Angela Rizzo: I’m here at Digital Dealer with one of my favorite people in the whole world. Hugh Palmer from Beaver Toyota. How’s the show going so far for you?
Hugh Palmer: Absolutely amazing. I’m glad that we came to the show as we are getting a lot of insight and getting a lot of different feedback from what other people are doing in other markets. It actually gives us a good feel for what we’re doing. Where we’re successful and areas of opportunity that we can go back and implement when we get back home.
Angela Rizzo: You know, that’s part of the beauty of these shows right? It’s what you can learn while you’re here. But I think that you guys down at Beaver Toyota, you guys have a lot to teach in terms of what’s happening. I’d love to hear a little bit about the philosophy of your dealership, and I’ll just leave it at that. If somebody asks you, what’s the philosophy of your dealership? How would you answer it?
Hugh Palmer: The philosophy of our dealership is really surrounded by a word. It’s an acronym, really, that was created by our general manager. And actually it’s an award that we give out. It’s a BADASS award. And what we’re building is a BADASS culture. BADASS is an acronym for Building And Developing A Selfless Service culture. Wow. Building and developing a selfless service culture. So when you ask me about who we are or who we’re trying to be is just a team and a store and a dealership filled with badass people.
Angela Rizzo: Okay. That’s amazing. And I have to tell you I’ve visited the store and there’s a vibe in the store that I absolutely love. And I was fortunate enough to be at the morning meeting where Patrick addressed everybody and he said he doesn’t consider himself a new franchise store. He considers himself a used car store that sells new Toyotas.
Hugh Palmer: Right? Yes.
Angela Rizzo :So can you talk a little bit about the mentality around your acquisition strategy and what you’re doing around used cars as well as new cars?
Hugh Palmer: Well, listen, we have the utmost respect for our OEM. We are Toyota through and through we love the sombrero that’s on the building. And obviously we have an affinity towards the brand. I’ve been with Toyota for 18 out of the 21 years I’ve been in this automotive industry. But a lot of things have changed post COVID and with a lot of the different shifts and ebbs and flows in the market that have caused dealers to have to make different business decisions with how they wanted to run their business. When you have supply chain issues and you have parts issues and constraints, and you just can’t get new cars, you have to decide whether or not you are gonna remain in business and care for the souls and the people that come to work every day to provide for their family or not.
And what we decided was that we were going to go and be the best used car dealer that we possibly could be in our market for our people. So yes, we still move our new cars. We’re always 120 to 130% of our new car sales objective. We are new car sales efficient, we’re brand efficient. We have the highest if not one of the highest Toyota loyalty engagement scores. So our customers come back on the new car side. But yes, to his point, we are a used car dealership that just happens to do very well selling Toyota’s. And ultimately what we want to do is we want to be able to appeal to everybody. We want to have vehicles and products and things that will bring people to market that may not be looking for a Toyota product. So that’s what we do, that’s our approach. We go after the cars that fit the market, and we try to make sure that we have something for everybody.
Angela Rizzo: I love it. You know, I also love the fact that Patrick was in Tampa, and then he took on the GM of this store in Cumming, Georgia. Oh, yeah. And 52 families, 52 employees moved from Tampa to Cumming. And can you talk a little bit about what would compel people to do that and how that’s working for you guys?
Hugh Palmer: It’s very simple. It’s leadership, it’s direction, it’s heart, it’s passion, it’s compassion. The leader that we work under embodies all of those things for the store and for the community at large. So much so that what he built from Orlando moving then to Tampa has translated itself very well into the Atlanta or the North Georgia market. So much so that, to your point, 52 of us have left our homes, sold houses, sold properties, packed up wives and or husbands, significant others and children to move to a different state completely to work with one man who now is leading arguably one of the best businesses for used cars and new car sales to be frank in, in our market and, and in the country.
We aren’t where we’re going to be but we’re doing so well in trying to position ourselves for where we want to be. Patrick is an amazing leader. He has an amazing heart. And, and more importantly, he’s amazing at giving. And it’s such a blessing when you’re able to give, because when you open your hands to give, you’ll also posture yourself to be able to receive. And what he’s done in his giving has absolutely made this store something that is postured to receive all the good that it could possibly get under his leadership, you know, and the leadership of Mr. Beaver who entrusts that store into his care.
Angela Rizzo: That’s great. Tell me a little bit about what specifically you are in charge of at the store and maybe some of your key goals and aspirations.
