Les Schwab Pride in Performance: Keep It Going

by Les Schwab

This is the story of Les Schwab and his company. He tells how he started in the tire business and shares with the reader his ideas on building a successful business through building successful employees. Les is a businessman not a writer, but like in business, he gets his points across. He is the undisputed king of the tire business in the Pacific Northwest. His is the largest independent tire business in the world and he makes it look easy. If you are in business or want to be in business you must read this book.

Genres: Business, Biography, Entrepreneurship, History, Autobiography, Memoir, Management

239 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1986

About the author

Leslie Bishop Schwab was born in Bend, Oregon, on October 3, 1917. His family moved to Minnesota two years later with the young Les in tow. Then in 1929 the family moved back to Central Oregon where Schwab was schooled in a railroad boxcar. This boxcar schoolhouse was at a logging camp in Central Oregon. At age 15 Schwab became an orphan and began delivering the Oregon Journal newspaper. At the paper he would eventually cover all the routes in Bend, nine in all. He then completed his high school education, graduating from Bend High School. After high school he married his high school sweetheart Dorothy Harlan before becoming circulation manager for the Bend newspaper, The Bulletin. Schwab then served in the Army Air Corps during World War II.

Les Schwab’s venture into the tire business began with him buying OK Rubber Welders in 1952. Previously, Les had never even fixed a flat tire before. He borrowed $11,000 from a relative, sold his house, and borrowed from his life insurance policy, and purchased the small shack that did not even have running water or a bathroom. From this grew a billion dollar tire “empire” based in Prineville, Oregon, that had 410 stores and $1.6 billion in annual sales by 2007. The company he built was based on the loyalty of the employees that was earned by giving them generous shares of the profit (half of a store’s profit went to employees of that store), lucrative benefits, and only promoting from within the company.

In the communities served by these stores, the company became known for their advertising featuring employees running out to meet customers, an annual free beef promotion, and the company slogan: "If we can't guarantee it, we won't sell it.". Despite the success of the company, Les Schwab refused to take the company public.

Les and his wife Dorothy had two children, Harlan and Margie. Harlan died in an automobile accident in 1971 while Margie Schwab Denton died in 2005 from cancer. In 1986 wrote an autobiography, Les Schwab, Pride in Performance, Keep it Going . In the late 1980s he gave up day-to-day control of the company. In the early 1990s he and his wife donated funds to the local hospital to fund an expansion in honor of his son. Then on Friday May 18, 2007 at the age of 89 Les Schwab died in Prineville after his health had begun to fail in late 2005.

Reviews

[Jeff Gramm · Rating 5 out of 5]

My friend Eddie sent me a stack of retailers books earlier this year. The best in the bunch was Les Schwab's autobiography, which he sells in every one of his Les Schwab Tires stores in the Pacific Northwest. This book is poorly written with many many typos, but you really get a feel for how psychotic and energetic you have to be to make it as a retailer. Perhaps the most chilling passage in the book comes when Schwab's only son kills himself after leaving his job at the tire retreading plant. Schwab Sr. says something like "He could have been a good tire man" and leaves it at that. Amazing book.

[Cristobal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Les Schwab deserves a place.in.the pantheon of iconic American businessmen right along Sam Walton, Sol Price, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs and others. I highly recommend anyone starting a business to check out thia book.

[Larry Killion · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Les was a self made man. Good story about the rise to success of a paper boy from the depression days who turned out to be a multi-millionare in the Tire Business. He valued honesty, loyalty and plain old common sense and hard work. His favorite saying was, "Life is hard." He kept it simple and it workded for him and his company. I've been a Les Schwab customer for many years. I had heard that Les was a member of the Prineville Missionary Baptist Church. I am a Missionary Baptist. I was a little disappointed in the lack of spirituality in the book but the theme was Pride in Performance, one of the mottos of Les Schwab stores and Les showed very systematically what worked and what did not work for him in his rise to the TOP in the Tire Business here in the Great Northwest. A Good read. ”
Larry K wrote this review Thursday, May 28, 2009.

