Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
In a world where storytelling has been our link to the past since the days of cave drawings, there exists a timeless tradition. It's the art of passing down knowledge, and for Military Veterans, it's a crucial piece of their legacy. Join us on the Veterans Archives Podcast, where we dive deep into the heartwarming and awe-inspiring stories of those who served, no matter when or where.
Here, Veterans get the chance to be the authors of their own narratives. Through guided interviews in a relaxed and safe environment, they paint their experiences with their own words and unique voices. The result? A memory card in a presentation box, a precious gift they can share however they please.
But that's not all. These stories find a secure home in our archive, a treasure chest of experiences for future generations to explore. The best part? It's all a gift to the Veteran – our way of saying thank you for their service.
Tune in to the Veterans Archives Podcast, where history, heroism, and heartwarming tales come to life.
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Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
From Rifles to River Journeys: Don Roach's War Stories Part 5
What happens when a Marine Corps veteran with a knack for creative problem-solving enters the cutthroat world of automotive sales? This candid conversation takes you deep into the dealership trenches of 1980s Detroit, where commission schemes, management betrayals, and customer psychology collide in unexpected ways.
You'll follow one man's remarkable journey from his first night on the sales floor—where he sold the oldest, most expensive van in inventory—to becoming a consistently top-performing salesman across multiple dealerships. When management stole his first commission claiming he was "on probation," it set the tone for a career marked by both brilliant successes and frustrating setbacks.
The storytelling shines brightest in the colorful customer encounters: delivering a luxury convertible to a doctor's wife that turns transparent in a sudden downpour; solving a mysterious vehicle vibration with nothing but a matchbook when trained mechanics were stumped; and explaining to a renowned neurosurgeon why his new Cadillacs would cost $600 less monthly than his old ones. Each anecdote reveals valuable insights about customer psychology and the art of the sale.
Most fascinating is how these experiences in automotive sales—understanding people's needs, creative financing, problem-solving, and relationship building—ultimately translated into a successful business consulting career. The skills honed on showroom floors proved invaluable when connecting entrepreneurs with angel investors, demonstrating how versatility and adaptability can transform even challenging career experiences into stepping stones for future success.
Whether you're curious about the inner workings of car dealerships, interested in sales psychology, or simply enjoy stories of professional reinvention, this episode delivers entertaining tales packed with practical wisdom about navigating challenging business environments with integrity and ingenuity.
I was reading the news Help Wanted section and Southfield Dodge was advertising, no experience necessary, you know Well. Later on I learned what that meant. But I thought well, here we go. And the reason I wanted to do it is I had an uncle. My dad's youngest brother was very successful with a Chevrolet dealer on the far east side of Detroit, ted Ewald Chevy, right on Jefferson.
Speaker 1:When I was a boy back in 1956, he came by the house with a brand new 56 Corvette Roadster. It took me for a ride. It was black with red interior. I've got a model of it now, but that to me was the coolest car ever and he was always real good to me. I'm the oldest of five, so the rest of the kids were little, you know. Yeah, didn't make much sense of anything, you know, but I appreciated things Right and he was single at the time. So I get the benefits of being there at that time in his life, anyway. So I always thought Uncle Jim was really a cool guy and had a neat job, you know play with cars and talk to people and make money. I had no idea what making money meant, but you know.
Speaker 3:You got to drive that cool car. It must have meant something.
Speaker 1:Well, when I got back from California, it was 1983. Not long before the 84 models were coming out. So I got hired by Southfield Dodge and they put me through like a homespun crash course to learn the models, learn the equipment packages, learn the powertrains, so I could be able to answer questions intelligently of new car buyers. Right. And I applied myself. The good thing was, when I read something, I had it.
Speaker 3:Right, you have a photographic memory.
Speaker 1:I didn't have to go back a second time and of course I had to read all the not only the literature, I had to read all the sales pamphlets, and so I knew where stuff was to show people. And Southfield Dodge was going through a transition. It had just recently been bought by two guys, former car salesmen, sini and Lopez. Sini was from Sardinia and Lopez was from a Mexican descent, and Mr Lopez's dad financed the whole thing. I found that out later. So these two salesmen bought the store and they were ready to go. You know they want to hit the ground running and make money. Of course they had a staff.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And there's always car guys looking for jobs. They're not happy with a manager somewhere so they want to go somewhere else. New face, new everything. So anyway, I hadn't been actually trained to sell anything, I just my experience after the Marine Corps. Maybe I should go through there first. When I got out of the Marine Corps I got a job with Wayne Oakland Bank as a head teller. I was trained for two weeks and they sent me out to Claussen where I worked for five years and I was a head teller for a little over two and the Claussen office had a loan department upstairs. It was the central loan department for the whole bank, even though the home office was Royal Oak.
Speaker 3:Right, you went in and cleaned up their loan office, didn't you? Oh I didn't want to look there. Yeah, I think we talked about this, like you were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they put me in collections which they called the adjustment department.
Speaker 3:Right right.
Speaker 1:So they adjusted me and I adjusted the customers.
Speaker 3:Yes, and you brought in what was your percentage. It was 100%.
Speaker 1:No, um they were looking for a 10 recovery rate every month. Yeah, in other words, they would be happy if you could hit 10 right. My first month I hit 90 yeah yeah, I, so I remember this, so they basically said to me nobody in the history of this business has ever had 90. We don't't know what you're doing, but keep it up.
Speaker 3:Right. At first, though, didn't they think you were doing something dishonest, or they thought something was wrong with the computer?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, they paid a couple thousand dollars to have the report rerun. Wow.
Speaker 3:So I mean, you have that experience behind you before you go do this job.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I had. I mean, for me it was common sense, right? You know, I was just applying common sense to new situations, right, and it works out well. I've always been a problem solver. I've always had to figure things out. Sometimes I'd look at it from a different angle than anybody else, right, and make a different adjustment, something nobody expected.
Speaker 3:So how did this work out? Selling Dodges then?
Speaker 1:Well they finally put me on the floor. We had little offices. They gave me a little office and they told me I'd be on the floor that night. Well, that night was the last night of the model year. So anything they could sell and get on paper counted as a total of their 83 business, and the total number of units and models that you sold by the end of the year counted for getting new ones for the next year. So if you wanted to be a big van driver by the end of the year, counted for getting new ones for the next year.
Speaker 1:So if you wanted to be a big van driver, you better sell a lot of vans before the end of the year If you wanted to be a good domestic sedan saver. Same thing, right. And we had a new car on the Dodge inventory back then was the Dodge Daytona. It was a rename of a model that they had at one time, but this car was turbocharged, front wheel drive, very zippy little car. Oh yeah, it had its growing pains but it was. The amazing thing was the turbo was like a third generation turbo. The mechanics of the turbo solved a lot of problems that the Europeans were having Volvos, for example, and things like that were having problems with turbines, overheating the bearings and they'd freeze up. Well, chrysler mounted the turbo on the block but they cooled it with water in a water jacket and oil in another compartment. So you had and of course the water is going through the radiator and the oil is going through the oil cooler. So both of those would dissipate a lot of heat very well.
Speaker 1:So it made it pretty reliable then and I thought it was an amazing piece of technology that they were smart enough to do that and of course that would be a sales point to use. A lot of the other guys had no idea what was under the hood. Right, the car just looked cool. You turned the key, it ran and it was a car Right. But for some guys that worked, not for me. I had to know everything about what I was selling. Anyway, they put me on the floor for that final sales night. They had a big promotion going. They advertised on TV Southfield Dodge, blah, blah, blah. And if you came in and even just test drove a car, you got a box with two wine glasses in it, lead crystal wine glasses. Pricer supplied them. The dealers paid for them, but they got them from Pricer. We ran out of wine glasses real quick. People were snatching those things up. So they gave me a hundred bucks, told me to go to the hardware store Guess what? Same wine glasses.
Speaker 3:What a surprise.
Speaker 1:They weren't in a Chrysler box, right, I looked at it same exact wine glasses, local hardware. So you know, I'd buy a bunch of wine glasses, take them back. We gave those away, anyway. So I was kind of like a gopher on the job, you know. Yeah, I did whatever they needed. So that night they let me loose on the floor and so I get a customer. It's a family Husband, wife, two kids. Kids are like young teens and dad had a business attitude and moderate business clothes on and wife was nicely dressed, the kids were immaculate, I mean fresh clothes, everything pressed. Yeah, it's like the old days. You know, you went out to buy a car. That was a big moment, you know, right, right, and what they wanted to do was price out a new Dodge 600 convertible, another new model. We didn't have one of those cars at all and we weren't going to get one because this store hadn't sold enough of anything to qualify.
Speaker 1:So the only way we'd get it is with an order, a sold order. Anyway, pricing out cars doesn't pay anything at all. You get paid on deliveries and you get paid the next month, right? So when you're in a commissioned sales business, you better have room to stretch your finances away. I didn't care, I just wanted a foot in the door and get started. Yeah, anyway, I started pricing out this car for him and I was describing the car and its equipment as I priced it out, asking the wife, you know, would you want this or that? Or you know, I mean, I assume you want air conditioning, you know, for the days you put the top up when it's hot out and you don't want all the sun you know, Anyway, there were sensible questions they answered sensibly.
Speaker 1:They were educated people. They didn't take much to understand. I didn't have to elaborate to get them to understand anything. And while I was doing all this, the husband kept anxiously looking out towards the front door, the front window area, and we had a van outside. It was an 83 van. It had been. It started off as a Dodge, Was it a?
Speaker 3:Caravan back then Dodge Caravan. No, not a caravan, this was a van. Oh, the large size van. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:This car originally didn't have windows or anything in it, uh-huh, and we had it customized. Okay, so you had the base price of the van plus about $3,500 of customizing.
Speaker 3:Right, oh, hang on Attention available staff and members.
Speaker 2:Please join us in the main lobby for the honors procession. Attention available staff and members. Please join us in the main lobby for the honors procession.
Speaker 1:Member passed. Oh a member passed.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's too bad. So he's looking at this van.
