Typically the managers from every VIP Tires & Service store gather for an end-of-the-fiscal-year meeting. That meeting couldn’t happen like normal in 2020, but company leaders and employees dropped plenty of inspiration into a couple of videos for the team.
Tim Winkeler, CEO and president of VIP, says instead of a single all-hands-on-deck managers meeting this year, the company scheduled four separate sessions in Auburn, Maine, to keep each one to fewer than 50 attendees.
“Although it was very different than our normal annual three-day conference, our managers all really enjoyed getting to spend time together, celebrate all that we overcame and accomplished this past fiscal year, and recognize/award those who achieved outstanding results,” Winkeler says.
He shared two videos with Modern Tire Dealer — one from the start of the session, and another from the end. I recommend you watch them both, for a couple of reasons:
- They’re well done. These are polished, professional videos that help tell the VIP story. They feature Winkeler, Executive Chairman John Quirk and Gary MacCausland, senior vice president of operations and merchandising. But they also feature other members of the VIP team talking about the difficulties of working through COVID-19.
- The videos, and the larger managers conference, are a reminder that tire dealers have still had successes in 2020. Despite all the challenges, Quirk told me in early August that VIP was on track to beat last year’s fiscal year sales. (The company’s new fiscal year started Sept. 1.) The company is still opening new stores, too.
