#28 - Dealer Interviews at NIADA

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Independent Dealer Podcast. This week's episode is a compilation of five different interviews we did at NIADA Convention 2019. We had the opportunity to sit down with five amazing owner operators, managers, dealer principals. We talked to them, got some of their insights on the industry, what's made them successful, tips and tricks and insights. Just kind of some quick little snippets that we threw together. So we hope you enjoy this episode. Remember, share the podcast with your dealer friends. Leave us a review online, give us your feedback, let us know what you think, any ideas you have for future episodes or topics you'd like us to cover.

Enjoy.

Welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast. The podcast for auto dealers to learn and grow together. Here are your hosts, Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson.

Alright, Jeff, it's NI88A2. You having fun yet?

I'm having a great time, man. Luke, this is just like fire hose in a teacup.

Awesome, man. Well, what we're doing here is we're going to grab a couple dealers and get their perspective. And these dealers that we're talking to are awesome. Some of the best in our business, some of the best in the industry. Anywhere from 80 cars a month to 300 cars a month. So. So first guy we have is Chris Haas. Chris, tell us about yourself, buddy.

Chris Haas, Canfield, Ohio Independent dealer Been in the business since I was washing cars, you know, since I was.

So that's like 100 years.

You look old as heck.

At least I think it's like 150. You age in dog years.

Yeah, that's funny.

Seven at a time. But yeah, just a local independent hometown dealer and we just been, you know, trying to do it right since, you know, since we opened.

How long you been open?

If you go back, I mean if you go back. My grand. My grandfather had a dealership and you know, in the 50s and 60s and my dad grew up in it and then up to me being principal probably 2009, 2010. So awesome.

And to give the give everyone perspective, just real quick, what, how many typical sales per month? What's your makeup buyer pay here?

We have no buyer straight retail. We Average anywhere between 70 to 80amonth, full service department, AAA service center. Awesome stuff. You know, just typical retail. We don't do any buyer payer at all.

So you're very successful. So give us three things that every dealer should do to be a good dealer and to be successful because both goes hand in hand.

You know, a lot of the things that I probably have to say won't be directly for the car business. It's small business in general, the conventions, it's all about making connections with guys like you. You know, at the end of the day, we know the business is getting different and a little bit harder and things are changing and the more people you have on your side. I see a lot of dealers, not more, you know, our age. Guys like to do that. And I also came in, like I said, from my grandfather to my father. Those guys, I don't think, shared information. I think they thought they were. I think they thought they were enemies.

Right?

Yeah.

So, you know, realistically, connections, you know, there's no wrong way or no right way to do the wrong thing. That's my second. And just pick a goal and keep looking at that goal, you know, try not to veer off too much. I know a lot of us, we're crazy entrepreneurs, you know, by trait, and sometimes that's to our disadvantage, not our advantage. So, you know, keep your eye on the prize and.

Well, with that being said, Chris, what was that goal? To motivate you every day. Then.

Now it's family. Okay, that's it. I mean, at the end of the day, ever since I had my son, he's. He's going to be six. I don't know if I go to work for any other reason than that, you know, and the customers and just wanting to have. I kind of find myself. I just want to have a good business with employees that want to work there. And that's what I really want. You know, at the end of the day, you don't. I think if I do that, and like I said, no right way to do the wrong thing, then at the end of the day, I'll make money.

That's awesome.

The money is not the first for me, although it is the car business and it is a business, and you look at your, you look at your financial statements every month, and did we make, you know, did we make enough? Did we not make enough? As you get older, you ask yourself, you know, how much is enough? And then there's that balance. So I think more my goal now is life, work balance than it is how much more money can I make, Right? How much?

Right?

I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's the, that's the, that's the thing, you know, that constantly goes on in my mind now.

That's awesome. Well, thanks. Thanks, Chris. I appreciate it. Chris, appreciate your time.

Thanks for having me.

