Welcome to another edition of the Car Dealership Guy Podcast Recap newsletter—the key lessons from top operators, founders, and execs shaping the future of auto retail.
Today’s guest is Greg Smith, VP of Operations at Leavens Automotive Group.
Greg breaks down his journey from BMW Canada executive to managing 300 employees across seven dealerships. He also reveals the CPO strategy that made him #1 in Canada, and shares the leadership principles driving his success.
Becoming Canada’s #1 VW CPO dealer: What’s working, what’s broken, and where profit is slipping away
Shifting from an OEM to retail makes you realize the importance of the human connection.
Greg started his automotive career selling cars to help cover his college tuition, before joining the BMW Group—and then returning to retail.
“The biggest challenge…that I experienced was just managing people. I went from having a team of one to two people to having a team of 25.” That was sales reps. That was a pre-owned manager. That was a sales manager. That was detailers, receptionists, lock guys, F&I managers.”
It speaks to one of Leaven Automotive Group’s modes of operations at the dealership—"inspect what you expect.”
The ability to turn obstacles into learning experiences can be hugely beneficial.
One of the biggest factors in Greg’s success as a VP was the challenges he faced learning how to manage people.
“I would say it's probably one of my biggest strengths today because I have so many people…now my scope is about 300. I have approximately 10 direct reports—but the dealerships that we operate are about 300 employees.”
It’s a significant shift for an operation that sells 6,000 cars a month—give or take.
Find a leadership/management style that works for you—and stick with it.
Greg’s approach to leadership and management is deeply rooted in his college education at the Ivey Business School in London, Ontario.
“My big thing is fact over story and letting the numbers talk. I'm definitely a numbers guy... There's, obviously, other things that come into it…But for me, I would empower the people to make decisions.”
Get in the weeds when you need to get in the weeds—but don’t make micromanaging your general mode of operation as a leader.
Trusting in your GMs will go a long way towards fueling a successful operation.
It’s impossible to manage everything—especially with a dealer group that encompasses several stores.
“You're only one person, right? So, you have to rely on your GMs from my level and your sales management and your service management and parts management to know what to do. I like to think of those people as an extension of me and giving them an idea of how I operate and then making decisions based on what they think I might do.”
The key to growth, and I realize you can't do every role.
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Poor leadership breeds inefficiencies in a dealership’s processes.
One of the fundamental elements of Greg’s approach to management is structure.
“My training camp was BMW Canada…very structured. You go in with an agenda. If you're not early, you're late. You have (a) regular cadence of meetings.”
Greg uses a whiteboard system to track and assess what’s going on in each department, spanning accounting to service—digging into specific details such as KPIs and profit percentages.
Eliminate all questions regarding expectations—at the onset.
Tracking departmental progress starts with a clear understanding of the initial commitment.
“The commitments is really just a synonym for a goal. I like the word commitment better than goal because it's more blatant. A goal is—I'm going to try and get it. A commitment is—I’m going to do it.”
A commitment holds more weight than a goal.
Knowing when to shift and how to shift strategies is important.
Greg allows for some time for a particular plan to yield some results—but not too long.
“After the first 30 days to 60 days, if it's not moving and the needle's not moving, then we do a deep dive. Why isn't it working? Do we need to pivot? Because not everything we try works right away.
“Sometimes things do work, and it goes gangbusters, and you didn't think about things that might have fallen off or that you didn't plan for…”
Leaven Automotive Group assesses its process every 30, 60, and 90 days.
A great approach to leadership helps to prepare for the unexpected.
When needing to improve its pre-owned vehicle operation, Leaven Automotive Group found itself leaning on many of the principles Greg had put in place.
“…I remember our owner came down to my office…and he says, ‘what can I help you with?’ And I said, ‘I need a longer leash when it comes to pre-owned inventory and having a little bit more room to buy some cars.”
“Chris Leaven, who's our owner, is a very open-minded guy. He said, ‘okay…let's meet tomorrow in the boardroom and go over it.”…I tasked my GSM at the time with it—and he took this thing to the next level.”
The plan—which involved reengineering the processes for trading and selling new and used vehicles and recalculating what’s made on recon and F&I—quadrupled the company’s certified pre-owned vehicle volume.
A strategy is only as good as the leadership and team that drives it.
Leaven Automotive Group’s winning CPO strategy can be adapted by other dealerships.
“It's repeatable, but you have to have the buy-in from the people, and you have to have somebody equipped that can buy the cars and that has the stamina to do it.”
Make sure your company is ready to seize winning opportunities.
The customer should always be the central focal point of every process.
The success of any dealership is predicated on how the team connects with its client base on a personal level.
“Is that how you would treat your mother, your grandmother, your grandfather when they walk in the door? Would you continue working away on your laptop and not look up and greet them? Smile when you answer the phone, following up with your customers, making sure that they have all their questions answered—these are the non-negotiable fundamentals of the car business.”
Don’t get so entangled in the processes of auto retail to the point that you forget the purpose of the business.
