Lessons in Customer Service from a Century-Old Tire Company with Don Barnes III of Belle Tire

Show Notes

Don Barnes III is the Chief Tire Guy at Belle Tire, a third-generation leader helping steer one of the oldest and most respected tire retailers in the U.S. Founded in 1922, Belle Tire has grown from a local shop into a powerhouse with over 180 locations across the Midwest. Under Don’s leadership, the company has maintained its century-long reputation by focusing on operational excellence, local relationships, and above all, outstanding customer service in the tire industry. Don is also passionate about youth development and community engagement, leading Belle Tire’s involvement in one of the largest youth hockey programs in the country.

In this episode…

What does it take to deliver truly exceptional customer service in the tire industry for over 100 years? According to Don Barnes III, it starts with consistency, trust, and attention to detail. From offering free flat repairs to creating clean, welcoming stores, Belle Tire has built a people-first model that turns stressful tire and auto repair visits into moments of care and connection. Don explains how they’ve scaled that model across dozens of locations without losing the warmth and reliability their brand is known for.

 

Don also unpacks how their core philosophy: “Retail is detail” shapes every touchpoint of the customer journey. In an industry where purchases are infrequent but high-stakes, Belle Tire focuses on eliminating friction, educating customers, and building long-term loyalty. It’s not just about the product, it’s about how people feel when they walk in and how much they trust the team when they leave. That kind of high-level customer service in the tire industry doesn’t happen by accident. It’s intentional and deeply embedded into company culture.

 

On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge sits down with Don Barnes III to discuss Belle Tire’s legacy, rapid expansion, and people-first approach to business. Don shares real-world insights on maintaining service quality at scale, building trust in new markets, and inspiring employees to lead with empathy and energy. If you’re looking to grow your shop or improve your customer experience, this conversation is packed with timeless lessons on delivering standout customer service in the tire industry.

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

[01:29] Don reflects on Belle Tire’s 103-year history and what’s helped the company endure

[01:59] What sets Belle Tire’s customer service apart from others in the industry

[04:08] How Belle Tire’s widespread Midwest presence brings peace of mind to customers

[05:12] Why Belle Tire expanded into windshield replacement services

[06:30] The role of store appearance and attention to detail in building customer trust

[10:04] Don shares the philosophy behind “retail is detail” and how it guides their team

[12:29] Don talks about growing up in the business and why they prioritize company over family name

[13:54] The origin and impact of Belle Tire’s youth hockey program

[15:23] How Belle Tire became the largest youth hockey organization in the U.S.

[20:19] Don outlines Belle Tire’s growth plans for the next 3–5 years

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Belle Tire https://www.belletire.com/

Tread Partners https://treadpartners.com/

Gain Traction Podcast https://gaintractionpodcast.com/

Don Barnes III on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/don-barnes-4a671ba/

Mike Edge on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/edgemike/

Gain Traction Podcast Episode #188: How a Farmer Turned a Small Tire Shop into a $26M Business https://gaintractionpodcast.com/how-a-farmer-turned-a-small-tire-shop-into-a-26m-business/

Quotable Moments:

• “Retail is detail, and every touchpoint matters.”

• “We’re in the tire business, but we’re really in the service business.”

• “You only get one chance to make someone feel good about a stressful situation.”

• “Growth is great, but not at the expense of trust.”

• “Our goal is to make someone’s day better, every single time.”

Action Steps:

1. Audit your customer journey: Identify pain points and friction that impact the service experience.

2. Create a consistent brand presence: Make sure your stores and team reflect trust and professionalism.

3. Empower your team: Train staff to act as trusted advisors, not just salespeople.

4. Double down on local reputation: Be present in the community, people notice and remember.

5. Apply the “surprise and delight” principle: Build loyalty by going beyond what’s expected.

What is Gain Traction?

The Gain Traction Podcast features top tire and auto repair professionals, shop owners, industry executives, and thought leaders.

Hey folks, welcome to the Gang Traction podcast, the official podcast for tire business.

Don Barnes iii, chief tire guy at Bell Tire, is our guest today.

