About We ♥ Our Dealers
At Race Sport® Lighting we love our dealer partners. “We ♥ Our Dealers” is a video series capturing success stories from our top dealers around the country. This affords us the privileged of learning from and sharing in their successes in the lighting category. These are dealer lighting stories, in their words.
Be sure to check out the “What we learned from Freeman’s Car Stereo section at the end of the article.
Welcoming Travis of Freeman’s Car Stereo
Race Sport: Hey everybody, this is Henry with Race Sport® lighting and we heart our dealers. And this is a forum for us as a manufacturer to showcase some of our top dealers, but also to pick their brains and learn from them. And as we learn, we hope that other dealers from around the country will be able to get some great advice on how to have more success with the lighting category at their location, based on what some dealers are seeing across the country.
Race Sport: In this video, I am chatting with Travis Grimm. He’s the Area Sales Director for Freeman’s Car Stereo in the Carolinas, they have six locations, they’ve been doing mobile electronics for over 35 years. And they are for sure our go-to dealer in the Carolinas. So, I’m just going to go ahead and welcome Travis on to the show. And then we’ll chat about some lighting. So, Travis, how you doing today bud?
Freemans: Great, my friend. And thank you for having us.
Before you hooked up with Race Sport®, what were you guys doing for lighting?
Race Sport: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for showing up. I mean, you are timely. Punctuality is excellent. I appreciate that. Anyway, so I just want to pick your brain about lighting, man. So, before you hooked up with Race Sport®, what were you guys doing for lighting? And exactly, you know, how was it going?
Freemans: Prior to joining the Race Sport® family, I would like to equate our process to the Wednesday night drawing and a lottery machine. The balls were just bouncing, and we were grabbing whatever was available. That would be the best analogy because there was no solidified actual true setup of stability and quality. So, I ironically, was the first one to find you guys many, many years ago and brought it on board. Now very gently, you know, kind of when the HID conception was really launching and so forth. And it just kind of snowballed from there.
Race Sport: How long have you guys been doing business with us? It’s probably been I want to say at least a good five something years. Right? It’s been a while.
Freemans: I think it’s more pushing towards about eight years, if memory serves me correct.
Right now, what Race Sport® product is working for you?
Race Sport Well, thanks for that! We really do appreciate that. You’ve been here pretty much since the inception then so that’s excellent. Right now, what Race Sport® product, is working for you? What are you guys doing a ton of? You mentioned HIDs, is that still a big thing? Do you guys do more light bars now?
Freemans: It’s really been a run of the gamut. The GEN3® LED kids that you guys conceptually sent out has been huge for us. Because of the CANBUS friendly setup, it pretty much works with any vehicle so to speak. The LED trend has been a little more moving the needle than the HID I think, you know, just progression, so to speak. But for us really, the categories of the multicolored are [ColorADAPT] RSUKIT, the multicolored RSIKIT, the RSBHT01 Bluetooth RGB controllers through the Happy Lighting app, the light bars, just really the whole run of the gamut has skyrocketed.
Race Sport: I like words like skyrocketed! That’s excellent.
Freemans: It has. I mean, it’s just points in case. I mean, we were very fortunate to partner up and get these awesome displays, which really helps all my staff at all the locations, kind of a self-serve principle. So, we attacked at each location, various lighting options, based on that customer base and demographic. So. it allowed us to really focus on the more power sports and ATV, locations. My Location, we do a lot of marine boats, ATV, UTV, TVs, and cars. So, my display is a little different than, say, my Concord display, we were just able to actually go in and pinpoint that area and maximize what that area would utilize.
When a another dealer asks about Race Sport® how do you respond? (Be candid, you won’t hurt my feelings.)
Race Sport: You guys have been around, you know, I mentioned 35 years, right? Of experience. You guys are a part of some of the dealer groups that we’re a part of. When you talk to another shop, another dealer, another jobber or a mobile electronics guy, and you guys are talking about Race Sport®, (and be candid, you’re not gonna hurt my feelings?) what do you normally say about us to them?
Freemans: Well, my normal response is, just like with any electronics, I mean, I would have to say if you really were to peel back the onion, and all the layers, it’s solid across the board. I mean, there’s going to be pros and cons to anything you do and what you make and what you sell. But the idea is to not just get hung up on the negative but actually look at the overall picture. And what does it produce? What does it benefit? Well, it benefits everything, you know, wide selection. The product line is very vast. And there’s always new emails coming out from headquarters which is cool. Like saying, you know, forge ahead. I’ve had the pleasure of sitting down with Steve Jergensen personally and you know, he’s got a good head on everything. And it’s cool to see you know, from the top, so to speak.
Tell us everything we need to know about Freeman’s Car Stereo
Race Sport: Yeah, Steve’s great. I’m not just sucking up because he you know, writes my check what. What do you guys got going on at Freeman’s man? I mean, we see your display, we are in the middle of your showroom. What do you guys got going on? Tell us everything we need to know about Freeman’s Car Stereo?
Freemans: Well, to start with, you know, we’re run by two fantastic owners, Mr. and Mrs. Freeman, they really have a fantastic pulse on what we’re doing. They let us do what we do best. They take our advice, they take that advice, and then they let us do what we want to do in a sense that benefits everything. From a company perspective, right now, boats are obviously extremely hot. We’re the largest marine audio dealer in this area. And we’re just taking full advantage, you know, we run three mobile vans for that division, we have an ATV/UTV division. At my location, we do custom home audio. So, I have another division there coupled with just your standard 12-volt variety. But as a whole right now, we’re hitting on all 12 cylinders, and all aspects of our industry at all our locations, which is fantastic to see.
Race Sport: Absolutely, it is! Do you guys have any events or sales that coming up? Right now, we’re in the middle of our Dads and Grads sale, which is extending out, you know, from Father’s Day slash graduation. And then we’re going to transition here soon into our Summer Sale event. Through the marketing of Erin, we will have a great post on that. And we invite everybody to go to our web page and keep up with all of our sales which are astronomically money saving. So yeah, just a lot of things clicking, on all cylinders.
Thanks Freeman’s Car Stereo!
Race Sport: Excellent. Well, if you guys need any help from us to help you guys have a successful sale just let us know we’ll be willing to work with you however we can. So, just let me know man, I appreciate your time. I really do. It means a lot thank you guys for you know, somewhat of eight years of consistent partnership. That’s why we want to showcase dealers like you guys because you guys are having success with the line. And we want to show everybody it’s not just Freeman’s Car Stereo. It’s all dealers can do it in other parts of the country because it’s happening everywhere. Again, Travis, Thank you man. I really appreciate you being on the show. It does mean a lot to us.
Freemans: My pleasure. And thank you for having us!
