we knew.
I grew up near him and so I went to work in the giant tire retreading industry for about five years.
And then shortly thereafter I went to work for that gentleman's son who started opening retail locations.
At the time it was Tire factory that eventually evolved to Point S. And when I started for him, he had five locations in the state of Oregon.
And when I was done working there in 2021, I was overseeing 18 locations in Oregon and then helping his expansion out in the northeast of the country and so on and so forth.
So I've been a part of a, a team that grew very quickly to the locations that we had.
And overseeing a lot of retail on the day to day operations of that was.
It was an incredible experience for me.
Well, you guys run this masterclass and so a little bit about Point S. Point S is like a co op, right?
That you share.
It is a co op.
Yeah.
And you share a big name.
And it doesn't mean that the independent has to get rid of their old name, it's just that they incorporate it.
Yeah.
If you were Mike's Tire and then you joined Point S, you'd be Mike's Point S Tire and Auto.
Yeah.
And so that's basically what would happen is if you joined, you would change a few colors and you would keep your name, but just add the Point S to it.
We try and make that very seamless for people so they don't lose.
Because many of the people that are in Point S are second, third generation people.
They don't want to lose that name.
They work so hard to build up.
Amen.
And what's cool about it though is because there's a lot of different groups that, you know, let's say deal organizations that try to create, you know, buying power basically.
But you guys are trying to also put a little bit of a brand with it.
Right.
Nationally so that there's leverage.
But then at the same time, I think it's so cool that you guys have you as an instructor to literally go in and I'm here to make your job easier and help you make more money, basically.
And it's all part of the gig.
The deal.
Well, I think between our CEO and CEO Walter Liebeck and Clint Young, they realized very early for us to be a co op.
And probably part of the reason that we're growing as fast as we are, we're one of the fastest growing chains is we have leadership like that says let's not just be something that you paint your store and you get maybe some better buying power.
Let's offer other services like in house Consulting.
Because the reality is some of these second and third generation owners, they did it as their parents did it, and they never went outside of their bubble to learn any different techniques, new techniques, and it's not wrong.
They don't know those other techniques.
That's just how they've done it for a lot of years.
And so to be able to bring someone like me in to help advise people on maybe a different way of doing things, but it's only in house for Point S. I think it's been a great thing.
I can tell you right now, the customers that I've dealt with have been exceptionally happy.
And you've got a great story.
There's, there's one of them I want you to share without mentioning names, but there's a, a lady that basically took over a store that her dad had, right?
And he had run it for years.
He had been a member of Point S or the tire factory for a long time.
And then all of a sudden, boom, it's in her hands.
And, and not that she didn't know the business, but now since she had to run the business, right, and you were able to come in and basically tell her, hey, everything's gonna be all right.
You get, you got this.
Yeah, it's scary.
I mean, you have a parent die, obviously, and it's one thing when you're sitting next to the captain's chair, it's a different thing to be sitting in the captain's chair.
And she was afraid at that time because her dad had worked very hard to build this great business.
He really invested his time to her people, into his people at the time.
And Mickey was nervous about that without saying names.
Right.
Oops.
Anyhow, she's a saint of a lady.
She was nervous about what direction she was going to be able to take it.
And she very quickly realized, I think I was able to show her that you've got this, you're fine, you know, more than you think.
And then we just implemented some basic changes in there on the infrastructure of what people need to have and what expectations they need to live to.
That's the best way for an owner to do it.
People get very wound up in personalities and stuff.
We still have expectations for the job.
Yeah.
And so when she set those expectations, she actually has exceeded everything her dad has ever done financially.
Man, that is so phenomenal.
And she's a great person, so she deserves it.
Well.
And I think the other thing that you bring to the table that you really it's kind of like what you said, you know, when you get into business, sometimes, man, you just get into business and you doing it and you're making it work and everything.
But the advantage that you bring to the table is the fact that, look, you've been all over the country, you've run a lot of stores.
I'm sure you always learn from other folks.
But at the same time, you're able to bring that back to somebody individually, one one, and say, hey, listen, here's some best practices that I've seen that you're not doing that.
If you just did them, man, it's going to make a world of difference.
And you got to trust me here.
That's, you know, the biggest thing I. I stumble into.
That's.
That's a pineapple in the world around is troubling employees.