Guys. We're so lucky. We've got two leading Women in our industry here to speak with us just for a second. Both from California. So we're going to get a different perspective than what we. What we give every day. And hopefully something that'll help some ladies trying to get in here.

Absolutely.

First, Brittany. Brittany is Brittany Hibden. Hibden from Hibden Auto Sales Auto Center. And she's in Northern California. Sacramento, maybe somewhere around there.

About 100 miles north of Sacramento.

Okay. And so tell us about yourself. Tell us what your dealership primarily deals in. How many cars you sell a month. Just give us some background into you and your dealership.

We just celebrated nine years in business. I grew up around the car business, though. My dad was in the industry and my husband's parents were in the industry. But we have our own independent store for about nine years. We sell about 60 cars a month and really specialize in a lot of subprime. Subprime helping people that need help.

Are you buy here, pay here? Are you cac? What exactly.

We're cac. No buy here, pay here.

Okay.

But we do a lot of business with cac. We're probably closing, like, about four pools a year.

Wow.

Okay. That's great.

That's great.

Why no buy here, pay here? Why not?

I don't know. It scares me.

It scares all of us. It scares all of us. Well, I know your operation is really one of the leading places in California, Northern California, to buy cars. What? Three things that. Or two or three things that you could attribute your success and also your success at being a leading woman in our industry that's dominated by men. What can you give us?

Well, honestly, just persistence. It is definitely still a boys club. And I think just not accepting that, you know, just continuing to push and have a voice and just be out there doing your thing and not worrying about what everybody else thinks. That's been a big part of it, you know, especially you go to the auction, you're standing in the lanes, and they just don't take you serious.

Are you the buyer?

Not anymore. I was for a lot of years. I did all the buying for about. Well, actually up until about a year ago.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, that's awesome. I tell you. That's. You're right. You know, I go to the auction and it used to be you'd see one woman there. Well, there's more and more now, for sure.

Yeah, there's definitely starting to be more of us, but.

And they're sneaky.

They interesting dynamic.

They're hard bidders, man. You gotta watch out when A lazy.

Know what they want.

We just smile.

Well, awesome. Brittany, we really appreciate it. I know you're really involved in in Nieda with California. We just thank you for what you've done for the industry and we appreciate your time.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Thank you. All right, Jeff, now we have Eric Freeman. And for full disclosure, Eric's one of my best friends in the car business. Just somebody I look up to a lot. He is a great guy and he's going to tell us a little bit about his store and what know what makes things great.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Luke. It's such a pleasure to be here. And I tell you what, the car business is an amazing business where we get to make money, first of all. But then second, we get to connect with employees and grow, you know, us as a group. And then we get to reach out to the community. So, I mean, it's a full circle business that I feel like is such a backbone to communities around America.

That is so. I've seen your work and I've seen all the great things you do for your community and for the world, really. Involvement in Africa with a nonprofit over there. Just everything you do is great. Tell us where you are. How many cars y' all sell a month? What's the layout of your dealership?

Well, we've got two stores under the Freeman name and one we're adding right now. And it's a little bit of a whirlwind right now as we break ourselves to grow. And so there's some spots that are scary as we add employees before they can actually produce. And what does it look like to add inventory before you can actually sell it? And so we're growing the business and creating ultimately what our goal is, creating potential for employees who are coming up through Freeman Motor Company to be managers and to run departments. And so for us, that's really exciting to see people grow within our business. And then really as that grows, you see them as people start to produce things that they never thought they could produce. And that's through the relentless training and role playing that Marshall does is through care is support. And so now we're starting to see, you know, years later here where we've got employees who are getting married and that's exciting to celebrate with them. We see employees having their first kids. We see employees buying their first homes. And so as a company, you know, you go, you know, the bottom line's cool and all, but the reality is we're seeing the growth of a company. And at 80 employees now. There's a lot of growing going on, and so we're excited. I feel like I'm almost like a grandparent, seeing our kids grow, moving on.

