Pub. 60 2019-2020 Issue 5

27 FALL 2020 A fter moving to the U.S. from China when she was 13 and earning an accounting degree from the University of Houston, Zhuqiong Alice Cao did not expect to work at a dealership. Her first post-degree job was at a real- estate firm where she sat in a back- office cubicle with three screens doing financial analysis all day, every day. The job was a poor fit for an extrovert. She worked there for 10 months and then became a management trainee at Group 1 Automotive. The management trainee program lasted two years and put her in every position in the dealership during that time, starting with being a service porter and including being a techni- cian for one month doing simple tasks. The experiencewas a complete contrast to the job she’d come from. As her program continued, she felt welcomed, and she appreciated the lack of at-work drama. She says it is important to have an extremely open mind and to learn everything you can about the business since there is so much to know. Her work, she says, has been an eye-opener. She loves the fact that every day is a different and unpredictable challenge. Eight years after she started the pro- gram, she’s worked at almost six stores in two separate dealership groups.While working at Sterling McCall Lexus in Houston as a finance director, she av- eraged $1.2 million in monthly gross profits in the finance and insurance department over a three-year period. Cao’s first job as general manager was in San Antonio at Volkswagen of Alamo Heights. She was 28, and she increased the monthly net income for the store more than three times and doubled sales goals for the store. She was also a general manager for a John Eagle Infiniti store for a year, and in late May 2020, she moved across town to run John Eagle Acura. She was also surprised by the way consumer trends caused by internet shopping were changing the business. When she started, people shopped for cars traditionally: they walked onto the lot, looked around to see something they liked, took it for a test drive and began asking questions. That’s all changednow.TheCoronavirus pandemic only accelerated the shift. To- day, customers research their purchases long before they arrive on the lot, and when they get there, they are ready to buy. Some customers want to usemobile devices for the entire purchase. Virtual car shopping and home test drives have both increased during CO- VID-19, and she thinks they will still be there when the pandemic is no longer an issue. According to Cao, internet sales are increasingly important, and the dealership is using electronic contracts.  Zhuqiong Alice Cao, 30 General manager, John Eagle Acura under