Bell Tire is 181 locations with five more under construction and they're based out of Michigan.

But before we begin, 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 its clients that have hundreds of locations down to five locations.

Get a professional, unbiased opinion and let Tread Partners review what you got going on.

It starts with a simple conversation.

To contact tread partners, visit treadpartners.com as you guys know, I like to do a shout out for a past guest.

My past guest shout out today is Jesse Wickle with Wickle Tire Pros in Idaho.

This guy took a business doing 1.2 million in gross sales to 26 million in seven years.

He gives some practical advice that I love.

Plus, please check out the [e-mail] or you can find it on YouTube channel Gain Traction Podcast 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.

So let's get started.

Don, welcome to the Gain Traction podcast.

Glad to have you.

Hi Mike.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

Yeah.

So you know I told you this before and I love your all's history.

I love the fact that you're a family owned business around 103 years now.

Found it in 1922.

It just, I mean you guys have stood the test of time.

We have and we're very blessed to be this 103 year old company.

But at the same time going through a lot of internal transformation as we continue to build upon really the next century.

Yeah, one of the things that screams loudly to me and it's on your website, but it's the fact that you guys say, hey, we're all about customer service.

Now listen, that gets a little cliche, right?

Everybody likes to say that.

But one of the things I thought was really cool is that you guys highlighted this in your all tires purchases included.

It's on the websites in black and white and I just love the fact that you highlight them.

It's not that these are overwhelming or that anybody doesn't do some of these, but you guys do all of these things and you have 181 locations like I mentioned, but flat tire repair, tire rotations, alignment checks, free air at all locations, 24 7, free rebalancing and safety inspections.

I think that just bodes well on this image you guys have of customer service.

Yep, Mike, we really like to focus on starting with the customer, working our way back and really anything we do, yeah, we want to continue to sell tires and sell new tires quantities and for et cetera.

But really what the end game is making sure that we take care of our customers when these are our neighbors.

You know, people are really doing business within a few miles of where they live.

So everyone that's walking into our, you know, soon be 185 locations.

These are all of our neighbors, whether fixing a flag, getting new tires, something that they're really not looking forward to.

And so our focus is really being that strategic partner for them for all of their care needs.

And you know, it's easy to maybe, you know, sell a flat airfield, charge 25, fix a flat, but over time being able to capture the light type value that customer by having a surprise in the light moments when they come in for a flat tire and it's kind of handing them their table, say, hey, nothing today.

Come back when you need tires or come back when you need something that really resonates.

And customers love that surprise and delight moment because they're expecting to have to get out the wallet.

And when they don't and we just want to take care of them, we really are able to get sticky and not only just get sticky for return because they're going to tell all the friends and family.

And ultimately what we want is we want all of our neighbors to come and have all of their care needs done and facilitated by.

And you know what, it's contagious too.

Like once it's, you know, once you start doing that and that's the expectation you put in the marketplace, the people, it, there's a something, you know, I mean, like if you look at your map and you got to travel around Michigan or northern Ohio or Indiana or now over in the Chicago area and you know, these locations are there.

There's something comforting about knowing that, you know, if I got a problem, I'm going to take it back to somebody that I know.

And you know, we all, we all travel a lot, right?

I mean people go great distances, but it's easy to travel within 100 mile radius of your house, 200 mile radius.

And to know that there's another bell tire man.

Yeah, it's got to Feel good.

Convenience of the locations is great.

You know, here in the Midwest, you know, we think we can drive, you know, anywhere, anything.

Right?

You know, a five to ten hour drive is something that many of us do kind of all of the time.

So being able to have locations really spread out all the Midwest really has a different level of comfort to customers that if there were to be, you know, have a need for anything related to their tires or their car, you'd be able to.

Yeah.

Well, you know, another thing about customer service that I noticed that you guys have, I think this is really cool.

You're in the windshield replacement too.

I mean, what, what sparked that?

I mean the, obviously the need.

You saw a market opportunity, but yeah.

There'S a market opportunity, but the way that we've always positioned ourselves, we want to be that one stop shop for all of, you know, customers care needs.