Hugh Palmer: Well, I’m not in charge of much. I mean, just about 500 or 600 used cars per month. That translates into about 350 to 425 pre-owned sales per month. And an inventory that’s 97% certified. Because we certify all of our makes and models to the standard of Toyota certified used vehicles. So they all get 160 multi-point inspections, and they all have a certification up to 185 thousand miles that’ll give every customer a 12,000 mile warranty. So we have an absolute airtight value proposition to give people a reason to want to buy cars from us. But my responsibility is really just to allow people to execute at the highest level, at the responsibilities that they have, and to help them be the best version of themselves every day in the job that they come to work to do. Period.
And I get a chance to watch people grow. I get a chance to watch them develop. I get a chance to learn from them and hopefully impart some knowledge on them as well. And ultimately, you know, whether it’s buying cars servicing cars, putting them through reconditioning or, or just posturing ourselves to make sure that we’re taking them on our trade, or bringing them in from the service department, or giving everybody in the dealership work to be able to provide for themselves and their family, the detail collision center, the mechanical shop. You know, my job is just to be a conduit between all the departments in the store and the commodity that we sell, which are our used cars.
Angela Rizzo: Wow. You know, I’m just always blown away when I talk to you. I always feel like I learn so much, and you’re just a great human, you know, I really do appreciate you.
Hugh Palmer:That means a lot. Thank you.
Angela Rizzo: It sounds like you guys have got the people part of this business, you know, really dialed in. You have people, process and technology, right? Can you talk a little bit about some of the key processes that you guys are using and maybe some of the key technology so that when you put the triad together, it all works in unison?
Hugh Palmer: Well I’ll piggyback off of something that Patrick says all the time. If you could imagine a triangle for a second that has three angles and three sides. They’re not always even or equal even though we try to grow them that way. But you have people who are a part of that triangle. You obviously have merchandising and marketing, which involves dollars that have to be spent. And then you have inventory. You know, you have to be able to have something for those people to sell, you know, and something that you’re advertising towards or to sell. And our goal is to make sure that all angles on that triangle grow at an even pace, because in the very center of that triangle, when it grows evenly are the dollars that we desire for our business.
An honest and ethical profit. You know, we want to sell every car that we can to everyone that gives us an opportunity because they’ve extended to us, you know, the grace of being able to work for them and on their behalf, and we don’t take it lightly that someone gives us an opportunity to be able to earn their business and for them to spend their dollars that they’ve worked hard and pay taxes on with us. Right? So we do things that are a little different to be able to deliver that type of experience. Every morning we come in, we do a trade walk. If a vehicle has been traded in or has been acquired the day before we stage it so that every one of the associates that’s going to be responsible for selling that car knows what we have in inventory.
We walk the car and we look at all of our resources and our tools to position it in the market where we know it’s going to be priced equitably for the store and, and fairly for our customers. And not only do we set up the reconditioning that needs to be done or the things that our associates deem may be necessary but we allow our sales associates to price those cars because now they take ownership, it’s their inventory, they set the standard, they set the price, and it’s gonna be very easy for them to communicate that to their clients. In order to do that, we have to deploy technology that allows us to be able to be accurate when giving them the information that’s going to allow them to price these cars based on the market and what we’ve been using.
We made the switch in our vehicle maintenance tool in our inventory management tool to one that we were using in our vehicle buying center previously. And now VINCUE offers a full suite that allows us to not only manage our buying center, but also manage our entire inventory. And we absolutely love the way that the tool gives us back our own information. It serves the information on the vehicles that we have in our market, and the vehicles that we have in our inventory to us in a way that allows us to make very, very sound decisions with how we’re going to position them to be sold. There’s one other tool that we have that we really like that integrates very well with VINCUE, and it’s Lot Pop. Lot Pop allows us to basically match our cars or our vehicles with the leads on those cars.
And too often we look at leads, we look at leads, we look at our CRM, and we look and see what people have submitted leads on. And we forget that we have these cars and most of the customers that are looking at our website just simply want to find a car that matches their needs. Well, if we only look at the lead and the lead is on a car that’s already sold, what do we do? For all the other customers that submitted inquiries, right? They put their hand up and said, help me. Right? And our job is to be able to produce that form. So Lot Pop allows us to go back and match back customers to cars that we have that fit a certain standard or a certain segment that they were looking for. So between VINCUE and Lot Pop, I think we’re postured to absolutely take a meteoric rise within our used car vehicle.
Angela Rizzo: That’s awesome. You have to buy cars in order to sell cars. Can you talk a little bit about the process that you guys use for your vehicle buying center?