Most owners get it in their head they can't live without this employee, even though that employee might be a total headache.
And.
And inevitably, every time they finally make a decision or part ways with that employee, all this weight is removed off their shoulders.
That's probably the biggest thing I see time and time again is the fear of dealing with a problem employee.
Yeah.
And how to deal with that problem employee.
And maybe they have family ties to that employee, or maybe that employee's been there a long time.
And we want to give every employee every opportunity.
But on the flip side of that, we can't hurt our own business because of this employee or one employee.
Doesn't make sense.
No.
And I think it's cool that they get to hear it from your perspective, because you get to come in, you see it over a little bit of time, and it's like, hey, you want my honest opinion?
I'm here to help.
I think it's cool, too.
You and I talked about the other big factor that you see when you walk into locations and let's say people are struggling with profitability is how many times people don't have their prices set right.
Oh, it's.
It's Mike.
I don't even know where to start on that one.
The small business owner, as a general statement, seems to have it in their head that if I raise prices, all my customers are going to leave.
And especially right now, in our current economic times, things are starting to stabilize a little bit, but not a ton.
This is the time that we have to be raising our prices, because who else isn't raising their prices in your world right now, in your personal world, when you go to the grocery store, you go Buy a car, you go to a movie theater.
I feel like, I feel like I'm getting skinned everywhere.
I mean, you know, it's just, like, it's just a reality.
But the reality is a lot of these owners are, are just eating those increases, but they're not increasing anything themselves.
And the biggest fight I have is on labor rate.
And it's funny, it sometimes takes me one hour to convince somebody to raise their labor rate if it was too low.
And sometimes it takes me three months to get them off the schneide to say, okay, I will.
I'm tired of hearing from you.
I will, I will raise my labor rate.
And inevitably, I always hit them at the end of that week after they've had their labor rate increase.
And I said, did one customer say anything?
And they go, no.
Nobody said boo.
Well, it's a miracle, you know, so, you know, just getting to charge.
I'm not telling people to go out and gouge.
I'm not telling you to be under.
I'm telling you to be competitively priced in your marketplace.
And if you don't know if you're competitively priced, then you haven't price checked your neighborhood.
You need to do that, right?
And I think it's important, like even just from the employee salary or pay structure or.
And benefit side it.
All of, all of that's in that equation right there.
It makes you feel better and more confident to pay the better rates to your employees so that they feel good about being there.
And nobody's really, you know, feeling like they're being dogged a little bit, I guess.
Don't feel guilty about profit.
As an owner, you should never feel guilty about profit because your extra profitability allows you to buy new equipment, give raises to people, hire extra bodies if you need them.
Profitability is a healthy thing.
You just gotta make sure you're sharing that with your team.
And I'm always telling people, look, you gotta get everybody in your company winning.
Not just the owner and manager can win.
You need your lowest level employee winning.
That's where we start building teams.
Everybody's got to win.
What's the.
Any other big significant things that you see when you walk into a store or locations?
I think a lack of a basic courtesy inspection is probably the second biggest thing I see.
Because, look, you've got swings at the plate with customers is kind of how I look at them.
And if you've got a swing at the plate and they give you a bat swing the dang thing, you might strike out.
That's reality.
But the reality is if you don't swing at all, you for sure have no chance of getting on base.
And so I tell everybody, if you're doing a courtesy inspection, there's three reasons you do a courtesy inspection.
Number one, to inform the customer of the safety of their vehicle.
Number two, to drive business to your mechanical side of your business, which is generally your highest profitability side.
And number three, it helps you educate your customers on the services you provide.
You walk into a store that doesn't do courtesy checks, and let's say, for example, they do oil changes.
You could ask every customer that walks through the door, including all your long term customers, and tell them you do oil changes.
Half of them will say, I didn't know you did oil changes.
You're not educating your customer base because I want those customers to come to me for all those services.
But if they don't know you provide that, how would they know to come to you?
And you got it right there at the captured market.
It is strange that you do that.
I had a, I had an owner tell me one time, he said a guy was leaning on a set, like a stack of tires he had, and he literally asked the question, do you sell tires?
And he's like, you know, I just assumed everybody knew.
And he said at that time we didn't have it in our name.
He said, but I still thought I just took for granted you knew because I mean, we got tires around here, you know.
But the guy asked me and he said, then I realized I'm not doing a good job of, you know, messaging here.