So, Eric, to stay in the theme of our advice here, three tips. We've got a lot of people that listen to this podcast that are. Some are new dealers, some are experienced dealers, some are growing, some are shrinking. They're all in different areas. But could you share with us three things? Maybe just three little tidbits that you've learned over your experience, your expertise that you would say, hey, guys, you know, we're all a little different. We all got a little bit different backgrounds, but these are three things that have really helped me move the needle in my business.

Yeah. Well, I think the first thing is making some goals of where you want to go as a company. We call them wildly important goals. Wigs. And so where are we going to go? Number two is, you know, we've got to stay focused on a financial part of it, because if we're not financially stable, we can't grow. And third, we need to invest in doing the right thing, no matter what the cost. And so that's a difficult thing in a business. It's easy to cheat sometimes. And the reality is we need to stay focused on doing the right thing.

That's so important in our business. Sometimes it costs you more to sell a car than you made, but if you focus on doing the right thing for your customer, it comes back a hundredfold. I know y' all do that as a company.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Awesome. Eric, will you. Anything else?

That's it.

It's great.

Appreciate your time, buddy.

Cool.

Yeah, thanks. Okay, here we are with Marshall. He is with Freeman Motor Company, based out of Portland. Marshall, real quick, tell everybody a little bit about yourself. I mean, what. What's your dealership? What do you do? You know, basic makeup?

Sure. Yeah. I am the general manager, vice president of Freeman Motor Company. We have three locations in Portland, Oregon, and we sell between all three of them about 180 cars a month. And we go through about $200,000 in service gross a month. Wow. Sales answers.

Big operation.

Yeah, it is. I mean, but some of the stores are small, too. So one store is big, and the other two are small.

Very good. Very good. Marshall, I've known you for a long time. You and Eric, how did you get into the car business? What? Tell us a little background about. About what's going on.

Yeah. So I started as a car washer when there was only three people in the Company and there was a mechanic and Eric Freeman, the owner, and me washing cars while I was in high school, and. And then I did it while I was in college. And then Eric just asked me to, you know, watch the phones for him while he was at the auction or, you know, help write ads or whatever. It was back in the day, you know, when we had to write autotrader ads before the Internet. And then I just kind of always wanted to grow the business, and we kept growing and growing, and I just kind of. I guess my title's always been gm, but, you know, it's a little bit more responsible. I guess you have more responsibility when it's like, you know, 70 employees.

You have people to manage instead of just yourself.

How many employees do you all have right now?

78.

Wow. Wow.

Geez, Louise. Man. Like herding cats, huh?

Yeah.

That's fun.

Fun, Marshall. So tell us, are there a couple things, maybe some tips you could give us? Stuff that you've learned on your journey where it really made a difference? Like some of those needle movers that really kind of took you to the next level?

What could we do in our business to take it to the next level? Yeah, I wanted to see what you said.

So I think, you know, specifically, like, when you go to trainings or you go visit other dealers and you really like what they have and you try to implement it, there's a couple things we learned along the way. You can't implement everything all at once or you'll fail. And so we take it in little snippets and we just say, you know, we're gonna implement that this quarter. And then just really holding people accountable is probably the number one thing. We're all afraid to hold people accountable because we've grown. We have a relationship with them. We're family. And so setting clear expectations and then having the guts, I guess, is the right word, maybe to have some consequences.

Yeah.

People's behavior.

Yeah. Dave Anderson talked about that the other day, and it's like, it's hard to do, but you're not only letting your company down, you're letting that person down if you don't hold them accountable.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my favorite thing and my motivation, you know, I love the car business. I like selling cars. I don't get to sell as many now, but I love to make people better. I love. I like education myself. I like making myself better, learning more, reading books. But I love it when people can succeed, you know, and so they can't succeed if you just let Them flounder and do things on their own. If you don't set clear expectations, they're not going to know what to do. And then when you hold them accountable to that, you're making them a better person.

