It’s with great pleasure we share our interview with Daksh Gupta, Group CEO of Huws Gray. We discuss how he started his working life, his career progression and transferring motor trade skills to other industries.
Daksh still has strong automotive ties and continues to work and advise in his roles with Ford and the IMI.
An inspirational discussion which has something for everyone, whether your selling cars, working in service or managing a team.
Here are the highlights:
{02:12} Where it all started
{13:58} Steps into Management
{17:37} All about the numbers
{23:02} Mentors
{31:34} Supergroups
{45:12} Agency
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon’s words ‘real world’, it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visit
www.symcotraining.co.uk
Welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade Podcast, an association with Symco Training. This is the weekly podcast where we share best practice tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department and generally put more profit into your dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett. As some of you probably already know me as Skippy. I will start by saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi, welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Today it's my pleasure to be joined with Dashboard. Now, I'm going to say I've been trying to interview Dashboard for a while now. I know he's been very, very busy and he spoke to me two years ago and said he'd love to come on this, but he had a lot of things on me to pay that the time. And I thought, ah, well, we'll just keep plugging away. Now, of course, a lot of things on the plate was everything that happened with Marshals. So it's been a while, but I'm so, so happy to have Dash on the podcast. So Dash, thank you very much for taking the time, thanks. Yeah, thank you, Simon. Now listen, just so people who don't know you, the people who've been living under a rock. I know you joined Marshals, I believe was in 2008. You took the business from a three million turnover to, I believe it was just short of four billion at the time there. You bought and sold something like 227 businesses. It works out at that's one deal every 57 days. I hear from your LinkedIn babes there, which is massive. You've grown the business, but still it was 11th best employer in the UK. You've got a built your own in-house KPI development platform to track it. So you've done so much with Marshals and lots of people want to know exactly what you've done with Marshals. How you've done that, but I want to go back to the beginning. That's okay. I want to talk about how to get started. And I'll just say, can you tell us a little bit about your back break? Yeah, I guess like a lot of people, they get into these sector backs and that was certainly the case for me. I was, I didn't study at Oxford Brook University. Not that was that clever because it was used to be a polys I got into Oxford Brook's when they changed from polys to unis, but it always looked good at my qualifications anyway. And one of the things with Oxford is the student population is like three times the size of the actual people who live there in the town itself. So trying to get a Saturday job or part-time job is very difficult because of the intake of students there. So I saw an advert for the opportunity to have Washcars on a Saturday and basically applied for it 15 pounds per day in, it would be 1989, I guess, 1990 somewhere around then. So I went to Washcars and just really had the opportunity to get into sales, but again by pure accident. So the owner of the company said to me on the second weekend, why are you washing cars I explained that parents believe I should pay my way through university, which I'm fully supportive of and I've done the same with my eldest who's gone through university and I'll do the same with the other two if you're listening to this podcast. You'll go through university. Because I think it's important, my dad always used to say, learn the value of a pound. And at that time dealerships didn't open on a Sunday and the owner said to me, I call James French, so James, if you're listening to this, thank you for that opportunity back 30 something years ago. And he said, look, would you come and sell cars on a Saturday? On a Sunday, we don't open, but as we know now, it's the second business trading day because people come in when they're off and the rest is history. Well, a good friend of both of us, Chris Wiesen, he's started washing cars. I started washing cars when I was 17 as well and I'm going to say, I hated that at the time, but you want a great branding. I think it was actually. Did you find that good grounding as well for the rest of your career? Things like that? Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things is always trying to keep people, you know, I've been really, really fortunate in my career. I've got some amazing people, amazing mentors. And, you know, I'm really conscious that not everybody gets to be a chief executive of business and not because of opportunity and it's a hard work and you have to have, you know, a little bit of luck sometimes on your side as well. But also, I always, in fact, I said this to one of my colleagues yesterday, whenever we make decisions, we must always remember how it lands in the business. And I always feel that I was promised myself, if I ever made a senior position with an any industry that I would have basically always remember where I came from. And remember, I started at the very bottom and work my way through up and how would people feel with the decisions that I made? So that's one of my send checks to any sort of decision that I make is, you know, how's it going to land in the business? So, yeah, I mean, that experience was fantastic for me. It started at the very bottom. And unfortunately, I only had to do it for two weekends and then I had the luxury of going to think cars would be like that. So you must do it well. Do you remember the first car you sold? Oh, absolutely. So the first car I sold is a real good lesson in this, actually, was we had a Super Turbo G849 PUD. And wow, it's just going to be 1990. So that would have been an 89 on a G. So it's only like less than, you know, six months old, 12 months old. Super Turbo is in black. And the, it was the most expensive car on the fork, 29, 9, 9, and 5, which in today's money is probably like 80 grand or something crazy, you know, and probably more actually thinking about it and with inflation. But customer came in on a bike and people said, oh, he's not, you know, tire kicker. He's not going to be genuine. And the circumstances, his name was, I'll probably say his name for GDPR. He's a bit Mr. Miles. And he came in and he said, unlike to have strived that car. And of course, everyone else, always, you know, time waster. He was coming on a bike. He had actually had his car stolen and he had a check with him from his insurance company. So any, any drove it and he bought it. And I think one that was the first Chrysler, it was a real good lesson that, you know, you can't prejudge anyone. No. Every customer equally treat every customer with respect because you don't know what their circumstances are, you know, so that was a really, really fantastic lesson for me on my first car to sell. And I guess, you know, being new to the industry, you don't know how many bad habits. So sometimes people do prejudges, you know, in this sector. And