Something's not connecting, you know, and I, we need to do a better job at the counter, but we also need to make it maybe more aware with signs or whatever, but in a marketing.
But the guy was literally leaning on a stack of tires and asked, do you guys sell tires here?
Your point so well taken there.
Because people could have all kinds of stuff on their walls.
You know, we sell this brand of oil.
Oil changes are this price.
And people go, do you guys do oil changes?
And you got all this stuff up there.
So again, it comes down to you speaking to that customer.
So a courtesy check is just the fundamental way to start that conversation.
And it is so important because, you know, when you're in a stressful situation, which, let's face it, a lot of customers are, they don't want to spend money.
They didn't wake up today saying, man, I can't wait to go buy a set of tires.
Today or I can't wait to get this check engine light fixed or whatever.
They, they're literally dialed in on that one issue and they got another major issue that they have to take care of at the same time.
And most of them, at least I feel this way, are not going to feel bad if you, if like you say, if you bring it up the right way and you present it the right way, they're going to be glad you brought it up.
They don't, they don't want you not to tell them something.
At least.
I don't.
I know, I know.
If I'm getting my wife's car inspected, please just tell me what we got to do because she's going on a road trip with friends or the, or my kids or something like that.
I want it all ch out.
Yeah.
I think the biggest thing is at Point S we really try and push the One Stop shop.
Heck, I'm in the business and I hate car day.
You know, it's, you know, I get 5% of the planet can't wait to go wash, wax and change zuo on their car on the weekend.
That, that's really fun to them.
The bulk of people to do car day to go over here for your oil change and over here for your rotation over here because you met a mechanic to get One Stop Shop makes those people's lives quicker and easier.
It's just more efficient because to go spend half my day going to all these places to do something that, you know, I've worked hard all week.
I want to go to the beach or go to the camping or whatever.
I want to golfing, whatever I want to go do instead of car day.
And so we really like to promote that One Stop Shop that we can provide all those services, a competitive price.
Let's talk about Point S and the brand.
It's, it's a great brand.
I've really gotten to know you guys.
You guys do such a great job of it appears to me of just picking the right people to be part of the brand.
I mean you, I know you get inquiries here and there and you're always interested in more and you're interested in growing the name.
But you are selective, aren't you?
Yeah, I mean we, look, we are, we're a family.
And what a lot of people.
I think, Mike, you got to see it because you got to go to your first annual owners meeting back in January.
What people outside of our bubble don't understand is what a family we are.
You Might join groups, you might join different buying groups, you might join that stuff, but it's really not family.
And I can't tell you how many people I've watched that came from different buying groups that joined with Point S and went to that first annual owners meeting.
And this camaraderie and friendship they get because we're all in it together.
Look, they're all owners of the company.
I work for all the members because they own the company, they own the real estate, they own the company, they own everything about it.
And that's what makes us so great is that family camaraderie that we make moves as a group to better our owners because they own the company and we work for the owners.
And I think that's what makes us very unique.
From every other buying group in our country that I'm aware of, we're a family.
Well, I open every.
I do a lot of videos.
Sorry to cut you off.
I do a lot of videos, just promotional stuff internally for Point S. And I always open it with hello family.
Because that's how we all see each other.
Whether I'm an employee at Point S, I'm a member owner for Point S, you're a corporate officer for Point S. We're family.
That's what's unique to me.
It is interesting.
And what's.
What's very interesting too is that you guys do a really good job of making sure, you know, one shop's not one set of owners within the group is not cannibalizing another set.
So I mean, it's like, you know, you're selective about your geographic positioning as well.
Yeah, I mean, when we became Point S in 2015, Tire Factory at the time was tasked with growing east in the United States.
And Walter, our CEO is just a great person.
Walter and Clint put together a plan that were going to have a warehouse on the east coast within four years.
Well, they had that warehouse in two years.
We have expansion.
We have a goal right now.
It's called, we call it 55 5.
It's 500 stores in 50 states in five years.
And we're three years into it and we're at 450 in 35 states.
I mean, we are ahead of schedule.
Our outside sales team does an incredible job of showing people as best they can what we are all about.
But we're growing like a weed.
And how else is an independent owner going to stay relevant globally in business if you don't join a team?
And this is a team of member.
Owned people that's what's cool about it.
