Business View - May 2015 25
through the purchase of an existing dealership.
The transactions differ in that, at the close of a pur-
chase of a dealership, the new owner typically begins
with a core of customers. Meanwhile, in an open-point
set-up, the operation is beginning from scratch and
may take nine to 12 months to develop substantial
sales and service volumes.
“The one thing that’s probably pretty common is that
we put people from our existing organization in to op-
erate the new dealerships,” Corder said. “Every one of
my 28 general managers is someone I’ve promoted
from within, so that helps us kind of keep a consisten-
cy as to how we operate our organization. In remote lo-
cations, I want someone that I know I can trust, that’s
been with the organization for a while and knows how
we do things.
“The flip side of that is it definitely helps us retain good
people. They see the advancement opportunities. We
have almost no turnover at the management level, and
that’s part of the reason, because they see the oppor-
tunities to advance and they see the opportunity to run
their own store.”
Because the spectrum of cars available at the dealer-
ships goes from luxury brands on the high end to Kia
and Fiat on the low, Corder said, the range of custom-
ers is similarly varied from those who are marginally
qualified for financing to those who pay cash. A unify-
ing factor, though, is that today’s customers arrive with
more pre-purchase information.
These days, the Internet is a driving force behind the
Findlay service mission, in the form of a corporate
website that provides prospective buyers with a com-
AUTOMOTIVE
