The Journey to Self Employment in The Irish Motor Industry

One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2015 was to start writing a blog once a month about my business, it was on instructions from my business coach & the guy who manages my social media posts. I was interested and had some ideas but just never got around to it, So here we are one year later and I’ve promised myself I’d give it a go.

I thought the best place to start was literally at the start and the journey into self employment,
I have worked in 4 different dealerships with 9 different franchises, Cooney motors, Martin Reilly Motors , an unnamed & Mc Carricks Sligo.
I was thought something different in each one of them and each point I’ve taken into Kevin Egan Cars and implemented them in systems I use today.

So here we go!

Cooney Motors, Boyle, Roscommon (Nissan)
This was possibly the best place I could of started, it’s a rural town in Roscommon with some of the hardest people to deal with on the planet, they were educational to say the least, It was good franchise with plenty of showroom traffic and it was a place that had a good reputation and a growing customer base.
The best thing I took from Cooney’s was “Doing things the right way”. I didn’t know a wrong way at this stage but the training I got in dealing with customers, organising paperwork, Selling finance, liaising with the after sales team and dealing with a database has yet to be matched, all T’s had to be crossed i’s had to be dotted, One thing that still makes me smile and summed up the place up literally! I was sitting at my desk when Tommy (General Manager) Stormed out of his office towards me with a PTSB Finance agreement , he had a policy on how much commission we could take on a deal , I had made over what was allowed and he gave me a rollicking for it, little did he know what was to follow with the Celtic tiger over the next few years, It summed the place up because they were so straight and honest which was good for me and not a bad trait to have, but what I did realise when I later worked in other dealerships is that we never made good washouts on the new or used vehicles, or maybe they were just good at hiding it from the salesman on a percentage of his sales washout?

Martin Reilly Motors (Hyundai, BMW, Mini, Mitsubishi)

Hands down the best place I’ve worked, until I opened my own place of course, I had regretted leaving there every day, I was there for 3 and a half years with the most of my time spent in the Hyundai side of the business, I loved the product and people I was dealing with, it was so much easier to do deals and right from the first week I started I was selling more cars than everyone else.  At some point during my time there I was thrown into the BMW side of things but it wasn’t for me, it’s a different sales process and different customer base. It was a classic case of it wasn’t them it was me scenario , Selling cars is the buzz , ordering a car and waiting 3 months to deliver it wasn’t for me , let me sell a Hyundai Getz over a 7 series any day!
I took two things from Reilly’s but the main one was “Team morale”. I loved working there and so did everyone else. I enjoyed going to work and I think that was the main factor in selling so many cars, I was happy and it made it easier to work hard and defiantly close more deals, I wanted to work for Martin, Charlie & Cathal because they treated me well, I’d like to think I have already implemented the same morale, vibe & atmosphere in my own business as the team has grown.
Oh & the second thing I took from Reilly’s was straight lines , rows and rows of cars  lined up straight, there is just something therapeutic about lining up a yard full of cars #straightlinessellcars

The Other place I Worked (Top Franchise)

The place I worked where I was shown how not to run a sales department, Looking back now the place lacked leadership. It had too many chiefs & share holders and not enough Indians who actually liked working there, I’m still not sure to this day who actually ran the place and who was in charge! It’s the longest established dealership in the area so they obviously done something right before my brief employment there but I couldn’t see what it was rather than them having the best franchise available in the motor trade. I turned the place on its head within a month with two simple exercises

1) I threw out the Brochures that were on display since the 90’s and replaced them with the modern models which were still in their plastic wrapping. (No exaggeration)
2) And Yes I did it , I lined up the cars in perfect rows , Hatchbacks together , Saloon’s together , Non franchise together & a long row of vans from SWB to LWB &  low roofs to high roofs , a place for everything and everything in its place,
I don’t think I ever received as many compliments that week from colleagues for something so simple. Because I was only there a wet week , I had just thought the yard hadn’t been tidied because they were busy, It turns out it was never done before, as far as they were concerned it was revolutionary!
The place was backwards, it wasn’t a nice place to work and their commission structure was unfair and not as described in the interview, I sold nearly 60 cars in my two months there, I had yet to receive a commission payment so I asked why, I was told because I didn’t trade in any of the cars I sold so I didn’t get commission! I asked then who did. “Well the salesman who traded it in does”!!
So while I was out Lining cars, clearing off dusty brochures, eating my lunch with the mice upstairs the two lads sitting in their office reading the papers were getting paid, Cheers lads I’m off outta here!

Mc Carricks Sligo (Peugeot, SEAT & Daihatsu)
At this stage during Celtic tiger it was more a case of order taking than selling cars , It was incredibly busy and a rollercoaster ride , Believe it or not what I took from McCarricks was “How to make Profit”,  Ironic I know considering it’s the only place I've worked  that’s now closed (the unnamed one was taken over by a more professional outfit).
 I was paid really well and I thank my lucky stars there was only myself and one other sales person in the showroom, Michael the owner stayed put in Tubbercurry where he was comfortable and let myself and Kevin mcGoldrick run the Sales department ourselves, I had a sense of responsibility, ordering new cars, buying Used vehicles, doing my own finances and managing my own washouts, I made good money and met some lovely customers who are still with me today.
Unfortunately things turned in 2008, the day I got back from my honeymoon Michael & Vincent had their talk with the staff, who was staying and who was going, thankfully I kept my job the hard work and selling the bulk of the second hands paid off, it was noticed plus the fact Kevin Mc had his family all grown up and I had a new wife , a 2 year old and one due in a few months, That may of had something to do with it, but I deserved it anyway.

The experience in the above 4 outfits got me to where I was in 2009, Cooney’s thought me how to do things right , Reilly’s made me fall in love with selling and the motor trade , the others thought me there is a dark side and Mc Carrick’s gave me the freedom to believe in my myself and that bit of arrogance that I needed to know that I was good enough to make it !

The next few years was where the pain was, but that’s a story for another blog !