I think that really, well, treat people with respect, do what you say you're going to do. And surprise, surprise if you treat people like that, they buy from you, you know, people buy from people at the end of the day. They certainly do always have always will. I suppose that seamlessly brings me into the next question. And this is always just a shameless plug for our first 90 day sales training program. We always say the skills people learn in the first 90 days, good and bad, last and for the rest of the career. So that's why we say who trains the brand new people. And so often it's the five car Fred, then Stave Anderson would say, can I ask you that? Is there anything that you learned in that first three months? And I'm not prejudging people, but is there anything else that you learned in the first three months that's as relevant today as it was back in 1989? Oh, 100% I know some of the stuff I learned in the automotive sector will stay with me for the rest of my life. And I've used throughout my whole career because, you know, it's using things, simple techniques of how you answer the phone, how you, you know, use opening closed questions to establish customer needs, how you will, you know, get a customer to commit to an appointment. So by saying, you know, when's a convenient time to pop down this morning or this afternoon? Saturday or Sunday, you know, morning or afternoon, 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock, would you like a coffee? You know, just little simple techniques like that that aren't in a threatening manner, but actually can help you sell more. And I think I was very lucky when I was 18, 19, you know, I'm not. But yeah, so I, you know, when you don't know anything else, you just listen and you just follow the process, you do what you're told to do. So I had no baggage with me and not being from the industry, not knowing anything about it. You just you just, I was very teachable. And I think as people are at that age, and I just did what I was told to do. And I literally was like a parrot. I was told to say these things. And I said those things and guess what? If you find the first words, right? So, and, you know, I've applied that throughout my whole career in the sector. I'm really curious. How much of this? You're in a different sector now. OK. So in construction, managed direction of that huge management director. So how do the skills that you learn in the mode trade, how do they transfer into other industries on any work in the motor trailer? Yeah, I mean, for me, it was a really exciting opportunity. And I'm working with the best alternative investment management company in the world. Blackstone, you know, and then 1.2 trillion. I have to Google how many nought that was a 1.2 trillion dollar company. They are the best in the world of what they do. I mean, they've delivered it north for 20% return every year for the last decade. That tells you how good these guys are. And the opportunity to work with those guys was to appealing to me. But actually running this business, I think, OK, how do I feel about going outside the industry and how do I feel about sectors? Because you do sort of question, are all those skills transferable? And I think one of the things that in automotive, you know, people sort of criticise, oh, there's not enough good people in automotive. But the people in automotive are good. I mean, they really work out of the opportunity in working in different businesses, different sectors. And the people in automotive are very, very high quality. And I think, you know, my observations of that, you typically work in the retail side with margins in the UK between 10 and 12% gross margins. You're operating expenses are typically 10%. And you make the difference between the two. And typically UK average returns being around the 1% for the long term average. You know, I appreciate it. It has been a lot higher. But in reality, if you're working to that way for thing margin and in a business that's so highly operational, you get you have got to be all over the, you know, you're really talk good skills around understanding accounts, understanding numbers, stock management, working capital management. And those skills are absolutely transferable. You know, they're transferred to the sector. I mean, though, so what do I know about building materials and construction or kitchens or bathrooms or paving slabs? I don't, you know, skills or identity school. It's about leadership. It's about having a fresh, you understanding what the key dynamics are of a business. And it's absolutely transferable. And, you know, seven months in here now, you know, we're making a very big difference to the organization. I'm very lucky. I've got a fantastic team of people to me. And they're really teachable. And, you know, they're teaching me about, you know, a new sector and hands up. I'm openly put my hands up until I've got a lot to learn there, but equally they're open to learning new ideas and it's making a real difference. So I think people should in the automotive industry really understand that they have got good skills there. I'm glad you said that because someone else I interviewed on podcast said, when you think about a head of business, a general manager, there's five businesses. It's such a complicated business compared to so many other businesses out there. And you write about the margin, you have to be very good. And I agree with you. I've only worked in the motor trade, but from the outside, there's still that stigma that, well, the motor trade, it's not that hard. Is it? But I'm so glad you said. Actually, I build on some of your comments. It's not just the five income streams, but you also have to be a people manager. You have to have negotiating skills. You're working with OEMs who have got for the right reason, high standards to their brands because they want to protect that brand. You've got to have customer skills. So, you know, you are an all round and, you know, these roles, you know, I think I know more people are going towards head of businesses and title now, but, you know, it used to be, you know, general manager in my day and you, you have to have multiple skills and those skills are transferable. You know, I think you will see, you know, you will see people with that experience who've done well, switch industries, I'm sure. Yeah. Tell me about first step into management. How did that happen? So you were selling cars. I believe your first step into management was the running business. Is that right? Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I had the opportunity to go and work with Keith Broke, who was my Nissan Zone Manager and, you know, I was a baby. I was like 23 years old, right? So it's a key thing, my first, you know, real big opportunity to go and run that business. And we had, you know, this was a business that was doing like 100 used cars a month, right? Big market. Nissan back in the day was a fantastic franchise. It's still a great franchise day, but back then, you know, you've got the Nissan GV guys coming great products and they were gaining market shares. So it was a really exciting place to work. And, you know, nobody kind of teaches you to be a manager. But the approach that I took was, OK, if I can teach my team to be great at what they do in terms of looking after customers, following the basics, following process, you know, following the scripts in terms of training and trying to help them coach them. I mean, even even today, I mean, even the business here, I say, look, my job is to help you. I work for you. That's my job. I say that all the time. And for me, I just took the view that if I can help my people be better, then ultimately, you know, you can you get the reflective credit in, in respect to them being successful because it all comes back to you at the end of the day. So that's what I saw was a big part of my job in terms of being a coach and a mentor to my people and my teams. I love that philosophy. I'm working for you. I'm here to make your job easier. And so many times I get brand new measures. Don't see it that way, a brand that they flip it. It's such good advice. Do you have any other advice for someone taking that first step into management? How do I get that first step? I think, you know, there's always that anxiety people have. I mean, you know, even for me, I'm running a 1.7 billion health business here, you know, and, you know, just to put it into perspective, this has 330 sites, you know, and our previous, you know, he was a 156 million. So this is a big business, right? So there's always anxiety. Are you good enough? I haven't made the right decision, have I got the confidence to do it? But, you know, nobody teaches you to go to CEO's, well, now I've been a CEO for many, many years. I was a CEO at 37 years old and I was a director at IngeCape at 30. So, you know, and I'm 53 now. So I've been doing it for 23 years, but even it's even switching. You still have that imposter syndrome. And I think everyone has that. I think anybody else else says, and I'm not a reasonably constant individual, but you still do question, are you good enough? You know, so I don't think people should be anxious about it. I think, you know, a lot of people don't go out there to win and have that winning mindset or have the ambition or don't let people know. So, you know, how can your bosses know that you want to progress if you don't tell them, they haven't got crystal balls. But also, you know, you've got to stand out, you know, yeah, why should you get that opportunity? Some people feel, I'll be here the longest. I should get the job. What is it that you do that to makes you deserve it? What's your attitude? Like, you know, I like people who are going to, you know, who are going to go and show me a good attitude. And the stars always come to the top. You can see them, you know, but what is it that you do personally that makes a difference in terms of saying, yeah, I'm a star that deserves that opportunity. Yeah. I'm glad you said about that. And possibly because I have so many people that come up the after sales side of it and nervous about the sales side of the business or vice versa. And it's almost like, given that confidence that, listen, just go for it. You're fine. You know, everything you need to know, don't go on pretending, you know, everything about it. And just ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask them the question sometimes because I always feel that. And so this might seem like an obvious question, but I've got you. How does that work? Can you talk about? I completely agree, Simon. I mean, I've been in C for a long time, you know, I come 53. I'm still very young, full 33. And here I know nothing about the sector, but I asked lots and lots and lots of questions. Don't be scared to ask questions. Because that's the worst thing you could do is not ask the question. If you're not sure, that's how you learn. And none of your, none of your leaders or your bosses, you know, are going to ever criticise that. And actually they'll see that as a good thing because you're curious, you want to learn. So I think that's really good. And I should give it Simon. And I'm doing the same thing here because I've got a lot to learn, you know, it was in that Reading dealership. Hi, Wiccan, you're at Reading sitting down with Keith Brock and Mike Thompson. And we got just a salesperson going through the accounts. And it's accounts for you. I had clearly no idea, just brand new salesmen that. But how does that work? What's that? OK, a volume bonus. What is volume bonus? And Mike Thompson, Keith Brock took the time to explain it. They didn't have to do that to me as a salesperson. But I suppose they've seen there that there was that interest there, how it works. Yeah. And Keith also, you know, he really supported me because again, you know, I, I, I, from honest, at the time, I got the opportunity to run a big business at a very young age in Reading because I was a good salesperson, you know, and we were not smashing it out of the park in terms of sales. And I think Keith probably recognized that, you know, that's why I brought it to the table. But actually, I think what Keith helped me achieve was an understanding of that big picture of how the numbers were because today and everything I do today is all about the numbers because the numbers are direct output of what we do in the business. So whatever you do operation in the business and the inputs that you do operation, result in the outputs and the numbers. So if you can understand how the numbers work and the leaders work, then you can know what you need to do to improve the business operationally. So I'm not enough people. I think really understand that. So one of the best bits of advice I'd give people is, you know, make time to understand the numbers. And if you don't understand them, go and talk to your accountants, your accountants would love you to go and ask those questions because they're there to help. Yeah. So, I was just going to ask it. So you walk into a new business you've acquired, a new department, some and they're in a group and they go to another dealership within their group there. What are some of the first things you look for? I may have got that wrong. It sounds like you're looking at the numbers straight away. I thought you were going to say it's the people first processes. But what do you look at when you go to the business of the park? Yeah. So I actually look at quite a few things. It's not just any one individual paper. I mean, I do start with the numbers, to be honest, when you can don't like, you know, the numbers tell you what's going on in the business. And then you can get a sense of what's going on behind that, because as I said, the numbers are an output of what we do operationally. So, you know, when you look at numbers, if a business isn't performing, if it's down to gross margin, what's happening in terms of discounting, what's happening in terms of stock, there's always something that's driving the numbers. And there's always a reason why something's happened. So I start with the numbers to understand where the issues are. So is it a sales rate issue? Is it a new to use car ratio issue? Is it a margin issue? Is always something that is a driver behind why they look. So that gives me an indication of what questions to then ask. OK, and he'll make a judgment and you'll just ask questions. And, you know, why is your margin? I also love benchmarks. So a lovely tables love benchmarking businesses. So, you know, one of the bosses I worked at, in which came many years ago, one of the best businessmen in this country, I would say is Andre LaPoe. I learned a lot from him because he was talking about gold standard benchmarking and how he would use KPIs to look at the bottom courts, are moving them up towards national average. And if you just move the bottom courts