The Dream!

As a young boy my first ride on a Honda Z 50 mini bike was a memorable one. Buzzing through the trails, all sorts of things go through your head, one of the many that went through mine was that how cool it would be to work in a motorcycle shop, learn everything and then buy it for myself and get rich in 2 or 3 years.( I was only seven) Then I was going to spend all my time when I was older riding all the new motorcycles and testing everything out. What else do you expect from a seven year old?

The Reality!

October 15, 1993 the dream became a reality. I signed an agreement to buy out the Bonnyville Yamaha division of a local engine rebuild shop called Carway Engine. The owner was ready to slow down a bit and I was anxious to start a new career. With financial planning, determination and a lot of phone calls I was the proud new owner of  T & T Power Sports Ltd.The business was started with a partner, the head mechanic from Bonnyville Yamaha. His obvious strength was his mechanical knowledge, where I shined in the business end, with accounting, marketing, and customer relation skills.

The first year was a whirl wind of activity. I had a lot to learn about the mechanical and service side of the business. We accomplished a lot of this by trial and error. Then we started racing snowmobiles on the snow and then later on the grass. I quickly learned that it takes more than the newest snowmobile to win a race. Humility 101. This is where I wish I would have paid more attention in school when they were teaching theory.

The next year my partner decided to leave the business. Sink or swim! I was sure at the time that there was no way one person could run/manage a business of this size alone. Simply put there was just too much to be done every day. Then just when I thought I had a handle on the problem our remaining mechanic quit.

But guess what, it wasn’t all bad. Another mechanic was found, life and business goes on. T & T forged on adding new product lines. Originally we started out with the full line of Yamaha ATV, snowmobile, watercraft, generators, outboards and motorcycles. Our sub line was Stihl, Suzuki ATV’s were added. The years went by and T & T became a respected name. As our reputation grew so did our customer list, and our experiences. In the fall of 1999 Arctic Cat was added bringing in another group of customers to join our growing numbers.

 They say the key to every business is customer service, which I believe is right. A customer can just as easily walk out your door as they can walk in. I believe in treating the customer like I would want to be treated, up front and honest. We do our best to ensure the customer is always on top of any service repairs that are being done, so there are no surprises. I always joke with the customers “Yes I like your money and want to take it from you, but I don’t think I need to take it all at one time.” Most of the time it gets a laugh.

At T & T our customers are number one. We back this with our tear down policy which many of our customers have benefited from. The tear down policy is a service we provide, if a customer has a breakdown and we can’t get the parts in time for them to go to work or on a trip. Whether the part is backordered or has an unacceptable delivery date, we will remove the required parts from a new unit to keep them going. There are of course some situations where we have to find alternatives, such as supplying demo units or a loaner to ensure our customer is not left without a unit or missing a trip

With continually positive growth since 1993 we have expanded from 3 employees to 13, plus work experience students which there never seems to be a shortage of. We are very excited about T & T’s future in the leisure business.