Did you have any mentors along the way and what did they teach you? My first mentor was my father. He didn’t believe in playing games with people by giving customers the runaround. He believed in up-front pricing while being transparent and honest. Treating people like you’d like to be treated yourself was paramount to him. When other dealers were trying to get every last dime out of customers, he was trying to make sure they came back. The example he set has served me well throughout my career. My family store started as Chevrolet and Oldsmobile in the early 1900s. When my great-grandfather left the business, his two sons flipped a coin for who got the Chevrolet store and who got Oldsmobile. Whoever ended up with Chevrolet was to stay in the existing building. My grandfather ended up with Oldsmobile and had to move to a new location. My grandfather’s brother had some serious medical issues and wasn’t long for this world, so he sold the Chevrolet store. Needless to say, my grandfather could not match the selling price, so the store left the family, and George Buchanan became the new owner. In his own words, George did all the wrong things when he took over the Chevrolet store, and there were many problems. George ended up selling the store because their reputation had become so bad. In short, he had ruined the store, and my family took back over ownership. Even so, George ended up becoming a regular visitor to the store. He would show up almost every day after playing golf, just to say hello, have a cup of coffee and talk. After a while, George became pretty comfortable with me and would refer to me as Sonny. George was pretty grounded and would often offer me advice. George had an interesting life story, to say the least, and his wisdom and influence have helped me many times throughout the years. One day, I was explaining to George that I was having trouble with another dealer in town. This dealer was going to the auto auction and buying damaged cars that were my product — Oldsmobile and Pontiac. Then, the dealer was selling the damaged cars for what I was paying for clean cars. They were picking up massive dollars, and I was having to compete. To make things worse, people would show up at my dealership as they were having problems with the cars as a result of the damage — one of which was covered under warranty. The other dealer was trying to label us as the bad guys because we wouldn’t honor the non-existent warranty. After I was finished explaining my frustrations, George leaned back and began to share some of his experiences with me, hoping to put the current situation in context. Now George was a smoker, and at the end of his story, he said, “Sonny, take it from someone who knows: He who shits big does not shit long.” He took his cigarette and sucked it all the way down, then put it out in the palm of his hand. Then he got up and left. I didn’t see George for two weeks. During that time, I thought a lot about what he had shared with me, and I realized what he was trying to say: Hard times will come and go. And he was right. The other dealership didn’t last long once the community realized what was happening. George was my good friend and mentor. What three things have you learned during your career that you would pass on to someone you are mentoring? 1. You can only control what you can, and you must let go of the rest. People tend to internalize things they can’t control, which will chew them up. There will be high-stress situations where you can’t make everybody happy. Deal the best with what you can and try for the best outcome, but in the end, sometimes you just have to let things go. 2. Don’t ever ask anybody to do something you wouldn’t do yourself. As an owner, I work alongside my people. Last year, we had a service advisor leave us. 19 MONTANA AUTO DEALER
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