on average, if you look at that in your business, the numbers are transformational. I mean, you know, in a business like this, it's tens of millions of pounds, you know. So understanding that and then you ask questions as to what, you know, can you explain why this is? And just listening, you listen to what the explanation is. And you say, well, this is what good looks like. And this is, you know, what others do, which is why always you start looking at a concert. So you've got a benchmark. Because if the rest of the network's doing it, well, why can't we? One of the things that preventing us, and there's always a reason. Sometimes it's because we haven't been ambitious enough. This is something like say, use car stock, turn, you know, what's our stock in policy, you know, how fast are we turning the acres through the workshop? How fast are we preparing things? What's our order delivery cycle? There's always something that gives you the answer. And then you listen to the knowledge of what that person is telling you. Do they do they know the numbers? Do they know the understanding or do they like, you know, what numbers you're talking about? And then you'll make a judgment on the people, you know. So for me, sometimes there are issues, but if you've got the confidence that a person has an understanding, then, you know, you'll get there with that person. It's about helping and supporting that person, coaching them, training them, whatever that he needs to. And on some occasions, you know, you may be of the wrong people, but that's for the numbers and then assessing the individuals and seeing how competent they are on the numbers. I think that's the question that could be a podcast in itself. What KPIs do you start looking at? I mean, that's a huge question. I know there, but are there any key ones that you like to go and look at straight away on a business there that really? I would say there's not any one single I like to look at a balanced score club, because, you know, an old boss of mine, one of the best retailers in the UK, Graham Potts, who was the CEO of Bardy, and became the CEO of Injcape in the UK, great, great retailer, one of the best in the country. He always used to, you know, I've been really lucky. You sort of still still one line as in one of the line as you say, with a single indicator. And, you know, what that basically is you can't just look at one indicator because you might look at something in this lens, but actually there's a reason why it's over here. So for example, you know, one of the things I'm sort of actually teaching in this business is don't just focus purely on margin because if you purely on focus on margin, okay, you could lose volume, okay, equally don't just focus on volume because if you just focus on volume, you could make the margin. So there's a balance in there. So I think I don't just look at one KPI. I look at multiple KPI's, you know, so obviously probability is pretty important. You look at volumes is really important. I like to win market share. I mean, in my previous company, we won market share every single year. In fact, I can't say too much here, but that's a mantra we've got internally that we win market share. We still dinner from our competitors. That's what we're focused on. And yeah, so lots of things I look up in a business. I want to know about this in this conversation for 20 minutes. You must have mentioned four, maybe five mentors at the moment. And it sounds like you've always looked up to people and nicked as many stolen as many ideas as you possibly can from these. And any other mentors really stand up in your time. Like, and what do you do? Do you going through your career? Did you just see some of them? I'm not going to do what you're doing there. And did you mold yourself on them? You talk about your mentors and how they have shown you. Oh, you know what Simon, I am so privileged and lucky to work with so many amazing people and you always learn something, you know, and even if they're not from the sector. So it's interesting the, you know, in automotive, Graham Potts was my boss, you know, when the best return is in the country and he came into inchcape and made a huge change. Literally, I was the relatively recently promoted franchise director. I was a baby at 30. I thought I was going to get fired, you know, because I was like last one in. And I learned so much from him, you know, in terms of retailing, particularly brand use cars. So that was amazing. And you just listen to what he says and some of his theories and philosophies and his experience and how can you not learn from someone who built, you know, with Sir Peter, the Vardy organization is one of the best resellers in the country. So you're always going to learn something there. I've worked with Sarah Sillers, who's amazing. Well, the people from who's the former chief executive, the IMI, she was an op-all at Marshall at Marshall, Cambridge Holdings. Alan Cook, who, you know, was 15 years as the chief executive Cobham, then became the chairman of WSA Atkins, a phenomenal success story. And then also, then chairman of HS2. Again, you know, just an amazing guy. Yeah, even though he's not in the sector, you listen to what he does, what he says, how he does it. Peter Johnson, who is the chief executive chairman of inchcape, learned so much from him, Alan Ferguson, who was, I think, on the ran for audit committees for PLCs. I mean, I mean, that guy is so smart when it comes to numbers, you know, and you know, you just learn, it's very calm and very measured and you watch him in broad meetings, think, yeah, I wish I'd said it the way he'd said it, you know, just really, really smart and teaches you to do things properly and teaches you about presenting numbers in a professional manner and transparent manner because investors like that. So so many mentors. I mean, I could spend all day talking about that. I mean, so Michael Marshall, who recruited me at Marshall, you know, who, who talks about values and genuinely cared about people and values, which align to my philosophy. So you always learned something. I mean, you can imagine the Marshall boardroom at Cambridge. I had Sir Ralph Robbins. I mean, you know, I'll never forget. Sir Ralph Robbins, who is the chief executive roles Royce. And I had dinner with him. And so so so Ralph, what was the toughest decision you had to make? So the toughest decision I had to let 50,000 people go. Anything. Wow, I'm just a little tiny nobody and I'm working with this guy. I'm abroad and Peter Harvey X. Barca's. I mean, I could spend here all day talking about the medicine. There's many more that, you know, we're going to run out of time for me to talk to. But you always learn something. You always learn something and you can always learn, you know, I'm learning in my new role today, which I love. I'm working with Blackstone, who are amazing. You know, I was in New York with Stephen Schwartzman, you know, one of the wealthiest people on the planet, you know, 42 billion net worth couple of dollars behind you, Simon. But you know, and you listen to what these guys say and, you know, they're really smart people. I like hanging around people who are smart and you can listen. You can always learn, you know, and you should have that open mind. Well, I thought to people that we both know about. He thought this. OK. And as you what makes Dash stand there and people we know, like we thought it's commonly straightforward