Speaker 1:He's looking at it. And finally he said something about he says and the van was sale, it had a sale price right on it. Like you know, it was a bottom line price. I mean, they were just they're trying to get it off the wall they're trying to get it out. It was the oldest item in inventory. It was where they had the most money invested and nobody was showing that van.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean there was no interest. People coming in weren't asking about it and the guys selling the cars weren't trying to promote it, like even asking regular customers. Do you know anybody interested in a van? Yeah Well, this family was. And from the size of this family, I mean there were already four of them, and if they brought friends with them to go anywhere, that .600 convertible was going to be maxed out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or if they have any more kids right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the van had four captain's chairs in. It had plenty of room in the back. It had room for more. Yeah, plus it had a bed in the, a full-down couch. That was a bed, so you could have somebody sleeping back there while you drove across country. Right, I remember the conversion vans.
Speaker 3:It was kind of a big deal back in the 80s.
Speaker 1:And in 83,. This was actually a nicely done van. It wasn't gaudy but it had flared fenders, it had the steps and a trailer hitch, a trailer tow package on the chassis Right.
Speaker 3:It was a pretty ready-to-go unit and you could take it home that day. Yeah, if you wanted it.
Speaker 1:You could drive it to church that weekend, right, right.
Speaker 2:So he's looking at this van while you're pricing this car, he's asking about the van. Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:And I said well, it's going to take me a while to get all this added up and go through it with a manager, which I'm required to do. I said why don't you take that for a ride? And I went and got the keys. I got a dealer plate. It was a magnetic plate. I slapped it on the back, gave him the keys. I said just take it for a ride and I'll see you in 15, 20 minutes. I'll see you in 15, 20 minutes. Yeah, like no, no, I'm making. I mean, I had to take a big picture. It was licensed to make it legal but, you know, for insurance purposes. But other than that, I just slapped, put them in it and sent them on their way. Well, dad looked really good, sitting up there in the captain's chair with a big van, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Mom's hanging on to him like, oh boy, this is, don't we look like something, you know, and they could see themselves in it and they'd suddenly go to meet and close, you know, right, right. And the kids were thrilled to be in the captain's chairs in the back, you know. They were close enough to pass things back and forth, but not so close that they it was a boy and a girl, yeah, not so close that they'd pull out each other or whatever, right, annoy one another. And so the sales manager was busy. He had people at his desk the whole time.
Speaker 1:Like I said, this night was a big promotion. There was a lot of lights, a lot of stuff going on. He saw me taking people outside and the next thing, you know, he sees the van going down the road and he looks at me like and I just went, you know, and I went back and finished pricing out the Dodge 600, and I brought that to him and he's looking at this. What's happening? This is not a van.
Speaker 1:I said notice the Dodge 600 convertible they want to price out. So he priced it out and slashed the list price and gave him a $50 over invoice price. It's just in and out to them, just a unit and it won't happen for months. You know, in the meantime the fan comes back and the first thing they want to do when they come back in my office is give me the keys. So I take the keys back like nothing, you know. I said, oh, by the way, I suppose you would like to look at the manual. And the minute that big guy took that manual from my hand I knew I had him, he owned that van right.
Speaker 3:I knew that was his.
Speaker 1:They're reading an owner's manual. You know how boring those things are.
Speaker 1:Turn the air conditioner on, you do this, or flip the radio to program the radio, and they're going through it like it's a Bible. And finally they you know I give them the price on a convertible and they're like, well, that's interesting. But by now they've realized that convertible's not gonna fit their plans. They wanna go on vacations with a new vehicle and a convertible versus a custom van no, there is no comparison. So they bought the van.
Speaker 1:So next thing, you know, I'm in front of the manager's desk with a check for deposit and a sales order for the van and he looks at me like I'm the man from Mars. Right, his name was Jerry Hsu H-S-U. He was Chinese, but he was sharp and I think basically he was a good guy. He was in the car business, the Dodge car business, so he had to be a snake Right. Dodge is like the bottom of the barrel and anyway, jerry was. I mean, I could see he was actually thrilled. I thought maybe he thought he was thrilled for me for doing a good job. So he signs everything and they give me a receipt. A good job. So he signs everything. And you know, they give me a receipt for the check. And part of the deal was I had to. Oh, it did not have a trailer hitch on it, I had to put one on it. Okay.
Speaker 1:So part of the deal was I had to add a trailer hitch and that was the only thing. And there was the only thing and there was a place right down the street that would do that. So it's like it's my time I got to take the thing down, get it done and bring it back, yeah, so anyway, it turned out that big sales event. I was the only guy that sold anything. Oh, the only salesman that made a sale was the new guy on the block with no training. Sold the oldest unit inventory and the most expensive unit inventory and unit inventory and the most expensive unit inventory. And we delivered. I took the van down, got the hitch, delivered the van and the fellow that bought it was the number one guy for Prudential Life Insurance down the street. He ran the office, he was the big boss, so he was going to go to work in his new van. You know, show everybody. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean he could see himself going places with this van. That I couldn't even imagine. You know, he already had it mapped out in his head.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, well, a lot of times a vehicle purchase like a house is kind of an emotional purchase.
Speaker 1:It's the second biggest purchase most people make in their life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not just a business transaction.
Speaker 1:And hopefully as a salesman. You just made a friend for life.
Speaker 3:He's going to tell his friends and he's going to come back when he needs another car. All of that.
Speaker 1:That's how you make it in the car business, right, it's all referrals.
Speaker 3:So how long did you stay at this place? 90 days, oh, okay. So what happened?
Speaker 1:and where did you go? What happened was the sales event was on a Wednesday, I believe Uh-huh, it was the last day of the month. And Friday. We were getting all ready to go home for the week. We didn't work on the weekends. We're getting ready to leave the business and as everybody was leaving, Jerry waved me over and says you know, stay behind a minute. I want to talk to you a minute. So I stayed behind.
Speaker 1:The showroom's empty. I don't know what was going on in the shop, but the showroom's empty and Jerry's sitting at his desk and says to me you want to know what you would have made with that van. And I just stood straight up and I said wait a minute, what do what you would have made with that van? And I just stood straight up. They said wait a minute, what do you mean would have made? He says well, you were on probation. Your job doesn't actually really start until Monday. So what they did was they stole my commission. They gave it to some guy that they had that had been a good salesman at one time, but he had fallen on hard times. He hadn't made any money in a long time.
Speaker 3:The commission on the van was $400.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of money which was better than anything else we had in inventory. There was a bonus just to get it out the door, yeah, so they gave it to him. I almost went over the desk. I was pretty hot. Yeah, yeah, I was pretty hot. Yeah, and it was a situation where, fortunately, my humanness came through Right and I said explain to me how that works. And he basically said well, you know, we had you sign a paper to be a salesman, but it didn't start until Monday, in other words it was dated for next week.
Speaker 1:Right, you were just supposed to be training with people this week. I said I spent two weeks learning all the material. You let me loose on the floor for one night. I sold the most expensive and oldest thing in the lot, got it out of your hair and you're stealing my commission. We're going to make it up to you. We're going to put you with one of their other experienced salesmen who handled fleet orders. He says we're going to have you work with him, you're going to own half the business. Whatever the fleet manager does, you get half and you can still sell on the floor when you want to. Well, that sounded pretty good, except there was no fleet business. They bid on things. Right, they would bid on police cars, city trucks, I mean all kinds of Dodge Chrysler Dodge equipment. They never won any deals, not one. They weren't politically connected. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So their orders or bids, they just didn't get seen, didn't matter how good they were. It was all politics, and maybe it was partly bribes too. I don't know Right, but anyway I worked for them for 90 days and the way the Dodge dealers worked was they would advertise, no experience necessary. They would get salespeople in. They would get you to give them a list of your friends and relatives for referrals, try and get you to sell as many cars as you could to that crowd and then send you on your way and get another batch in for 90 days. And that was the routine. That wasn't exceptional, that was routine. That's just how they did things yeah routine.
Speaker 1:That's just how they did things, so they weren't planning on keeping anybody new for over 90 days. Anyway, if you weren't an old buddy from somewhere in the business years ago, you didn't stay. They didn't care how good you did, and if you hit something out of the park, like I did, it was a fluke. So they were shooting themselves in the foot.
Speaker 3:Right, they were looking short term.
Speaker 1:They were losing good people just because this was their policy of grooming people through every 90 days, and that pretty much pissed me off, right, and I thought, well, if that's the way I want to do it, I don't want to be here anyway. And another little problem they had with the new Dodge Daytona. They delivered one and the customer brought it back. Brought back, says it's making noises, it's something's vibrating, and I can't figure it out. So they put it in the shop. It was there for two, two to five days. They drove it around. They couldn't figure it out. So I'm standing there one day and they got the car idling and it was a gorgeous car really. I mean, the paint scheme was phenomenal and I loved driving them. They were a really hot little car to drive. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:They made the mistake of letting me out in a Chrysler test track with one, and they had an engineer ride with me, kind of like. Well, you go with all these trainee drivers and see if they got any questions intelligent questions about the car, and so I'm out driving with this guy and I was really impressed with the turbo. They had developed a car that had no turbo lag at all. You step on the gas. You had it right then. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they had also changed the length of the control arms to the front wheels so that there was no over-spear on one side or the other. It was even so. This car tracked really well and the suspension held the ground pretty good. It wasn't a 911 Porsche, but it would have been like a 900 Porsche.
Speaker 3:Right, right, it's the poor man's Porsche, right it had four wheels.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, anyway, I'm driving down this track and I'm coming up to an intersection and this guy says yeah, it's pretty good suspension. I said well, let's find out. I said have you ever done a 90 degree turn? He said well, no, and I went around that corner 90 degree left. I went around that corner, you know it's a 90 degree left.
Speaker 1:I went around that corner like in a four-wheel drift, with the gas full on, you know, and he's hanging in for two to life, you know. And the car just stayed perfectly fine. It didn't rock or roll or anything. I said, yeah, I slowed down. I'd gotten up to about 55 miles an hour in a 25 turn, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:He said yeah. I said that's pretty impressive. He says you say so Like I've never done that before. Anyway, I took him back intact, anyway. So they got this turbo idling and I'm listening to it and I can hear this kind of a sound, you know something vibrating. And there was a guy lighting a cigarette. One of the mechanics was lighting a cigarette using a matchbook and he pulled out like the last match he was going to toss the book. I said can I have that? He said sure. So I took the match book, closed the cover, folded it in half, I opened the hood and there's a panel on the hood that catches rain so that it won't rain.
