March 23, 2011
Smiley's Tires, Tunes and Tints
'Don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to be (just) a tire store'
By: Ann Neal
What Jack Smiley does not do is try to sell to everybody. Like all successful business owners, his marketing efforts are aimed at the most lucrative customers most likely to return again and again.
In the southwestern corner of Oklahoma, those customers are shopping for high performance upgrades to their vehicles. They usually, but not always, start with tires.
“Once you have their trust for specialty work, you have that customer for all their upgrade needs,” says Smiley. He and his 10 employees sell high performance products out of a 15,000-square-foot shop called Smiley’s Tires, Tunes and Tints, located in the city of Altus.
Sky-high expectations
Many customers are from Altus Air Force Base just three miles away. The base is the United States military’s premier pilot training facility.
As a corporate pilot with more than 8,000 hours in the air, Smiley has a unique understanding of the world in which these pilots, his customers, live. He’s been flying planes since 1983 and holds an Airline Transport Pilot rating. He also owned a flight school for a period of time. He simply loves to fly.
“When pilots come in the shop, we have something in common,” says Smiley. “They relate to my experiences because of the plane I fly. The military calls it the C-12. Civilians call it the King Air 200.”
Air Force pilots come to Altus for initial qualification, leave for a base assignment, return for aircraft commander training, leave for another base assignment and return for instructor training. Some remain at Altus as instructors. The cycle covers about eight years and brings the pilots back to Smiley’s Tires as well.
“We meet them when they are young officers and again when they come back to Altus for their upgrade training.”
Used to superior performance in the air, the pilots like their personal vehicles to perform better than the manufacturer provided. They want high performance tires, exhaust and sound systems, and the privacy and looks tinted windows add to their high performance machines.
In addition to the Air Force base, Smiley’s Tires, Tunes and Tints draws customers from a huge farming community.
“This is truck country,” says Smiley. “It’s not unusual for a husband to drive a truck, his wife a Suburban, and their kids pickup trucks. We probably do more modifications to pickup trucks than to Camaros. The truck business in this part of the world is extremely lucrative.”
Like the pilots and their cars, the people who buy custom wheels for their trucks eventually add a custom exhaust and stereo system.
“First a customer wants 22-inch tires, then dual exhaust, then upgrade for the factory stereo system. So we had that customer coming into the store.
“We kept adding services he wanted. Now he comes to one place for everything. But he doesn’t buy all at one time. If we do his tires well, he comes back for the exhaust, stereo, and window tint.”
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