Rohrman Auto Group Drives Into Year 61!

Parades and other community involvement remain mainstays of the group that now numbers 22 rooftops.

Alysha Webb

When Bob Rohrman got into the car business in 1963, the accepted way to sell a lot of cars had nothing to do with technology. And that hadn’t changed in 2005 when his grandson Ryan entered the family business.

“When I started selling cars, the No.1 thing a good salesman would do was stand by the front door,” Ryan Rohrman, now CEO of Rohrman Automotive Group, tells WardsAuto.

Those days are gone. Now, most customers who walk in the door have already made an appointment online, Rohrman says.

But some things don’t change. Another important part of his grandfather’s dealership business was community involvement. The Rohrman Automotive Group continues that tradition, from participating in parades to partnering with zoos.

“We do 17 parades a year,” Rohrman says. ?“Every community we are in, we try to do every parade. We have our own traveling float.”

His employees at the dealerships where the parades take place also participate, he says.

In this era of online marketing, it is difficult to measure the exact return on such events, Rohrman says. But, “The community involvement is still the old school form of advertising. It is high in the purchasing funnel, and it makes your name sticky.”

Rohrman Auto Group also donates to local high schools. In Lafayette, IN, for example, Lafayette Central Catholic High School sports a Rohrman Tennis Facility. Jefferson High School, also in Lafayette, has a Rohrman Performing Arts Center.

The Purdue University football stadium in neighboring West Lafayette is called Rohrman Field. “My grandfather donated a large sum of money to Purdue,” Rohrman says.

The group also sponsors a “Rock & Roar” music series at the Fort Wayne (IN) Children’s Zoo. The group’s mascot is a lion known as Rohry.

Family Affair

Rohrman’s grandfather, Bob, got into the car business by opening a used-car outlet in 1963 before acquiring a Toyota franchise in 1969.

Ryan Rohrman, 39, wasn’t interested in going into the used car business. But by the time he was in college, majoring in biochemistry, the Rohrman family also owned new-car franchises.

In 2005, his grandfather persuaded Ryan to work at the family’s Schaumburg Honda store in Illinois for one summer. Ryan was hooked.

“I loved it,” Rohrman says. “There is a lot of strategy to it and many different silos. I changed my degree to a marketing degree.”

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