Turning a Broken Dealership Around With Kevin Deutsch

In this episode of TimTalks, Tim Cox sits down with Kevin Deutsch, general manager of Butler Lexus of South Atlanta, to dive deep into the strategies and leadership mindset that transformed a failing Lexus dealership into a thriving, market-leading store. Kevin shares how removing titles from business cards fostered a problem-solving culture, how daily meetings keep his team aligned, and how he empowered managers to take ownership across all departments. He also explains why transparency, both with employees and customers, has been essential to the dealership's success. This episode is packed with insights on leadership, accountability, and the power of cohesive teamwork.

Guest and Contact 

Follow Kevin Deutsch, general manager of Butler Lexus of South Atlanta and radio talk show host “Car Guys” WSB Radio on Linkedin

Show Notes:

[00:00 - 01:00] – Introduction
Tim Cox welcomes guest Kevin Deutsch, GM of Butler Lexus of South Atlanta, and highlights Kevin’s extensive experience in the automotive industry, as well as his national radio show, The Car Guys on WSB.

[01:00 - 02:30] – Perception vs. Reality in Dealerships
Tim and Kevin discuss how social media often doesn’t align with reality. They explore the importance of maintaining integrity, particularly when the public's perception of a dealership doesn’t match internal operations. 

[02:30 - 04:00] – Kevin's Background and Reputation
Kevin shares his background and reputation as one of the best operators in the country. He recalls his early days in the automotive industry, including his time as a pre-owned manager.

[04:00 - 06:30] – Taking Over a Broken Dealership
Kevin tells the story of how he took over a struggling Lexus dealership in Union City, Georgia. Under his leadership, the dealership began outperforming even Tesla in market share.

[06:30 - 09:00] – Removing Titles and Building Cohesion
Kevin explains his decision to remove titles from business cards, ensuring that every manager—whether in sales, service, or parts—was simply called a "Manager." 

[09:00 - 12:00] – Daily Collaboration and Cross-Department Involvement
Kevin goes deeper into how his team collaborates across departments. 

[12:00 - 16:00] – Changing the Customer Experience
Kevin shares his approach to improving the customer experience at Butler Lexus, from offering exceptional service in the waiting area to establishing new processes for handling customer complaints. 

[16:00 - 18:00] – Pay Transparency and Daily Tracking
Kevin describes how he ensures that his salespeople know exactly where they stand every single day by logging every deal in real-time. 

[18:00 - 20:00] – The Role of the Sales Desk
Kevin unpacks how he manages the sales desk differently from most dealerships. Instead of separating roles by title, his managers work together at the desk, creating a seamless operation. 

[20:00 - 22:00] – A Culture of Cross-Training and Succession Planning
Kevin talks about the cross-training culture he has implemented at the dealership, where each manager is trained to understand all aspects of the business.

[22:00 - 24:00] – Monthly All-Employee Meetings
Kevin highlights one of the most impactful changes he made at the dealership: the implementation of monthly all-employee meetings.

[24:00 - 28:00] – Closing Thoughts
Tim invites listeners to reach out to Kevin and even visit the dealership to learn more about the strategies that have made it so successful.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:00 Perception vs. Reality in Dealerships
• 2:30 Kevin's Background and Reputation
• 4:00 Taking Over a Broken Dealership
• 6:30 Removing Titles and Building Cohesion
• 9:00 Daily Collaboration and Cross-Department Involvement
• 10:30 Radical Transparency with Customers
• 12:00 Changing the Customer Experience
• 14:00 Managing Through Challenges
• 16:00 Pay Transparency and Daily Tracking
• 18:00 The Role of the Sales Desk
• 20:00 A Culture of Cross-Training and Succession Planning
• 22:00 Monthly All-Employee Meetings
• 24:00 Building a Legacy of Leadership
• 26:00 Closing Thoughts

Transcript

00;00;00;26 - 00;00;30;10

Speaker 1

In over three decades, I've learned the truly great car dealerships are only great because of one thing leadership. So I'm sitting down with the great men and women. Inspiring Automotive on Tim Talks Automotive Leadership and Beyond. You welcome everyone to yet another edition of Leadership and Beyond. Tim Talks. I am your host, Tim Cox, and I am pretty fired up, today.