Speaker 1:It's air ducted but it's like a rain catcher 's got a little drain on one side so it goes over the side of the engine. Doesn't hear anything. But this thing is held on with two ribbons so the the thing is vibrating. So I took a matchbook, shoved it in there, close the foot, I said fixed. Nobody could. I mean they got all those mechanics looking at each other like well duh, you know how could I not see that?
Speaker 3:Right. You know, the simplest answer is usually the right one.
Speaker 1:I mean, it wasn't a permanent fix, You'd have to make some adjustment but for just to demonstrate what the fix would be, it worked. So anyway, like I said, I worked for them 90 days and I had been gypped. On my first commission. I did sell a few more cars. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I actually sold them off the used lot. I did sell a few more cars yeah, I actually sold them off the used lot. So I made a few hundred dollars Mm-hmm, and said thanks for the experience. I'm out of here. Look, I'll never sell Dodge again, right? So I went down the road on foot, looking you know, I ended up at Livonia Oldsmobile and walked in the door and got hired. They asked me what experience I had. I said well, for 90 days I worked at the Dodge store and I told them a story about the van. They said you know you'll do okay here. And I did. They said you know, yeah, you'll do okay here. And I did I like. I said I. Within a month I was in the. I was a number two, right, right?
Speaker 3:and uh well, we were talking about that.
Speaker 1:You were consistently number two yeah, I was always number two. I could never get to number one.
Speaker 3:Number one came and went, but number two you were always fortunately number two got the same prize as number one got. Yeah, you just didn't get the prestige of being number one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but most of the time. Number one was a friend of mine named Jerry Galda. I mean, we got to be friends. Jerry was a former iron worker, but he was a tall guy, lean, gregarious, very friendly to people, and his favorite saying is don't make me bring your whole family together. I don't know what that means, but I heard it a hundred times. Anyway, and I was working with a variety of interesting individuals, one guy was like an old-time salesman He'd been selling cars for 100 years, you know.
Speaker 3:Right Been around a little while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he had the nice clothes to show for it. I mean, he knew how to dress to work with the public. Yeah.
Speaker 1:He was always well-groomed, well-mannered, and one night that winter, well, I should tell you the way we determined who got the next customer was who went out front and greeted the next customer. You would take turns. So here we are, in the middle of winter, the sleet is blowing, the wind's blowing. He's standing out there in this big thick coat, muffler and a fedora, you know, waiting for the next customer, right? If there is a next customer, so I get out there. I'm number two behind him, right, mm-hmm. So I start giving them this stuff and after a few minutes he's shaking and shaking, goes inside. I got the next customer and one other. One other thing was funny about that it would, it would rain occasionally, like April.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:April showers, we'd get rain and I always took my umbrella to work and I kept it in my desk drawer. Well, not all the guys had enough sense to go buy an umbrella, but they'd steal mine.
Speaker 3:Well, you had one, and they might as well use it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so somehow they'd get into my drawer without me seeing them there. I'd be distracted or something. And next thing you know, it's raining and they're outside getting customers and nobody's walking in the showroom. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:I had a broken umbrella at home so I brought it in, put it in my drawer and this umbrella was one of those pop-up types, except the retaining ring had broken off. So the next time one guy grabbed my umbrella, he runs outside to greet a customer and it's a nice older couple, right. They're getting out of their car and it's raining. He runs out to them, smiles, presses the button and the umbrella goes flying across the parking lot and he's still here holding a stick and they're looking at him like what kind of idiot are you? I come out the door with a real umbrella and walk him in my customer. There you go. That's all in my car.
Speaker 3:There you go Now. How long were you there? How long were you at Livonia?
Speaker 1:Oldsmobile 14 months.
Speaker 3:Okay, so just these short stints so far. So where did you go?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I worked five years first place, right? I worked over eight years for Scott Coburn Saddlery, yeah, and I'm just trying to keep a job more than a year, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the car business is kind of a churn.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, the problem was Oldsmobile was closing, yeah, so the inventory was drying up. Our most popular cars were the Cutlass Sierra. We didn't have any Cutlass Sierras. Well, actually we had five and they were all demos that belonged to salesmen. Right, one of them was mine. So you had to bring it to work every day, freshly washed, park it and allow anybody else to drive it, to demo the car or to even sell the car, in which case they didn't have any other ones to get you. So now, what did you do? Right, you were out. You were out. Well, through the first year I wanted a car myself. I wanted to buy a Tornado. I love the Tornado. It looked right, I had long legs, it fit me well, my friends were 6'5", yeah, and it was a very nice riding car, beautiful car. So one day we got a trade-in. It was a one-year-old old Caliente Tornado. Caliente, which was the top-line package Leather, chrome, strip up the door, really classy car.
Speaker 3:All the good stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, the general sales manager wanted that for a demo and he could have it for as long as he wanted it and sell it yeah. So he had the car detailed came out of the detail shop, the manager there was a guy named Jim and I had gotten him to know him hanging around the dealership and Jim had his crew detail the car. They put it out front to let it try out in the sun it was a nice day and the boss went out, opened the door and damn near died and I heard later he described it as it smells like there's a dead body in there. Oh no, I mean, this beautiful car reeked. It was awful and if you've ever smelled a decaying body, that's what it smelled like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's an awful smell. That's what it smelled like. Yeah, it's an awful smell.
Speaker 1:Ugh. So anyway, they ran it through detailing again, had it all vacuumed and perfumed and everything, put it out front. It was just as bad as before. So the general manager knew I knew something about cars. He says, donna, go out there and analyze that car, tell me what's wrong with it. He didn't tell me what the problem was, right, okay? So I go out, I open the door and I sit down. I'm like, oh God, I'm looking around the car and I got up and inspected the roof. Somebody had installed a half roof, they call it, which was a heavily padded vinyl top.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like a Landau.
Speaker 1:A Landau?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, those things are fine if you do it properly. And because that's a modification that cuts off the drain system on the roof, you've got to have a supplemental drain, something that won't interfere with the car. Well, somebody decided to run that drain so that it drained inside and they figured it would be fine. So that told me what I wanted to know. So I went back to Jim the delivery guy and I said Jim, have your guys pull the rear seat cushion out of the car, completely out. Tell me what you find. So it took them a few minutes but they got a couple guys out there and they got the rear seat cushion out. It was a mushroom farm.
Speaker 3:Mushrooms were like this big, oh no, no, six, eight inches across.
Speaker 1:So everything you're smelling was spores. Yeah. And you know, mushrooms are damp, they hold moisture, they stink. It was like a wet dead dog. Yeah. And so he explained it to the general manager. The general manager come back to me and says what's the fix? And I said the only way to get that smell out of the car is an acid wash. You've got to completely clean the spores out of where they're growing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean you've got to kill them, and if you can't use radiation, you've got to use acid. It's the only way. If you can't use radiation, you got to use acid. It's the only way. So you got to. I mean, there are professional companies that will do that for you. But it's costly.
Speaker 1:But let's face it, you've got a car there you can't sell. You're never going to retail that car Right. It's only worth scrap metal in the way it sits. So somebody's gonna have to wash that car to make it useful again. I said, but once it, once it's done properly, it'd be, it'd be great, I'd buy it. So so they wholesale the car. They found a wholesaler would just take it as is and get it out of there. And I told them, like I said I was. By now I've been there six, seven months. I was always the number two salesman, so I finally realized I can write my own ticket. Yeah.
Speaker 1:They want to keep me. Yeah, I mean in December, when the average number of deliveries was three, I delivered 14 cars.
Speaker 3:That's a pretty big deal yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean the fact that Santa Claus was coming didn't slow me down, yeah, you know everybody else. Oh, it's Santa time and people are saving their money for other stuff. I mean car guys have more excuses not to work. I mean it's Halloween, it's, you know, thanksgiving, deer hunting. St Patrick's Day, you name it, yeah, they've always got an excuse. I mean I look for opportunities. St Patrick's Day, you name it, yeah, they've always got an excuse.
Speaker 1:I mean I look for opportunities, right, and my hobby's flying, renting airplanes and buying gas, for my dad's airplane was expensive. If I wanted to fly, I had to make money. I got to pay for apartment, pay for a car pay, you know everything, like everybody else, but I also had to feed the airplane, right, there was no other way. So I had a hustle anyway, and the management of Action Olds was impressed that I flew airplanes. I mean, most of the guys there played golf, right? Well, golf costs you a little bit of money, yeah, but it's not that much, right, and I mean I'm paying so much, that much, just for an hour, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, that'll. That'll cause you to to do things differently, Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So, um, while I worked for Scott Coleman, I became a private pilot. I got my instrument rating with the VA's help, got a commercial license with the VA's help and I pretty much thought that's my bucket list. I wanted to be a commercial pilot, I wanted an instrument rating and I'm set for life. I mean, I'm only flying single engine airplanes, but that's all I wanted to fly. Yeah, I really wasn't interested in flying a bus with two engines and people in the back, right, you know, just give me little jobs, I'll be happy. There's more flying with little jobs anyway. Yeah, so, and I was still looking for that little job. You know, right, I really didn't want to be an instructor. I knew regulations, I knew weather, I knew communications and all that stuff, and the idea of trying to teach somebody and then being responsible to say they know what they're doing really didn't appeal to me.
Speaker 3:Right, you wanted to fly, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what that was your thing I wanted to be in command of my own self Right, and as pilot in command, I was the captain. Yeah, any airplane I got. As far as I was concerned, if I was flying with somebody that had dual controls, I was the captain.
Speaker 3:So having a job was a way to pay for your flying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's all I worked for Right. So how long did you stay in the car business then? Over eight years, okay.
Speaker 3:All right. And what did you do when you got out of the car business?
