Alvin Heggs Just Keeps Winning

By Denise Kotula

Less than five years ago, Alvin Heggs flew to Phoenix and, virtually sight unseen, bought an auto dealership under-performing so badly it needed a defibrillator instead of a key to open its doors each morning.

He’d only spent two days in Phoenix in his life, and that was years earlier when he was warming the end of the bench for the Houston Rockets. He didn’t even know about haboobs yet. But if you think Big Al was gambling when he bought Superstition Springs Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram of Mesa, you’re wrong.

It was the opportunity he’d been preparing for his whole life. He was confident he could make it a success. He turned down a guaranteed $1million-a-year job offer to be General Manager of a large dealership in Houston to prove it.

Today the Mesa dealership, which he’s renamed Heggs Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram, has far exceeded all sales marks Chrysler set for his territory. He’s also just opened the first-ever Jeep-only dealership in the U.S. It too is in Mesa, down Hwy 60 a bit from his first store. And he’s preparing to open a third dealership on the westside in [Surprise]. In the automobile world, he’s considered red hot.

What’s driven him is knowing how few black owners there are among auto dealerships in the U.S. – less than 1.5 percent of the more than 18,000 dealerships. Most of roughly 260 or so black-owned U.S. dealerships are actually small independent lots located in old neighborhoods on the East Coast. In the western half of the U.S., Chrysler had only one black owner among its dealerships – NBA Hall of Famer Karl Malone in Utah. Alvin Heggs makes two.

It’s Not About the Money

Heggs played professional basketball for 12 years, briefly in the NBA but mainly in Europe. They call him ‘Big Al” because, at 6’9,” he is definitely big. He is a big, friendly guy you don’t mind buying a car from. You see his smile in your rearview mirror as you’re driving away in your new car. He’s been the Number 1 salesman everywhere he’s been.

He soon became a General Manager, earning $500,000 a year. By that time, Chrysler had its eye on him. Chrysler put Heggs through an 18-month Dealer Candidate Development Program, which is designed to help minority candidates get a more level playing field when purchasing and operating dealerships. Heggs was already a highly successful General Manager at an Auto Nation dealership in Houston, and they wanted him back enough to offer to double his salary.

“I really struggled with the decision,” Heggs said, “until my wife said, ‘let me ask you something. Why would you care how much they are going to pay you if what you want is to own your own dealership?’ And I said, ‘That makes sense,’ and the next day I called Auto Nation and I turned down the job.”

Instead, he wrote Chrysler a check for $300,000 for a 20 percent stake in the ownership, took out a $2.7 million loan for the rest and became acting General Manager. He took over a dealership that was only selling half the number of cars it was required to sell each month, new and used. But from the first month on, Heggs made sure his team met or exceeded its sale targets, and the dealership has kept growing.

It Began with the Core

First, Heggs hand-picked four key personnel -- folks he’d worked with for 12 years in Houston -- to bring with him to Phoenix: a sales manager who could help him implement the culture and attitude he needed for his sales team; a service manager who could enhance that department through the selling of financial and insurance products; his office manager, the woman he trusts to handle the money; and his right-hand man since he first became a general manager. “I knew it wasn’t just me,” Heggs said. “My plan was going to take my team.”

Heggs said he made the financial offers to his team “very lucrative, so that you couldn’t turn it down even if you didn’t like me at all. And when I got to the airport, all four of them hopped on the plane with me and I was able to put my plan in place.”

To be completely honest, Layla Davis, his Office Manager, had texted him during his meeting in Phoenix…YOU BETTER NOT LEAVE WITHOUT ME…so he hadn’t really had to twist their arms too much.

“I felt that, with them,” Heggs said, “I was bullet proof in knowledge. They had worked side by side with me in various areas and I knew their strengths and weaknesses. With my team, I knew where I was going to put them, what their roles were going to be, I knew what I had to do with them surrounding me, and I knew they were going to protect me at all costs.