Man, there's a ton of money to be made off of that. If we could all somehow hold all of our people accountable, we're going to all be better dealers for sure.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I like that. I almost wrapped that back around to myself. Holding myself accountable for sure. You know, I'm going to go home and I've got 50 things to do. I'm not going to try to do them all. I'm gonna try to do five, and then I'm gonna hold myself accountable. It's one thing that I really realized being at these conventions is I've been at this a long time, and, dude, I don't have my ducks in a row on so many things, you know, And I don't think everyone does. But I gotta go home and I gotta focus on two or three things and just get them right to where I'm really happy with them, and then I'll move on to the next one.

Yeah. And I think one of the things that. I mean, they talk about this at a lot of success seminars, you know, the percentage of people who write their goals down. And so one of the things we do is we meet every year as a management staff and we write down the plan for the year, and it doesn't always go. Actually never goes exactly according to plan, you know, but you have it. Yeah. And everybody's on the same page. And so you need an accountability partner, because as dealers don't have an accountability partner.

Yeah, you're wired.

There's nobody to punish us. Yeah. And we don't tell them everything, so.

Well, awesome. Thanks so much, Marshall.

Yeah, thanks, guys.

All right, Jeff. We have a special treat. Ms. Brenna Stansbury from Redding, California. Her family's been in the car business forever, but let's talk about that, Brenna.

Let's do that. Let's talk about that.

How'd you get in the car business and just give us a little background?

I got in the car business because it was an opportunity for me at the time of my life to be a single mom of four kids, come and go and do DMV and do accounts payables and leave when my kids needed me. So about 25 years ago, I stepped into that role, and it's just grown from there. I've done every aspect of the car business except for Washing them.

Oh, I'm sure you've washed a car before. Come on. Well, they may not let you in. Ready? Cause you don't have any water, right?

No water.

Yeah, just scrub them until they're clean.

So your father started the business?

Yes, about 40 years ago.

40 years ago.

Wow.

That's amazing. We've been in business for 34. I thought that was a long time.

It is a long time.

When did you take over day to day operations and how did that look? What happened that allowed you to do that?

Well, it was a really big struggle because the industry is so male dominated that even when my dad was able to say, yes, you're in charge, he had a really hard time letting go of that. And he really worried about me being a woman in the industry because of the boys club stigmatization. That is just so overwhelming.

How do you combat that stereotype and what do you do as a leading woman in our industry to combat the all boys club?

I think one of the biggest things is being confident in who you are and what you know and then also being open to learning from these men that have dominated this business for so long. I also really believe in continuing to grow and not staying the same. We keep on doing the same thing and we're getting the same results. So I'm always looking for something new, something different. I'm always wanting to change. That's why I love expos so much.

I go way back with Brenna. We were in 20 group together and she's still in 20 group and she's deaf. Someone who searches out knowledge. And it's funny that she's always talking about change. Well, when I first met her, she changed the name of the dealership. You had a dealership that had been in business for 35 years and you all of a sudden just changed everything.

We did talk about that. That was scary. That was scary because we didn't change to get away from a poor reputation. We changed to get away from a stereotype of just a word. And budget auto center is still our corporate name, but the word budget for us because we're a prime dealer was really difficult. Our customers would come in expecting a $50,000 truck for $20,000. And the word just didn't work. And it was just time to change. It was time to rebrand. And it wasn't hard, but it was scary. It was very scary.

I remember when you were going through that.

Yes, it was crazy.

But I tell you, it's. You went with the right name, I think.

Thank you.

Was it. Park Marina.

Park Marina Motors.

Park Marina Motors. And that's the street that you're on, right?

Correct. And it's just one of those streets in our town that everybody knows. It's a thoroughfare between the two freeways. It's not a super busy street, but we're right off of the super busy street on the corner of.

That's very cool. So give us maybe one or two tips that a woman entering the business should do. How is she going to make her impact on our industry?

I would say educate, be open and learn. I learn from all the men in this industry. So I would say definitely educate yourself, be open and align yourselves with other women. I think that's really important.

Awesome. Thank you, brother.

You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

Thank you, Sam.