00;00;30;12 - 00;00;53;12

Speaker 1

You know, in this business, in the world of social media and the world of people posting, you know, all these different things and sometimes, you know, the most of them are true, but maybe, maybe not so true. You know, a lot of people say one thing publicly, but when you go to their dealership, it might be a completely different thing, you know, what do people say about you when you're not around?

00;00;53;14 - 00;01;15;25

Speaker 1

I think that's one of the biggest marks of a great leader is that, first of all, people are following. And my guest today is is not only probably one of the best operators in the country that I have seen because I saw what his store was because quite frankly, his store, is in my market area. It's actually my store.

00;01;15;27 - 00;01;43;00

Speaker 1

That I go to when, when we need our car service. So, that and then he has a national, radio show on WSB called the Car Guys. WSB is the largest and talk show, I believe radio talk show, in the country. There's there's SB here. I know there's where I'm from in Cincinnati, seven, 700 instead of 750, but a monster show.

00;01;43;00 - 00;01;51;13

Speaker 1

But I am so encouraged and honored to welcome, a friend. But my dear friend, Kevin Deutsch. What's up, brother?

00;01;51;15 - 00;01;58;13

Speaker 2

Thanks, Jim, I appreciate that. Just, happy to be here with you today and talk about whatever you want to talk about.

00;01;58;15 - 00;02;18;07

Speaker 1

Awesome. Awesome. Again, I know, I know how busy you are. And, again, not only are you, you know, it's not just me that that picks, you know, people out. You know, I we we started this because we wanted to continue to give back to the industry. That's been good to obviously you, Kevin, and to me, and success leaves clues.

00;02;18;07 - 00;02;30;25

Speaker 1

And so not only do I think about it, obviously the people at SSB, here in Atlanta thought about it too. And, in fact, if people want to dial in, when is the show? It's on every Saturday, right? Every Saturday.

00;02;30;25 - 00;02;51;00

Speaker 2

I mean, yeah. And we're not national, we're Atlanta, Georgia, but we have a national signal and a lot of cases, and it's just, they came to me about a year ago and they said, hey, we want you to do this radio show, and it's noon on Saturdays. And I'm thinking, gosh, do I want to hear about my Saturdays?

00;02;51;02 - 00;03;09;07

Speaker 2

But, it's it's it's something that we've done and we've had a lot of fun with, the good news for me is it's football season. And it's also happens to be, the home of the dogs. Yeah. And everyone loves the Georgia Bulldogs. So when Georgia's playing an afternoon game, I don't have to do the radio show, I get bored.

00;03;09;10 - 00;03;13;10

Speaker 2

Okay, so that's perfect. I haven't been on in two weeks, but I got to be there this Saturday.

00;03;13;10 - 00;03;35;01

Speaker 1

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, look, Kevin is is is known, in Atlanta. I can remember being a young. And Kevin had no idea who I was from. Adam. But a young pre-owned manager. And, you know, I was at the auction, which is called. We just call it Red Oak here in Atlanta. And, you know, people will be following.

00;03;35;01 - 00;04;03;16

Speaker 1

And I try to get a glimpse of Kevin because he was he was known as as as buying the right cars. And I was trying to watch him and how he'd look at a car and how he'd look for paint work. And back then you had to actually pull an auction sheet, right? Kevin? And and pull service histories, if you could, if it was your make and and actually smell the cars and feel the cars for paintwork completely different animal now with with the way people are buying but listen obviously I've, I've watched your career for a long time, but let's just dive right into it.

00;04;03;16 - 00;04;21;10

Speaker 1

So. So you took over a store in Union City, Georgia. Which nothing wrong with Union City. It's not Palm Beach. It's not, you know, the upper end of Atlanta as far as a, per cat as far as, income and and, the things and quite frankly, you went into a store that was broken.

