A little boy’s dream comes true . . . I grew up in Jerome, Idaho on the Glodowski’s three generation farm. My parents, Jim & Bev Glodowski, instilled a hard-working ethic in me. I started riding snowmobiles and motorcycles at the early age of four. I started racing Motocross a few years later. My Dad Jim got me, and my little brother started in the business industry early raising pigs for sale. Our Dad taught us responsibility, management of feed, making contracts, caring for, buying, selling, and money management as we raised our pigs. My brother Ryan and I became quite the young entrepreneurs.
After serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Sacramento, California. I moved to Boise. I started working at Western Power Sports as an aftermarket distributor for the power sports industry. I started out in the warehouse and rapidly moved inside to sales and then I became the sales representative for Alaska, North and South Dakota. My job consisted of tons of traveling, driving and long hours. I won awards for top sales for the Million Dollar Club, 1.5 Million Dollar Club, and Top Trailer Sales. I have always been in sales and enjoyed it and excelled.
I met Kellie McMillan and we were married September 9, 2000. We decided we wanted to start a family and our family decided I should not be away as much as I was. In April of 2001, Kawasaki approached Kellie, my mom, dad and I, requesting that we apply for the franchise since the Magic Valley was still without a Kawasaki dealer. We applied and were accepted with my parents’ financial backing and my experience in the power sports industry.
Our new Kawasaki product line was due to hit our show room in July. We were anxiously awaiting the new models to be released. We finally started receiving units in August. Then, as we all know our country was attacked on September 11, 2001. Against all the odds and forecasts for a new business failing, we made it through our countries ’recession. It was hard but we hung in there with many sleepless nights. We prayed every day that we would just be able to make ends meet and that we would be able to make the right decisions for our business. Winter was long especially with not having a snowmobile line. We could sell snowmobile parts and do repairs but we did not have sleds to sell. We had a good 2002 and I earned the Kawasaki Ichiban award for being one of the top 50 dealers in the U.S. It is rare for a new dealer to achieve that award. We were out of room and still in need of a snowmobile line. We started the long process of buying out another dealership. With the help of the SBA in March of2003 we bought out the existing Suzuki and Polaris dealership at 2540 Addison Ave East just past K-mart. We now had all three franchises but did not have an approved showroom, so we had to remodel immediately to meet the requirements from each franchise. Ray Parish then with the Region IV Development Association helped my parents get the 504 Loan for the land, building, and remodel. With the backing of Region IV and the SBA we were able to get a business loan through D.L. Evans Bank.
When times got tough, I did some research and found the SBDC on the internet. My Office Manager DeAun and I started meeting with Cindy Bond at the SBDC once a month at no charge. Cindy did a great job going overpour Profit and Loss Statements, teaching us how to use it as a statement and how to make forecasts and goals; not just to use it as a report card. She gave us great ideas on tax issues and savings also. Cindy helped us figure out how many units we needed to sell in order to be profitable. Thanks to the SBDC our sales increased from 1.2 Million dollars to more than 6 Million dollars in sales. In 2004 we earned an all-expense paid vacation to Sydney, Australia for being one of the top 300 Kawasaki Dealers in the U.S. out of 1500. In 2004we earned Most Improved Dealership from Polaris. In 2006 we earned the Kawasaki Ichiban award again for being in the top 50 dealers and reaching our expected quotas from Kawasaki. In 2006 we earned another all-expense paid vacation to Hawaii for being one of the top 300 Dealers in the U.S. In 2007 we received the Ichiban award from Kawaski for Top Sales, the Kawasaki Sales Away III Award in 2007 which was a trip to the Bahamas for meeting corporate goals, the Suzuki Excellence in Service Award for 2007 and we were the Suzuki TPC Bahamas Trip Winner for Largest Growth in 2007.
We now have 14 great employees on our team. We strive to serve our customers with excellent customer service. Each year we are blessed with increasingly sales numbers. We work hard placing our unit orders and not over stocking our inventory and meeting the goals we set with the SBDC each month. We have actually been under stocked and are continually amazed with our ongoing growth.
From my wife Kellie: Rob has done a great job with advertising and promotions and the SBDC helped him make an advertising budget instead of just advertising when we had the money. He was so excited when we reached a point where we had to hire an agency to take care of our advertising so he can focus more on sales. He is happy that we have enough help in our sales department to have most Saturdays off now after five years.
We thank our Heavenly Father each day for our blessings and for the opportunity for Rob to live his childhood dream. Rob even jokes “I never really thought I would own my own motorcycle shop and have the opportunity to meet and hang out with all of the professional riders I admire. It is still a job just like any other, but I love it and I appreciate the help, support and love from my parents to help make this dream a reality. I enjoy having all the new toys to play with each year as it is my stress releaser. We definitely have a lot of fringe benefits.”
We appreciate all of our family, friends, and employees who have helped us along the way in good times and in bad. Our 3-½ year old daughter Andrea loves to ride with us and cannot wait to bring along her 7-month-old brother Landon to play with us. She always wants her Daddy to go faster on whatever they are riding whether it is on the snow, water or dirt. We are very thankful for the support and knowledge from SBDC who have helped us be so successful. Rob and DeAun still meet every other month with Jerry Mottern at the SBDC, reviewing ideas, making goals and forecasts making sure there are not any red flags we need to take care of.
