Best-One marks 75 years in business

FRENCH LICK, Ind. — For much of its 75 years in business, Best-One Tire Group/Zurcher Tire has been a bit of an anomaly among its peers — the Zurcher family, starting with founder Paul Zurcher, has held an ownership stake in every dealership allied under the Best-One banner.

That practice has served the family-owned and -run company well over the years, as it methodically built up a network of businesses in the retail, commercial and wholesale sectors of the U.S. replacement tire industry, to the point where the Best-One brand is active in two dozen Midwestern states serving customers in those states and dozens more bordering them.

That slow, methodical approach took a decidedly upward turn earlier this year when Monroe, Ind.-based Best-One struck deals to bring aboard a pair of heavyweights on their own accord: McGriff Industries in Alabama and Callaghan Tire in Florida.

Those two deals added 28 points-of-sale and four retread plants to Best-One's already extensive portfolio of assets and brought the brand its first true exposure in the U.S. Southeast.

All told, the Best-One brand is now active in 37 states, with 321 physical locations in 28 states. Collectively the dealerships under the Best-One banner generate over $3 billion in annual revenue and employ over 5,600 salaried and hourly workers.

Those numbers solidify Best-One among the top echelon of independent dealerships in the U.S., whether it's retail, commercial, retreading or wholesale.

So do the deals with Callaghan and McGriff signal a change in Best-One's corporate business strategy?

"Not necessarily," Jon Zurcher, chief operating officer and grandson of founder Paul Zurcher, said, stressing that the deals that brought Callaghan and McGriff into the Best-One family were opportunities that couldn't be overlooked.

"We want to continue to grow where it makes sense," Zurcher said in an interview with Tire Business prior to the company's 75th anniversary celebrations. "In a lot of ways, we've flown under the radar up to this point.

"Bottom line: Best-One's goal is to be the leading and most trusted provider of tires and services in all of our geographic markets," Zurcher added. "There was no question (Callaghan and McGriff) were respected in their respective markets."

In both cases, Jon and sister Lindsey Beer — chief strategy officer — stressed that similar family cultures played a major role in closing the deals.

"Opportunity and a good fit," Beer said of the two deals this summer. "Culture, family and values — if we can check these boxes, then we're on track for a good partnership."

Family and family values come up in conversation continuously when the Zurcher clan discusses Best-One the business.

When asked what differentiates Best-One Tire, Beer said: "Best-One is different because we give partners the best of both worlds. They still have autonomy. … They keep their own leadership team, ... same feel, same culture.

"At the same time, they've inherited a bigger family, one that brings support, experience, advice, resources, more people. … Kind of like getting another cool aunt or uncle. They're part of something bigger, with more opportunities, but they still get to run their business their own way."

In fact, Jon Zurcher — or JZ as he's known in Best-One circles — likes to refer to Best-One as a "family of family businesses."

The company does not disclose how many individual partner companies there are in Best-One, but the best guess is several dozen. In 2000, when the Best-One brand debuted as the Zurcher Tire public identity, there were 80 partners active in seven states.

Family values were front and center during the company's 75th anniversary celebration, held in mid-September at the French Lick Resort in French Lick in southern Indiana.

The Best-One management team singled out three of its member companies — Best-One of Indy, Monteith's Best-One and McMahon's Best-One — for earning "Best Places to Work" status this past year, in an annual survey process sponsored by Tire Business, as well as McMahon's Best-One President Kim McMahon for being named the Tire Business Tire Dealer Humanitarian last year.

"The Best Places (survey) is a perfect example of how we work," Beer said. "Monteith, McMahon's and Indy each operate a bit differently, no cookie-cutter model of how to do things, but the commonality is the culture, the vision, the team-building, the team atmosphere."

In separate conversations, top management at each dealership told Tire Business that working through the Best Places survey process provides them invaluable insight into how their employees view them and how they, as owners, can keep improving the workplace atmosphere year by year by year.

As for Best-One's approach to growth, Beer listed a number of advantages Best-One offers to prospective new partners: "No. 1, extended family. No. 2, additional support, such as HR, marketing, legal, IT, … most of the 'back office' business; No 3, learning development, including personal development, leadership development, etc.; No. 4, succession planning."

In the training/development department, Best-One last year launched BOLD — Best-One Learning & Development, a structured program to foster continuous knowledge enhancement for members, and this year added Think Tank, an ad-hoc type initiative that focuses on a key business issue for a series of meetings with participation from any dealer member wishing to take part.

When it's all said and done, though, businesses have to do business to survive, thrive and grow.

In Best-One parlance, that means: "Create raving fans."

That mantra, coined by Paul Zurcher decades ago, percolates throughout nearly every aspect of the enterprise's business, driving the dealership group forward in its retail, commercial and wholesale endeavors.