A change in perspective...

One of the first rules of BDC is to connect WITH your client, but not get emotionally connected TO your client. You can’t beat yourself up when a deal can’t get done.

However, today I broke that rule and I am proud that I did. I had spent weeks earning this person’s trust and confidence and I was invested in them. She was a manager T.O. to me because of her concerns and I knew how bad she needed a vehicle and what it meant to her and her family. I knew she worked in the medical field and had been working tirelessly and chose our dealership to spend her time off and give this a shot. I also knew it would take a lot of work, but I knew we could get her done.

Then, she called me from the showroom, crying - twice. I am not insensitive, but I am definitely not described as emotional. However, this call hit me hard. The first time she called was when they were told that it would be a struggle to get them done and that it probably wouldn’t happen. This would not do! She had to get a car - today! I rushed to the tower and pushed every. possible. option. We went back and forth and back and forth. We kept hearing (reading) no again and again. I was devastated. I knew I had to go over there and tell her the bad news myself. She trusted me and I was not able to help after I was so confident that I could.

As a last ditch effort, with the help of our special finance manager, we refreshed that application one last time and there it was... an approval! I just about screamed in the middle of the showroom. We started the paperwork while a sales specialist went through all the features and benefits of their new vehicle. It was a job well done and it was a job that probably would not have been completed without the grind and emotional connection that drove us to push as hard as we did. I went back up to my office extremely proud.

Then the second call came a while later. She was crying, again! I panicked. “What’s wrong, what happened?!” I asked frantically. Then she started thanking me over and over. She was blessing me, my family, our team, our store. They were tears of joy. Things rarely heard when you get a crying phone call in the Business Development Center. Tears that made everything we went through worth while. Tears that made my entire career worth while. This is what we live for! That pure, genuine happiness when you make peoples’ dreams come true. It was incredible.

So I got up to go downstairs and congratulate her. To my surprise, two members of my team got up too and start following me. When asked why, they each had stories of their own of why they wanted to help this woman so bad. She had touched all of us in her own way. We went down and surprised her at the desk. She was so excited she jumped up and hugged us all (in the middle of a pandemic, I know). We all had tears in our eyes and it was a magical moment. I truly believe this was an experience that made our careers up to this point.

I know everyone in the automotive field has stories like this. I have helped thousands of people buy cars and listened to thousands of stories with over 10 years in the business. I've had people I have helped and people I could not, but I have not felt this moved in quite some time. This has lit a fire in me. Am I doing everything I can, every time? How can we do it better? If there’s a will, there’s a way and it’s clearly in our own mindset. Yes this is my job, but today showed me how much more I can do, how grateful I am to be doing what I am, and how humbled I am to have the opportunity that I do. So THANK YOU to that person today. You told me how much today meant to you, but I will be forever grateful for what today meant to me.