Jim Haslam poses with Townes Osborn following his speech Wednesday.
When Jim Haslam was just getting started in the gas station business more than 50 years ago, his average station sold about $12,000 worth of gasoline, cigarettes, motor oil, soft drinks and food per month. Today, the average Pilot Flying J Travel Center grosses more than $3.7 million per month and sells, as Haslam puts it, “almost everything.” Oh, and there are more than 550 of them.
So how did all this happen? That’s what Haslam addressed this week when he spoke to the Knoxville chapter of the American Marketing Association at a lunch meeting at the Orangery.
“Luck has a lot to do with it,” Haslam told the some 70 folks there on Wednesday. “You’ve got to be in the right place at the right time. Anyone who tells you luck doesn’t play a part is crazy.”
Still, he offered advice and opinions on a wide range of subjects. Here are the highlights:
About five years after starting Pilot, Haslam was flying back to Knoxville from visiting his mother in St. Petersburg, Florida. A man beside him on the plane mentioned Haslam’s University of Tennessee football career and commented, “You must have taken what you learned playing football for General Neyland and applied it to your business. ” That made Haslam think seriously about doing just that. So here, he says, is what makes for success in both football and business:
- Recruit the right players
- Put them in the right positions;
- Train them to do their jobs;
- Come up with a game plan;
- Play and win the game.
“The secret to Pilot’s success is its people and the overriding game plan,” Haslam said.
American Marketing Association had great attendance Wednesday to hear Haslam speak.
Another secret: be a copycat.
In 1976 when Pilot built its first convenience store on Alcoa Highway in Knoxville, Haslam asked his son, Jimmy, to be in charge of the company’s new convenience store operations. “I don’t know anything about running convenience stores,” Jimmy said. “How do I do it?” Mr. Haslam’s advice: “Find five people who are doing great in the convenience store business and copy them!” That’s what they did.
One of the people they copied was former football player Kenny Pritchard who in 1980 was operating a travel center in Slidell, Louisiana. Pilot didn’t have pumps for trucks at the time, but, after visiting Pritchard’s operations, that’s the direction Pilot decided to move. On Nov. 20, 1980, Pilot opened its first travel center in Corbin, Kentucky.
Some time later, Haslam’s other son, Bill Haslam (now Tennessee’s governor), visited a travel center in Hebron, Ohio. He came back to Knoxville and reported that the travel center contained a Dairy Queen restaurant. “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” Jim Haslam said. After some study, however, Pilot began adding fast food restaurants and today is one of the largest franchise operators of restaurants in the country.
Dorothy Smith and Scott Spaid were there.
Jim Haslam told the marketing professionals that every marketer needs three things: a game plan, good people, and a system where you can measure those people. At Pilot Flying J, cashiers are taught to “up-sell” their customers. One method they use to do this: they offer two-for-one deals on selected merchandise. Last Easter Sunday, Jim and his wife, Natalie, drove from Knoxville to Nashville to visit relatives. They stopped at six Pilot stores on the way. “When we got to Nashville, I had 12 Snickers bars!” Haslam laughed.
But this makes his point. Companies should put their best marketing people in positions that have direct contact with customers. “Instill upon the people who are interacting with customers your marketing philosophy,” he advised. “Our cashiers have to be the marketers.” He said Pilot can measure who the best cashiers are by the number of “two-for-one” items that are sold during their shifts. “Cashiers want to work certain hours,” he said. “We measure how well you are doing by how many ‘two-fors’ you sell. Then we reward the ones who are doing best by giving them the best hours.”
During the question and answer segment, Haslam was asked about politics. “Politics is all about marketing,” he said, adding that his son, Bill, was the “product” in the latest gubernatorial race. “The campaign marketed Bill as who he really is: a hard-working, intelligent, well-intentioned individual,” Haslam said. Jim Haslam also is a noted player in national politics. He said there really are only three things that are important in politics: the economy, education and health care.
In other remarks, Haslam said:
- The profit margin on gasoline sales is smaller today than it was 52 years ago: it is just 3 percent today.
- For the past five or six years, Pilot has been making a real push to improve and market its coffee products. “One of the problems we had is that none of the Haslam men drink coffee,” he laughed. “Our wives kept telling us, ‘Pilot’s coffee is terrible!'” The effort to improve the coffee has paid off and coffee sales have dramatically increased.
- Our country needs a good energy policy. “We are going to be dependent on foreign oil until we decide to change,” he said, predicting that petroleum will be the main source of fuel for most of our lifetimes.
- In response to a question about the burden of government regulations on his industry, Haslam said: “This is the ball game we are playing. These are the ground rules. If we want to play in this game, we have to follow these rules.”
- The biggest reason businesses fail is that they are undercapitalized. The second biggest reason: they get arrogant. “If you don’t ask your customers what they want, you can’t give it to them,” he said. Pilot Flying J currently is focusing on making and keeping truck drivers happy.
- “A leader is a change agent,” he said. “You have got to constantly change. We want to be the best. Never forget that your most important customer is your next customer.”
Excellent advice for an audience hungry to hear it.
Knoxville American Marketing Association president Deanene Catani, left, poses with Aleex Hopkins Conner, center, and Lynsay Caylor.
From left, Kim Paul Bumpas, of the Knoxville Tourism and Sports Corporation; Gavin Baker of Moxley Carmichael; and Leanna Belew of the Knoxville Convention Center
Annie LaLonde, left, and Helen Harb
