Olaf Growald
Kevin Lackey’s road to success with Freedom Powersports was paved with what felt like defeat after defeat.
Today, Lackey is one of North Texas’ premier success stories. He rose from a frontline salesperson to the CEO of Freedom Powersports, with multiple locations in several states. In 2017, Freedom Powersports was named the No. 1 dealer in the nation by Powersports Business, the industry’s leading publication. The Fort Worth-based company is now up to more than 300 employees and can hardly contain its rapid growth.
But the story of how Lackey got to that point is full of the sort of crushing lows that will be familiar to any entrepreneur.
Lackey began his career working the sales floor of a powersports dealership in Weatherford, selling items like motorcycles and ATVs. Lackey was a natural salesperson, and he quickly rose to become the dealership’s top asset on the floor. “I can sell very instinctively,” Lackey says.
After a few years, Lackey realized he wanted more, and his entrepreneurial sixth sense kicked in. The owners were considering selling; Lackey wanted to buy. The process to get funding was long, but Lackey figured he was doing all the right things. It took him about five months to get the loan in order from the bank, but when he got the call his loan was approved, his excitement soared. He was about to be a business owner for the first time. Or so he thought.
“I met with the owner and his wife, and they had already sold the business 30 days before,” Lackey says. “They were under a nondisclosure.”
So, Lackey had to go back to the drawing board. Not only did he lose the sale, but he also lost his position as a manager and was kicked back to the selling floor. Now he had a decision to make. Do I give up the fight and do something else, or do I run toward the roar?
Sometimes the safest place to be is the one that feels the scariest. Lions — with their intimidating teeth and deafening roars — are designed to provoke fear. But the real danger lies with the smaller, quieter lionesses. In the animal kingdom, the lion’s job is to roar and send prey scattering away from the startling noise — right into the path of the waiting lionesses, the true hunters. If gazelles knew to run toward the frightening sound, they would have a better chance of survival. The roar doesn’t represent the real danger.
Likewise, humans sometimes have an instinctive desire to shy away from pursuits that look and sound scary. But often, running toward those challenges and conflicts is the best (or only) way to grow and meet our goals. In business, those who run from the deafening noise never reach their full potential, while those who turn and face the fear thrive.
Lackey decided to thrive. He worked his way back up the ladder, and it took Lackey three more years to build up to another opportunity to buy the business. This time there were two businesses in play: the dealership in Weatherford and another in Hurst. But as with the last time, Lackey was determined.
This sale, too, was not without its hardship. Lackey’s primary investor misrepresented his assets and melted away when it came time to put up the money, so he was left without the capital to start the business on the eve of the transaction. Suddenly his sale was in jeopardy. Again.
“At that point, I had already put up all the liquidity that my wife and I had, every single dime,” Lackey says. “We had mortgaged our house; I had drawn down on a line of credit with the bank; I had maxed out every credit card and put up everything I had as a deposit toward buying this dealership. Literally three months of thinking, ‘We’re about to close; this guy is bringing in the money,’ to finding out 90 days later that none of that was going to happen, and the seller was expecting to get paid.”
Lackey remembers thinking he was likely going to lose his job and be financially devastated in the process. Once again, Lackey picked himself off the mat and figured out a way forward. Calling from his living room floor, Lackey told the seller the situation, and he got another 30 days to get together financing to buy the dealership.
So, Lackey beat the streets for an investor, often going days without sleeping. With time running out, he fortuitously met up with his future business partner, and 30 days later, they closed the deal. In another 120 days, they’d bought another dealership, grew it by 600 percent in the first year, and they were off to the races. In just six years, the business is now one of the largest in the industry in the entire country.
Lackey credits a lot of his success to his passion for the sales industry. Freedom Powersports is a sales-first organization, a fact that was important to Lackey from the start. His employees train and role-play selling scenarios every single day, and he’s consistently focused on using their sales platform as a vehicle for good.
After so much hardship, that approach has paid off in spades for Lackey.
“I love people. I love to hear people’s stories,” Lackey says. “I like to get to know people. I think that some of my biggest success with sales is that I’m very authentic. I’m genuine. When I’m talking to someone, I couldn’t care less about the sale. I love the challenge of the sale and ringing the bell, but not unless I can do it from a place of integrity.”