Speaker 1:Because, you still got a flying habit. Well, I finished up at Axon Olds. Like I said, their inventory was disappearing, right. We were mostly selling used cars at this time and I felt bad for the owner of the place, but we were going to starve to death. Yeah Well, my friend Jerry, the number one guy, had left the store a few months before me. He had been there before, and he left before me.
Speaker 1:He got a job with a store in Wayne, michigan, on Michigan Avenue called Budget Car Sales. It was not Budget Rent-A-Car, it was the sales company that sold the rent-a-cars and he called me up. He said you have to come over here, it's a gold mine. Well, leaving Action Olds where everybody was scratching to sell used cars, a gold mine sounded pretty good. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So I went down to see what he had. So they were selling a lot of Lincoln Town cars, big Oldsmobile, you know, like 98s, 98 Regencies, big Buick Park Avenues. They had a few smaller GM cars but most of this was about luxury sedans, american luxury sedans Priced right. I mean, these cars had been depreciated as rental cars so they might have 15 to 20,000 miles on them, but they had regular maintenance, they were in decent shape and they were cheaper than what the dealers had. So, yeah, it looked pretty good. Yeah, it's a great deal.
Speaker 1:So I went over to Budget Car Sales. I was there 14 months. I was always their number one or two salesman for the month. I also filled in for managers when they were on vacation. So two weeks at a time I'd be a manager. They'd just pay me a flat $1,000 a week. It wasn't as much as I normally made, but it was a guarantee. It was a guarantee. It gave me a chance to have something on my resume different than sales. Yeah, and I helped a lot of salesmen learn how to sell and make money, you know. In other words, I had a salesman. He was a freshly married guy, big Arab type guy. He married a dancer, an exotic dancer guy. He married a dancer, an exotic dancer. He didn't have the best choices in life. I mean to me that's just looking for trouble.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:But he loved her. You know he was infatuated.
Speaker 3:Oh yes.
Speaker 1:And the weekend he was getting married. I was driving a demo. It was a Pontiac Grand Prix burgundy, real pretty car but it was inventory. I mean anybody could have sold it at any time. And he begged me. He says could I have that for the weekend I'm getting married? Blah, blah, blah blah. I didn't know who he was getting married or anything and I said yeah, I said I got my Toronado. By then I had purchased a Toronado at Action Holds. I got an 83. A used car trade-in. It was a GM owner worker that owned it. The car had never seen rain or snow, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It spent its whole life in a garage at low miles. Beautiful car, and it was light blue with a dark blue interior, which is a combination I happen to like. Oh, perfect. So I told the salesman take the burglary car. Well, monday morning he was a little late for work, figured well, if he got married he's probably going to be late Because I knew he wasn't on vacation. And finally he gets dropped off by somebody. He comes in and reports that the car was stolen and he felt very sheepish telling me Right, I said you didn't steal it, I didn't lose anything.
Speaker 3:You know, I don't feel bad.
Speaker 1:I said I hope for your sake it turns up, but otherwise it's going to be an insurance claim and there's going to be a deductible involved. You're darn well sure they're going to charge you for it. So at the end of the week the car turned up and the car was still pretty good looking, but it had a budget would put these heavy case steel enhancements to the steering column to prevent theft, and that didn't slow these guys down. They cracked that thing off like nothing, and so the car was sitting in a police garage downtown somewhere, and so we had to go get it. And they told us you'll need a screwdriver to start it. I'm telling you you'll need a screwdriver to start it. I'm telling you you'll need a screwdriver to start it. I told them. I said I got the salesman responsible. They said you're driving me down. We're going to do this on your time. You lost it. This is your pennant. You've got to leave time on the floor. It's probably going to cost you an hour or two, you know. And so anybody else gets those ups, you know. Anyway. So I get down there and, sure enough, the column has been cracked. The key lock mechanism is gone, so there's no lock on the steering wheel and when you turn a key on a column it's actually pushing a lever to basically a starter button.
Speaker 1:So what I had to do is stick the screwdriver in there to start the car, take the screwdriver back out and I could drive the car Right, and then later on we'd have to send it to a shop and have it fixed. So we did that and I went and got the car, brought the car back. Management didn't want to take time trying to fix the steering column, so they just wholesaled the car. Yeah, no problem, out of sight, out of mind, we didn't lose anything. We just didn't sell it. Retail, you know, right, right, and so that was the end of it. Didn't cost anybody anything. Really, we had a manager. When I first got there had come from a Sterling Heights GM store and this guy was a very fastidious type of person, very precise, wanted everything. Just so we would catch him outside trimming the lawn with scissors. We would catch them outside trimming the lawn with scissors just to make a tree look good.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:For the customers or anything was to make things look better. Mm-hmm, and we got in a car. It was a Cadillac Seville Kind of an unusually staped body had like almost like a boot on the back rather than a flat trunk yeah.
Speaker 1:Pump trunk. I liked the car. It was front wheel drive, four-door sedan, kind of classic. It was light yellow, which was not my color I'm not into Florida colors, but the mechanics of the car were good and I knew they drove really nice. So he got that car as a demo. He put money into it, he had things added to it and one thing you don't do with used cars is put money into trim. You might have to buy tires or brakes or something like that. That's where you put the money. You don't put it into like baubles and furniture and new seats.
Speaker 1:But he did that. He had new seats, new interior. He's dressing up the car business. They used to call it an old whore in a new dress. That's what it was. That's the kind of thing this guy did.
Speaker 1:And one day we had a sales meeting. It was on a Saturday. Well, we had a sales meeting regularly. We had a sales meeting Saturday morning because, not being a national brand, we worked weekends. We were open six days a week. That was an adjustment for me, but the money was good, so I made it.
Speaker 1:Anyway, one day some gentlemen came in from Budget Car Sales main office, wherever that was, and it was a business manager with two goons and they literally picked this guy up by his shoulders, one on each arm, and carried him out of the office. His name was Max. They said, Max, you're done, Wow. So they drove Max to his house to go get the Cadillac back and brought that back to the store, you know, handed him a cardboard box he could put whatever he could fit in it from his desk and they carried him back out again. That was the last we ever saw Max.
Speaker 1:Huh, and I think it was mostly about just plain mismanagement. I don't think he was stealing anything Right. It would be very hard to do any of that because there was so much paperwork to everything. There was a paper trail everywhere. He had a big business office but there were a lot of professional people in there. There were a lot of professional people in there and the last few months I was there they were short. A business manager Somebody had left the business and a business manager would handle all the financing for the customers. So we had one main business guy and two auxiliary business managers. This store was big enough to have three business managers. Most stores have one. But we did a lot of business. We did a lot of business fast, like in the evenings. I mean there were people going through this store, like there was a boulevard out front. They were coming down and lining up in and so the showroom was very busy. But we also had good inventory. We had an unending supply of vehicles.
Speaker 3:Right, because they would come in and they would rotate them out on a regular basis, right.
Speaker 1:But not only budget. We bought cars from Alamo. We bought cars from well, you name it. Yeah. If it was a leasing or rental company, we'd buy their inventory and sell it, and sometimes we got cars in before even new car dealers had dealer. Yet when GM came out with a small car, smaller than the Sierra, oldsmobile and Buick both had the same basic body. It was the same chest.
Speaker 3:They were all GM. They were just built a little bit different.
Speaker 1:So the bodies were built on the same line. The trims were all different. Right, a little bit different. So the bodies were built on the same line, the trims were all different.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:So, and even Pontiac Pontiac was around back then, so Pontiac, buick and Oldsmobile all had this car. I can't remember the name. It was called a Cutlass something, so they used the name Cutlass as a hook Right, but it didn't have any relation to a, a Cutlass something, so they used the name Cutlass as a hook Right, but it didn't have any relation to a real Cutlass.
Speaker 3:Cutlass stopped being Cutlass in the mid-70s early 80s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Cutlass Supreme was the car people liked. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The little Cutlass was like the baby Cutlass, looked like it fit the trunk of the first one you know Right. But I ordered one because it was very streamlined, pretty old car. So I ordered a brand new one for myself. Car came in and I sold it to my sister. She just happened to need a car. I said, well, I just happen to have the right car for you. This one already has my name on it. I'm happy to put your you know title to you. So I sold her the car. Anyway, we had at Budget Car Sales. We had six of the Pontiac models. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Before the Pontiac dealers had any. We already had them and they were slightly used. You could see how many kilometers on a steering wheel. Yeah, we got them from a Canadian leasing company, so they were all. All the instrumentation was Canadian, right, you know it was in liters instead of gallons, and you know. So. If you can handle kilometers on your speedometer, where the big numbers were kilometers and the little numbers were mile per hour, then you'd be happy. And Pontiac dealers were outraged. They couldn't believe that a budget car sales I mean not affiliated particularly with any brand had six of these things and they didn't even have the brand new ones yet. How did we do it? And nobody knew. I mean, we were advertising them, but they were Canadian and so strange things happened. And there was a car show in Detroit and we put a bunch of our cars on the showroom floor there. They called it a showroom floor. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was a designated area. We were opposite the guy selling meat grinders, but we had a half a dozen cars there and most of them were Lincoln Town cars and people could climb in them, sit in them, look at them. When a lot of other cars were all locked up, ours were available to see and touch. And that's what sells cars Hands on metal and they're going to buy it more likely than ordering from a book somewhere.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So at the end of the show we were going to have to get the cars out of there. The next morning A porter took a bunch of our guys down there to get the cars. Guess what the night before, at the end of the day somebody locked all the keys for the car in the trunk of the town car. Oh, no, including the keys for the town car. So the cars are all sitting down there. The keys are in the trunk. They can't get to them and they're panicking. What are we? We got to go? We're going to have to hire a locksmith. I mean, where are we going to get a locksmith? Like they didn't know there are emergency locksmiths. But yeah, what are we going to do? And they're all panicking.