00;04;21;10 - 00;04;37;20

Speaker 1

So let's start there. On on kind of what, the store, obviously we're not going to be ugly to any, anything or anyone, but what was the store like? And then what were some of the steps? Because we talk about people. Oh, you know, they take over a great store and they make it great or it goes down and that's the kind of leader.

00;04;37;20 - 00;04;41;19

Speaker 1

But you took over something that was broken. So, so kind of take us through that story.

00;04;41;21 - 00;05;06;07

Speaker 2

Yeah. I was I was very fortunate. I was already friendly with the Butler family. You've known them for years. Yeah. One of the best automotive groups you'll ever find in the finest families. And, this store became available. It was the only selling metro Lexus store in the country. I got a phone call one day, and they said, if you're interested, I'll just go do this thing.

00;05;06;09 - 00;05;32;15

Speaker 2

And I said, sounds great. We met, we talked, we worked out our whatever our deal was, we came in, we took a look, we bought the store and we started on it. Day one. The manufacturer, they wanted to send so bad that we actually closed on this on the 19th of December, while the factory was still, they were out for the year.

00;05;32;22 - 00;05;52;00

Speaker 2

Yeah, I was going on vacation. I had no dealer number, no operating system. I had to go from where we had bought the cars. I had negotiated the used cars with the previous owners, and we went to work, and, it's been upward and onward ever since. We, we we've done a great job. We had market share.

00;05;52;00 - 00;06;18;21

Speaker 2

We beat Tesla, which is unheard of in a metro market for for a luxury store. We're basically 2 to 1 of our closest competitors. And we grown the store into a very successful, profitable goods store. And it's taken us, we're seven and a half years in, and I truly think that, I think Covid slowed us down.

00;06;18;24 - 00;06;23;20

Speaker 2

It it really hurt our trajectory because we got handicapped by units.

00;06;23;22 - 00;06;35;02

Speaker 1

So, so I want people because I know people that know the car business are going to be listening and they're going to the first thought is, well how can you screw up a Lexus? You're right. That's first call and the.

00;06;35;04 - 00;06;39;19

Speaker 2

Not to erupt you. But that was my thoughts. And that's why I said yes.

00;06;39;21 - 00;07;04;16

Speaker 1

So so how can you screw up a Lexus store. And then some people might, might. Yeah. But you and say yeah, but I mean, you know, anybody with half a brain can go into a Lexus store and fix it out. But, I mean, I'm just telling you, you know, the stories that because, again, it was in my market, I live about 25 minutes south of the store, in Peachtree City, and, you know, on the golf course at church, you know, people would have horror stories about, unfortunately about the weather.

00;07;04;16 - 00;07;23;25

Speaker 1

There was service or whatever. So it wasn't as easy because it was damage to, you know, the reputation. So take us through. You did something very, in my opinion, I thought was unique because we live in a world of, I don't want to say egos, but, yeah, egos. And people, you know, in our, in a lot of times in every field.

00;07;23;25 - 00;07;44;21

Speaker 1

But, you know, you love your title, you love you know, you worked 20 years to be a GSM GM, but but talk about the uniqueness of what you did with all of your managers. Almost day one with the business cards and everything else. I think that's extremely high. Number one, an incredible, piece of leadership. So so start there.

00;07;44;21 - 00;07;45;25

Speaker 1

Tell that story.

00;07;45;27 - 00;08;02;06

Speaker 2

Well, we did do it day wide when we ordered our business card. When we first bought the store, everybody's in the store, including my own. It only said manager. And I said, I don't care if you're the parts manager. If you see a problem, fix it. I don't care who wrote you the service manager if you see a sales issue, jump.

00;08;02;07 - 00;08;23;26

Speaker 2

And so everybody had to jump in it. It's almost like getting the whole city to walk by a piece of trash when they see it sitting on the sidewalk. So the first year of the dealership, everybody's business card only said manager. And we brought everybody, all the management together literally every day. Every week we had our managers meeting.