And I think it's kind of like, you know, the word cooperative.
If people know how they work, you know, there's a reason why farmers do it and other groups do it because you end up being a team within, like, I, I think of some farmer groups I knew that were cooperatives or whatever.
But, you know, you got to have that buying power.
But you also learn from each other constantly.
And one of the things I noticed about at your conference was the interaction just on the side of people that knew each other, but maybe not see each other once a year.
And I mean, it was like a love fest of hugs and then they might share ideas right there.
I mean, you know, hey, man, I had this problem and what you said to me, it helped, you know, or I got that fixed.
And, and here's, I think here's.
I'm going to expand on that.
Here's the beauty of Point S to your point, exactly.
A couple weeks ago, we just started our mentor program, and myself and one of the fellow owners of Point S got together.
We've been working on this idea for three months.
We just rolled it out at our new member orientation.
So anytime we have new members join three times a year, we do orientation for those members to come.
And they get to hear from our CEO, cfo, coo, they get to hear from people like myself, other people within the group.
Well, what was amazing is by starting this mentor program, everybody, anytime they join a group or kind of drinking through a fire hose, essentially, there's a lot of things that change.
They've got to paint their building.
They got a lot of things going.
So now what we're doing is we're hooking them up a new member up with a longtime member.
So not only will a new member have our new member on border sit there and hold their hand for a year, but now you're going to have a buddy.
You're going to get introduced to a buddy right out of the gate that's going to a confidant that you can talk to, you can ask questions to.
That's a fellow, it's a peer.
It's a fellow business owner just like you.
So we're doing these things to show people, hey, it's easy to.
Come on, it's easy to make those changes.
And here's why you made those changes.
That's awesome.
I think you bring that confidence that an owner needs to make that leap.
And, you know, I'm just thinking, like, if you're Sitting there as an owner out there, and you're listening right now.
I could tell you right now, just from a personal standpoint, Tony, I told you this, so I'm not blowing smoke, but I thought you were a football coach at one time because you're so enthusiastic.
Now, I know, you know, we're both football fans and we talked about that.
You played and everything, but it's like you bring that level of coaching and you make it fun.
Hey, I'm not here to.
I'm not here to tell you to change your business.
I'm here to help you know, make a better pass, you know, or make a better catch or whatever, and using football terms or make a better tackle.
I'm just going to teach you some things that are going to work for you that we see across the board, and you're going to make more money.
One of the story.
One of the stories incorporated in the previous one we talked about was you talked the lady how to.
She's working less and making more.
And, And I think you taught.
You've taught owners how to get their time back and be able to make the business.
Hey, I'm gonna show you how to operate it versus it operating you.
Yeah, those.
You know, it's funny, a lot of us, it, it's.
I can see how people become micromanagers.
Oh, yeah.
You know, we've done it their way for a long time.
But.
But I'm here to tell you, I think being a dictator nowadays is a tough way to lead people.
But, you know, I'm going to interrupt real quick.
Sometimes I don't know if it's being a dictator as much as.
It's just that, man, I've always done it this way, and this is the way my family has survived for, you know, 30 years.
And it's just hard to get off of that horse because I'm scared, basically, is what.
There's.
There's a fear factor of change because I'm profitable.
But I can.
Can I really be that much more profitable?
And you're telling me just by doing these little things, you know, I can.
That's a.
That's a big leap, you know.
Well, I fundamentally believed you can make more and work less because that means you have to delegate to your people.
But the critical part of delegating to your.
Is you have to show them how to do it and you have to be patient on that training.
Remember, most of these owners, they learned it over years of whether they were a young kid and they were just spending time in their parents shop or whatever it was, and they learned that over many years of time.
Well, you're asking someone to learn something yet we're not willing to invest in the training of that person or the patience that it takes to train that person.
But nobody will argue me that if I took all your employees up one level and made them one level better, does your life get easier?
Yes, it does, 100%.
Because you have more responsible people around you and you've gotta, that's why you set expectations, that's why you train, is to grow your people.
And that's the biggest thing I encourage in my program that I run Master Shop is if we grow our people, your life gets easier.
And one of my most proud moments was, and I've got a lot of them with people I've worked with, I was able to see a PNL over the previous year.
So the time that person was with me, from the time before, they actually kicked out $30,000 more in bonus money.
And yet their net profit was up 180,000.