Hugh Palmer: Well, you’re gonna meet him later (Referring to Jaden Abad). I think you have him on the docket to interview. He’s a really, really, really dynamic young man. I won’t tell you his age. You won’t be able to guess it based on his maturity. But we have hired some very young ingenious and aggressive thinking individuals to lead our acquisition team. And they’re not only aggressive and hungry when they do what they do, they come to us with no automotive experience, which was important for us. We didn’t want anyone in a role to go and acquire cars that were jaded by what it takes to be able to sell that car, because that’s not their role. We didn’t want someone that was in sales buying cars because ultimately when you’re responsible for selling a car, it changes the way that you look at what you need to do to be able to acquire the right car.
So we wanted to make sure that we created silos, because sometimes silos in the business aren’t bad, especially when you’re putting things in the appropriate place. So our acquisition team, they get numbers. They get data they use information to go out and make sound buying decisions for the cars that we sell in our market that turn quickly, that have low model day supply, and then they get autonomy, which is what everyone wants, an ability to grow and an ability to make decisions for a business that you want to see thrive, but that you want to be able to put your imprint on. So, you know, we give them all of the tools and all of the resources, and we allow them to go out and to buy cars from our public, from our community, from people that are either local or all over the country, because I don’t care where they get the car from if I need it.
They’re tasked with the responsibility of finding it and then bringing it home. We need that car here. And then we also try to do as little as possible at auctions because ultimately we want to home grow our business, and we want to be able to have a connection with the customers that are buying and selling. But our acquisition center takes a lot of our focus and a lot of our energy right now because that’s where we think that the greatest opportunity for growth is in our business, is acquiring the cars that are necessary to keep our business moving.
Angela Rizzo: You mentioned looking across the country. When you’re looking at cars, can you talk about the processes that you have built in, in terms of shipping cars or receiving cars? Because I thought I always had to stay local when I was looking for a car, but nobody’s stopping me from getting on the Beaver website and going and buying a car from you guys. Even though I live in Kansas City and your dealership is in Georgia. Can you talk a little bit about that whole process of how you get something from point A to point B and you make it easy for the customer?
Hugh Palmer: Well, you may know them. I happen to know someone that lives in Kansas City as well that drives a Toyota product that may be interested in selling that may be interested in selling said Toyota product for, for another Toyota product. Oh, is that you? I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to call you out. That’s okay. This is your interview. I’m sorry. But no seriously, Angela, what a lot of people in the industry don’t realize or, or maybe we take for granted is that just because we did deploy dollars and we spend money in advertising to get our name out there, that it somehow becomes the consumer’s obligation to find us. And that’s just quite simply not the way that we want to look at it.
At Beaver, we put our brand on display and we spend the money to give name brand awareness to who we are and what we’re doing. And then we put the onus on ourselves to go and find you. And it doesn’t matter where you are, if you put your hand up or if we know that you’re there, we’re going to come and find you, whether it’s to sell you a car or in this case when we’re talking about acquisition, if it’s for us to come and get that car from you. Right. Alright. We don’t make it hard. I don’t need to look at your vehicle. We do sight unseen appraisals all the time. All of our numbers are aggressive. We know that by and large, most people aren’t bad. By and large, most people don’t lie. By and large, most people are honest, especially about the vehicle that they’re looking to sell.
And by and large, most people take care of their possessions. So we treat everybody as if they’re good, knowing that the people that are not are the exception, not the rule. And we take that information and we give an at or slightly above market for their vehicle so that we can acquire that car. And then if we have to go and get it, we’re gonna send someone to go and pick it up. And we’re gonna send the paperwork to you and we’re gonna send you the check for your vehicle, or we’ll send the check to the bank to pay it off. We make it so easy and so seamless because buying or selling a car should not be arduous. And it shouldn’t be hard. It should be a simple transaction between two people that have developed a relationship and a bond of trust. That word is absent in this business, and it’s the goal of Beaver Toyota and some of our partners to bring trust back to the transaction.
Angela Rizzo: That’s Great. Wow. That’s outstanding. Outstanding. All right. I promise you I’ll have the conversation about getting somebody a new Toyota and trading in a Toyota or maybe even, you know, one of your amazing used cars.
Hugh Palmer: Well, if you know who I’m talking about, you just let her know that we’re definitely willing to give her all the money.
Angela Rizzo: I love it. All right. I appreciate your time. Is there anything else you wanted to say before I, before I close out this interview?
