Grant Salter

After 17 years in the cycling industry, our invaluable Grant Salter is leaving Signature Cycles and heading to Nashville, TN, where he will take over management of a high-end custom car and motorcycle operation called the Greening Auto Company. Eight years and three months have passed since Grant moved from Michigan to Sloatsburg, NY, upon Paul’s job offer to help him build and fit bikes in his garage in Central Valley, NY. Grant came to help grow and shape a business that would be imitated and studied throughout the cycling industry. As of 2008, he is still one of the – if not the – most successful custom-bike consultant on the planet. With little time to spare on his last day in the office he helped build, I asked him a few questions:

You and Paul built this business over the last eight years. What are you hoping to achieve with the next eight?

I hope you read about me in books and magazines covering the high-end car and motorcycle customization industry. I’d love to see my own “Grant Salter” Wikipedia page, too.

Any stand-out client memories from your time here?

In 2005, this couple from Florida flew in, bought six complete Serottas (4 Meivicis, 2 Ottrotts) for themselves, plus about $7000 worth of clothing and accessories, and still made their flight back home that night to have dinner with their kids. Making it back for dinner with their kids that night was their priority that day.

What advice do you have for future Signature customers?

Come in with an open mind. Try not to have preconceived notions of what you need. More often than not, people come in thinking they want or need something based on the recommendations of their friends, not knowledge. Please trust us. We want you to be happy.

So what percentage of your job is that of a psychologist? As opposed to salesperson?

After 8 years, I’ve learned that 100% of my job is simply listening. Before I joined Signature Cycles, I would have just shown customers my knowledge and talked over them to tell them what they need. By listening you learn what they want. It builds trust and turns into a relationship, which turns into sales.

What advice would you give yourself if you could travel back in time to the day Paul approached you about this job?

In 2002, when I did my first session at the Serotta Fit School where Paul was teaching, it gave me this completely different idea of selling. Paul stopped me in a stairwell at the school and asked me if I was interested in helping him with his business. At first I said no, but when I went home and thought about it, I realized that the vision Paul had was very similar to my own, so I accepted his offer.

So how does that translate into advice?

I would say any business like this has to be grown organically. You have to be the hunter, not the farmer. Paul started out going to offices and apartments to fit customers. He eventually built an audience, and that turned into our clientele. Then they came to him. We’ve seen a lot of shops like Signature come and go, starting immediately with our model, but with no clientele base, and most of them fail. You don’t just fall into high end.

On this, your last day, if someone walked in and handed you a blank check for one bike to build and take with you, what would it be?

Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 9070 group, Lightweight Ventoux (Gipfelsturm) tubulars, Continental Competition tires, Enve handlebar, stem, and seatpost, HandleBra custom-stitched leather bar tape, Chris King headset, Cafe Fabrications bottom bracket, all on a Parlee Z-0 frameset, painted some high-visibility color, like citrus yellow or bright green or something. Definitely not matte black.

Grant will be sorely missed both professionally and personally around the studio, by friends and staff alike. He encourages clients and friends of Signature who wish to keep in touch with him to do so, via his personal e-mail address: gksalter@gmail.com

You can learn more about the Greening Auto Company here: http://www.greeningautocompany.com/

A look back at just a few of the many moments that defined Grant’s time with Signature: