78 On the Move: Tyler Herron, Carl Cannon Chevrolet Buick GMC
Words by Jenny Lynn Davis | Images by Al Blanton
As young people finish out their high school years, many have goals and aspirations that include leaving their hometowns. Not Tyler Herron. The life, job, wife, and family of his dreams are all right here in Walker County.
Born and raised in Jasper, 27-year-old Tyler has a fond appreciation of the place he calls home and the people who comprise it. It is rare for him to go out in public and not see someone he knows, perhaps a former classmate at Curry High School. Others might recognize him as the coach of his daughter’s travel softball team, or might have known him since his youth, noting his relation to his stepfather, the late John Mark Tirey. But Tyler Herron is most likely to be recognized as the guy who sold us our car.
For over 5 years, Tyler has worked as a sales professional at Carl Cannon Chevrolet Cadillac Buick GMC. He got his start in the automotive world while he was in high school as a delivery person for Lawson Auto Parts. He built a rapport with leaders at the dealerships and was subsequently offered a job changing oil at one of Jasper’s larger dealerships. After a year, he transitioned into sales, which led him to the previously mentioned job of his dreams at Carl Cannon.
“This is the place I want to retire from. It's a one-in-a-million, one-of-a-kind place to work,” Tyler says. “Working somewhere you love and enjoying your work makes it so much easier to get up and go to work each day.”
Tyler wears a lot of hats in his role: product specialist, vehicle demonstrator, and new team member trainer. Most recently, he was named an electric vehicles specialist.
Hours spent on the lot and the sales floor can be long and tedious for any salesperson, yet Tyler never loses his zest for his job. He’s driven by the most important part of the car-buying process: the customer. He notes that the relationship with customers goes far beyond the transaction.
“I love the excitement people get when purchasing a vehicle! Everyone needs a car, and no one hates a new car,” says Tyler. “It's essential to have a dependable vehicle, and it's just as essential to have an equally dependable dealership team. I want to be the person that sells you your vehicle, but I also want to be the person you turn to with any questions about that vehicle.”
Tyler says his biggest accomplishment at Carl Cannon is his customer base. He estimates that upwards of 50% of his business is repeat and referral customers, something Mr. Jim Cannon himself told Tyler would happen if he would always put the customer first.
“Mr. Cannon, Curt Ballard, and Tommy Fowler have paved the way for me and my coworkers to be successful, so I try to learn as much as I can from those three,” Tyler says. “When you take good care of a customer, not only will they come back to you, but they'll refer more people to you down the road.”
“It's a hard business to be in, especially starting out younger like I did; you work a lot of hours, and you face the challenge of having to build up your clientele from scratch,” Tyler adds. “But the leadership here showed us how to do our jobs the right way and how to do them well, and they stand behind us one hundred percent. You don’t always luck into leadership like that. We’re so fortunate here.”
Tyler aims to one day be part of that leadership. He wants to keep working his way up and making the life that allows him and his wife Gina Marie and their daughter Khloe to follow their passion for traveling.
And when the trips to beaches, mountains, and big cities end, he can always come home to Walker County. 78