At 17, Matt Buchholz, now CEO of MotoRad, got his first job turning wrenches and along the way discovered what he describes as “a passion for high levels of customer service.” In this drive to meet the needs of customers while building his career and developing his leadership skills, Buchholz shares that he sought out a lot of feedback. Through this feedback, what Buchholz learned and cultivated has become the backbone of his leadership style.
“I think the opposite of humility is pride, and I think pride is really unproductive,” Buccholz said. “I learned that years ago. I’ve always had a passion for customers, but maybe my leadership methods needed improvement. And, I had the blessing of feedback. I always say feedback is a gift. Somebody gives you feedback, it might be difficult to hear … but there are a couple of points in my career where I was seeking feedback and receiving feedback and the feedback was, ‘you know, that Matt, there’s room for improvement in your leadership. You’re highly competent in all these things, but there’s a little bit of room for improvement.’ So, I started down this journey of trying to become a leader that people wanted to work with.”
Bucholtz continued, “There are lots of surveys out there, and I think typically the surveys say that approximately 70% of employees don’t like who they’re working for. I’d say that’s a crisis, right? It’s a leadership crisis. So, it’s a drive for customer service because I’m very focused on the customer, but in order to have great customer service externally, you have to treat your employees well internally. And it starts with – I think – humility because when you have pride, you have bureaucracy, politics, mistrust. And so, the opposite of that is when you have high trust, it’s a very efficient business model, and people can transact and work much better to the end result, which is high levels of customer service. So, I think it starts internally and it starts with self.”
In this latest AMN Drivetime podcast, Bill and Matt dive into a number of interesting topics, including:
- 2:41: Matt’s career path from changing oil at 17 to ASE certified technician to CEO of MotoRad
- 4:22: His passion for Servant Leadership
- 9:29: How MotoRad approaches the EV market
- 13:19: How MotoRad maintains and measures its company culture
- 15:58: Why Matt completed an Ironman during the pandemic
- 24:32: The keys to balancing a busy professional and family life
- 27:10: The ever-popular Lightning Round!
AMN Drivetime is sponsored by Litens.
