Business View Magazine | April/May 2022

114 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 4 The Beast drives out onto the football field for each home game, with the Wolfpack taking the field behind it. “It’s been a lot of fun over the years,” Hoel says. But the fun, the business, everything came to a sudden halt on March 18, 2020. Hoel recalls, “We had to lock up the showroom. We had to keep the lights off. We had to chain the lot… It was a scary time. Luckily, COVID didn’t take us down.” They had a few employees that kept things going. They pivoted to more online sales. They got creative. It seems as though the pandemic has altered just about everything everywhere. In the car business, they are finding that shoppers are spending much less time in the store and on the lot. They still want to do a test drive and have someone talk about the car with them, but they show up with their homework done. These days, they build the car they want online and complete online applications. Gone are the days of spending hour after hour at the dealership for the car-purchasing process. Gone are the days of customers spending hour after hour at multiple places, too. Hoel reports, “The average person used to visit seven or eight car dealerships before deciding what to buy – that figure is now down to 1.4 dealerships. That means, if a consumer doesn’t buy from you, they will at the next place, which is definitely motivating to the salesmen. You better see if you can find what they are looking for.” A healthy company culture is important, and Reno Buick GMC Cadillac has it in spades. “It starts at the top and trickles down,” Hicks says. “Our ownership and leadership not only have the business acumen to help guide us through this, but they also have a heart.” Employees feel that the ownership cares for them. And that, in turn, carries over to the customer feeling cared for. They used to host events at their dealership