SPM Progress Report – JANUARY 2022

Throughout my career, I have worked with brands of all sizes—from the largest auto manufacturers in the world to a bespoke clothing company in Tupelo, Mississippi.

I helped them both engage new audiences.

What both of those brands have in common is that they built a loyal customer base by consistently delivering high-quality merchandise over a considerable period while working tirelessly to engage their community in-person as well as through an omnichannel marketing strategy.

As I enter a new business endeavor and focus my efforts on driving SPM Performance Products to be recognized as the market leader for custom exhaust components, I intend on following this same playbook…

#1 – Consistently deliver high-quality products

#2 – Work tirelessly to engage our community

As January has ended, I am happy to report that we have made great progress with goal #1. The team at SPM Australia has been working overtime to ship our first order of updated products, and just finished with a photoshoot that captured their commitment to quality. This first batch of SPM 2022 product will reintroduce SPM to the Volkswagen Audi Group (VAG) community at what we believe are the most competitive prices offered in the market.

As for item #2, we are hard at work in that area as well, and this blog is a piece of that puzzle. This “SPM Progress Report” will be a way that I can document our journey and share the ups and downs as we build this brand together. It is my desire to be as transparent as possible, so that readers understand the challenges faced by a small business owner. I hope that we can celebrate the wins together and lean on each other when things don’t go according to plan.

The last 30 days have flown by, but I was fortunate to attend two awesome car shows and meet a bunch of avid VAG enthusiasts. Attending these shows is a way for me to meet people in the scene, engage potential customers, and keep my finger on the pulse of the ever-changing performance parts industry. Take a look at the #SPMonTour recap video from Southeast Eurofest Jacksonville and let me know what your favorite car of the show was.

In addition to spending my weekends in the Florida sun, I have been keeping my head down with the Web Dev team at Influx to build a completely new online presence. This new website is a one-stop-shop where our customers can learn more about the company, hear our exhaust systems, and ultimately buy our products. This is the first direct-to-consumer website I have ever worked on and to say it’s difficult would be an understatement. Justin at Influx and I are working 24×7 to ensure that the customer’s journey is as seamless as possible—and that is much easier said than done.

I have recently reworked audio samples of our exhaust and created a playlist called SPM Sound Check on the DriveSPM YouTube channel. These samples give potential customers a lifelike example of what their favorite SPM configuration might sound like on their own car. This playlist will continually grow and improve as we get MK7 & MK7.5 systems installed on customer cars and then dedicate significant resources to capture high-quality audio recordings of those ear-pleasing exhaust notes.  

We are getting close to having product on the shelves, so I am spending all my energy making sure that all the little details are as buttoned up as possible prior to our relaunch. This includes merch designs, packaging requirements, shipper relationships, warehouse organization, product SKU schemes, and two dozen additional tasks that would likely bore you sleep.

I greatly appreciate all the well wishes from friends, colleagues, and customers, and commit to continuing to document this journey through written and video content. Please shoot me a note to let me know if you are enjoying this content and I invite you to subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated on future posts.

This endeavor isn’t going to be easy, but I will leave you with some words of wisdom from Dale Earnhardt, Jr. who said, “The winner ain’t the one with the fastest car. It’s the one who refuses to lose.”

Until next month,

Michael