www. PowersportsBusiness. com Powersports Business • November 2025 • 19

CONFERENCE

Tanner and Trey’ s first dealership in Clovis, New Mexico. The name Zia derives from the Pueblo Indian tribe representing the sun and is featured on the New Mexico state flag.

BY CHRIS OFFICER ASSOCIATE EDITOR

It’ s been only 10 years since Tanner Gearn and his brother, Trey, purchased their first dealership, Zia Powersports, but in that short time, the two have been steadily growing their footprint in the Southwest region, establishing a dealership group consisting of four stores across New Mexico and Texas.

Tanner says his first taste of the business side of powersports was after purchasing used machines to fix up and resell. His first dealership job was as a porter, and he eventually worked his way up to sales and sales management positions by the early 2000s before purchasing his Clovis, New Mexico, location in 2015.

As lifelong powersports enthusiasts, Gearn was drawn to the industry not just as a business opportunity, but to share his love for adrenaline-fueled excitement with his community. However, growing a fournetwork dealership wasn’ t necessarily the game plan; rather something that just happened organically.

“ My brother and I didn’ t have huge plans for opening multiple stores, but opportunities kept coming,” Gearn says.“ About every 24 months, we’ d have another opportunity thrown at us, and it made sense to grow, and with that growth, we are having a lot of fun with it— just trying to take advantage of the opportunities that come at us.” customer is. Something he says resonates throughout the showroom floor.

“ We see the same machines every day we walk into the dealership. But for the consumer who walks in, they’ re seeing some of the coolest stuff you can buy right now. So, with that, as a dealership we need to maintain that same excitement— and that can easily fade away with your veteran guys or someone on your team who’ s not an enthusiast.”

Another challenge Gearn points out is dealing with employee turnover, something that can be commonplace in the powersports industry. It’ s also typical for owners and GMs to hire enthusiasts to put on their sales team— a unique element that separates car dealers from powersports dealers. But Gearn says sometimes, out of necessity, he can’ t shy away from hiring industry novices.“ We really try to look for people who have that passion, and from there mold them into where they can excel the most. In today’ s employment pool, we must give some people opportunities who aren’ t enthusiasts but have other skills that we can bring into our culture,” he says.“ Turnover is obviously expensive, but I feel the last 18 months have been lower than before. We’ re striving to do our best to keep the enthusiasts we do have and offer opportunities for this to be a career and not a job.”