[Ngee Poo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book - goes into the specific details of how Les Schwab created systems that grew a practically commoditised business into an enterprise topping a billion of sales. He dived into why and how he created his Trust Fund, shared profits with his employees, made it mandatory to plow earnings back into the business, and more importantly 0n how he built his enterprise on trust and integrity as well as service over price, which allowed him to differentiate himself in a commoditised industry.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is written by a true good old boy who made it. A refreshingly simple and successful outlook on business without the bull shit.

[Vũ Phạm · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect book about business. What a wonderful management experience! I spent too many beautiful words to describe this book. However, I still feel not enough. Les talked about the incentive system in his business. The biggest tires company in America in that era. Les used the honest sharing his experience from the failure and success. An important thing, he was an innovator in "profit sharing contract", when he was wrong, Les did not reject it. He fixed them and broadened his vision so far. I was impressed by his right motivation which is " build a successful life for young people, give them opportunities and spend them enough time to fix their faults". Many families, generation to generation worked with Les. That's the biggest success, not money. I need to read this book again and again every year.

[Radu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a reader from China, and there is no Chinese translated version of this book available domestically. Additionally, my English is not very good. But due to the recommendation of my idol Charlie Munger, I insisted on reading while looking up the dictionary, and to be honest, I was shocked.
I have worked at Huawei before, and the business logic of the Huawei boss coincides with Mr. Schwab's. Striving for sharing should be the core idea of enterprise management. I pay tribute to the author

[Aaron Dutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Les Schwab's autobiography was a great read. While it could've used some professional editing and had a number of random stories included, it paints a good picture of Schwab's philosophy and how he built up his company over the years.

I think this would be an excellent read for anyone who is in leadership in a company.

[Rohit N · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a conventional book. This is a brain dump from a true entrepreneur. Grab the gems of wisdom Les Schwab drops in every other chapter. There's no structure to this book, narrative or even a time based story telling. However, it's got some timeless wisdom that anyone can learn from. Les is a great business man who built such a great company.

[Michael]

* Key strategy: generous profit sharing, giving employees half of a store's profit.
* Emphasizes strong employee benefits and internal promotion.
* Highlights the power of incentives in employee motivation.
* Built a company culture based on trust, honesty, and customer service.
* Prioritized people over solely focusing on price competition.

[James C Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick read outlining an interesting and innovative ownership and compensation structure. Great overview of small family business that grew very large.

However, quite difficult to read. Could have been significantly enhanced with an editor, but I guess that’s part of the idea.

[Joseph Back · Rating 3 out of 5]

Will be honest. Was really looking forward to reading this book and probably had too high of expectations. While I did get some good lessons from it, I think it was a bit dry at times, hard to follow and a little confusing.

[benjamin uhlenkott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who doesn’t like a rags to riches story - an autobiography on the tireman himself. Biggest takeaway was the importance of creating and maintaining good relationships.

[Claude Bordeleau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Candid and interesting book by a successful entrepreneur. Good thoughts on values, compensation and branding, but sometimes too specific on irrelevant details and somewhat not really structured.

[Brian]

Munger's rec.

[Peter Lysiak · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best

[Remy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this out loud as a request by the hubs and son. There are some interesting parts to the story (mainly some of Les's personal history) as well as long, dull stretches that go on and on about selling tires and building the Les Schwab business (as you'd expect). Turns out Les Schwab is a really amazing and unusual company in how well the employees are treated and for all the programs the company offers its workers. Knowing what I now know, I know where I always want to go to get my tires done, lol. Overall, for ME, this was a terribly dry book that was hard to wade through and I would have skipped it had it not been for our family read-aloud time (the boys are thoroughly enjoying it though).

[Benny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a great American capitalist

[Frode · Rating 3 out of 5]

Les Schwab was an interesting fellow. He had lots of determination and owned up to his mistakes. His profit sharing plan is a good model for businesses.

[Harsh Thaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schwabism ! Keep it going

[Npj67 · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to know how to sell tires in the west, this is the book for you.

[Gabriel Pinkus]

This guy understood how to create human systems that worked.

[Patrick Hubschman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read first hand account of one of the Pacific Northwest's business pioneers.