00;08;23;26 - 00;08;49;25

Speaker 2

We had a brief meeting every day. We talked about what we saw and what we could do together, and we built a team. They became very cohesive, very quick, with a mission and an understanding of what we were there to do. And everybody understood. But my job was, my job was to remove all of the debris in the river so the water could run smoothly.

00;08;49;27 - 00;09;15;14

Speaker 2

And and their job was to generate as much power as they could from that river. So I, I eliminated their obstacles one by one by talking about them and us working on them together. We prioritize things, and we wouldn't go on to the next project until the first one was done. And that way through priority, just one after one after one, the store began to fix itself.

00;09;15;16 - 00;09;42;11

Speaker 2

I think the sad part of it is whenever you take over a store that had not been successful and this store had truly been through four owners and not successful, which is crazy. There's going to be some carnage. And there are some people that were really good to help get from point A to point B, but were smart enough to realize that they couldn't take us to seed E and absolutely.

00;09;42;14 - 00;09;56;04

Speaker 2

And, and actually stepped out of the way. And now this team has zero turnover. All the management's been here forever. And the process and the cohesiveness is second to none.

00;09;56;06 - 00;10;22;10

Speaker 1

You know, I think that's interesting. And I do want to touch on one other point before we change topics. You know, I was even, you know, on previous ownership, I was recruited because I literally just to set the tone. I was driving for a decade, ten years and four months before we started car. Now I was driving 52 miles one way from Peachtree City to Duluth, Georgia, and, was being recruited heavily, to come in that store.

00;10;22;10 - 00;10;43;11

Speaker 1

Other other previous couple ownerships and look at everything happens for a reason. So when you talk about, I mean, there's certain dealerships in market areas that people know you don't go to work there, right? You don't you don't, you know, and there were several great people inside the store, even depending on, you know, who owned the store at the time.

00;10;43;11 - 00;11;02;03

Speaker 1

But they never could, you know, get the complete cohesiveness and the culture completely right due to and, you know, there's other stories there. But when you've got people driving an hour and a half to get to work, when they could get to work in 15 minutes. So I just want people to understand, you know, and salespeople are like, people would drive past it.

00;11;02;05 - 00;11;21;12

Speaker 1

Now you've got people driving an hour, hour and a half to get to you, to come to work. And I think that's a testament. But talk about putting yourself. And even the butler said, Kevin, are you sure putting your SAT. Where did you put your cell phone? You put your personal cell phone and you're like, and right when you got there and said, call me like if you have an issue.

00;11;21;12 - 00;11;38;17

Speaker 1

And and you told me stories of, you know, some late night drunk calls and everything else. So, so tell us that story. I mean, that takes guts to say, you know what? Here's my personal cell phone. If you have an issue, by the way, going into a store that was completely broken, call me. So, so talk about that a little bit.

00;11;38;20 - 00;12;04;15

Speaker 2

So I penned a letter and it was just introducing myself and the Butler family and Butler organization down to South Atlanta, telling them about myself and about them and what our intentions were at the store at the time we bought the store, the PMMa was actually being covered by Lexus, but it was being covered by a neighboring store who sold more cars in is amazing.

00;12;04;15 - 00;12;24;27

Speaker 2

Distorted. And I just told him, I said, I'm here, and I want to hear it. And I can fix it once I know about it. And it's not the same ownership. It's not the same dealership. We changed the name from Lexus of South Atlanta to Butler Lexus of South Atlanta to remove all of the Google and start over.

00;12;25;00 - 00;12;48;25

Speaker 2

So everything you see is all on us. Any victories and any failures? We take ownership of them. But I put it out there and we sent it to every single customer in the database. And then I took out a full page ad in all of the local newspapers and printed it and, told people I want them back, one customer at a time.

00;12;48;27 - 00;12;53;12

Speaker 2

Call me individually and I will bring you back, and I will make it right.

00;12;53;15 - 00;13;09;20

Speaker 1

Yeah. And again, we don't have time to go through again some of those late night, you know, 2:00 in the morning, drunk butt dials or whatever they were. But, people were looking at that letter in the in the paper and calling you. And again, it was just another step. Ladies and gentlemen, I think there's a key here.

00;13;09;22 - 00;13;27;26

Speaker 1

And I think the key is that I don't want you to miss again. This is the automotive business. I think it's any business is the humility of taking titles off of business cards and just doing whatever it takes to get done. And I think, you know, and what I want to do is leave, you know, success leaves clues.

00;13;27;26 - 00;13;48;03

Speaker 1

I want to leave a blueprint to, you know, you were you were spending a lot of time, in the service drive with some, some issues and, and and and that might sound ugly, but you fired some, some service customers. You you put it, a line in the sand, right? As far as we only work on certain on certain vehicles.

00;13;48;06 - 00;13;59;28

Speaker 1

So therefore you can you can, assure quality, timely repair, that type of thing. Don't have to go into detail, but but how was that, like, was that difficult in the beginning or. But it obviously turned out for the best.

00;14;00;02 - 00;14;28;21

Speaker 2

Well, I think the difficult part was my staff, because they had never seen anything like that before, and I understood what I needed to do and how I needed to do it. And once we put it in place, we really started taking care of the marketplace and started to grow the business. We were able to fix a lot of problems and service and every, every PMA, every market has its own unique situations and their own challenges and their own advantages.

00;14;28;23 - 00;14;47;12

Speaker 2

And you have to figure out, is it a challenge or is it a, there's an advantage. And sometimes it appears to be a challenge can be an advantage. But we are in what some people would have called where this store sits, back in the day, they may call it the hood are called it somewhere else. It is definitely gentrified.

00;14;47;12 - 00;15;17;12

Speaker 2

It's getting great. It's. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in Atlanta right now. But we had to take our marketplace and people said, you don't do any secondary financing. You're in South Atlanta now. There's if I take care of the good credit people, and I take care of the people that, look like us. You think a Lexus buyer looks like or you want a Lexus might look like, or you or the people that can and will appreciate the product.

00;15;17;15 - 00;15;29;29

Speaker 2

There's more than enough customers without having to tie up people and effort, for low profits and secondary finance. And to this day, we don't do any secondary. And we're in South Atlanta.

00;15;30;01 - 00;15;53;05

Speaker 1

Yeah. It's it's it's just amazing. The complete turnaround. I go in, obviously I stopped by, I don't know, once or twice a month. Service department, waiting areas always full, always full. You got an incredible I mean, it's, you know, you've got just nicer, the nicest people, you know, serving coffee and cookies. And it's just it's it's a it's just a great experience.

00;15;53;07 - 00;16;15;23

Speaker 1

Two more things I want to touch on that I think are important. You manage differently. Like, I think sometimes in the car business again, I have seen, the good, the bad and the ugly on a weekly basis. Obviously, most of the time I just shut up and observe on on leadership and dealership and, and, and how things are run.

00;16;15;23 - 00;16;43;11

Speaker 1

But one of the most common, issues in a dealership is, is, hey, whether that's, you know, pay in the service, drive on how many hours we're turning, how many rows we're writing, whether that's pay on the sales, on the sales, whether it's a sales manager, whether that's especially sales people, you know, they're calculating, you know, either they get a wash out sheet right before their pay plan, and that's when they calculate and then you get bombarded in your office.

00;16;43;11 - 00;17;00;13

Speaker 1

Look, I've lived it all. Hey, what about this commission? This should have been $200. Hire 200. Whatever. But. But you have something that, quite frankly, I've never seen before that I think if you know me, you know, being a software company, I'd love to figure it out. But you and I talked about it like ten people just won't do it.

00;17;00;13 - 00;17;15;23

Speaker 1

But but your salespeople every single day. And the thing that's fascinating is you spend two hours every morning going through this doc, but you're a salesperson. People and everybody in the store know exactly where they are every single day.

00;17;15;26 - 00;17;18;03

Speaker 2

So every every day, every deal.

00;17;18;06 - 00;17;42;17

Speaker 1

Every day, every deal, you know, there's no issues, you know? So so that is freaking fascinating to me. Can you unpack that? Just a little bit for, for people. And just so you know, before he even goes through that, there are people that have flown in, drove in, to watch and look at cabins process. We'll talk about that a little later.

00;17;42;17 - 00;17;55;22

Speaker 1

He's very humble. And he and he's, he he loves to do that, to try to help other people, but unpack how in the world do every single day your salespeople? There's no guesswork. They know exactly where they are.

00;17;55;24 - 00;18;22;00

Speaker 2

Yeah, absolutely. I don't know. Let's back up. When you start to be in the car business for as long as I have, and you've worked places and you see things, the number one reason why salespeople leave is because they don't trust the dealer. They feel like they're messed up and somebody comes out to them. Two hours before paychecks are done or deadline and something's wrong and they're begging, put someone to get it right.

00;18;22;03 - 00;18;44;21

Speaker 2

So I just took all that off of my accounting office, and I built out a sheet, and I log every single deal every single day, which allows me to look at every single deal and lets me know where every salesperson is. And it's got from what they sold. It just it's got the customer's name, the stock number, what they sold, their front gross, their back gross.

00;18;44;23 - 00;19;04;25

Speaker 2

Their bonus levels. And it all adds up and everything comes in it. If they have a bird dog free, it's on their pay sheet. It's got their CSI for the last 30 days and the last 90 days. It's got their 90 day rolling average. It's got everything you could ever need as a salesperson. And you get it every single day.

00;19;04;27 - 00;19;24;24

Speaker 2

And then I use it. I'm dyslexic, so I use colors. And once it's been through accounting, because we all know the deals change. Once they go to accounting, then it turns green on their sheet. And that means that the rows closed, accounting is gone, everything's good and they can count that they're going to get paid on that. So it goes from, from from white to green.

00;19;24;24 - 00;19;44;27

Speaker 2

They know that it's good. They can count on it. They know where they are, what they need. They see how far where they are from the bonus. But there's just no question mark. And nobody ever, ever leaves us because they worry about their pay, because they don't go to the accounting office. They bring it to me and they go, hey, did you did this while you were drinking wine last night?

00;19;44;27 - 00;20;09;18

Speaker 2

And I'm like, yeah. So I probably made a mistake. And then we fix it right there together. So the trust is there and I do it. Whether I'm on vacation, I do it if I'm not in the dealership, if I am in the dealership, they get a sheet every single day. Along with what you mentioned is my other sheets that I do for my managers, and they get them every single day, including Sunday.

00;20;09;20 - 00;20;26;05

Speaker 1

Unbelievable. And the fact is, and you've told me before, look, I spend an hour and a half, two hours, no matter where, if I'm sitting in Florida, if I'm sitting here and, you know, then my managers do what they do. You know, it's it's the law of attraction. Something's going on at Butler Lexus of South Atlanta and the law of duplication.

00;20;26;05 - 00;20;47;26

Speaker 1

Then you allow your leaders to lead. And that's where I want to land the plane. Your desk. You know, everybody talks about the sales desk. Everybody talks about, you know what, in the paper up, throw it in the face, people. And, you know, everybody talks about, you know, most people, most dealerships, quite frankly, you on the sales desk, you have your brand manager, you have your new car manager and your GSM ish.

00;20;47;28 - 00;21;07;21

Speaker 1

Right. So so what is different? I already know, but will you tell the listeners what is different? And I find this fascinating thing about who is, is, is working from your sales desk and, and why they are all at your sales desk.

00;21;07;24 - 00;21;31;28

Speaker 2

Well, because it's the heartbeat of the dealership, and they all need to be there. So, I've got five sales managers. Four of them are at the sales desk. One of them has an office by himself, and that's my upgrade manager. And he makes anywhere between 50 and 100 calls a day. And talks to 80 customers a day and has a sales team that works for him, that does upgrades in my service drive.

00;21;32;01 - 00;21;53;13

Speaker 2

Works my lease returns. Every opportunity we have in and outside the dealership to buy cars or to sell cars. So he has his own office. The other four managers that are there, they sit a around. They are together, along with I have a guest there for my team and they are they're involved in every single deal at the desk.

00;21;53;16 - 00;22;15;21

Speaker 2

And then my, my service director, not my service manager, my parts manager, my service director. He's in the sales office with them all day, every day. He's in every sales meeting. And he takes he actually takes all of the he calls everything, whether it's sales or service. If there's a heat case in our dealership, David is the first line of defense.

00;22;15;21 - 00;22;38;11

Speaker 2

And, we call him the director of operations, and he takes care of customers. He's, if you take a sales manager problem and hand it to a sales manager, they're busy trying to be right. If you hand it to somebody who's empowered to take care of a customer because we. Because the right thing to do is to get customers happy, whether they're right or wrong or indifferent.

00;22;38;13 - 00;22;55;25

Speaker 2

He's really good at it. So who better to deal with heat than this guy? And in doing so, now you've got he's best friends with the sales managers and there's zero separation in our dealership between departments. And when I say zero zero.

00;22;55;28 - 00;23;33;11

Speaker 1

You know, I skipped over that, one of the things and that that you've done that I would argue probably not a lot of dealerships, ladies and gentlemen, is this helpful? I mean, are you picking up clues here? One of the things that Kevin does that I also one of the, you know, 98 things that I find, fascinating that Kevin's been doing is the parts manager, the, director of operations, the, you know, the sales managers all above know what's happening in every department.

00;23;33;14 - 00;23;59;27

Speaker 1

Yes. That that doesn't happen. So so, you know, if you, as I would challenge most sales managers know don't know how many rows need to be written, you know, on a daily basis. You know, they don't know, what it takes to have a, successful parts and service, but something unique, Kevin, is that you're I don't want to say they're interchangeable, but they know if I drop the ball here, you know, we always spin place.

00;23;59;27 - 00;24;09;20

Speaker 1

If I drop the ball here, that's going to affect this part of the dealership talk about I mean, because I've never seen that happen before. And I think it's incredible to talk about that a little bit now.

00;24;09;26 - 00;24;31;19

Speaker 2

I think part of the challenges and part of the separation in dealerships is that people don't know what each other do, and there is a lack of appreciation and everyone's trying to jockey for their own place. So my guys are always together. Mike and you've known great sir all my parts manager for years. Greg can tell you the PBR of every every F and I person, and he knows whether they're going to make it or not.

00;24;31;22 - 00;24;53;27

Speaker 2

But we review in the managers meeting. We review all the, all the metrics from all ten advisors, from all the salespeople. We know the parts counter people. Everybody is being trained every single day through my spreadsheets and through our meetings, to be the succession for me. I'm not going to work forever. I'm 64 years old.

00;24;53;27 - 00;25;23;02

Speaker 2

At some point, I'm going to call it quits. Probably 5 or 6 years. But during this time, every buddy that's a manager in this store is being trained how to be a GM, to think like a dealer, to walk like a dealer. So, there are times when I need a sales manager to think like a sales manager, but there's also times the jury frustrating if you're a GM or a dealer where you want them to think like you and understand the grand picture.

00;25;23;07 - 00;25;47;08

Speaker 2

So my guys know that all gross isn't created equal. Everybody knows in this dealership that if I do internal service work, my net retention is $0.82 on the dollar. If I sell a car, my net retention is $0.32 on the dollar. Well, which one makes more sense? So I actually had my I'm a used car director, go to my service manager and raise his hourly rate.

