Tuesday, December 2, 2008

3 things I like about the tire business

#1 The People – That’s you!

#2 The Customers – If you like retail, you like living on the edge because you never really know who’s coming in the door next, and that’s exitement to you. The retail tire store is a unique environment, and unless you’ve ever looked at someone with a 2005 F150 and told them with a straight face it going to cost them $1025 to replace their tires - then they hand you the keys, ask for an alignment and synthetic oil - you don’t know the feeling.

#3 The Undesirables – Have you ever really fired a customer? I did once. And I’m not stereotyping any one profession, but everything we did for this guy, even on his fleet of lawnmowers, we did at least twice. Nothing was ever good enough. The defining moment came when we stayed late to fix the inside dually because he had a bush to prune the next morning: He blamed the tires and me, it wasn’t our fault and it had been a long day already, he owed me $1500 from 3 months ago:

He said: “I don’t have my wallet”. I said “you’re fired”.

Just like that. Just like Donald. My employees thought I would never do it and I was a hero for a few seconds. It was cool.

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