And so that's what made me excited.
They actually made more money, kicked out more bonus money, everybody won and their life was easier.
Like you can't argue with that.
And it can happen.
You know, you got a really cool motto that you like to live by or throw out.
Do you want to share that?
Polite, honest, direct.
Like you don't need to tear someone down when you're talking to them.
You don't need to be animated if you're going to have a real conversation with someone in particular, you're trying to get someone to improve or whatever.
You don't need to sit there and tear them down as a person.
You don't need to yell at them.
Be polite, be honest and be direct.
Because if you're polite, that always comes across nicely.
And care.
If you're honest and you tell them directly and you're direct on that conversation, it's important because if you beat around the bush delivering your message to somebody, they might not make take your message directly and they might go do something else.
And that's really not on them, that's on you.
Because your message wasn't direct and it wasn't honest because you were afraid of being directly honest.
You can do that in a polite fashion.
Be real with people and they'll be real back with you.
Same thing with customers, right?
I mean, absolutely.
I think this is an old mantra, but I like it a lot.
Clarity is charity.
And if you could be clear with people and.
But you got to preface it.
You got to be polite.
You can't be, you know, a jerk about it.
But it.
People in the long run respect that much more.
I mean, from my days of just being on the road about.
Back in the day when I sold more and I was on the road, you know, I flat out tell owners that, you know, they were him hauling around about a program I was introducing or something like that.
I said, well, let me ask you when you're going to make a decision.
I don't know.
Well, let's put a time frame that.
Because I want you to know my time's just as important as your time to me.
You know, I mean, and if we can be clear with each other, I've given you everything you need to know, and no is the best answer you can give me.
So I just, you know, I want to be upfront with you that I want to help you, but if you don't want the help, I.
Hey, you know, you're not going to hurt my feelings.
And it's the number one thing salespeople are afraid to do.
Ask for the sale at the end of the.
Of their pitch.
It is, you know, nobody wants to hear the word no, but that's really, essentially, it's okay you and, you know, and I think in dealing with employees, it's just be upfront with people.
And like you said, if you're not direct and they make a mistake, you made a wrong assumption that they knew it.
You know, in a lot of years managing stores, I. I learned very quickly that, look, if you're going to blow up or, you know, go that road with people, you're going to churn through people.
And the best way to get the most out of people is be straight up with them, help them get where they're going and.
And you just get a positive experience and.
But you got to invest in their growth, too.
You can't just invest in the company's growth and forget about the individuals that are your team.
Yeah.
You know, that's the critical thing.
Don't always focus on numbers.
Focus on growing your people because they're the ones that are going to get you there.
And it'll get there.
Just to let the audience know a little bit more about you, we're running up on our stop here.
What.
What's one of your favorite foods to eat?
Because you travel a lot.
Oh, I travel a lot.
I've got to go to the South a lot lately.
And I got to tell you, going to and my daughter actually lives in the south now.
Crawfish boils are when you're from Oregon, you don't have crawfish oils.
You don't have any of those flavors or anything.
I got to tell you, going to a crawfish boil and, and then I've got to go to New Orleans a couple of times, have those char.
Grilled oysters are just insanely good.
It is, it is.
And you just touched one of my favorite for Cajun food in general is one of my favorite.
But crawfish, I mean it is, it's a little work like if you eat them, you know, just steamed or whatever and you're pulling the tails off and everything, but it's well worth it.
But then you can order dishes like you know, the old crawfish had to say.
I mean that.
Yeah, sign me up for all of it.
We, we need to hit the road so Tava do the diners drive is dives.
That might crush our diets but I'm in.
Oh well, you know, once in a while.
Tony, I think we'd have a good time doing that one.
Yes, sir.
Well, I can't thank you enough for being part of the podcast.
This has been a great podcast.
Mike.
Thank you so much for having me on here.
I really appreciate it.
And, and if anybody ever considers Point ask, you're making a good choice.
I agree.
And to all audience out there, you know we love you.
Till next time, be safe.
Thank you for being here.
To all our listeners, thank you for being part of the Gain Traction podcast.
We are grateful for you.
If you'd like to find more podcasts like this, please Visit Gain Traction podcast.com if you'd like to make a guest recommendation, please email me@mike treadpartners.com this episode has been powered by Tread Partners, the leader in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops.
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