Speaker 1:I mean the office is in an uproar, this and that, and I said to them I said you want me to fix it? And they said would you? And I said you know, give me somebody to drive me down there. I said, oh, by the way, I got to go in the back for a minute. So I went in the back to our shop. We had a maintenance shop and I got a length of wire Just cheap copper wire, thin stuff. So I took a spool of that and went down there and they're all in a tizzy and the amazing thing is the car doors were left unlocked. The problem was the power trunk lock wouldn't work because it was external, it wasn't the glove box kind, it was another kind, yeah. And without the ignition on you wouldn't work. So what I did was I went and put one end of the wire on a battery, ran the other one, handed it around around the trunk lock, touched the button, the trunk popped open.
Speaker 3:That was it. It didn't take me two minutes, no.
Speaker 1:Problem solved Out of the box, thinking you know Right right. Another marine wonder, and you know just the way you look at things, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So solved that problem, got a ride back when I was my day, yeah, but stuff like I was doing stuff like that all the time. There was always something mechanical or whatever that just needed attention and you just have to think about it differently. So I went from budget to wood motors. One of the guys that met a budget I later became a roommate with his name was Mark. He was the number one salesman. Most of the time Big, gregarious young guy get people laughing. They laughed with him like he was an old, lost family member. They didn't even know why they were laughing, but he had that kind of. He had been a bartender previously. He had a way with people, you know. He'd get a guy really looking at a car, you know, and see the guy maybe had a little bit of interest and he described the car as a real panty dropper. So the guy would buy the car. Well, yeah, of course he came back to his buddies and he bought a panty driver. Craziest stuff.
Speaker 1:Anything to sell a car right, I'm trying to keep a straight face, right, you know, anyway, but Mark was a hoot and the thing was he didn't know much about cars at all. I mean, he didn't know how to drive them. That was about it. He couldn't work under the hood if his life depended on it. He didn't understand anything under the hood, yeah, but he just had a way with words and that's what people wanted. Well, mark had left budget went to Wood Motors. Guess what? Another gold. Mine Calls me up. Wood Motors needs a new salesman. They want you. I said really. I said how badly. He says they're going to send a car for you and pick you up for lunch. Wow, they're going to bring you back here. You know, let you see everything, we'll get a bite to eat and they'll drive you back. So I went, they picked me up in a big Mercedes.
Speaker 3:Oh yes.
Speaker 1:And they drove me back to the wood motors on Gratiot, south of 8 Mile, and they had new cars. They had Mercedes-Benz, volkswagen and Honda and Honda. Later they added Mitsubishi and they bought a Volvo store. So it was five new cars, all foreign cars, plus a used car lot. So I'm going to used car lot, so I'm going to use a car lot. And the way they got me in there was they told me they were building, or they were going to build, a new showroom for what they called Highline exotic cars Ferrari, jaguar, porsche and that's really the ultimate car I wanted to sell. I wanted to be known in Detroit as an exotic car salesman, because when you're dealing on that level you start dealing with the upper class or the money class that buys those kind of cars sports people, things like that. Like I said, I don't know a damn thing about sports, but that's where you wanted to be.
Speaker 1:That's where the money was.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I said, I'd rather sell one car a month and make $5,000 than five cars a month and make $2,000 or something. Right, yeah. Again, everything's going into the airplane, the flying. I mean I'm flying airplanes, that's what I do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you only got to sell a couple cars a month, you got more time and money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So anyway, I go to work for Wood Motors and there's several months I'm selling Volkswagens and Hondas. I can't barely get into these cars. Yeah. And there are no Highland cars, I mean, we'd occasionally get a trade-in or something like an SDL, which is a long body length, diesel. Yeah. And I remember one we got in particular. It was medium blue, had a diesel engine, gold wheels, gold trim. I mean the car had been pimped out.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And it had been a drug dealer's car. Well, the problem was nobody wanted that car because the cops all knew it as a drug dealer car, you know, and they didn't want to be seen in it. They figured they'd get pulled over in a heartbeat, you know, and I mean we were in Detroit, you know. So they had a whole. They had I don't know how much money they paid to put all that trim on a car for the guy. He paid for it, right, but it would cost a fortune to get that trim off of there. So it was just easier to sell a car for scrap or whatever and take your lits.
Speaker 1:And so we didn't really have much of an inventory. I told them I wanted to buy a Mercedes. I said put my name on the list for a good trade that comes in. I don't mind if it's got miles on it, if it's been maintained. And we did. We got one in. It was a 73, 280 sedan, four door little boxy car rode great, I mean 70 miles an hour. You didn't hear anything, you didn't feel anything. You could drive that car for thousands of miles and be just as fresh stepping out of it as the day you got in it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it was a six cylinder gas engine. I bought the car with air and it was a six-cylinder gas engine. I bought the car with air and I had it probably three months and friends of mine fell in love with it and insisted I sell it to them. And I did Right. I really didn't plan on selling it this soon. I was going to keep it for a few years and I wanted to work my way up to a Mercedes Roadster. Yeah. I like the SL model. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I had a. We had one come in. It was an 86, which is the last year of the old body style, the 560 SL with the chrome bumpers and a manual top. Yeah, you had to get out to lower the top, that kind of thing. I was the last but I had a good engine and I had a really good air conditioner. The earlier models were weak on air but the 560 was a big V8. It had air conditioning to. I mean you could have cooled the whole house with that thing. It would freeze you out of the car. So we got it in.
Speaker 1:It was a burgundy with a tan interior. Primary colors are red. With the they call it Palomino. Interior. Red with Palomino was like the number one color in the United States. It was the easiest car to sell ever Used, best value. They started going down if they weren't red and Palomino.
Speaker 1:This car was burgundy and Palomino. It was a beautiful car. The only flaw it had was the dash had kind of like it looked like a melted mart or maybe something hot touched it and I got a customer on the car. He'd seen it advertised in the paper. He came over and he was the son of a tool manufacturer and he was like vice president of the company and he had recently been married, had a new home, had a new baby, gorgeous wife, and he wanted to buy her something nice for his birthday. And she liked Mercedes convertibles. Yeah, she just wanted a convertible. He decided she was going to have a Mercedes convertible. She was that kind of classy lady She'd look good in it. So he came over to see it immediately. So, you know, started working a deal. Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:And so I took him for a drive in it. Let him drive it, make sure that's what he wanted. And he says, yeah, this is it, make sure that's what he wanted. He says, yeah, this is it. So I said, well, financing was like no problem at all. This is the first customer I had over there that had no bad history ever. I mean he had I think he carried an American Express platinum card or something you know. Anyway, still bought it on the credit card, you know. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But he was kind of concerned about that little mark on the dash. I said, well, I said if it's part of the deal, I can have the dash replaced under warranty. This car still has warranty and that's a manufacturing flaw. I mean. You can see it came that way. It wasn't something that happened to it later. So we ordered a new padded dash for it and new padded dash came in, had the same mark in it. Huh, so obviously that wasn't going to work.
Speaker 1:Right and we said well, rather than screwing the car up, trying to get the old dash out and put the new one in, we recommend you take it with the dash as it is. And they gave him a little adjustment on the price. Right, he was happy with that. I mean, unless you weren't looking for it, you really couldn't see it, and from the driver's seat you couldn't see it at all. So I worked out a delivery form and most deliveries were done right at the dealership. People came in, signed the papers, handed them the keys and they drove away happy. That wasn't how he wanted to do it. It was her birthday that Saturday. Wanted to have it in the garage for her birthday. How do we do that? Look, I can't take it home on Friday? She'll see it. It won't be the same effect, right, the store is closed on the Saturday.
Speaker 1:I said, well, let me talk to management. So what I had him do was I had him detail the car and then park it on the used car lot behind the fence. Behind the fence, and I said you'll have to leave the keys, you know somewhere, right, and you'll have to tell the guards to open the gate for me when I get there, because I'll come over Saturday morning, pick up the car, deliver it and they'll drive me back. I mean, he'll drive me back and I can get back in my car and go. So my car's going to be on the street. Well, I didn't want it on the street, I wanted it back behind the gate. So the security's there all 24 hours, so, uh-huh, just tell them. You know, let me park my car inside. This sounds so simple. It wasn't.
Speaker 3:Never is.
Speaker 1:So they decided well, if they're detailing this really, really pretty car, they didn't want to leave it on a upside overnight behind a chain link fence. They want to leave it on a side overnight, being that a chain-link fence, they wanted to lock it in the driveway to the shop, you know the service entrance, so the security guy would have to let me in this in the building. Yeah, I could raise the drawers, doors, drive the car out, that sort of thing. So I did that. Course, when I got there, the security didn't know anything about it.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:So that meant calls to the owners. They had to track one of them down. They said yeah, yeah, it's Don Rochak. Anything he needs, you know he's fine, you know we trust him with anything.
Speaker 3:Whatever?
Speaker 1:he wants to do and so I had a good reputation with him.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I was always like number two, one or two, so I was making really good money and I mean for that store, you know. And so I drove the car. The guy's house was out the other side of Ann Arbor so I found the house. Wife was off playing tennis, dad was home with a baby really cute baby, anyway. We put the car in the garage, we put a ribbon on it. He had a in the garage, we put a ribbon on it. He had a ribbon for it, so I put a ribbon on it. I was sitting in the kitchen waiting, you know.
Speaker 1:So she comes home from tennis, opens the garage door and there's her present. They have a moment together to celebrate the New Deal. You know, she's got the baby with her and she's sitting in the car and she's just, oh, so thrilled. And you're so kind and you're so generous, you know. Well, one look at her and I understood why this guy was so generous, because this was the most drop-dead gorgeous woman I ever saw in my life. She's wearing a tennis outfit which is like a sleeveless blouse with a frilly pleated skirt. Right A white skirt, white top had like a blue trim or something, and I mean she was right off of a magazine cover. I mean she was model-esque. You'd never know she had a baby by her body. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And of course the purchaser asked me to take her out and teach her the car Right, Because there were unique things to learn about it. He already knew how to tune the radio. There were unique things to learn about it. He already knew how to tune the radio. I taught him that that was a German ball punk radio. That was a little different than what he was used to, Digital and, like I said, it had a manual top which also had manual locking levers. So when you put the top up you'd stick a little stick in the slot, lock the levers and pull the sticks back up and don't lose the sticks. Right, you're never gonna get that top off again, right?
