Dick Erickson is the Founder of Sun Tire and author of How the Rubber Meets the Road: A Blue-Collar Roadmap to Success for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs. He opened his first Sun Tire store in Orange Park, Florida in 1981, and added ten more stores over the next few decades. Dick sold the business to a national chain of tire stores in 2018. His book details his journey from rural North Dakota to flying helicopters in the Marine Corps in Vietnam and covers four key business topics: customer service, profit sharing, mentoring, and profitable growth.

In this episode…

How do you motivate your customer service team to reach the highest levels of service possible? What are the best ways to keep frontline staff motivated and pushing in a positive direction? If you own a tire and auto repair shop, you’ve probably asked yourself these questions more than once. For insight on this topic, don’t miss this episode of Gain Traction!

Can profit sharing among employees positively affect customer service? Dick Erickson says he implemented profit sharing for every employee and it changed how everyone behaved at work. They treated the equipment with more care and the quality of customer service went “above and beyond.” 

In this episode of Gain Traction, Dick joins Mike Edge for a captivating conversation about what he learned from attending a Les Schwab training program for 19 consecutive years and how his Sun Tire stores benefitted after he implemented profit sharing among all employees. Dick speaks on the topic of profit sharing and how it revolutionized the culture at Sun Tire. Tune in to hear how profit sharing could potentially change your business!

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

• Dick Erickson summarizes his 40-year journey in the tire and auto industry
• What life looked like when Dick opened his first Sun Tire store in 1981
• Why a commitment to learning has served Dick well
• What Dick learned from visiting a Les Schwab program on the west coast for 19 consecutive years
• How profit sharing affected Sun Tire’s quality of customer service
• Why Patton is Dick’s favorite movie

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• How the Rubber Meets the Road on Amazon  
• "Mavis Is At It Again: Sun Tire Is the Latest Acquisition" 
• Les Schwab
• Danny Murphy, co-author
• Mike Edge on LinkedIn
• Tread Partners

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. 

At Tread Partners, we provide digital marketing for multi-location tire dealers and auto repair shops. 

By using our strategy, branding, and marketing services, we help shops sell more tires and put more cars in bays.  

We’ve helped companies like Action Gator Tire, Colony Tire and Service, and Ulmer’s Auto Care Center bring extreme growth in paid leads, ROI, and searches. 

So, what are you waiting for?

Visit www.treadpartners.com or email [email protected] to learn more.