Damien Meneguzzo, together with Martin Habershon, owns six Bridgestone Select stores across Brisbane. That’s not a bad effort for a 33-year-old who invested in his first store at just 21. Such growth comes through sales and operational success, and the continuous delivery to customers of the very highest standards of service – a combination that recently saw the pair’s Enoggera store recognised as the National Franchise of the Year by Bridgestone. Motor Trader caught up with Damien to talk about his career, running an award-winning business and working with one of the nation’s biggest tyre retailers.

What products and services do you provide?
DM: We obviously do tyre and wheel alignments but offer full general servicing as well, so at Bridgestone Select we do offer a sort of one stop shop. We don’t, however, get caught up in work such as major engine or diff rebuilds.

We also own Ashgrove Auto Care, which is an independent mechanical workshop. We have some really great mechanics there with years of experience between them and having that shop serves us well as we are able to use their skills across the group and, of course, pick up tyre sales too as it is not far from our Enoggera Bridgestone Select store.

How did you come to work with Bridgestone and how did you and Martin come to own six stores?
DM: Back in about 1997, Martin had the franchise at Enoggera. I started working there in about 2000, when I was still at school. I was working there at weekends and during school holidays and wound up doing my light vehicle apprenticeship there.

A few years later, in 2006, the store here at Sumner Park came up for sale. Bridgestone spoke directly to Martin about it and Martin then spoke to me, and we ended up negotiating to be partners in this store. That’s how our partnership began.

I ran this store, now our head office, from day one and we have grown steadily from there. We opened a Springfield store in 2008 and at that point we rolled the Enoggera store, which Martin still owned separately, into our partnership. We then opened the Springfield Orion store, took over the Albion store from another dealer, and finally opened at Yarrabilba.

You were just 21 when you and Martin went into partnership on your Sumner Park store. How was that experience for someone so young and what has made the business so successful?
MD: I was lucky, I suppose, in that I unconsciously had some good habits. In particular, I just wanted to meet customers’ expectations. I didn’t know too much about business, but I didn’t have to think twice about how to please customers – when a customer came in it was a case of ‘When do you need it by? No problem, no worries, all good.’

We would see a customer and before we knew it, their neighbour would come in, and then their daughter or son – word of mouth advertising was the best advertising we had. So, we would say yes to the work, get the job done, and make sure the price was right. I wasn’t worrying about whatever anybody else was doing, or what price they were selling tyres for.

I think that a lot of people who go into business probably overthink things. The fundamentals are that we are here to serve the customer. Don’t worry about anything else, it’s all about the customer.

We like to say that the customer is above the CEO – all they have to do is take their money elsewhere or we’re all fired!

In fact, we look for ‘customer’ people, and a lot of the staff we now take on now come from outside the industry. We can teach them about tyres but getting someone who actually knows how to speak to a customer is hard!

As we have grown, I have learned. When we were at four stores, I was doing the accounts payable/receivable, doing the hiring and firing, doing relief managing – and it was difficult to do all that and be at 100 per cent. So, the plan became to get bigger and employ talented, senior people. And we have been able to do that.

You’re a mechanic by trade. Do you get into the workshop much these days?
DM: No. It’s surprising how many different things turn up on your desk each day that need to be considered. It was quite strange as we began to grow and had more stores. I would think to myself, ‘What is it that business owners do? When you have multiple stores, what do you do?’, but there is something different every day. Decisions have to be made, and I manage our sales, the hiring of senior people with Mal, staff structures, strategy and so on.

I do miss being in the shop though. I love serving customers and being able to fix their problems, but it is what it is – you have to evolve with the business.

Why work with Bridgestone as a Bridgestone Select franchisee?
MD: In the future, I believe you must be tied to a manufacturer. We’ve seen Hankook acquire Jax and Continental acquire KMART Tyre & Auto, and I think if you must be aligned with a manufacturer, why wouldn’t you want to be aligned with the strongest manufacturer in the world?

Everyone knows Bridgestone, the tyres are fantastic, the range is fantastic, and there are very rarely problems with the product. And the company puts a lot of money into R&D and developing their product. For me, that instils confidence that we are aligned with the right brand. They are also investing in Australia and the team in Adelaide and making sure we have the right infrastructure when it comes to IT, online marketing, and support of the franchise.

While everyone can complain about something, if you benchmark Bridgestone against everyone else, I think they are the clear leaders.

What tyres are the most popular across the range that you sell?
DM: We have the full range of Bridgestone tyres – the performance Potenza, Dueler 4WD and SUV, Turanza Serenity Plus touring tyre, the Ecopia eco-friendly tyre, the generic Supercat range and the Dayton, which is our entry-level tyre. We also sell Firestone brand tyres. We do have a very broad range – everything from the very high-end performance tyre to budget tyres, and they are all products made by Bridgestone.

The 4WD/SUV market is massive, so the Dueler range is very popular, and you have to make sure that is on the shelf. Our Serenity Plus range, which is exclusive to Bridgestone Select, is a fantastic tyre and popular too – it comes with a 50,000km guarantee, is extremely quiet and wears very well. For those who drive a European prestige vehicle, the Potenza is very popular and complements the vehicle.

It is really important that we ask the right questions of our customers when they ask about tyres. It is no different to when you go to the doctor – the doctor asks questions about symptoms and recommends medication based on those answers. So, we will ask the questions about what type of driving they do doing, their budget, if they are looking to sell the car, what tyres they currently have and if they are happy with them. And we ask those so that we can make sure we put the right products in front of them. The calls may take a bit longer, but people do respond well to being asked.

Some customers, a very small percentage, are interested only in the price, of course, and at the end of the day it is their choice – we are not going to force them to buy anything.

How many staff do you have?
DM: We have 35 staff across the group and the mix in every store is slightly different.

Generally, we’ll have a manager and a 2IC, a couple of tyre fitters/aligners, one mechanic and an apprentice. In our bigger store at Orion we have three office staff, three full-time mechanics and three tyre fitters/aligners, bit it is a much bigger store.

Our apprentices train with the MTA Institute and we have an apprentice in every store. Part of why we do that is because good mechanics are very hard to find, and we need to keep bringing apprentices along and developing them as the next generation of mechanics. Also, being smart in business means managing wages and while, for the first 12 months, you may not get a lot back from an apprentice, during the second, third and fourth year you start to see real value.

What plans do you have for the future of the business?
DM: In a nutshell, we would be looking at more growth. A couple more stores would be nice to fill in a few gaps between our current stores and to leverage off some growing areas. The last two years have been about setting up systems, procedures, structures, and getting the right managers in stores and so on. Now that we have some really key people in the right positions, it looks like the time is right to take the next step.

What do you do in your spare time, if you have any?
DM: I spend time with my family – my wife Emily and my children, who are aged three and five. You don’t get this time back, so I make the time to spend it with them.

Source: Motor Trader E-Magazine (October 2018 edition)

8 Oct 2018