Speaker 1:So, and they have a unique way to to lock the rear part of it, because the whole top would fold up and come out. So you had to lock both ends down the back. One latched on a single peg in the back. You had to push it into a certain point and then there was a lever on the side. You pushed forward that snugged the top down. So it was an involved process. It worked really good. You had pretty good seals once it was up, but it took a moment.
Speaker 1:So I'm going for a ride with this gorgeous lady, very nice personality, and it's clouding up fast. I mean, those clouds came out of nowhere, right? And this is kind of hilly country out there, and I'm looking at this and I'm thinking we need to find shelter. And I suggested to her why don't you pull into a drive-in somewhere where they got a roof? Because I think we're going to need it. Yeah, yeah, well, we didn't make it. Oh no, cloudburst came over and whacked us. I mean, I'm wearing a sport coat you know, right, what she's wearing turned transparent and green.
Speaker 3:Yeah, White clothes when they get wet, that'll happen.
Speaker 1:And if she had any undergarments on her, they weren't much, because they turn transparent. So I'm sitting with this woman and it's like standing next to a friend's wife in a shower.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:You didn't expect her to be there.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And you're looking at her and you're like Very uncomfortable. And she's just carrying on like she's driving her car, you know, and she's laughing. Oh, I've had something get rained on my first time out in my new car and she's looking for I told her. I said well, find a bank or a.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you and she's looking for, I told her. I said, well, find a bank or a gas station, anything with a roof over it, we can drive into. I finally pointed one out to her and we pulled in. So while she was sitting there I showed her how to work the top. And there is a manual in. I told her there is a manual in the grout box. Right.
Speaker 1:It's just like any other new car. This one has one and it goes step by step. How easy it is to do. And she was still laughing by the time we got back to their house, you know. And of course she gets out of the car and her husband's looking at her like holy cow what happened to you?
Speaker 2:He's looking at me and I'm looking like what can I?
Speaker 1:say so.
Speaker 1:they had a big laugh about it and he and I dried the car off with some towels on the insides to drive it back to the store and he wanted to see how it handled in the rain anyway and I explained to him. I said well, the good thing is, the transmission starts off in second gear. It'll only go into first if you shift it down to low, otherwise it starts off in second, which gives you more traction in rain and snow. Anyway, it's not a drag racer, it's not supposed to be the Corvette off the line. It'll be the Corvette top end all day long, but not at the bottom end.
Speaker 3:So that was cute so how long were you at Wood then?
Speaker 1:About 14 months. Okay, that seemed to be my well. I don't even know if I made it that long.
Speaker 3:So where did you go from there?
Speaker 1:I went from Wood Motors to Royal Brand Ford.
Speaker 3:Okay, and how long did you stay there? Two and a half years, okay, so you're starting to get a little more time. And then where did you go from there?
Speaker 1:After Royal Brand Ford I I went to Mead Leasing Okay.
Speaker 3:No, no, wait a minute.
Speaker 1:Let me think about that. No, I didn't. I went to, I was up in Troy. I went from Detroit to Troy. I went to work for Suburban Toyota Volvo.
Speaker 3:Okay, suburban's still around. Yeah, yeah, they've been doing it for a while now. So would this have been in like the early 2000s, then that you went to Suburban? Excuse me, yeah, I think it's about that time. Okay, and then how long did you stay at Suburban? 90 days, okay. And then where'd you go?
Speaker 1:from there. Let me tell you about Suburban. Yeah, tell me about Suburban. Yes, I met Suburban Ford. Yes, I met Suburban Ford. Well, actually I took a customer's car in for service at the Jaguar store in Troy, next door to Suburban. Okay, and I was standing outside just getting some fresh air waiting for a ride and a wholesaler I knew from Detroit, from Wood Motors, comes by and sees me and says what are you doing here? Well, I just had a customer's car. I found it here to take it in for service for him. He says, well, I'm working right next door, I'm the used car buyer for Subur. You know Suburban, toyota, volvo.
Speaker 1:We need good people. We need highline salesmen. They want to sell highline cars. We need a highline salesman. You got to come over and interview with these people and I mean he was so excited to see me there I thought, well, that's the best reaction I've ever had in this business. So I went next door. So they hired me on the spot. Can you start Monday? He said, yeah, so I did. So I started that Monday and we had a sales meeting Monday morning sales meeting. I've been through thousands of these, some I hated, some I got out of. This one seemed okay, they were real. Yeah, they were talking about who's got deliveries and we get delivery scheduled, and the news of the day is well, they were talking about who's got deliveries and we get delivery schedules, and the news of the day is well, when we bought this Volvo store from Birmingham Volvo, we inherited this big Volvo 760 sedan. It was a big four-door sedan. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Burgundy again, ford or sedan. Yeah, burgundy again. This sedan was now two model years old, had 24,000 miles on the clock and hadn't been titled yet. Oh.
Speaker 1:Every manager at Birmingham Volvo drove this car as their demo Uh-huh, without selling it. So Suburban gets it. They've been driving it. Some of their managers from their other stores they've got other stores in that mall have been driving it as a demo. Yeah, but nobody's put it on the floor to sell it. They need to. Other stores in that mall that have been driving it as a demo yeah, but nobody's put it on the floor to sell it. They need to get rid of this thing. So it's two years old. Yeah, come on, you can't depreciate it anymore legally. I mean, the first owner, suburban Volvo, depreciated it and got something out of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Tax-wise. But that's done. You bought it as inventory with your new store, so this thing is a turkey Mm-hmm. The only thing that really saved it is Volvo was doing away with the 760 model. They weren't going to make a big sedan anymore, so if anybody wanted one, this was the last of the limit Right right. So they'd already had this car on the floor for two months when I got there, they didn't have a nibble on it, which they couldn't understand. I thought, come on, I'm two years old.
Speaker 3:Yeah, good luck.
Speaker 1:In a new car store. Yeah, that belongs out in the used car lot. Yeah. Even if it is a new title, it's a used car.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's used, all day long it's used.
Speaker 1:The thing is this one is well used.
Speaker 1:You could see from nicks and scratches on the hood that this thing had been out in the weather and driving around bugs and everything else. So they called me into the office with the general manager how would you sell this thing? I said I'd put a SPIF on it. I said what's a SPIF? Spif Sales Performance Incentive Fee. In other words, you've got 13 Toyota salesmen. You now have three Volvo salesmen, two guys and a manager, but the manager was a selling manager. So you got three Volvo salesmen, so you got 16 of us on the floor.
Speaker 1:I said what's the average commission for a Toyota? They said $500. All right, he said you're going to need at least a $500 spiff on this car. Well, how do you figure that? They said why would any Toyota salesman show a customer this car if it's going to make him less money than a Toyota? And he knows Toyotas Right. He doesn't know that car. He can't answer, I mean, other than it's got four doors. He can't tell anybody anything about that car. You know, yeah. And I said and the same thing with a Volvo salesman. I said we expect to make money when we sell cars. Why should we sell a turkey if it's not going to make us some money. It's already been depreciated. I said when you got the car's inventory, you bought the store. You got the car as cheap as it's ever going to get. So now it's up to you not to keep it longer than necessary. Blow it out the door, get rid of the problem, you'll be money ahead. So they said okay.
Speaker 1:So the next day we had a big sales. We had a sales meeting in the morning. They said by the way, we have a Volvo on the floor. All you guys have to do is get a customer out, turn them over to one of the general managers, we'll sell the car. Like, in other words, we don't want to tell you the guy's showing a Volvo, he doesn't know anything about Volvo. So we'll sell the car and we'll pay you $500 for bringing us a customer. They didn't explain what a spiff was. They just said it's a bonus. Yeah, so everything was going to go good right, I went down on the showroom floor, sold the car immediately. They had to pay me $500. And they were mad as hell. They were certain that I had set them up. I stole money from them.
Speaker 3:You got rid of the car.
Speaker 1:I mean, I sold it to people foreigners that came in the door. I didn't know these people, foreigners that came in the door. I didn't know these people were mad at me. You know, right, they wanted to look at a classic car and I said, well, how about something like this? Oh, that's beautiful. I said it's on sale. Oh, even better. You know, oh, yeah, yeah, they didn't tell me about $500 or anything, so I landed them on the car. I even wrote the deal up, took to the management with a deposit. They delivered the car in an hour and I mean, the credit checked out, good, everything come and gone, yeah. But they were mad at me from that day on. They were certain I had set them up somehow.
Speaker 3:You bamboozled them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they couldn't figure out how, but they had it in their heads that I had set them up and I thought there's no way I can unexplain anything. They won't understand it. No, you're just basically screwed, you just you know, the thing was you should have said anybody interested in the car, just turn them over to us. Yeah, you guys aren't selling that car. We are, and there wouldn't have been a fee or anything. But they weren't smart enough to figure that out.
Speaker 3:So did that set the tone? For the reason you were only there for 90 days?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'll bet it didn't matter. Let me tell you they had a board in the office upstairs that showed all the salesmen, showed how many units, how much gross they made. And yeah, units and gross, yeah, at the end of 90 days I outsold 90% of the staff added together. I mean my numbers were astronomical compared to what their numbers you know, like they'd show the Toyota salesman. All right, they delivered a car here, they delivered another one there and I sold four or five of this and two of that. I mean I was selling Bobos out the door as fast as we could get them in. I even sold one where a customer paid for my airline ticket. I flew to Music City Bobo in Nashville and we had bought a car from the dealership there. I drove it back. I spent a night in Cincinnati at my friend's place it was on a weekend and I came back and Monday morning I brought the car back into the showroom and we delivered it the same day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they probably hated you for that.
Speaker 1:They couldn't figure out how I was doing anything. They just didn't understand it, right, right, and I thought I just showed you I'll do anything for a deal. I will even travel out of state to sell a car for you. Doesn't that mean anything? The management there was so paranoid. These people were afraid of losing their jobs, and everything is based on performance and you either perform or you're out to find somebody else, and that's just the nature of the business.