And you know, when you're driving behind a fracture trailer or whatever it might be, you get the pebble that comes up, you hear that infamous, you know, smack on the windshield and it's like the, oh crap, I gotta go get this done.

And you know, we, you know, we're blessed to have, you know, so many, you know, real customer base and to have to turn that customer away to get that facilitated elsewhere with something where we say, hey, this is a great service that we could provide to, you know, all of our customers that we have or possibly bring in new customers, you know, through, you know, glass type of business.

Again, look at their, look at the vehicle, inspect their tires, make sure their vehicle's in good working order.

Because again, what we want is we want that customer to leave safe.

We want to know that vehicle was looked over, was saved, inspected, and that when they hit the road again will be working.

It really is fantastic.

I know I told you this already, but when I was going up to Fort Wayne or up through Fort Wayne and were going to Southern Michigan last weekend, I passed one of your stores.

And so in my area, I don't get to see bell tower a lot, but when I saw it, I was just like, man, that is one good looking store.

And even my son picked up on it because he knows what business I'm in and everything.

And, and he's like, that's good looking store.

I'm like, yeah, it is.

And it's just funny.

He's 17, you know, but the fact that it caught my attention, I thought it looked professional, but it also screamed detail to me.

Like you guys are really, you're really concerned about the detail of, of your parking lot, the looks of your building.

You want it inviting.

It's, it's to say to everybody out there, come to us because we have a warm, we have a warm facility that you feel comfortable in.

You can enter the door, not feel like it's some drungy place or whatever.

And it just, it looked professional and I couldn't compliment it enough and it just looked like you guys have a, an attention to detail.

So I gotta imagine the same things on the inside with the, the work being done.

I certainly appreciate the kind words and it absolutely is important to us.

I mean, we take really, we take great pride and think that we have a reputation in the industry of really kind of being at the tip of the spear in terms of driving, being customer centric, driving revenue, making customers want to come back.

And so the way that we think of things is yes, we're in the retail business and the saying that we have is retail is detailed.

Every single touch point, every customer touch point.

It's really important.

And if it's not important, then we need to stop doing it altogether.

But if we are to focus on something, let's make sure we're very thoughtful and we start from kind of the customer's perspective and work back.

Because again, it is a low frequency purchase, it's a high dollar purchase, it's a high anxiety purchase.

And so any moment of where, you know, the customer journey starts, whether it be first online, whether it be coming into our retail store, every touch point is welcoming to lower the shield, lower the anxiety.

So people do start to interact with, you know, one of our sales associates, they feel comfortable.

They feel like they're going to not only just integrate experience, but they're going to have a trusted advisor to really make a recommendation and educate them on whatever they meet as they're coming in.

So for us, it's always about starting with the customer, working our way backwards and focusing on every detail of the business because that's where we're in.

I mean, we're in the retail business, but we're really in the service business.

I mean, we look at, you know, product marketing as a, you know, a Michelin tire or a Goodyear tire or brake pad or, you know, chopper strut.

They're essentially all the same, right?

Whether it be through us or any of our competitive set.

And really the difference is the people.

It's the people standing at the pod, standing at the counter, Answering the phone, engaging with the customer coming in.

And it's how we make the customer feel when they leave.

Yeah, we can do a great job in trying to maybe maximize the transaction, but are we also maximizing the happiness and making sure that customer wants to come back?

And so for us, it's all about, let's start with the customer, make sure they have a great experience, let's educate them, let's work with them together as a partner in what we're looking to accomplish, rather than try to negotiate and have this big barrier or counter between us to figure out who's going to win.

Because it's not a zero sum game.

Bell Tire can win.

The way we're going to win is by making sure our customers feel good when they win.

Man, it's so important in your.

Your attitude is contagious because you've been in this a long time, and the fact that you still recognize that, hey, you know, this is beyond just the business.

This is taking care of people when they really.

They don't.

They don't want the problem, you know, and.

And the reality is, it's just a reality of life.

We all have vehicles, and they're going to be problems.

So how do you mitigate it and make it as minimal as.

As a soft landing is what.

