I am 26 years old and have grown up in the car business most of my life. My father played professional football in the NFL for 11 years and got into the car business a few years after he retired. So you can imagine growing up trying to live up to something like being ranked third in Cleveland Browns all time history of rushing yards behind Jim Brown and Leroy Kelly. Even if you aren’t a big football fan you have probably heard of those names. As a result I grew up being a very competitive and driven person because all I was used to hearing (and seeing my father’s old film highlights) from my parents was that you need to strive to be the best no matter what. I am extremely grateful for the way they brought me up because I think it has made me the man I am today.
Since I have grown up in the automotive business I have really grown to love it and take pride in telling people I work in this industry. The main reason I like this industry so much is that every day I come into work there is something new or different than the previous day. After graduating from college I really got a good sense of what career path I wanted to take. Being able to work in every single department in the dealership over the years, I have really grown to appreciate how each department is run like their own individual businesses. Also, being able to attend and graduate from NADA Dealer Academy really pushed my interest of the automotive business over the edge to where I can honestly say that this is what I want to do as my career. The things I learned from the academy had immediate impact on our dealership; from cost cutting to different ways of doing business to make customers happy and us some profits at the end of the day. I can truly say the academy gave me a wealth of knowledge that probably would have taken me years to gain. I would recommend it to any dealer son/daughter or just anyone who is serious about the automotive business as a career.
So, now on to my situation here at the dealership. Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to bring some ideas for us to improve as a dealership to the table, but being the owners son most of my ideas were viewed by some as stupid, juvenile, inexperienced, etc. But I can say that my father incorporated a lot of those ideas and we have grown our business because of those ideas. The biggest obstacle I constantly have to deal with at my dealership is the constant mediocrity and settling. A large majority of the decision makers (managers) do not have the ability in my opinion to think outside of the box. They rarely come up with different ideas on how to improve their processes, people, products, or increase business as a whole. A lot of them (including my father) are somewhat stuck in the old car business mantra of things that worked in the past work today. I just do not think that a lot of things do. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of things that worked in the past that still work today, and the basics of the automotive business do not really change, but I am talking about the things that have evolved over time. Things like the internet, which in my opinion is the most overlooked and underutilized department in most dealerships. I even think they overlook in the NADA Dealer Academy to be honest because they have a new car class but do not really delve into teaching how important the internet is and will be in the future. I think the most forward thinking managers at dealerships who understand the internet, and the future of the internet, are going to be the ones who will strive and survive the best in the future.
My problem I run into a lot here at my dealership is that I feel we are missing the whole paradigm shift that’s currently occurring in our industry right now. The days of being able to hold huge grosses has gone away, the internet has allowed our customers to become more knowledgeable of our vehicles that we are in reality. Being younger and seeing this trend I have tried to get my father, along with all the other managers to buy into putting most of our efforts (advertising, development ,etc.) into our internet department. Before I took over as the internet manager recently, our old “internet manager” was not performing any of the duties of an internet manager. He was simply a salesperson who cherry-picked the good leads and came to the managers meeting and gave false numbers. There was no tracking of anything at all besides how many leads he got for the month. What I have been trying to do is create an internet department that is based off of what I learned from dealer synergy over the past year. I found them in the autosuccess magazine that I read regularly and wanted to be one of their success stories. Unfortunately no one here at my dealership sees the value in their program and how they produce results for dealerships like our across the country.
What I have to do is fight the uphill battle of not only being the dealer’s son, but the fact that I basically have very little support, resources, and buy-in from the other employees here. Being the type of person that I am I just look at it as an obstacle that I will love to overcome. Not just to prove to everyone I was right, but to prove the fact that with an open mind we can have success in something that we are not accustomed to. By following the dealer synergy model of having designate coordinators who solely make phone calls, set appointment, and answer internet leads, I plan on taking our store from mediocre to one of the best internet departments in our area. I can only imagine being someone who does not have such a vested interest in the dealership, how hard it must be to be in the same situation as I am. Luckily for me I have the authority to do things like add lead providers, employees, products, etc. without having to go through the proper channels for permission. But the advice I would give someone who is in the same position as me, would be to put first things first and try to deal with the things that you have control over. Like the say, Rome wasn’t built in a day so you just have to take it piece by piece. That is what I am doing for my situation, yes will it take me longer to reach my goal of being the best, but at least I know I will remain focused on what the proper processes and procedures it will take me to reach that goal. As long as I surround myself with people like me and employees who can properly execute the things needed to succeed, everything will fall into place over time.
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