about that. It's all about detail. detail for detail. He talked about the fine and selling business for a day. And he's not the great story about mental contract. It's a big talent contract, which goes through a new meeting, my hornet. You I thought, hey, about what made that, you said, which has happened in the driving long as you need all the time. He just had that end of the life we've been. I suppose Pat Casey has that same English driver. No matter what, for a while, I thought him now and he tells this great story about that. And you're having a meal with him and a few other people in Harpington. And they're talking about having a half day off or a golf or pocket in my back. And it was like, you know, no, Dash needs to get back and run marshes. OK, and for the very most, it's a cool you have half a day off here. And he said, no, it's this hard work ethic. So that's what these people in the outgrowth said. What you said, what made you step in there? What are some of the other characters that do you agree with what we saw the people said about? Yeah, I mean, I think if I listen to what you said, I mean, I remember the story with Keith, you know, selling the business. And I said, Keith, you're only ever going to do this once. And I've bought and sold 227 businesses. So a tiny bit of experience there and just try to help him, him and Steve Patch, you know, because if you're not experienced at doing that, it can cost you a lot of money. So just try to help them. OK, it's one of my oldest and dearest friends. So I wanted to do the right thing. So yeah, I mean, I think it's attention to detail, as Pat said, I mean, for me, yeah, I am very focused as an individual. I've got a lot of drive. I think that's clear. But I don't find work work. I mean, it really, you know, I probably do on an average day, 18, 19, sometimes 20 hours a day when it's pretty full on, you know, and it had, but works not work. If if I felt work was work, I wouldn't do it. You know, I mean, I genuinely work because I enjoy it. And I want to see the organization do well. I want to see people do well. I want to see people grow. And it's rewarding and it's successful when you see an organization change. And you know, in this organization, we're going through massive cultural change, but you know, you only see the feedback and you see what people are feeling that you could, you know, it's a privilege to lead. And it's a work, it's not work. It's fun. OK, I appreciate I'm in the position where I, you know, have got that ability to say it's fun. But I genuinely do. I mean, you know, I mean, a very, very fortunate position. I've had a, you know, reasonably successful career and have done reasonably well, but I don't work because I have to. I do it because I want to. And the day I don't enjoy it is a day will stop. But I'm not sure that will ever come because I enjoy it. So, you know, talking to your comment on Paul there. Yeah, I go to work, but and I do work really, really, really hard. I always had this lack of confidence about, am I good enough? So I was felt well, I'm probably not good enough. And part of it is, you know, I've got to try and learn as much as I can to sort of make sure that I can, you know, prove that I'm good enough, I guess, really. And the other thing I'd say is surround yourself with amazing people. You know, all the people I've got, Rami, I try and recruit. Sometimes people don't recruit people better than them because it's a confidence thing. My view is get the best you can. Get the best you can get great people. And because it makes your life easy. And if you've got people better than you, make and they do well and they do offer the organization, they also then have the confidence to go and recruit great people. That's how you have a solid business. When you see businesses not successful is where they've got weak leaders. And what they do is they basically recruit weaker people. And then what happens is they recruit weaker people and the organizations built on sound. So yeah, that's that's that's will be my philosophy and ethos. So I think the comments that you've raised are probably quite factual on me. But the drivers will just be in a determination to win, you know, for the organization. And that's been the thing I guess in my DNA from day one, really. Yeah. I'm interested to get your views now on the motorcade. Could you be now that it now thought is it is 18 months, two years, something like that. I'm still associated with the insurance obviously, obviously, that's of course. Sorry. And so I've been advising the board of full of Europe since June since my last year and that's been amazing, helping them on agency. The guys in Cologne in Amsterdam. So it's been really, really, really interesting project. And obviously I'm also vice president of the IMI as well. So so I'm still associated with the industry. And I always will be because I love the industry. I love the people. It's a brilliant industry to get involved with. I love the brands of fantastic relationships with the OEMs. I still talk to my consumers friends, you know, you know, talking to our consumers. But I speak to quite a few of the senior OEM MDs today. I've got brilliant relationships. And you know, it's been a while since I've been out, but I will always be associated. So I'm not, I don't really consider I'm fully out because of obviously got the other stuff. Yes. Well, I'm, you said, I don't know when you said this, but you said there might be five or six super groups. Do you remember when you first said that? That must be going back. Yeah, that wasn't an interview. I think it was around 2020 because it was around COVID time. And, you know, I was talking about consolidation. And the question was put to me, where do I think the industry was going to go? And I said back then that I believe there would be, you know, around five super groups in the UK because of the consolidation that was happening. I think the interview actually to me, you know, do I think I would be one of those super groups? And I was unusual. Well, probably not just being a bit naughty and just being a bit mischievous. But yeah, absolutely. That was the plan. You know, we were going to groups and we built into a super group. If I'm really honest, the one thing I didn't expect was, you know, there's always a bigger fish. There's always a bigger fish with, you know, it was a reasonable size fish doing a lot of the buying. But of course, someone else comes, comes along and buys you that's not what I didn't expect to happen to be honest with you because I would have liked to carry on building the business to five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 billion. I was a little bit of a time in my side. I just looked at the ambition and the driving want to do it. We've got brilliant team in that business. But I sort of predicted it. I thought we would definitely be one of those super groups. We'd be leading. But you can see what's happened. I mean, you know, at the time of the acquisition, I mean, it was a real shock for a lot of the industry, you know, me included because obviously it was the way it was done and everything. But could anybody have predicted that five of the top 10 dealer groups went in two years? I mean, it's unbelievable. But not just that. It's not just the consolidations happening. The number of investors are coming less and less and less. I think the OEMs want less investors. The number I outlet is, may not have