I guess you could say that you guys, you guys are doing.

But I was going to ask you, too, what is your.

One of your favorite quotes or something you live by?

But I, I think I'm gonna steal one from you.

I love that you just said retail is detail.

Retail is detail.

I like that a lot.

Well, we got a lot of different.

We got a lot of different sound bites, Mike.

I mean, that's one that, you know, we say quite a bit.

But you know, what's also fun is, you know, our job is we get to, you know, we get the.

The opportunity to be the moment in time.

We make that customer's day better.

Right.

You know, if they're having.

If they're having to come to us or anyone to probably not get excited, right?

Because again, it's that, oh, crap moment.

Blowout tire, again, having to spend a lot of money where maybe you're not, you know, it's unplanned, so we have the opportunity to wear the red cape.

This is what we talk about all the time, is, you know, we have someone that has come in, maybe unsure again, not budgeted for, and we get the opportunity every day with every customer, make their day better.

And I think working in a job like that in an industry like that is so full because again, these are our neighbors using the neighbors that, you know, we serve.

And we see the grocery stores at the gas pump, you know, at our kids, you know, softball games and different types of community events.

These are the people that, you know, we get the opportunity to use to serve and earn their trust, you know, with all their care needs.

So it is something that we take great pride in, but we also understand it's a huge, really obligate obligation commitment to live by these principles.

I mean, you can say them all day long, but it's real whether or not you live the culture, read it all the time.

I mean, that's what's fun, is the ability to serve our customers.

I take care of them in a moment where they're not excited, they're not happy.

And to make them be that moment in time, that day to solve a problem.

I think that's really.

I do too.

That's what I love about this industry.

But I love to find guys like yourself that are still passionate and you're, you know, you're several generations into this, and you're just as passionate as probably your granddad was.

And let's talk about that history a little bit, because I haven't asked you, like, did you always know that you were going to do this when you were in the family business?

Yeah, I mean, ever since I was, I'd say two years old, I knew this was something I want to do to work for Belfire.

You know, I would have gently pushed back and say, you know, we really don't look at ourselves as a family business.

We look at ourselves as a business.

We often have family members that work in it.

We have, you know, two brothers that own it.

But really, this is a business first.

So all of our decision making is always about what do we do, what's best for Belt Tire, what's best for, you know, our customers and our employees.

And if we really focus on those things, in this case, the Barnes family beat us money.

So, yeah, you know, old cliche literacy last.

And that's something that we really focus on is it's just that we got to make sure it's not about the cars family, but more about Belt Hire first.

So I like to say is like, yeah, we are, we do have family members that own the business, but we are business for ourselves.

Decision making is about, again, what is best for Bell Hire and our cost.

I love that now that's awesome.

I appreciate the pushback.

Well, like so one of the things I noticed too that you guys do and I think this is really cool.

I mean it's part of your community involvement, et cetera.

But you guys are big fans in hockey.

So you run a youth hockey league.

Tell me about that.

I think that's awesome.

So this was really more passion project that like the assert.

He grew up playing hockey.

I grew up playing hockey.

You got a younger brother, you know, bro, playing hockey.

And this was a way for us kind of, you know, create our charitable arm Hero Fellfire.

There's so, there's so many great like lessons that you can learn from playing the game of hockey in terms of, you know, teamwork, you know, grittiness, healthy lifestyle, leadership.

There's so many things that you learn from playing the game of hockey that you can really take on with you the rest of your life.

And again, I'm a hockey guy, so I'm biased.

But I think us hockey guys are filled differently to where you, when you meet one, you can kind of sense one and there is a special pack.

So for us it was a way to really kind of give back to the community and help, you know, create this program to where I mean state of Michigan has, you know, what is a breeding ground for NHL players.

You know, we have, you know, a couple NHL players play in the league right now.

But it's a great sport, something that you can play for a long time.

But even more so the characteristics that you learn from playing is something that will help you on for the rest of your career.

Real quick, how many teams are in the league?

So we have the largest youth hockey organization in the United States.