Hugh Palmer (19:12): Actually, I wanted to thank you and the team Angela and, and the entire VINCUE team for giving us the opportunity to be able to share a little bit about our culture, a little bit about our brand and what we hope to bring to this industry, because we love this industry. Why? Because it’s a people industry. Listen, I’m nobody special. The reality is that this thing called automotive is what I do. It’s not who I am. Right? And what I love about the store that we have and about the strategic partners that we have at every level within our dealership and at every level within this business is that who everyone is, is so profound. And it’s so character driven that it makes what we do fun, and it makes what we bring to the market special. So that’s what I wanted to leave, is that, that everyone should seek to leave something special, leave an indelible imprint on the people that you come in contact with as a result of what you do because of who you are.
Angela Rizzo: Well, you said one thing that I have to disagree with. You said you aren’t special. You are special. You’re special to me. And I’m blessed to know you and to work with you. And I want to thank you for taking the time to be interviewed today. Thank you.
Hugh Palmer: Thank you.
Angela Rizzo and Jaden Abad Interview Transcript
Angela Rizzo: Okay, everybody, welcome to CUE The Next Leader. Today we’re talking to Jaden Abad from Beaver Toyota in Cumming, Georgia. And this is a really exciting interview for me. I’ve been wanting to talk to Jaden for a little while now because of the work he’s doing. Jaden, you run the vehicle buying center at your dealership. Can you talk a little bit about what that means and what you do?
Jaden Abad: Absolutely. I am the director of acquisition at Beaver Toyota in charge of acquiring all of our vehicles, whether it’s from auction, wholesalers, off the street, which is obviously our main priority. As a team of three people, we bought 122 cars last month. We range anywhere from buying 100 to 150 every single month off the street, you know, in total we’re acquiring about 250 to 300.
Angela Rizzo: Wow. So you’re acquiring anywhere from 250 to 300 a month, but a hundred or so are coming off the street. So is it true that you didn’t have any automotive experience before you started? Is that correct?
Jaden Abad: Yes, ma’am. The only automotive experience that I had was a porter for a year, and then I hopped straight into buying cars.
Angela Rizzo: So I love this. Now your dad’s the GM, right? Patrick Abad. He’s kind of a legend in the automotive world because of what he’s building. Can you talk a little bit about Beaver Toyota and what’s so great about working for your dad and for that company?
Jaden Abad: Absolutely. So it’s something that we see and get to experience every day, and that’s, it’s not something that we take for granted. It all starts from the top down from Mr. Beaver to my dad, to Hugh with, you know, culture that is instilled in us every single day. You know, we’re given, we’re blessed to have the ability to go buy the amount of cars we do in order to fulfill our inventory with extremely amazing guidance. But it just all, it really does come down to the culture and making sure that we’re doing the right thing that’s good for the business, but at the same time the equivalent of doing the right thing for the customers.
Angela Rizzo: I spoke to Hugh recently and he mentioned that he really is empowering you and the other two buyers to go buy cars. Talk about what that looks like on a daily, weekly basis for you.
Jaden Abad: So every day we all target specific areas. I’m going off the street. We have Lewis who’s in charge of going off the street as well, but targeting other sources of places like that in order to see what vehicles we can get. But in terms of buying cars off the street, we have all of our different sources. We have our inbound, we work our outbounds very strongly. We dig through our old database with customers that, you know, we sold cars to back previously in order to try and get their car back and keep a repeat business. It’s something that, you know, I think has helped us dramatically with our customer retention in terms of keeping customers with us and making sure that they’re not going anywhere else in order to buy or sell a vehicle.
Angela Rizzo: How long have you been working at the dealership in this role and what’s your favorite part of the role today?
Jaden Abad: Around two years. In terms of running our acquisition department. My favorite part I would have to say is being around the customers every single day. I’ve grown a lot of great relationships with customers that bring us cars that, I mean, do well for us. We specifically target vehicles based on what we’re selling. You know, we want to carry what we need to sell, but, you know, building the relationships with customers and being in front of them every day and interacting and making sure that they’re, they’re getting an easy and flawless experience.
Angela Rizzo: So, as you know, buying a hundred cars a month that’s off the street is no easy task. Can you talk a little bit about the process and the tools that you use in order to have that level of success?