changed as much, but the number of investors definitely has produced. That's made a big change. So I suppose with all of that consolidation and there is economies and scale. Scale has economies. Is there space for the smaller owner driver dealership? You see them going? I think it's a really interesting question. I think the OEMs rightfully so want good partners and they want performance. Game performance. They want people who are going to represent their brand. It's a privilege to represent some of the brands that I work with. It was a privilege to represent their brand. And you've got to do your job. And I prided myself on having fantastic relationships with the OEMs. You never saw a situation where OEMs were surprised with any of the acquisitions we did because we consulted with them. As always, in the public statements, we said, they still approved even the big deals. We never hit beyond the bureaucracy. We can't speak to you. We consulted with them in advance. They knew and we trusted them. I didn't go and ask any of the OEMs to sign an NDA because we're a listed company. We trusted them. Those are relationships with Trusta and built up over many, many years. So when we did Ridgeway, if you go look at the stock exchange now, it's what they said, although OEMs approve, well, that means they must have known about it before it was announced. So when we did no client, OEMs knew about it before. That's how that was my philosophy to work with these guys. So the interesting thing is when you look at the sort of where we've got to stay in terms of these supergroups, what's the philosophy of those companies going to be? Because there are some big players and they do use power in the wrong way. Do use your scale to give you those economies of scale and work against the OEMs and try and leverage that scale. I think the industry has seen that before and has failed. I don't agree that's the right approach to take. That's never been the approach I've taken. Why never had a termination in my entire career ever? So it's always worked with the OEMs. Now the interesting thing is when you look at what's happened in the last two years, with the consolidation, some companies, I mean some manufacturers' representation with these networks are 20%. I always took the view that I think OEMs would have this kind of unwritten rule of 10%. Now I think the interesting thing will be you're right. They do want fewer partners. It's easier for them to manage. They recognize that having a quality of scale is good for the return. How comfortable are they with that level? So I want to know that there is the opportunity for privately owned groups where the owners are committed to the business long term. But one of the challenges, of course, is funding. And this is where the big groups can come along and right check the hundreds of millions of pounds that we've seen in recent years for some of these big groups. So it's going to be interesting to see how OEMs react to this because a lot of it will come down to it. Then take Sitner. I mean, I have a huge amount of respect for the Sitner organization. Darren and the team there are very well respected who have a fantastic job of representing their partners. And their philosophies always been, you know, my view is very, very good in the way that they're approaching OEM relationships. And I think that's something that I always believed. And I think for that reason, those businesses will be fine. But I think those who think they can go against the OEMs, it's their train set, guys. Yeah, so true. But you still see that, don't you? People go up against the OEM. It's going to be one who's been that view because they can terminate. It's very easy now with the way the contracts are written. So working against them, I think, is suicide. Yeah, I suppose that's something I learned from Keith Brock, because Keith works for the OEM. I never did that. And he knew that side of the business there. And I definitely learned that that he'd be OEM on site all the time. And I'm just sitting there thinking, a senior manager listening to this, a spider owned their own dealership, the dream of owning their own dealership one day. Is that dream still achievable? Or is it the thing of the past? I mean, years ago, Pat, they used to be these, what do they call them? These dealers develop the sites where there's lots of dealerships. Is that dream still achievable? Or do you think that's finished now? What do you views on that? I think it's a cheap one. These businesses are highly cash-consumptive. If you think about facilities, now of course you can go in lease. But of course, that's not necessarily the right thing to do. But it's not easy. I wouldn't say it's impossible, but I wouldn't say it's easy. I mean, look at Stephen Eagle. He started as a sponsor retailer. He's done a fantastic job to build that business. Look at John O'Hannell and John Styde with one single site. And it's built that business done a tremendous job. So it is possible. But I think if you look at what both Stephen and John have done, there's a common thread that they've worked with the OEMs. So I think the good operators, particularly with what's happened with the consolidation in the last two or three years, and you look at the scale of representation that some of these big groups have now got these super groups. If they're not performing or they don't want to work with the OEMs, or they've got big representation, I think the OEMs will basically take action to dilute their representation, not necessarily exit in some cases. We've seen that as you know. But I do think what will happen will be there will be opportunities for good operators to come in and take a bite of that. So I think it's possible. I don't think it's easy because funding, I mean, I'm quite happy to say that this was something that I was looking at doing, but it's not easy getting funding. The sector is going through change. I'd like to say I've got a half reasonable track record that if I was going to try and get backing, then I might have half a chance. But it's not easy. The sector is going, because of that change with EV move to EV, the agent bank, so a little bit uncertain on the sector because of this change, which I get and I understand. So that's always going to be the challenge. Yeah. So while I've got you here, you have run a business. You've got a 272, I've got that right. Businesses bought and sold at Marshalls. I love this stat. You did a deal every 57 days. Sometimes we have car salespeople, it's two or two or 57 days. That's amazing. I want to ask you, how to get the culture of the business right? And the reason why I asked this question, someone will be listening to this might have five or six dealerships. They're acquiring a new business. They need to bring that into the business. How difficult is it to get the new business into the culture? And the reason why I asked this is I know it's sure about what you did on Motorline. The Motorline deal went through. And I know for a fact that you turned up and went to every business. Went to four businesses on one day, I believe it was on the South Coast there. Probably more, actually. And I heard from someone that we just employed, actually, as a sales trainer, worked for Motorline. And he said, no, no, Dash come out and himself. And I wanted to hear. Can you talk to me about how difficult is it to get the culture of that into the new business? How difficult is it to get the book that