00;25;47;10 - 00;26;16;25

Speaker 2

He said what's it going to cost me? $30. You're going to keep all of it. I'm going to give it away. And that's what happens when they become trained. So, everybody knows I make the pay plan simple. My, sales managers run a pool, so they're all pulling on the same chain. All the time. Everything about this store is to build consistency and people together and a team, and we drink and we eat together.

00;26;16;27 - 00;26;45;16

Speaker 2

We do family days. We do events together. When we have a lunch. Well, I'll give you an example. Probably the best thing that I've ever done is it started the first Friday of the first month. So we closed down the store on the 19th of December in 2016, on the first Friday of, of of July, we had a I mean, January 2017, we had an all employee meeting and we reviewed the good, the bad, the cat's Eye.

00;26;45;18 - 00;27;07;14

Speaker 2

We, talked about people's tenure and celebrated their anniversaries for work. We celebrated their birthdays, we ate lunch together, and then we all went to work, and we've never missed a month. And the entire dealership was together for 15 minutes the first Friday of every month. We at 12 noon in the service department, the customers come to the windows and watch.

00;27;07;17 - 00;27;37;10

Speaker 2

They don't mind. They see people celebrating each other. And then everyone goes to work and they get lunch. Getting that constant message to everybody and everybody hearing the same thing the same way, no wavering and everybody's celebrating each other, is fantastic. We close the meeting the same way every month is everybody's in a circle, and I tell them, look, across from them, because the person that they're looking at across from them came to work today for their family the same way you came to work for their family.

00;27;37;12 - 00;27;49;28

Speaker 2

And it's amazing how this dealership works. And now the continuity in here is second to none. And I get the credit of all the culture to the employees, not to me. We just gave them the opportunity.

00;27;50;01 - 00;28;11;11

Speaker 1

Kevin, really don't have any words. I, I love you, brother. I, you know, you've been a dear friend to me. You know more about me. You know, ladies and gentlemen, I you know, I don't I don't post a lot. I don't, you know, I, I'm, I, you know, obviously we do work stuff, but, you know, you've got that circle of friends in your life that, you know, you talk life with.

00;28;11;11 - 00;28;32;25

Speaker 1

And Kevin, you've been that person. For me, I only have a few of them, and I. And I love your brother, and I'm just. Look, success leaves close. Ladies and gentlemen, if you, want to hear more, if you want to, I will physically take you there, because, look, we we want to leave. You know, the the next generation in this generation better than we found it.

00;28;32;27 - 00;28;52;09

Speaker 1

How do we take care of people? You see a pattern here? You see a pattern here as far as leadership, as far as, you know, chasing success, pouring success or significance and people and success comes letting them understand that they're when they fall down, somebody else has to pick them up. Ladies and gentlemen, that's the key to the kingdom.

00;28;52;09 - 00;29;10;12

Speaker 1

Kevin, thank you so much. And, if you do, we're going to leave. Please leave something in the comments. Reach out to me directly. We'll leave a link. We'll we'll figure it out. We will, get you to Kevin to answer any more questions. If you want to come see us dealership, whatever you want to do.

00;29;10;12 - 00;29;25;09

Speaker 1

Because, quite frankly, one of the most amazing things that I have ever seen. Thank you. Kevin, listen, we always say here that no one is smarter than everyone. We're just going to keep getting better together.

00;29;25;11 - 00;29;45;09

Speaker 2

Well, thank you for having me back. This is great. It was a surprise to come back on. And, you are welcome to share my phone number or my email with anybody. My dealership is literally ten minutes from the Atlanta airport, where everybody flies in and out through there. I'm happy to share anything. And, my gosh, I would love to learn from everybody else too.

00;29;45;11 - 00;29;48;24

Speaker 2

So thanks again for having me. And,

00;29;48;27 - 00;29;55;17

Speaker 1

Tell Angela I sure will love your brother. Thank you guys. We'll see you soon.

00;29;55;20 - 00;30;02;07

Unknown

And I.

00;30;02;09 - 00;30;02;23

Speaker 1