Speaker 1:What I couldn't understand is if a manager was smart enough to get somebody like me that could produce and didn't cause trouble and wasn't a problem, wouldn't that be a feather in his cap and then send up to get more people like me, right? I mean, this is a store that has 16 salespeople, three selling managers, for a total of 19. I mean that's a lot of talent and training to put into a system if you're not getting much back for it, right? So the question would be who should you be rotating, the manager or the staff? You know, if the management had proved they could bring somebody like me on board and the sales numbers in that office demonstrated it perfectly, yeah, I mean, when you've got one guy that outperforms 90% of the staff added together, there's something flawed. Either they're not getting trained properly or you're not doing enough to hire the right people to start with. You're not looking for the right things in the people, because there are always people coming in looking for work. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I had run into this when I was in California. I went out there to start the trucking and air freight company. Right, I hurt my back. I couldn't ride in a truck anymore. So I thought, well, if I'm going to stay out here, I need to find outside income. So I thought I'll try a Chevy store. Maybe I can sell Chevys here. I went to a Chevy store and I'm driving a 1978 Caprice classic coupe. Very nice looking. I mean this car looked like brand new. It had about maybe 35,000 miles on it but it had never been hit. It had never been out in bad weather or anything. Really. It was a classic car.
Speaker 1:I had added air shocks to the back and had a trailer hitch for hauling a U-Haul trailer when I moved out there. But the air shocks actually made the car ride nice. Yeah, I could adjust the level to where I liked it. Right, you know. And California had emissions restrictions and most, most cars that come in from the East Coast or Midwest don't pass California emissions. They would have to have a retrofit package added to get the exhaust clean enough to pass their emissions. They ran my car through the test three times and it passed better than anything. They had all three times.
Speaker 3:Nice.
Speaker 1:Nice, so I only paid for one test, but they ran it twice more because they couldn't believe the first test.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they didn't trust the, they didn't trust what they were seeing.
Speaker 1:So they tied me up for a whole afternoon while they were testing my car. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they tried it. Some other, like I said, they tried it and it was flawless. You know it was a good car. Like I said, they tried it and it was flawless, it was a good car. Anyway, I show up at a Chevy dealership, in front driving my Chevy.
Speaker 1:I walk inside the showroom Nobody home. I'm looking around the showroom, I'm fidgeting. I mean I'm at the reception desk. There's nobody there. I'm looking to see if maybe somebody's hiding around a corner, maybe there's a break room. You know, I couldn't find anybody. So I start walking down the hall looking at doors and I finally see one general sales manager. I knock on the door and I walk in and there's a guy in there. He's wearing a tie. He didn't have a suit on, but he's wearing a tie. I said, excuse me, can you help me? You know like he was startled. Yeah, what can I do for you? I said well, actually I'd like to speak to somebody about a job. He goes well, right away. He just gets right to the chase. He says what makes you think you can sell cars?
Speaker 1:here, In other words, are you coming in with a laundry list of clients or referrals, or you know what I said? Well, I was in your showroom for 20 minutes. There's nobody there to greet me and I'm driving a Chevy, you know. I mean the car's four years old, so if anybody pulled up like that in front of me, I would think this guy's looking for a new car. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I said nobody's greeting me, so he takes me by the hand or he leads me out in the showroom and he is appalled that he hasn't got one salesman on the floor. I mean, lights are going, signs are going, they're paying for advertising and even when the customer shows up there's nobody here to wait on. What does that tell you?
Speaker 1:that's pretty bad that's really bad and I'm looking around. Maybe I don't want to work here. Maybe the traffic flow here is so bad. Everybody else gave up already, you know, and he explained to me. He says well, he says most of the people I I have here have been here a long time. The newest guy is three years, so the newest guy here has already been on the job three years. Is that? I really don't have a place for you. Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:But if you're still looking, you know, like six months from now or something come see me. I said, okay, thank you very much, and of course I thought I'm never going back, you know. Right.
Speaker 1:So I get in my car and I left and I didn't go anywhere else. I really thought, well, this isn't maybe such a good idea. And the California business everywhere is different than here, I was told. You know, if you can sell cars in Detroit, you can sell them anywhere. Well, guess what? You can't, right? Not so yeah, because they don't want to sell them the same way we do here. They sell most everything by referrals and referral lists and they mine for that. They don't really anticipate getting business in the door, right, you know it's all by appointment kind of.
Speaker 1:My flying buddy and I went to look at a used Ford pickup truck, mm-hmm, a Ford Ranchero, which was like the El Camino.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know what you're talking about?
Speaker 1:yeah, and all he wanted to do was haul 50-gallon drums of Avgas to his airplane, right? So he just needed a truck that would carry a 50-gallon can. He didn't care what it looked like. I mean, it had to be legal to pass submissions and everything. So it was in half decent shape. But you know that's what he wanted to do with it. It wasn't going to. It didn't have to be dressy. And we saw this. We were out riding motorcycles and we saw this thing sitting in the lot and he said let's come back and look at that on Monday. So after work on Monday we went out to this Ford dealer and this Ford dealer was called Cal Worthington. Cal was the guy that ran ads on TV regularly with wild animals Cal with a lion, cal with a tiger, cal Worthington with a whatever Cheetah and they mean a tiger, cal Worthington with a whatever you know a cheetah.
Speaker 1:And they mean come down to Cal Worthington. Well, this was Cal Worthington. So here we are. We parked the motorcycles. They had a real high porch in front of their showroom and they had lined angled parking in front for customers. We're there, nobody else. We park our two motorcycles. We got we got recent model motor some book by practically brand new motorcycles yeah, and that's not uncommon, California. So we go out to the lot and we're looking at this pickup truck and nobody comes out to greet us. So we give up. So we're already heading back to our bikes by the time a salesman comes out to greet us and the guy's smoking. And I mean I can't believe any salesman would approach customers while he's smoking a cigarette.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:I mean in Detroit. That's just not done, not if you want a sale. Yeah. And he comes out and you know, I saw you guys looking at the Ranchero out here and I, I mean I looked the truck over and under the the truck was painted white. Under the white paint you could see the name of the landscaping company. The paint was that thin. This truck had been rode hard and put away wet yes and I told my buddy.
Speaker 1:I said I'll guarantee you the bushings on the shocks and everything else are gone. This truck's hit every pothole, every whatever there ever was in California. I mean they probably flattened the roads by driving this truck down right. I said it's had, it's got some wear and tear on it. Be prepared for that when you, you know if you should get it be prepared to rebuild the suspension. And my buddy, frank, was a car guy.
Speaker 1:He understood wear and tear in cars very well, and he had a really nice Lincoln, two-door, old body, big square fenders and everything. Beautiful car, very well maintained, and that was his pride and joy, he liked driving that Lincoln. So when he wasn't in a truck he was in the Lincoln. So this guy's, you know, and we told him. I said, well, yeah, we had time to look at it 45 minutes ago when we got here, you know, and the salesman apologized. He says well, he says the reason nobody came out to greet you was because of where you parked.
Speaker 1:And we thought what kind of sense is that? Well, it turns out the way they figured out who got the customer was based on where the customer parked in the slot. So if the customer parked in the slot one, the oldest guy got it. He parked in slot, the oldest guy got it. Yeah, you parked the slot two, this guy got it. So it didn't matter time of day or whatever, it was based on where the customer parked. That guy came out to greet the customer. We parked like in the middle and he was in one and I was in another. So they were in there trying to gamble away who would come out in the middle.
Speaker 3:Or rock paper, scissors or something to figure out who was going to come see you?
Speaker 1:I didn't want to say it, but that's basically what. So that was their system. The guy we drew wasn't good enough to ask the right questions, and my buddy was frustrated when he got his mind set that's not going to work.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Let's get out of here, let's go fly the airplane or something, yeah you might as well.
Speaker 3:Well, let me ask you. So you've done a lot of different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then. So when you were finally done in the car business, did you go into a different type of work? Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:I finally decided I've had enough of car sales Uh-huh, because it was the same thing over and over Same kinds of problems, same kinds of stupidity, same people too right. And I mean, yeah, it was like, okay, they got new faces, but it's the same thing, yeah, and nobody's getting any smarter. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I can't work for them and I thought it's time I went work for myself, went into business consulting. Oh, okay, one of my car buddies and I his real name was Buddy. He had a master's in accounting, I think it was from Michigan State. He I think it was from Michigan State. He was former Army. He loved sports. He knew everything about any sport I ever heard of, way more than I was ever going to know, and I really couldn't absorb it. Anyway, you know you absorb things you like, right, I like flying. So I knew stuff about flying. I still know Right, and you'll never forget it. Even my stroke couldn't wipe that out. Yeah, yeah, but he was that way about sports and he had tried out. He was young, early 20s.
Speaker 1:He was married and he tried out for a major league ball club. And one day he got two pieces of mail. One of them offered him a contract as a catcher and the other was a draft notice.
Speaker 3:Oh, oh boy, the same day.
Speaker 1:Well, we knew where he had to go right Crossed the big pine to Vietnam in the Army.
Speaker 3:So you got these two Vietnam vets and you guys formed a company then.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, now I want to talk to you about it. So is that what you did up until you stopped working? Did you do consulting? Yeah, I did Okay. So that's kind of what you retired from. Yeah. Okay, so you and your buddy Buddy get together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so we get to talking about business and things like that and things we were looking forward to. I mean, we're both problem solvers, right, and we had two different slants on things, but we could coalesce into one big answer to something. Yeah. You know, and we had done this in car sales together when we worked for a me leasing company we partnered up. We decided that whoever sold a car, whatever, would split it with the other guy and we'd see if we could make a business out of it together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Work as a team.
Speaker 1:And it was working. We were both making money Some. You know. One month I'd make more than him, so it evened out. Next month he'd make more than me, and that evened out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, kind of take the peaks and valleys out of the whole situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, made everything more level and a lot easier to cruise down the street, you know oh yeah, absolutely. I mean because you knew you had twice the chance of getting deals done that you would have singly Right. Twice the chance of getting deals done that you would have singly Right and I was always able to put deals together to package stuff up. I mean, I don't know how I got into that or how it happened, but I was in the right place at the right time.
