Hey everyone (Or should I say the 8 people who are actually reading this first newsletter) after some time with Freddy Media Dealer Services, the one thing I didn’t fully expect to happen this fast was getting to meet SO many people in the automotive industry. Retail, vendors, entrepreneurs, sales, marketing, media, east coast, west coast, Canada, and everywhere in between.
And I’m talking about some GREAT people, insightful, motivational, dialed-in, you name it. But one thing that I think is the reason why I love the automotive industry is because it’s filled with people who got that DAWG in them.
You know exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t think there’s a real word for it. But if you had to describe it, it’s working with someone for over a year who is an extremely high performer, then finding out they missed a whole week because they left their wife and kids out of the blue and ended up in jail for writing multiple bounced checks at a casino 4 states over. It’s people sharing a desk with someone who has a master’s degree and someone who just got out of rehab all at the same time.
Essentially a version of Jeremy Piven from The Goods
So, with meeting all of these people, one of my favorite talking points is old war stories (because this is way more fun than selling whatever product they’re looking at). After collecting quite a lot of them, I felt like I had to share them with the world (My 8 people).
So enjoy, and please send me any old war stories from retail or the vendor side my way and we’ll keep it anonymous. Plus, in future newsletter editions I’ll include some great quick insights that have helped me or people I know, and maybe they can help you or someone you know too.
Confession #1
The Year was 1994, I was selling Toyota’s and I had this Co-worker of mine, his name was Ricky. Well Ricky sold this Camry to a woman and off she went. The next day she came back clearly very frustrated and started accusing Ricky of telling her that “this is only a 4-cylinder vehicle, and you told me I was buying a 6-cylinder vehicle.”
And what happened next was nothing short of amazing. He got up, grabbed the keys and without any hesitation he said, “Ma’am you’re absolutely right I’ll be right back.”
He takes the Camry over to the clean-up bay, smokes a couple cigs, and in about 20 minutes comes back out. And said “Here you go ma’am I just had them add the other 2 cylinders, sorry for the confusion”
Her response was one I will never forget “Thank you very much, I got myself a 6-cylinder car now!” To this day I don’t know what’s worse, him doing that, or the fact we all just watched it happen.
Say your seven Hail Mary’s and forgive us for the four squares we presented. And in this case the extra 2 cylinders Ricky said he gave her.
— #CarGuyConfessions