“I knew what they were capable of doing, and they all did it 100 percent better than they’d ever done it before because now they had a vested interest in it.”

That’s because Heggs offered each of them a 5 percent ownership stake in the dealership and a share in the profits once the dealership was paid off in full. They remain a team to this day.

Ownership was Imperative

Having full ownership of the dealership became Heggs’ obsession. Chrysler had sales targets of 100 new car sales per month and 100 used cars per month for the dealership. Heggs hit the targets that first month and was ready to eclipse the annual target after 3 months. So Heggs took all of the bonuses he earned and paid into his vested interest with Chrysler. By the third year, he told Chrysler he was ready to buy them out.

But Chrysler said “Hold On Big Al.” Chrysler was in no hurry to end the partnership. There are lots of interest payments and dividend payments that go into such a relationship. And so what Heggs thought was going to cost him $4.7 million to buy out Chrysler became $5.7 million after a Future Profitability Clause was added in. But Heggs was at a point of no return. He wanted to be on his own. And so on Jan. 6, 2017 the dealership became his at a cost of an extra $1 million. “It was the happiest day of my life,” Heggs said. “I said, Now that’s what it’s all about. I felt the chains falling off.”

Cultural Revolution

To change the performance trajectory of the dealership, Heggs knew the first step was to change the culture. The previous owner had less than 60 employees and knew few by name. Heggs nearly tripled the number of employees and committed to knowing each by name. It was a simple but effective first step.

But the changes went much deeper than that. In the previous regime, most of the employees were low-paid, but little was expected of them. It created a lazy environment.

“I came in,” Heggs said, “and tore all of that up and said, ‘Do you want to make $20,000 a month?’ Who wants to raise your hand? Now I’m going to show you how to do it with a big smile. And we’re about to change the culture in this building. And you’re going to be part of it.”

But Heggs knew he was going to be firing some of those sales people. It’s like a professional basketball team. Everyone wants to be a professional athlete until they realize how much it takes to become one – the hours and hours of practice, the discipline, getting up early, lifting weights. Heggs knew that from personal experience.

“Everyone wants to sell 20 cars and make $20,000,” Heggs said, “but you’ve got to make the phone calls, you’ve got to follow up. You’ve got to be a stickler for details, you’ve got to know the inventory. You’ve got to meet and greet a lot of people, you’ve got to be certified, you’ve got to do all of those things to be successful. You’ve got to be hungry. You’ve gotta want it bad.”

And so Big Al built a team in his image and character.

Isn’t it Ironic

Will you take the opportunity over the money? Society today preaches, “ Don’t be a fool, take the money and run!” What kind of a man and mindset does it take to turn down a million-dollar-a-year offer over a broken-down business on a whimsical wish?

Success is never the cake, but the recipe and the chef who bakes it. Heggs Auto Group is steadily growing to match the size of its master and reflects every bit of his exceptional character. Loyalty seems to be a main ingredient here. Everybody loves to work for big Al. They are all extended family and Heggs, being happily married himself for 30 years, obviously knows something about family and loyalty. How many professional ball players achieve that?

Alvin Heggs is the kind of man who would risk taking an opportunity over easy money, exactly because he is not an opportunist. A slam dunk surely takes a lifetime of practice, persistence and teamwork.

You might think that his moniker, “Big Al” was fashioned after his imposing size. You might think it would be custom cut for his Ego. After all, this guy is like King Midas, whatever he touches turns to gold. Success and power march two by two all day, but he doesn’t seem touched by arrogance or hubris.

Heggs’ Unbearable Lightness of Being”  is simply infectious and impossible to resist. You cannot dislike Big Al and, I mean, who like cars salesmen? If you ask Big Al how is he doing, he would reply to you with, “I’m exceptionally well!” and you would believe him because just  “good” or “fine” does not measure by Big Al’s  standards. He is set at “exceptionally well” or nothing.