And we have 37 teams, both guys and girls starting, you know, from U18 down to Cutler to skate programs, AAA travel, AA, single A, all the way down to Hofstat.

So it's really a comprehensive game from Collet four years up to uat.

That's awesome.

That's really cool.

Well, you know, it's interesting you say that about hockey because I think I look at it, hockey as a kind of a, you know, I mean it.

Not a kind of.

It is a contact sport.

And there it's.

It's hard to describe this because that's.

What'S fun about it is a context for, I mean it's hand to hand combat especially you know, these last few years where you know, whoever can keep their head down and be gritty and be resilient in everything, right?

So whether it be, you know, scrapping for pucks in the corner or, you know, trying to make sure, you know, you the K on the customer you come in.

I mean, there's so many similarities between our industry and being successful because it's not one big play.

Like you got to win every ship, you got to win with every customer.

You got to.

Even when things are going your way, you got to be resilient.

You got to be ruthless in a way, not from a band, but just to ruthless in a way to keep persevering, moving forward, having a great attitude, bringing high energy to your team.

Because as a leader, if you want your team to show up at a 10 level, you got to be in a 15, right?

You got to bring it every single day and really set the tone for what's there to come.

And I think there's so many similarities between what we do at our tire stores versus what goes on at the ice.

And I really like that.

So I didn't grow up playing hockey, but I played football and rugby.

And then all my sons have played football.

It's been interesting because my sons were far better than I was.

So I love that, you know, but it was interesting.

My son said this last year, and it's a big crosstown rivalry game, and we're a 2A school, they're a 5A school.

And in the past, they used to beat us, not so much anymore.

It's usually a 50 split now and year after year.

And so it's a, it's become even a bigger rival.

But we got down 10 points in the game last year, and I was asking my son, you know, you always breaking it down with your son after the game or whatever, and he goes, you remember where we got down 10, dad?

He goes, I wasn't worried a bit.

I go, why?

He goes, because I felt like were dominating them.

Like, you know, we had the momentum even though the scoreboard didn't show it.

He said, I just felt like were getting the best of them.

And they.

And then we ended up winning.

And it was.

But I loved his attitude.

I never, he never let down.

And what I love about team sports like that, and I'm biased, so I'm going to say in particular, contact sports.

There's always the thing about contact sport is you're.

You're going to get knocked on your butt, you know, and, and not just figuratively, literally.

And you've gotta.

You gotta get back up and decide what you're gonna do and how you're gonna respond.

And that's what I love about those kind of sports, because the camaraderie you build with your teammates is that unity factor.

Everybody knows what everybody's suffering through.

Everybody knows they paid their dues in practice and things like that.

And when you take that attitude and you apply it to business, I think it works very well.

It does.

And like our industry these last few years, I mean, it's been tough.

We've kind of been in this tire recession and it's easy to kind of focus, maybe go chase the shiny object on what if we try this?

What if we do that?

It's really hard sometimes to be thoughtful and kind of trust the plan.

Even if businesses flatter, it's down a couple points.

Is, is this something that we got to tweak or is this something that we just kind of weathered the storm and you know, for us, a lot of times it's, hey, let's make sure we're not believing our observation.

You know, we use that as a kind of a check engage every now and then.

But other than that, if we're cop from the plan, sometimes you just got to wet in the storm, and sometime it's that resiliency that allows things to do get better once business does come back.

And it's easy to throw the baby without with the bathwater, but it's harder to stay resilient when, you know, when you have headwinds that are kind of slowing you down.

So ultimately it's what type of tone are you setting?

What's that better do you being, are you being a great colleague?

You listening?

Are you bringing the high energy to, you know, make sure the team around you is bringing, you know, that.

And then ultimately, are we focused purely on the customer worker like that?

Because if we do that, we'll never make a wrong decision.

We may not always get the desired outcome we want.

Which is okay, right?

Look, it's not okay, but if we focus on the customer again in the long time, you know, we will, we'll be winning more of the worlds.

No, I, I absolutely love it.

Well, going back to you personally a little bit.

So you got into this, you knew you were going to do it since you were 2, your brother's in it with you, right?

