100 Years, 26 Dealerships, One Rule | The Wheelhouse Ep. 1

A hundred and one years ago, CMA was a hardware store building Model Ts in the back room. Today it’s a family-owned group of 26 dealerships, and its leaders boil a century down to one rule: the relationship is the product, not the car. They make the case in Ep. 1 of The Wheelhouse, a VINCUE podcast formerly known as Cue the Next Leader, reimagined and now hosted by EVP of Product Daniel Govaer.

Sales towers are gone. Customers show up with the research done. Liza Borches said most customers now “know at least as much, if not more than our sales associates” before they walk in. The product changed too. Electric cars are back after dealers wrote them off in the early 1900s, and hybrids are one of the fastest-growing segments.

What stayed the same: buyers still want to sit in the car, take the test drive, and check that it fits the golf clubs or the car seat. Matt Walsh pointed to the gap between a Model T and a Hummer EV, then noted the buyer’s nerves haven’t moved. For many families, Liza added, this is still the biggest purchase they make. Jason Mahoney put it plainly: the technology changed a lot, but it’s still a people business.

Associates own 26% of CMA through an ESOP. Jason’s summary of what that does on the floor: owners “just care more.” Liza explained why. When customers ask for the owner, they want someone who can make the call, see the big picture, and still be there next year. At CMA, every associate sees the financial statements, the strategic plan, and the acquisition strategy, so they know what part they play.

Being private adds a second advantage. Liza said CMA can make long-term decisions instead of answering to quarterly results and a stock price. The retention numbers are honest. Turnover drops after the five-year mark, when associates hold a meaningful amount of stock. Before that, 90-day turnover and turnover up to five years are about average for the industry. Matt said the culture piece has grown over the last five or six years through weekly and monthly sharing of customer care stories.

Not on their own. Liza’s father tells her dealers have more systems, dashboards, and data than he ever imagined, yet know less about where they stand financially and with the customer than they did 25 years ago. Her take: “we’ve overwhelmed ourselves with data.”

Each leader named the number they trust and the one they don’t:

• Matt: cost per opportunity beats advertising cost per sale. A high cost per sale often means the store is mishandling the traffic it already gets.
• Liza: lead-to-sale ratios are meaningless when every source is lumped together. Split by source and by new versus used. Customer experience scores come up in every meeting, and one role at CMA is fully dedicated to them.
• Jason: retail sales effectiveness, because it’s measurable and shows whether you’re getting your fair share of a segment.

Jason’s blind spot is attribution. Add up every sale each vendor claims to have influenced, he said, and you’d have sold three or four times more cars than you did.

The episode also surfaced a gap inside the group. When Daniel asked how many people at each store can appraise a car, the answer ranged from two to eight. Matt then calculated time to frontline for all 26 rooftops by hand and found stores with 30% to 46% of inventory not frontline ready, at about 35 days to frontline. He took those numbers to service, sales, and general managers.

Payments keep climbing. Edmunds’ Q3 2026 data puts the average new-vehicle payment at a record $787, up from $756 a year earlier. A record 25.5% of financed new-car purchases ran 84 months or longer, and 21.2% of buyers took payments of $1,000 or more (CBT News, Oct. 5, 2026).

Daniel pressed the CMA team on those long terms. Matt said dealers shouldn’t “kick the can down the road” with 84- and 96-month loans, especially when the buyer has negative equity. His preferred fix is leasing: it zeroes out that equity after 36 months, and he said lease customers show more than double the owner loyalty of finance customers. He admitted CMA doesn’t lease enough and hasn’t taught its teams or customers why it works.

Liza said CMA strongly discourages longer terms but lets general managers own their pay plans. She planned to check which stores already pay finance managers less on 84-month loans, so a good idea can spread across the group.

Daniel asked each guest to finish one sentence: dealers who won’t be here in 10 years are the ones who…

• Jason: aren’t curious about where things are going.
• Liza: think the car is still the product. The dealers who last will be trusted advisors on every mobility need, whatever transportation looks like. “It’s the relationship, not the car.”
• Matt: care more about the name on the building than their impact on customers and community.

The same thinking shapes who CMA hires to run a store. Liza looks for curiosity, confidence paired with humility, and the courage to do the right thing when no one’s watching. Matt screens for culture fit first, then a record of success and promotion within the same group.

The Wheelhouse is brought to you by VINCUE and streams on YouTube and Buzzsprout. Want more on dealership leadership, data, and the market? Visit VINCUE Resources. New to VINCUE? Schedule a demo to see how your team can plan, buy, manage, and sell all inside one connected platform.