We recently connected with Mike Halland and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Mike thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.
Lifted Trucks was an independently owned truck dealership that started building custom trucks in the nineties. No big dealerships were doing this at the time and we had one of the first industry beta websites in order to promote our niche brand ideas. While many auto dealerships focused on pushing finance rates and high pressure sales lines, we stood out by promoting and advocating an outdoor LIFESTYLE and what people can do with our custom trucks to get away from the hustle and bustle of city and work life. Today, I like to say that we have been social distancing since 1995.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I grew up in Hawai’i. I always loved being outside and surrounded by nature. I also have a passion for music and have played guitar since I was a teen. As a marketing manager, these two things have come together in my work. About thirty years ago, my wife, Jae, and my father-in- law, Dan Miller started an investment company that over the years morphed into a retail auto dealership. By the late 90’s, their business started building custom off-road trucks. Arizona is diverse and rugged, so this niche really took off. As the business grew, my wife and father-in-law needed some help, so they brought me in to run the creative marketing side and brought in my brother in law, Dave Miller to manage the custom build side. This was the beginning of the .com era and one of the first things I was able to do was purchase the LiftedTrucks.com domain name. This decision was probably the most important thing I was able to do for our brand at the time. This website now averages over 140,000 users per month and continues to grow. I also noticed most auto commercials were some cheesy sales guys talking about no credit, bad credit and high pressure sales gimmicks to entice sales. It was a total turnoff and the opposite of what I wanted to do for our business, so I decided to focus more on a lifestyle approach. This was before social media, so we would run commercials on cable TV and buy radio spots. For one of our first tv commercials, I was able to borrow some footage from my videographer and skydiver friend, Greg Gasson, it was of his crew flying a truck out of a plane. We also had friends who rode motorcross, so we would hire the cable company’s camera crew to film the guys doing backflips over our trucks. Our tag line was was something like, “You’ll flip over our awesome trucks!” hahaha. Then social media started with My Space, which I became very familiar with by using to help promote my band. This transitioned to Facebook, Google, Instagram and YouTube. In 2007 social media advertising became a major focal point and a big priority for me. It’s a great place to get connected with people, and as a company we have always strived to build long lasting relationships with our customers. In 2014 our family business transitioned to a new family business with James Pillor and Dustin Desmarteau taking over the reins. They are family oriented guys similar to our family, and agreed with my out of the box and customer forward approach. They kept me on the creative team and have been incredibly supportive with some of my wild ideas and videos. They also brought in a their large scale vision that would change the company forever. Lifted Trucks now has 9 locations in Texas, Arizona and Alabama!
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
The mission statement is, build and sell the highest quality trucks, while always giving customers more than they expect and they will keep coming back. Quality, loyalty and customer satisfaction is number one and always will be. I think the thing that makes me the most proud is how this company gives back. We have donated over 100,000 dollars to The St Mary’s Food Bank, Cancer Foundations, The National Park Foundation, 1st Responders and youth athletics.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Social media used to be all static images. In 2012, video was pretty new to social media and I was trying to create video content on my own with a GoPro and an old camera. It was even difficult getting high resolution videos from an actual camera on your phone back then, and Instagram was phone only. My good friend Larry Elyea, who is a music producer and local legend, has recorded a lot of music for our band. When he told me he was getting into video I knew we had to work together. He is super creative and together we started making lifestyle oriented videos, cinematics of trucks outdoors and even some comedy videos that have won us multiple awards. This really helped our social media following and also created a social and human element to the brand. After 200 videos, Larry and I have been in some really remote places, stuck in a creek, trekking through snow and more. It has also really bonded us as friends. He is an amazing cinematographer and editor, and his trust in me not running him over while he’s laying under a truck filming really means a lot. As the years have passed, we have always focused on our mission of promoting a lifestyle brand which was new to the auto industry at the time. Now, we are seeing the biggest auto manufacturers making multimillion dollar lifestyle and lifted truck commercials being played during the Super Bowl. It’s very interesting, Bottom line is, the best advice I could give to people working to develop a social media presence is to be genuine and real.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.liftedtrucks.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liftedtrucksarizona/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liftedtrucksarizona
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/liftedtrucksaz
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/LiftedtrucksArizona
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@liftedtrucksarizona