And it, and then like, where did you see yourself?

You know, you've been in it what, almost, what, 20 years now?

Something like that.

Yeah.

So, I mean, you got a lot of history in it now where do you see it going?

You know, what's Bell Tires go business go in the next one, three, five years?

I mean obviously I see you guys moving into Chicago.

That's one of them.

Yeah.

You know what's fun is that, you know we're a hundred to three year old company, we have very ambitious growth plans over the next five years or so.

So there's this general feeling of, I don't want to say like a startup feeling but really kind of like a startup feeling but having 103 years of financial security behind us.

So it is really fun.

We're in, we're going through this kind of transformational journey and you know, being with a company for 20 years called formally but then really growing up in it's been fun to see the really step changes and the transformational change the belt has made over the last 23 years.

I mean 10 years ago we had you know, 80 stores and were able to.

So from our first 93 years of business, it took us 93 years.

It gets 80 stores.

In the last 10 it went from 80 to 181 with five more.

And we're looking to be north 300 stores in the next five years or so.

So the amount of locations we've been able to add, not just to grow in terms of location count, but the communities that we're serving, really high NPS scores, really high customer service scores.

We're not diluting the overall experience nor are we diluting, I'll say the aub, right.

How our stores are performing financially and also being able to copy and paste our model in new markets where people aren't familiar with who we are.

I remember when went to south, you know, went to Indiana.

We entered the Indiana market via South Bend.

We kind of put signs in the ground where our stores were going and you know, with the now hiring phone number, people could call and you know, they call.

We were belly tires.

We quickly realized it's, we can't have a, if you build it, they'll come model because they're not familiar.

So it's been a lot of fun, I'll say enhancing our processes, breaking things on our own timeline to see where there are pinch points that would limit our ability to grow and scale and keep, you know, building it out and making ourselves better.

So we're at this really kind of fun transformational phase in our 103 year old journey to prepare us for the next hundred years as we go from 180 to 250 to 300 and beyond.

It's a really exciting time here.

Belt, tire.

I love it.

What about before I let you go, just to let the audience know a little bit more about who you are?

You got a. I don't know.

I always like to ask, favorite movie, but favorite movie or favorite food you, you like to talk about.

Oh, gosh.

Well, I'm a tire guy, so I love all the food.

Yeah.

So what's your.

What's your, what's your favorite?

If you, if you had to go to an island and you were only going to get this one style food the rest of your life, what would it be?

Guy, I don't think you never go wrong with surfer Turk.

That's.

That's always good.

That covers a little bit.

That's good.

It covers a lot.

Right?

So it's all a thing.

It's kind of all encompassing.

But yeah, that's probably my go to meals is this nape ling serve.

It's great.

I love it.

I love surf and turf myself.

I would.

I think my audience knows this, though.

I talk about it a lot.

But I'm a typical southern boy.

I would.

I probably eat barbecue now.

Barbecue's broad, right?

I mean, I don't have to have particular.

If the parking lot's full, it's probably a really good one.

And I'm going to like the flavor.

I like smoked meat.

So my mind, if I was on an island, be barbecue.

And I get a little variety in there too.

Right.

You know, you get your ribs, your chicken.

Yeah.

So.

Well, I can't.

I can't thank you enough for being on the podcast.

It's been a pleasure getting to know you.

Oh, it was.

Again, thank you, Mike, for having me.

It was great talking with you and thank you for letting us share a little bit about our story here.

Help.

Absolutely.

And I want to give a shout out to Sonny McDonald.

He actually introduced us with Toyota Tire.

Son is great.

He is.

And he always thinks about us and thinks about it.

Good guest and I'm glad he introduced us.

So to all our audience out there, thank you for being part of the podcast.

You know, we love you.

Until next time, we'll see you here on Gain Traction Podcast.

Have a great day.

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 gaintraction podcast.com.

if you'd like to make a guest recommendation, please email me at Mike at treadpartners.

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This episode has been powered by Tread Partners, the leader in digital marketing for multilocation tire and auto repair shops.

To learn more about Tread Partners, visit treadpartners.

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