Giving Back to Your Community
For tire businesses, helping out your community is more than good press.
Hiring and Firing the Legal and Correct Way
Welcome to You & The Law! While you face challenges at your business every day, my goal is take some of the mystery and confusion out of the employment law dilemmas faced by small businesspeople. One of the areas about which I get the most questions is hiring and firing employees. Hiring and firing employees
Tire Pros: Winning Formula in the Ring
Five years after The Walt Disney Co. was founded in 1923, the Walt Disney Studios division created arguably the most popular character in the history of animation: Mickey Mouse. Since Mickey Mouse’s cinematic birth, the company and brand has exploded. Today, Disney is a mass media empire that, among other things, owns and operates 14
Conti Grabs Winter Season
There truly is no better time like the present, so taking advantage of mid-January in Big Sky, Mont., to roll out two new winter tires made sense. Continental Tire the Americas showcased two future winter lines – set for April 2015 sales – with the General Grabber Arctic LT and the Continental WinterContact SI. The
Disorder in Our House
It was totally ironic that Warren Zevon’s “Disorder in the House” was playing in the background when I started piecing this column together. It was hard not to think about this whole thing, especially when Warren warbled: “The floodgates are open We’ve let the demons loose. The big guns have spoken And we’ve fallen for
Kelly Redone as Power Line, Dunlop Gets New HP A/S
Goodyear is rebuilding and repurposing its Kelly brand as a power line for dealers looking for great coverage in the economy tire segment. The tiremaker used the occasion of its annual Dealer Conference, hosted this week at the Gaylord Texan near Dallas, to launch the Kelly Edge Power Line, which will eventually replace all current
Sports Marketing: Turn Sports Fans into Your Fanatics
From professional leagues to local teams, billions of dollars are spent on sports marketing annually. Businesses are using team and venue sponsorships, live event advertising and more to reach potential buyers where they enjoy spending their free time. More and more tire manufacturers are branching out from traditional motorsport activities to include other sports in
Rise of the Machines: Competing With Robots and Other Automated Adversaries
It’s fair to say that when most of us in tire/auto service sales business think of competition, we think of real people and not robots. But what if there were a robot that could do your job as well or, brace yourself, better than you? If I were an owner of the business that had
A New Model
Over the last several months, BKT Tire’s operations in North America have undergone considerable change. Where once BKT Tires USA Inc. in Akron handled all of the India-based tiremaker’s business here, now BKT Tire based in Nashville handles all OTR tire sales and service, and BKT Tires USA Inc. focuses on ag, industrial and ATV
Effective and Desirable
2014 was a hell of a year, wasn’t it? The ups and downs were familiar from past years, but there was also a growing sense of optimism pervading the country and our industry in particular. A positive feel in the business – and in people’s wallets – for the first time in quite a few
Loads, Faults and Drains
A good battery with an adequate charge is absolutely essential for reliable cold starting. A weak battery, or one that is rundown, may not deliver enough amps to crank the engine when temperatures plunge and the oil thickens. Cold weather can be hard on batteries, but so can hot weather because it increases water loss
Tire Testing From A to Z
There are three principal reasons tire manufacturers test their products: Competitive Benchmarking – From material formulations to overall tire performance and on-vehicle testing, engineers want to get a firm grasp on what the competition offers prior to the development of their next new tire. Research and Development – To develop a new tire, manufacturers test