Best-One Builds Legacy for its Members

"We’re constantly evolving,” Lindsey Beer, Best-One Tire Group’s chief strategy officer, told Best-One members at the organization’s recent meeting.

One of those evolutions is Legacy Best-One, a business entity that provides an off-ramp for Best-One dealers who want to retire.

"Legacy Best-One is an opportunity for our partners to take the businesses they’ve built and put them into an established, larger unit,” Beer told MTD before the Best-One meeting, which took place in Indianapolis, Ind., began.

She said that several years ago, the Zurcher family, which heads the Best-One Tire Group, saw the need to provide Best-One members with an exit option that would preserve and honor the businesses they’ve spent decades running. (Best-One was established by Zurcher family patriarch, the late Paul Zurcher, in the year 2000.)

Three Best-One dealerships – Best-One of Indy, Best-One of Kentuckiana and Southern Indiana Tire – folded into Legacy Best-One in January 2024. “They were the first” to join Legacy Best-One, said Beer.

All three businesses and others that have since joined Legacy Best-One continue to operate under their existing names, she noted. (The Legacy Best-One name is not marketed externally, Beer told MTD.)

When a Best-One dealership joins Legacy Best-One, the Zurcher family takes on a bigger portion of its ownership. The size of the ownership stake “depends. We’ll either make an asset purchase and then move it into Legacy. In other cases, we’ll do mergers.”

Legacy Best-One is “primarily owned by our family,” said Beer. “The industry, technology and business were pushing us in the direction” of creating Legacy Best-One and “there’s also the need to walk alongside our partners and help them plan their path to retirement.”

More Best-One locations are expected to join Legacy Best-One, including Best-One of Monroe (Ind.), the location Paul Zurcher opened in 1948. Best-One of Monroe will join Legacy Best-One at the end of this month.

"It's a pretty significant thing for us,” said Beer. “It really shows our partners that this is the direction we’re going in and that we’re all-in" on the Legacy Best-One concept.

"You don’t have to be part of Legacy to be part of Best-One,” which has 353 locations throughout 33 states, adds Beer. “We’re still in many, many traditional partnerships with amazing partners and we would never change that. But where it makes sense for partners who need somewhere to go, our family is providing Legacy as an option. It’s kind of like the best of both worlds. If the business you have needs to change or isn’t working for you for whatever reason, you know have another option.”

"The partners within our group specifically join us for our culture,” Tina Zurcher, Best-One's general counsel, told MTD. “And when they retire, they’re looking for ways to keep that culture,” which makes Legacy Best-One an attractive alternative.

Best-One members who are retiring are also free to partner with other Best-One members, she noted.

There are no store-count targets for Legacy Best-One. “We have a pretty good idea what the size of Legacy Best-One is going to look like, but it’s not like, ‘By this date, we need to have this many,’” said Beer. “But what we can tell you is that it’s happening way faster than what we’ve anticipated.” 

More standardization 

Best-One is moving ahead with several efforts to help enhance its members’ operational efficiencies. “What we’re doing right now is focusing internally on our partners and our own house,” said Beer.

"One of the initiatives we have is a one-page planning concept,” said Zurcher. “We have different members getting together in regional meetings. Each location works on their individual plan. You have a target you have to meet, then you have priorities – how to get there. That’s been a big push for us. There’s something about meeting with your peers” that sharpens best practices.

"Everything is all on paper and every 90 days you’re gauging how you’ve done,” said Zurcher.

Standardization of IT systems within Best-One is another priority. “We’ve put a lot of emphasis and focus on standardization,” said Beer. “We’re a group of partners and we’re in the in-between phase of balancing member autonomy with the benefits of standardization across the board. It can bring efficiencies.”

For example, Beer told MTD that Best-One is moving “onto a new (retread plant) software platform with Bandag,” its longtime tread rubber and retread shop equipment supplier. 

People over profits 

When asked about the state of tire demand, Beer told MTD that the market “is flat to down, but we’ve also heard that things may be looking a little better. We’re seeing our retread units perk up again and that’s really good. We’re seeing commercial tire units start to move again and some retail units are starting to move better, too.

"But it’s been a flat year. That’s the best way to describe it. People are waiting to see what’s going to happen with tariffs. People are waiting to see what’s going to happen politically.”

On the commercial truck tire side, Best-One members are seeing an uptick in national account business at the expense of local book business. “This last quarter, we really started to focus on programs that we can put together, so our sales team can get back out there into the market and start moving local units,” said Beer.

Wholesale distribution remains the biggest part of Best-One's business “and I would say commercial and retreading would follow. Retail is still important to us. We want to give retail the glory it deserves.”

Both Beer and Zurcher told MTD that Best-One is looking beyond present-day challenges and that the organization’s continued success hinges on the quality and professionalism of its members and their employees.

"We’re more concerned with people than with profits,” said Beer. “Profits are important. We can’t do business if the profits aren’t there. But at the end of the day, we’re people-first. If they buy into your mission, your vision and your core values, you’ve hit a home run. That was our grandfather, Paul Zurcher’s, philosophy. That’s always been our family’s philosophy.

"We have a great opportunity to see from a 30,000-foot view what’s happening within Best-One and really hone in on strong leadership,” she continued. “We have our eye on a lot of really fine people in Best-One who we think are going to have a great future.” 

‘The Power of Perseverance’ 

Best-One's meeting in Indianapolis, themed “The Power of Perseverance,” included a large trade show and a full program of break-out sessions and panel discussions, in which Best-One members detailed business and personal obstacles they’ve overcome.

The event culminated in an award ceremony, in which several individuals and more than 25 Best-One locations received special honors.

Lucas McKee, director of accounting at Zurcher Tire, won the 2025 Paul Zurcher Legacy Award. McKee has been with Zurcher Tire and the Best-One group for 12 years, “a really short time for the impact you’ve had,” Zurcher told him.

The Paul Weaver Good Samaritan Award went to Matt Brown, who works at Best-One of Monroe. He accepted the honor alongside his wife, Erin.

At the end of the evening, MTD presented its 2025 Tire Dealer of the Year Award to Ken Langhals, the founder of Delphos, Ohio-based K&M Tire Inc. (MTD named Paul Zurcher its Tire Dealer of the Year in 2005.)

More than 450 people, including high-ranking representatives from various tire manufacturers and suppliers, attended the Best-One meeting, with 91 people attending for the first time.

"You have reached heights and have persevered through challenges that have been unbelievable,” Beer told attendees at the end of the event.