Speaker 1:Well, it's probably just how your mind works too, just how you do things. One of the deals I had leasing was for two Cadillacs. Management got a call. It was a doctor looking to replace two Cadillacs. He wanted two new ones for the two old ones that he had and those cars were both coming off the lease. So he was basically no trading. It was just if you can get me out of my lease really quick. So he did have to get a buyout for the two cars on the other lease. Anyway, he wanted to buy these two Cadillacs, so we did have to get a buyout for the two cars on the other lease.
Speaker 1:Anyway, he wanted to buy these two Cadillacs and he didn't care where they came from. He just wanted two well-equipped Cadillacs and the only really condition was he had old-fashioned telephones in the other two and he wanted them switched to the new ones. Right, that's what they were comfortable with and that's what he wanted to do. Didn't want to look at new phones or talk about anything. Cell phones weren't really big back then, but yet They'd just come out. So it was like, okay, man wants equipment switched, we just pay somebody to switch the equipment. You know? Electrician yeah, car guy yeah. So he knows I'm experienced with all kinds of makes and models and stuff, so he gives me the deal. All kinds of makes and models and stuff, so he gives me the deal. So the doctor is Dr Donald Austin. He's one of the top neurosurgeons in the country specializing in brain embolisms. Sometimes I have trouble with that word. That's a tough word, especially when you don't use it every day. Right, right.
Speaker 1:I don't talk about it. Bring in balloons every day, you know. Anyway, dr Austin was a really good guy. He was a smart man and I had heard his name before he had saved the life of Scott Coburn's wife the man I worked for for eight years. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And she went to Dr Austin with a brain embolism. So he was highly skilled, highly sought after. I think he was out of Harper Hospital Just vague memories. What I had to do was go down to his office, meet him there and discuss what he wanted to do, so I could save myself some leg worth getting everything, you know, going to the right place at the right time. And I had to get both of his cars appraised for a buyout to pay off the old leases. So I took his car from the office, drove it back to where my appraiser was, got the car appraised, returned the car to Dr Austin, but I had to take him his keys back and then I had to drive back to his house to meet Mrs Austin, whose first name was Rudeo.
Speaker 1:Okay, and she's a. I mean, these are society people. Oh yeah, these are people featured in the Detroit Society pages a lot. Yeah, you know, the Austins attended the ballet or the Austins attended this concert, right, I mean yeah, they're that kind of people and those are the people I really want for customers.
Speaker 1:You know those are good people. Yeah, so I'm in the kitchen huge kitchen in this ranch type house in Grosse Pointe, and Mrs Austin's scrambling through these kitchen drawers trying to find her keys. So I get the keys to Cadillac, take it in and get an appraisal on it. Drive it back and call the leasing company and get an appraisal on it. Drive it back and call the leasing company, get the payoffs. Find a buyer for the cars a wholesale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and because we didn't have a used car lot, we didn't retail anything like that, we just strictly leased new vehicles. So that made it pretty easy. One, two, three, I got the two new cars from Don Gooley Cadillac. I'm at Don Gouley, the general manager introduces me to their business manager who handles the paperwork and everything, and put them on a GMAC lease, you know. So I had it all. So I had it all figured out to present the deal to the doctor. And I'm dealing with a very astute, fast-thinking businessman. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean this Dr Austin was one of the best customers I had because I could speak to him very fluidly and transfer information quickly. He didn't have to take time to absorb things. He knew what you were talking about when you opened your mouth, anyway. So I showed it to Dr Austin. He says, okay. He says what's the difference? Like the difference in monthly payments. I said, well, the difference in your payments is about $600. This includes the phones and everything. $600, that much, huh. I mean the guy's making millions, what do I, you know? But he's careful with his money Right and he's got family Right.
Speaker 3:Helping out.
Speaker 1:He says wow, $600. And he looks concerned. I said doctor, you look concerned. I said I think maybe I didn't explain it right. I said your new payments are $600 a month less than what you were paying and he sat right up. He says less. I expect to do cars to go up, but I'm driving cars that are, you know, three years old and you're telling me two new ones are going to cost me 600 a month less than those did.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:How fast a sale, do you think that was?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, he was ready to grab the pen out of my pocket and sign the it. Wow, how fast a sale. Do you think that was? Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:He was ready to grab the pen out of my pocket and sign the papers right then Right, and I said let me put it this way, doctor, the people you dealt with last time are no longer in business. The state closed them down. They can't sell a car in Michigan or lease it in Michigan. The leasing company's been closed down. It's a holding company that has the note on the cars. So those people are out of business. They've already been punished for gouging customers. In other words, they were leasing cars that, over the value of the car, claiming that was the value, they were inflating the value so they could lease a higher amount.
Speaker 3:It's all profit right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it was all fraud Right. Yeah, On the customers and I said if there's ever a class action suit, you might see money back from that, but you'd have to sign on the dotted line with the attorneys and go through a whole lawsuit process. And then they'd have to find somebody to pay the money back. That had the money, but of course those people were all bankrupt and gone.
Speaker 3:No one's got any money now at all. Anyway, out of that deal.
Speaker 1:So it was a scam.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I said but you don't have to worry about that, through Mead Leasing. Mead Leasing is a Class A dealer. They own new car dealership. They got a Lexus store, they got this and that I said they're not going to risk their licenses for something that stupid. No, not at all.
Speaker 3:Not at all.
Speaker 1:So he was very happy and I delivered the cars and Mrs Austin was thrilled and she loved the way everything worked. Yeah, first time she went selling off to some luncheon somewhere you know, right, right, show off her new car. Doctor went back to work. That's what he did.
Speaker 3:Of course, of course.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so I had some fun doing it. I mean, you do it right, you have some fun. So, anyway, a buddy and I started a business consulting company and our principle idea was we wanted to be the guys that dealt with angels. Angels are investors looking for opportunities, right. Idea was we wanted to be the guys that dealt with angels. Angels are investors looking for opportunities, right. Where do angels come from? Where do the opportunities come from? Somebody's got to put it together. We figured we could be the guys that did it Right.
Speaker 1:I mean, you don't know until you try. You know. And I mean I'm a really good problem solver, you know. I just need to understand the situation. Sometimes I see things a little differently than others, you know, right. I mean, sometimes I see things a little differently than others, you know Right. I mean, let's face it, people that are trained a certain business way look for certain ways to do things. They don't see opportunities because the opportunities don't fall into that pattern. I'm looking at anything I can look at, yeah, and figuring out can that help me or not? You know, can I do something with that?
Speaker 1:Well, we put together a business plan, mm-hmm, and we allowed for the fact that we were going to need investors smaller angels, willing to fund us, to go after the bigger angels. So we started doing that. I went back to some of the people I'd worked for in the car business Guess what. They all wanted to be on board. They'd seen me work. They didn't care how I did what I did, they knew it was legal, so they were willing to feed the pot some.
Speaker 1:So, with the help of a number of investors between my side and his, we put together an office in Birmingham and we first started off in one of these collective offices where you got your name on the door and you're sharing a conference room with six or seven other businesses. Yeah, but you book the time Right Through the common receptionist that we all use. So you got one receptionist that handles all the calls for all the businesses. She books conference room time if you never even need it, right, you've got separate offices anyway, yeah. So if you've got a small meeting, you're not going to book a conference room. Why bother? And I was very comfortable with that. I thought we could do a lot of things, oh yeah, from a little bit of space that we would lease. Buddy's idea was that we needed a bigger office of our own with our own staff. I said, well, these are good designs for things in the future, but let's get something going first.
Speaker 3:Yeah, start out small, we got to have revenue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like this is the car business. You need to have revenue coming in to do anything else. You have to make up your mind, kind of generate revenue to start with. And the business plans we came up with and we had an outline of a business plan, a generic outline that would actually work for a lot of different kinds of customers, and we made it as attractive for the customer, the person coming in the door as we could. So we decided we'd help the customers raise money for their projects. We'd get 10% off the top and we'd get a percentage. We get a percentage, maybe 30% investment in the company. So if you came to me and said I want to own a start, a tool and die, I'd say, fine, you know, let's put a plan together, figure out what you can think you can do and what kind of revenue you can generate. You know, in a normal business world, Right.
Speaker 1:And how much money we have to come up with to get you going. I said bear in mind angels like a fast turn on the dollar. They don't usually want to be in a project for years and years. They want to see something that makes them some money quick. Get two to three years out of it and they want to be out. Yeah, they really don't want to be much more commitment than that. I don't care how good their business is, they just don't want to stay. They want to go do different ones. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's what they like to do. So we had been doing our homework on who the angels were and what they liked and whatever. So we decided, okay, we get 10%, we're not asking for 50. We're not asking for 90. Then we get 10%. It's a fee that covers our end of things Right Running around phone calls, meetings, you know, I mean outlaying expenses. And then we have to have staff to back us up, to help us write papers and things. Right.
Speaker 1:You need trained people. We don't just need street people, we need trained people. Right, you don't just need street people, we need trained people.
Speaker 3:Right. You don't just need a breathing body, you need someone who knows what they're doing.
Speaker 1:So okay, so we get 10% off the top. We get, you know, maybe 30% of the company, so we're not asking for anything too outrageous. In other words, we're investing in the growth of our client. We're saying that our client is going to do so good, the way we help them manage to put this together, they'll be profitable quick. They can pay back the investors as well as paying for us.
Speaker 1:And it won't hurt the company, it'll benefit the company. That's a sales pitch. I mean, a lot of these people that come to your door in that business have been other places and have heard horrible, pricey estimates Like you pay us $50,000. You pay us, you know, 80% of your company. Yeah. And then bargain it down to 50, you know, and I mean so, every dollar you're making, half of it goes to me.
Speaker 3:Well you guys are fair.
Speaker 1:Is that going to? But are you going to grow at that? Right, you can't even survive at that. Yeah, you know we survive at that. Yeah, we see that we don't make it that hard. We're hoping we're going to get enough business going that we can do well at 30%. Yeah, yeah. And we give them first buyout.
Speaker 3:So at the end of it, they can buy you out of your stake in their company. Oh yeah, If they want to do that.
Speaker 1:After so many years of production, they can buy it right out. Yeah,