we've always done in this way? I think cultural is when it starts at the top. It stops at the organization with the leadership. It starts with the board and it starts with the leaders in the organization. But ultimately, it's up to all of us in the organization to create the culture. But it starts at the top. It starts with the values of the organization, how you behave, how you treat people. Anyone who knows me knows I like a lot of fun. So, you know, everyone has worked for me. We work hard, we play hard. We want to win. We always win because we're competitive. But we also do it with fun. So I think that's really, really important. So the values are really important in the organization. But it's also about how you live those in the organization. So, you know, there's lots of ways that you can do this. So we engage with great place to work. I mean, you talked to this earlier. So, you know, we always had a really outstanding reputation as an employer. So when we bought a business, actually, people were quite happy. As you mentioned, we were in the 11th best company to work in the UK. Not just in automotive, that's all sectors. And in fact, we were eight years in the row, best UK workplace ranked. And three years in the row, the best UK retail company to work on their rankings as well. So, and in fact, here, I've just done a great place to work survey in my new organization. And I think for me, there's ways of checking the culture in the organization. Because ultimately, if I take this business, we've got 330 locations. All the way up to, in fact, last week, Shetland, believe it or not. So on the Shetland Island, with 22,000 people live, you know, how do you ensure the culture's alive there? This is down in Exeter or, you know, Enter or where I'm at today, not in them. So it's difficult. So there's ways of sense checking that culture. I think communications are massive parts of it in terms of, you know, telling people where the organization's going, making sure they're engaged. But it starts at the top. And, you know, when you're doing, as we said, it was 227 acquisitions, so 227 businesses bought and sold, a deal every 57 days. Getting that culture and that DNA starts from the top. And that's why I used to visit the businesses. Every business I visited always day one. Now, obviously it's difficult when you're buying 57 locations with Moteline. But I did it over a three-week period. You get everyone together. Because when you get taken over, it's unsettling. And you need to reassure people that actually you haven't bought the business because, you know, you want to wreck it. You've bought the business because actually to an extent, you know, and I see this, I see people wreck businesses because they don't realize that they think they're buying the franchises and the building. It's not about that. It's the most valuable lesson is the people in the business. And when you lose the people, you're dead. It's not about the franchises necessarily. Obviously that helps in having the right locations in the property and the stock, obviously, matters. But without the people, you haven't got a business. And you see so many people get that wrong. So that's why I was committed to making sure we drove the right culture and with the team that I got with me. And we're doing the same thing here. So culturally, it's part of it. But it's not easy. And you have to be committed to it. And you have to be clear. You have to be transparent. So we had our first ever management conference here on the 24th of March. And I said to them, look, judge me based on what I do. Hold me to account. I work for you. And in years time, I'll be stood up in. If I don't deliver the things that I've said to you, feel free to give me a telling off. And we did the virtual conference literally 10 days ago. And we said, we updates them and, you know, people come to work to be engaged. You know, people have a choice. You know, in the UK, I was listening to the radio this morning. It's practically zero unemployment is what they were based on the radio this morning. So people have a choice of where they want to work, you know. So do you want to work for an organization where you believe in what the vision of the organizations trying to do that? You know that the leadership can be trusted. Or do you want to work for an organization that doesn't do that? People have a choice, right? I just need to say this again. Please, managers listen to a new in their career. Dash has said it again. Do you work for? I'm working for you. It's not the other way around. It's that philosophy we've said again twice on this podcast. I just I just love that approach. I just think that's so, so important to reiterate that. You're in a different sector now and lots of the skills are transferable by the sounds of it. It's all about the culture. It's all the same thing. So I want to go back to the motor trade now because you mentioned you're working with Ford on the agents and sales model. Now, this is a huge question and it's one that we could spend a whole podcast on as well. The agency model we've got, Jayl Arvers said publicly, you know, we're not going to do it. Daya White, a great fan of the show, listens all the time to being on here, has publicly said agency's not for us. I don't believe it. I want to get you views. Is agency a tide that can't stop now? Is it happening anyway? I think a lot of OEMs are looking at right. How is agency going to affect the value of a dealership? If you're working with this on Ford at the moment, I'd love to get your views on agency. Is it happening? No matter what? I don't know. I mean, I think there's pros and cons. I think you have to look at come up a level. Why is this happening? I mean, look, the industry is evolving because of EV. You've got huge competition coming in with the Chinese brands. Essentially, the EU has just launched 39% tariffs on Chinese brands coming into the EU. And it's about competition. And it's about so part of the challenge when you look at what you've probably described as the current incumbents is the distribution cost. So OEMs have to look at ways of how can they reduce their distribution costs to compete. Now, of course, the tariffs coming in, arguably that's really good for the current incumbents in terms of the European. And also, let's look at Tesla. He is a distribution model. He hasn't got the dealer side of it. I don't know what their costs are compared to the traditional. It was interesting. I'm reading the the terrorists thing from the EU. Actually, they did say they were also keeping an iron, Mr. Musk as well. So not just a Chinese thing. I think this is about making sure free competition. And also, there is a degree of protectionism going on here with the EU because look at the German car manufacturers, the French, the Italians, they're big employers and they've got huge weight with opinions and political pressures. So they will be, if you think about what's happening in the US in terms of Trump and protectionism of the US economy, I think you could see further trade wars breaking out with some of this. And it's going to be fascinating to see how this all plays out. But I think some of that competitive advances that maybe Tesla or the Chinese had maybe will get equalized out with tariffs as we've seen. But I think what's driving that whole agency pieces, if you look at the traditional model, you'd have got a car manufacturing and these, we will visit some short