Magazine for the professional tire industry
Issue link: https://mtd.epubxp.com/i/567620
MTD September 2015 Tire Dealer of the Year are small. One of the newest stores is in Loris, S.C., and it occupies a former Chrysler dealership. Its showroom is at least twice as large as other Black's Tire stores. Larry Hewet is a retired school admin- istrator who now works for Black's Tire taking photos and helping with public relations eforts. He remembers walking into the defunct car dealership with Benton. "Te store looked real junky. But it's a beautiful facility now. "Te way he can walk into a place and look at it and see in his eye what it needs to be, where he's going to put this and that — it just blows my mind how he's able to do that." Others talk about Benton's eye for detail. He can drop in a store and imme- diately spot a problem or inefciency. In a Fayeteville store he rerouted the trafc fow from the shop to the service writer to the front counter by cuting a new doorway through a solid block wall and moving the break room. He's known for moving equipment in the shop and re-arranging the front counter. In every instance, employees say the moves have made their jobs easier. Despite stores that aren't cut from a cookie cuter, Black's Tire stores still have a look. Blue and gold paint are the standard on the outside, while the inside look is focused on the counter, which is wrapped in shiny sheets of metal. When the foors need replaced they're covered in black and white tiles. Electronic signs hang on the wall and display prices for services, as well as photos showing the company's community events and sponsorships. "It would be nice to have every loca- tion look exactly the same, but that is expensive," Benton says. "We take what we have and make it as atractive as possible and market with our people and name in the markets." He sees no point in building a perfect looking store on what a developer calls a perfect location. "You can have X number of car counts and X number of people, but that doesn't mean it's going to work," Benton says. "Tires ain't prety and service ain't prety, but service is all you've got." Serving and training the... competition? Service isn't just a guideline or a sugges- tion at Black's Tire. It's the rule. Employees who don't accept that, or understand it, don't last long. Lloyd Hobbs has spent the last 14 years of his 32-year tire career with Black's Tire. He manages one of the company's three stores in Lumberton, N.C., and says the business boils down to one thing: relationships. "Te majority of people like to trade or do business with people they like, people they trust," Hobbs says. "It's sort of like going to the doctor: 'What's wrong? Sit down. Tell me about it.'" Tat treatment works not just with consumers, but also with his big box competitors. Tere's a Sam's Club in town, and a Walmart in the tire store's backyard. Hobbs says both send him business, even calling and asking if Black's Tire can step in to help a consumer. "It's a good relationship," Hobbs says, noting he benefts in other ways, too. "If they screw something up, I fx it." Making friends with the competition, including big box retailers, is a tough pill for some dealers to swallow. Benton doesn't even call them competitors. "Tey're not our competitors, we're partners. We help each other. We want them to survive," says Benton. "I'm in the wholesale business. My best customers are the stores next to us. I believe in helping the small independent tire dealer." For Benton, helping those dealers means more than selling them tires. It Some Black's Tire dealerships are trying a new approach to showroom tire displays, ar- ranging the tires by application rather than brand. While some tire dealers specialize in cer- tain segments of the tire industry, Black's Tire casts a wide net with a goal of serv- ing every kind of customer. The company even operates a store on the U.S. Army base at Fort Bragg, N.C. 28