We were lucky to catch up with Taylor Smith recently and have shared our conversation below.
Taylor, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
Variant Alloy Wheels was created out of the need to fulfill gaps in the aftermarket wheel world. With over 15 years of industry experience, we found many flaws in the marketplace and took it upon ourselves to change the way wheel manufacturing operates. We make full use of our engineering teams’ talents and maintain full control over the quality of our wheels at every stage of the manufacturing process, thus contributing a superior product than those around us. Furthermore, we introduced an industry-first, 3-year Road Hazard program which allows our loyal customer base to receive replacement products for damages like curb rash, bends, or cracks. We understood that accidents can and do happen. Offering this service as a standard on all our products for no additional cost has only further solidified our position on standing behind our product fully.
Taylor, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I have been in the automotive industry since I was 16. Started at Discount Tire and worked my way through various dealership chains like Ford, Toyota, and Lexus. After graduating college I decided to uproot my life and take a chance on moving out to Arizona, leaving my family and Chicago behind. I managed to line up a job out here working for Vivid Racing. I was able to apply my automotive experience and marketing skills to become the marketing director for popular in-house brands Agency Power, Status racing seats, and Arai helmets. I worked there for about 2 years and when I realized my pay raise had gone to the purchase of a new McLaren I knew I had to figure out how to become my own boss.
This started my journey in entrepreneurship. I created an automotive-focused digital marketing agency called Fokal Pointe that focused on automotive companies here in the valley. We serviced detail companies, dealerships, brands, manufacturing companies, and many more. If it had to do with cars or trucks we were making it cool online and on social media. This is ultimately how I came to meet Robert Chang, who would become my partner in founding Variant Design Group, d.b.a Variant Alloy Wheels.
Robert is the owner of Element Wheels an online wheel and tire resell giant. I worked with him for about 4 months before he convinced me to give up my Scottsdale office and work out of his business so he could have more access to me, as he saw the benefits my services could provide his company. He made very nice accommodations for me and my office was right next to his.
At around the 6 or 7-month mark, while working in my office I heard a loud crash, so I peaked my head out of my office and saw he had flipped his desk and asked if everything was alright. He replied “these f*ckin6 vendors don’t know what they are doing and I’m tired of it costing me money” (*note the vendor in question is no longer offered from Elementwheels.com) So I replied, “why dont you just make your own wheels? You have the knowledge and fitment experience?” To which Rob stated, “I need someone to do it with me, starting a company from scratch is a lot of work as you know.”
This got the gears in my head going and a few short weeks later, I terminated all the ongoing retainers I had with my clients in the valley and dove headfirst into creating the Variant brand. Our agreement was very clear from the beginning, I would be doing the majority of the work and he would handle the backend and financials. This meant a lot of sweat equity on my part. We bought a CNC mill that neither of us knew how to run. We met with a factory to help us produce our blanks and we were off and running.
In the beginning, I did it all. Designed the logo, and the boxes, picked the color pallet, and built the website from scratch. I took all the images, shot all the videos, and edited everything. Setup new dealer accounts. Took phone calls, processed orders, built wheels, packaged orders, shipped, ect. I worked nearly 20-hour days 7 days a week for 10 months until one day I had reached my mental and physical limit. I broke down sobbed in my office. I felt I had finally been defeated. In hindsight, I needed that. Rob was always there to help me up when I would stumble but I truly believe in some regard he allowed that to happen to see what I was really made of. I will be forever grateful for that because I learned a lot about myself in those 10 months.
Eventually, I was able to start hiring help and removing some of the hats I had to wear every day. Fast forward 4 years and every single one of my employees is either someone who vertically integrated from the Element brand or was a past customer that had subscribed to the same core values that I helped found this company on. Its been absolutely amazing watching the growth of this company but even more so the growth of each individual who comes in each day to contribute to our success. I understood very early on that we weren’t just selling wheels, we were selling our brand. At the end of the day; there are plenty of wheels that are similar in color, style, and sizing. We were selling our commitment to customer satisfaction and furthermore, we were selling ourselves. This has allowed us to create a very strong fan base many of which have become friends over the years. What makes me most proud is the pride my entire team has when it comes to the Variant brand.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
Managing a team of people, for me, has been the hardest part of running a business. Especially a small team of individuals whom all have very different personalities. Everyone learns differently, is motivated differently and each has their own way of producing results. When I started the company I knew what needed to be done each day and how to accomplish it. It is stressful and in reality doing everything yourself is not sustainable. Ask anyone in a leadership role and they will all tell you the thought “it’s just faster if I do myself” has either crossed their mind or those words have left their mouth.
The problem is that mentality will only get you so far, you MUST learn how to delegate tasks and explain what needs to be done effectively. I recently read the book “Man Up” by Bedros Keuilian and he talks about the 95/5 rule. This is essentially where you need to understand how to delegate 95% of your tasks that are time killers or items that anyone can do and focus on the 5% that ONLY YOU can do. This 5% is generally the items that continue to move the needle forward and help the company progress. The other side of this coin however is not to just pass off everything because you are too “good” to do it, ask any of my guys and they will tell you I have been in the trenches with them on more than one occasion so finding that balance is very important. The words “that’s not my job” should never leave anyone’s mouth and it starts from the top down.
Empowering those around you to do their job and progress within the company in more ways than just monetary gains has been great for keeping morale high. From experience, I have noticed that they take more pride in their work and are willing to tackle new challenges. Combine this with a healthy work-life balance and its a recipe for happy employees. This might sound crazy but I recently tried to send everyone home a few hours early the other day because we all worked on Saturday for our Grand Re-Opening and no one wanted to leave. Each person here understands their role and the importance of it, together as a team we grow this company and it takes the entire team to do so. I am proud to employ each of these young men and incredibly grateful that they allow me to lead them.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Understand who your audience is. Once you know this marketing to them is way easier. Luckily my audience is guys (and some gals) like me so I just get to make stuff I would like, find funny, interesting, trendy, ect. Most importantly be authentic, people can see through the bs. When it comes to a brand, pretend you are at Thanksgiving dinner, keep your personal beliefs out of certain topics, and don’t bring up politics. That being said; being edgy is and can be cool if executed properly, for instance, we recently shot a video where I got arrested. I will neither confirm nor deny if it was real or fake, I always leave it up to the viewer’s imagination. We also just dropped our own line of condoms that read “Condoms prevent minivans. Drive hard, ride harder.” This was our solution to the national backorder of tires so we are offering “Free rubbers with every wheel purchase.”
Social media is an amazing platform and needs to be utilized. If you are not on it, you will eventually find resistance. Have fun with it, give your company some type of personality, and stay engaged with your audience. If you post regularly and the content is of quality you will see consistent gains. We live in a digital world so content is key, if you don’t know how to make the content invest the time to learn or you should hire some talent. There is no secret formula but I have found it very valuable to draw influence from other industries or brands completely unrelated to the wheel world. I constantly find myself looking at action sports, designer brands, fashion, hip-hop, street art, ect.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.variantwheels.com
- Instagram: @variantwheels /// @tvylorsmith
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/variantwheels
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-smith-432a58207/
- Twitter: @variantwheels
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC38mCva1Q58M1rFLRS_-7Ag?view_as=subscriber
- Other: www.sixty61series.com
Image Credits
Nissan GTR Photo provided by Black Tire Media