It was the opportunity of a lifetime. At age 25, I had the chance to take ownership in Rexburg Motorsports and "buy" myself a promotion from Parts and Service Manager to General Manager of a little Polaris and Suzuki dealership in southeast Idaho.
I was an overwhelmed and underskilled dealership manager at age 25. I was like 1984 Buick Skylark trying to do the job of a 1999 Ford F350. But, I had enough passion to make it work and motivation to learn from more seasoned veterans.
Working six days a week and in my Junior year of college, I had been taking night classes at Idaho State University to studyBusiness Marketing and Organizational Behavior. I started working in my family’s farm equipment dealership as a young boy, so collectively, I had 15 years of experience! Surely, I was ready for the challenge. So, I dropped out of college, and life was about to get real good.
Well, life got real, fast.
Don’t get me wrong, life was good with an amazing and supportive wife and two young daughters at home. Then, I found myself working 75 hours a week. There were days where the only chance to see my girls was when they stopped by the dealership for a visit because I left for work before they woke up and got home after bedtime. There was a period of a few months where I didn’t take any compensation for myself so I could pay employees, vendors, and the bank on time. The bank loaned me way more than they should have to do the buy-out.
What I found out very quickly was that dealership operations are insanely complicated. The complexity was overwhelming at times. This was offset by the fact that I was doing something I loved, the pursuit of providing my customers with the ultimate buying, riding and ownership experience. That was our mission. There was meaning and purpose.
But it didn’t change the complexity of dealership operations. . So I found myself reading all the business books and industry magazines I could get my hands on and worked hard to execute what I learned.
Some of the books (and magazine columns) and that shaped my thinking and influenced the way I led my dealership were:
Powersports Business News and DealerNews were go-tos every month. My office manager knew to keep the mail with all the bills and set these two magazines on my desk.
Gart Sutton was one of the original 20 Group providers in the powersports industry starting in the early 1980s. I looked forward to his articles in Powersports Business magazine. Each month, I learned and applied best practices he featured. His experience moderating 20 Groups meant he knew what processes were drivers of success and he knew the benchmarks. I eventually joined one of his 20 Groups and gained tremendous insights from other dealerships in the group.
Eric Anderson was influential in helping me look at everything from a customer’s perspective. As a young dealership owner operator, his popular column originating back to the early 1990s, Confessions of a Customer, led me to establish our dealership mission of providing the ultimate buying, riding, and ownership experiences. Eric held several executive leadership roles in the industry and is a branding genius who launched some of the most iconic brands in the industry. He was an industry celebrity and eventually became one of my favorite industry friends and mentors.
Lifelong learning is a way of life, but also necessary to constantly evolve and adapt to economic cycles, new innovations, and evolving customer expectations. As an old guy, I finished my undergrad degree, took the GMAT test and enrolled in an MBA program. I also got a front-row seat to some very interesting case studies managing dealer development for an OEM. And, as I look back, my education growing up in my family’s international dealership was some of my most important education.
One of my post-dealership and OEM pit stops was teaching as a visiting professor of business, entrepreneurship, and marketing. Becoming an educator was an accelerated period of personal growth that prepared me for what was next with Herohub. Teaching 19- to 25-year-olds business was a blast.
Today, Herohub is transforming OEM and dealer education. Similar to college students, OEM professionals are bright and engaged in the pursuit of knowledge in order to keep their competitive edge and delight their dealer customers. Providing dealership training requires clear focus on what matters most and modals that drive high impact on retail through rapid skill development because of the complexity dealers deal with every day.
In his April 2020 column, Confessions of a Customer, Eric Anderson wrote something that inspired me like he did when I was a dealer:
“It’s time to think differently, innovatively and independently from the herd. I used to do just that on the motocross track… never taking the same line as the rider in front of me. I never liked herds and always took a chance on the outside or inside line that nobody else wanted. Now is the time to not follow that herd.”
This inspired me to think about how to forge new lines in the powersports industry through Herohub. Instead of “benchmarking”, we’ve tried hard to focus on the customer’s problems and identify solutions that don’t exist, taking a chance on the lines that nobody else wanted. And I’m still learning something new every day.
.svg){kind=small}