Jaden Abad: Well, obviously the big one which is the reason I’m here today is VINCUE. In terms of inbound and outbound, it’s amazing to have everything in one platform. The layout’s amazing. The way we’re able to interact with the customers within the system as well as appraise their car is really life-changing. It makes everything so much easier. But, you know, working those CarGurus, those Auto Traders, those Facebook marketplaces being able to do it and appraise all in one system and have everything organized helps us out drastically. But making sure that all of our customers, as soon as they put a lead in, they’re being, you know, they’re being engaged with, because those are customers that are directly coming to talk to you. There’s no reason that they should sit there and wait for an answer or not get an answer at all when they’re not going onto KBB to see what their cars were. They’re directly inquiring about them on our website to know what their car is worth. Which we’ve done a great job of, you know, giving everybody a great experience that everybody in our market and outside of our market knows that if they wanna sell a car, they come to us.
Angela Rizzo: Can you talk about an experience that you had recently where you actually saw a car that you wanted to buy? Walk us through the process of how you went about engaging with the seller and then how that all works?
Jaden Abad: So it’s crazy to say while we were sitting in one of the keynote note sessions over there, I was texting a customer on Car Gurus who had a Toyota TRD Pro Sequoia, one of the new bodies and basically engaged with him. You know, he had it listed for a couple thousand over what I wanted to do. But you know, I let him know that with us, he’s gonna get a trusted and verified process where he’s not gonna have to worry about somebody’s money not being legit or, you know, possibly, you know, any safety issues selling a car off the street to a private seller. And obviously I told him, I said, look, this is what I can give you for your car. We were at around $95,000 for it, which is crazy to say when MSRP is $78,000 right?
But that’s what the market tells us we sell it for and looking at our past data it’s a car that we can sell at a profitable rate. So, you know, getting him to do that. Actually he just sent me two of his family members that are also selling their vehicles. So just having that good engagement with that one customer is just bringing repeat business and referrals that really drives our numbers up. As well as the fact that he was out of our market. We are located in Cumming, Georgia. He’s located in Nashville, Tennessee. So being able to go outside of our market has really drastically helped us to get over that hundred car mark every month.
Angela Rizzo: That’s amazing. So now I know you have a war room that you guys work in. I’ve seen it. It’s pretty awesome with the different screens and stuff. But you mentioned you were actually in a session. Do you also use a mobile app and are you constantly working? Can you tell me a little bit about your mobile process versus being in the war room at the dealership?
Jaden Abad: Absolutely. Well, VINCUE makes it great to appraise a car from a phone. Your vehicle buying center is also located within your mobile app. So being able to interact with that customer from my phone and do the appraisal as well, it really does turn into a 24 x 7 job. The cars are there all the time and you need to go get them. Especially knowing what we sell, the fact that we sold two already and we need to go get more. So the fact that I was on my phone probably shouldn’t have been in the keynote, but you know, engaging with that customer directly through the app, it really does make it such an easy process.
Angela Rizzo: I think you’re still in school right, are you still going to college? Is your plan to go do something else or are you going to continue in the automotive industry? If this is a loaded question, cuz your dad’s right there you know, you can defer it. What do you think your future plans are gonna be?
Jaden Abad: You know, after I’ve been doing this for a, for a good amount of time now I’ve decided that I do wanna stay in the automotive industry. I look at my leaders from Hugh to my dad, to Mr. Beaver. And you know, I love what they do. I appreciate and respect everything that they do, but at the same time, I wanna do what they do 10 times more and do everything 10 times better. I want to outgrow them and keep growing and eventually hopefully this, the goal is to have a dealership by the time I’m 30. So that’s the goal that we’re working with.
Angela Rizzo: Okay. So I love it. If anybody is worried about the next generation coming up, and stepping up, and taking over, if we have more people like Jaden, we’re all going to be in good hands. So was there anything else you’d like to say before we say goodbye to our audience?
Jaden Abad: I would say the only thing is don’t be afraid to switch to VINCUE. It really is a tool that just absolutely changed everything. We’ve started selling cars faster at a more profitable rate and everything is just so much easier. And make sure that when you are starting a buying center, make sure that you don’t have anybody that has prior sales experience. Everybody preaches that, but it’s something that your mindset just gets too twisted up when you’re trying, you shift away from the goal. So don’t be afraid to make the jump. It drastically helps your dealership, drastically helps your performance.
Angela Rizzo: Love it. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today. You did a great job on the interview and I’m going to want to interview you again. I’m gonna come back to you in six months. Okay? And then you’re gonna tell me about all the things you’re doing though? Thank you.
Jaden Abad:
Absolutely. Thank you so much.