car factories. They're really well, they're slick machines. Time, there's very little cost you can take out of there. The second part is the national sales companies and OEMs have been evolving and reducing the number of national sales head offices. And of course, what's next big cost? It's the retail distribution. So I think there are some benefits of agency getting closer from the OEM to the customer is a good thing because ultimately, there is a shared interest and a joint interest with the OEM and the retail. And sometimes OEMs and retailers do sometimes go up like that. But again, my philosophy, whether it's right or wrong, but was always actually we both want the same thing. What is an OEM one? They want you to sell shit loads of cars. We'll probably not let's say that. Sorry, I'm sorry. Of course you can. On this podcast, you can. You definitely can. Explain that. But then they want you to sell loads of cars, right? They want you to sell loads of cars. They want you to sell lots of parts now as they want you to make money. And then when you treat customers properly, that's what they want. Guess what? And they do that with balance scorecards and performance. What do we want? We want to exciting the same thing. We want to sell loads of cars parts now as I make a few quid and happy customers. So our vision is actually aligned as well as being my philosophy. We both want the same things. Okay, there's sometimes tension on capital investment levels because the OEM might want a 50 million car showroom. And over here, we want to obviously keep our costs down and look at our capital expenditure. There's sometimes tension there. There's sometimes tensions on target sector. But ultimately, we're trying to achieve the same thing. So for me, if you work with the OEMs in terms of trying to work out what's the best way to be able to retain customers and look at data, for example, and the way that consumers buy, there are some benefits on them. Certainly, I can't say too much about the work I was doing in the Netherlands because I'm not allowed to, but there are benefits from it. But equally, I also believe that there's benefits of the traditional model as well. So it's kind of, if you can get the best of both worlds, which is one of my mentors on this topic, then that's a really good thing. I know we both go to the NADA conference to see what's happening across the pond. And the last conference, it was almost like, Agiously won't happen over here. The NADA is saying it's not going to happen. And while I've got you here, I know I've only got another four minutes, but I just want to pick your brains on up personally, I don't understand why the multi-borns that you get from American dealership seem to be so much higher than what you get in the UK at the moment. If you look at virtue, for example, it seems a lot lower multiples. And is that part of because there's a nervousness about agency and the NADA is like, it won't happen here. So that's probably a naive question I'm asking there, but now I've got you here. I think this cover thing is one, the profitability per location in the US is much higher, because just look at the geographic footprint, the geographic, and I've studied this quite hours talking about this. I spent a lot of time understanding it. So the scale dynamics are different. The throughput per locations much higher, that the profit per look for rooftop significantly higher than the UK, the geographic footprint is very different in the UK. It's a much more competitive market. The returns are much lower. Also, the American laws do provide a lot more protection on the front for franchising in the US than they do in the UK. So if you think about some of the changes that have happened in block exemption in recent years, it's kind of strong. I remember block exemption 2002 being quite a pivotal change for the value in franchise dealers and look at what happened from 2002 with the pan-dragon consolidation, brambles, who in which came driving that sitner back in 20 years ago. That was on the back of block exemption because actually the power went a bit more towards the dealers, which was you could buy any franchise if you held a franchise and it couldn't be blocked. Now some people kind of use that to their own advantage. Some people said, no, we're still going to work in cooperation with the OEMs, but with recent block exchanges, it's gone back to the OEM has a lot more power. So I think because of that power, there is a nervousness around, well, how much actual longevity do I have in these relationships? Because like many of them are like two years or a handful have got five year contracts, but most of them are kind of two year contracts and you can be terminated for pretty much any reason. So you've got less stability and that's one of the reasons why it's quite difficult to get funding because if you're going to a banking saying, let me ex million to go into some of my own dealer group, they're going to say, well, what's the longevity of that income stream going to be? Well, I can be termulated within two years for no reason. Well, if you're a bank when you're going to back that in the US, it's a lot harder to do. So I think that protectionism in the US and the that you have in the dealer contracts, and I don't necessarily think that's anything to do with NADA or the NFT. I think soon the team do a fantastic job, the NFT, but also the legislation and the regulations are very different. I also think as well, if you look at the multiples, they are what more than double probably. I mean, a good friend, Robert, who runs Virgis, he's done a brilliant job there. He's the last listed company. And when you look at the valuations there compared to some of the US, it's probably more than double, I guess. I haven't looked recently, but it's probably way more than double, I would have thought. But does that fundamentally make it sense? I'm surprised that Virgis being the last hasn't seen a much higher level rate because it's a brilliant, fantastic, you run business. So it's fascinating. But I do think that the big keep drivers are the regulations that each country. No, I really do appreciate that. Dash, I've really enjoyed this. I wish I could have another hour with you, but it's, we've had an hour of your time there. I know you've got a long meeting. Listen, last thing I want to ask you, the motor train, you're in a different sector now, but is this still an industry you would recommend to your kids, other people? Yeah, fantastic industry. I mean, I have 31 years of fantastic time. I'm still associated with as I said earlier, I always will be because I love the people I work with. It's been a privilege working with amazing people. I love working with the brands. It's a fantastic industry. I have no hesitation in recommending that to anybody. Yeah, absolutely. I know the best time of my life there. Listen, that just leaves me to say thank you so much for your time. It's definitely been worth the wait. So I really do appreciate it. Pleasure. Thanks for asking me on good. Good luck, everyone. That just leaves me to say that all details of this episode and other episodes on the selling in the motor trade can be found on our website simcotraining.co.uk. Go there to get a copy of our book, Words That Sell Cars. Go there to sign up to a free trial of our sales fitness online sales training program. Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett through LinkedIn. Thank you.
