Jason Cranswick Chief Operating Officer at MARUBENI AUTO INVESTMENT (UK) LIMITED and Managing Director of Norton Way Group is back with us for the second instalment of his interview.
We look at the importance of a robust sales process, but also having the freedom to work within it.
How culture is more important than strategy and also look at the culture within Marubeni.
Here are the highlights:
{00:41} Robust Sales Process
{07:54} Symchecks
{13:00} Marubeni
{25:30} How to integrate a business
{33:22} Push element
{37:31} Enquiring ming
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.
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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. Do you have an appetite for an open sales training program? You see, we normally run our sales training programs for dealer groups or manufacturers so we can get enough people in a room to make the training cost effective. But every year I get lots of people saying, oh, I've got one dealership or I've got just two dealerships, I've got three salespeople that could really go through your training program. And we're often saying, I don't know how well it's going to stack up for you. Now you have options. You could also go to Amazon and get the book Words That Sell Cars. It's a great book and we have lots of clients give that to every salesperson when they start in the industry. Of course, you could always go to our signature sales fitness training program. If you listen to our podcast, we plug that all the time. It's cost effective because it's only £299 for three months of digital online training that gives your salesperson a great start in their career. You could do that. But what is an appetite for an open physical training course? Now guys, we have to run that course interactively. It's not one of these courses where your salespeople sit there, cross an arms, just listen to it board throughout the day. It won't be death by PowerPoint. So that sounds like something you'd be interested in. Go to our website. It's simcotraining.co.uk. Look for the tab about open courses and you get all the details you need right there. Listen, I need to ask a question about a robust sales process then. Is it still as important today as it always has been? Yeah. I'm sorry to jump straight into you now because I feel passionate about this one. Why do you need a process? You need it for a number of reasons. We're in a regulated world. So you've got to have a framework within which you operate and you've got to have consistency. Whether you're selling a Mazda or a Maserati or a McLaren, the majority of the process is the same. If you put it through the customer's land, it's like listen, believe by. If they like you, if you're listening to each other, if there's belief built up in people that are in a world of price transparency, then that's not a bad principle to work by. And also, go back to my previous experiences. If you want to digitize a business, the first thing you have to do is codify. To codify, you have to have written processes. You can't just go to a developer and say, hey, make up an amazing theme for me in the digital world because they don't know what it is because it's all written in ones and zeros. So you've got to have the playbook, if we call it that. And the other thing, sorry, you've got my hobby horse now. Let me have my moment. For many years, I used to coach youngsters to play rugby. I was known as cone man. That was my job. Cone man. Cone. Yeah. There's my job was I got the cones out. So you'd have like 13, 14 year old lads running around on a Friday night with a big bag of rugby balls. And they knew that the balls didn't come out the bag until the cones were marked out. And it might be a 10 by 10 grid, might be a half pit, might be a full pitch. But like I used to say to them, let's get the cones out. That's the field of play. You can keep that ball as hard as you like. You play off the left hand, right hand. You can be a forward about whatever you want, but it stays within the parameters of those cones. And if it was all going horribly wrong, you pull the cones in and you make it smaller grid. If it's all going well and they're in flow, you make it full size pitch. But what happened is they knew that the whistle got blown if the ball went out of play. And I think that's a principle for us in our businesses. Look, you know, I'm not there to meet and greet every customer. I'm not there to do any of the quality action. I don't present products. You know, I don't do the IDDs. I don't do, you know, I don't do that on a customer-based basis. But what I do do is create the field of play that we're going to play within. We set out the kind of limitations of where the ball must stay. And ultimately, we teach our teams how to play off left and right hand, how to kick off both feet, you know, how to tackle safely. You know, that's my job. And then we let them play. And but you need a process for that. So, you know, convert your question. Is there a place for robust sales process? It's absolutely. Other days of Pendle, you know, and that's what people have in their head when you talk about process at exactly where I think it's not. I don't want to give them words, words, scripts. Yeah. I've never done Pendle. Never. I've never been on a Pendle course. I've never been involved in a business around a pending systems. So what I'm talking about is freedoms within a framework. Yes. Yeah. You need the framework. You need the cones to know where the corner of the pitch is to know whether you're in or out of play. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of like whenever people listen to this last week in the Formula One, it was a great situation because they were talking about track limits. And there's a huge debate about like half the drivers went off the track. And I've seen so many 10 second penalties and five second penalties. But actually, that is the track. Stay within the track. And I always liked someone like Martin Brunder will say, well, they can do it in Monaco. Why can't they do it? Okay. So in Monaco, and I was very lucky to be there this year, you've got a water on one side and a wall on there. So you have some very hard lines you have to stay within. And if you hit them, then it goes over. Yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right. But this is the thing. It's fine. I'm just looking at my stack of books here in my home office. And that's one of my latest favorites. It has. It has. It has survived. What a hero because, you know, most of... Well, I won't repeat what it says most of the time. It's first phrase in the book. He says, I'm going to start with a swear word. Yeah. He's spelled it differently, though, doesn't he, Jason? He does. I think it is. Yes. Yes. And I must admit, I walk around sometimes thinking, you know, I need the same t-shirt. It's gone to Stein. But, you know, what it's got showing is resilience, detail focus, you know, a willingness to push an acceptance that things just aren't easy, you know, and, you know, bounce back ability, if that's indeed a word. You know, that's what he does. But I love him. I was very lucky a few years ago when I was at Jardine. We had Toto Wolf come and talk about it. Oh, wow. It's an incredible... Wow. Yeah. Well, he's done in the world of Formula One. Sensational. If you're not a reader and you're a listener, as yours are, go on to high performance podcasts, sorry to plug another podcast. That was Jake. Jake Humphrey. And go to, I think it's episode 56. It's that... I'm sure that's the one which is Toto Wolf's episode. And I urge everybody to go and listen to it. But what Toto does, he has the real detail focus, you know, he's a guy that's transferred skills from other industries to automotive. But he really taps into kind of the sense of wellbeing and mindfulness and so on. Very fortunately, Neil Williamson organised for all of the leadership team, Jardine, spent time with Toto's mindfulness coach. Brilliant. Good. Good. Good meditation and so on. And it sounds a bit wacky. There's something in it because what he focuses on is getting things into flow. I think that's what we're trying to do as a business. That's what we're trying to do as leaders. That's what we should try to do as an industry is just getting to flow. That's not fight. Let's be kind. Let's be compassionate. Let's take people with us. And if we can get into flow, then actually we stand a great chance of achieving our ambitions. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I have listened to that podcast with Toto Wolf's. But you've met the man and then these... I've just amazed me what he's achieved in a relatively short time and formula one to own of Mercedes or part owner. I shouldn't say that. Absolutely incredible. And listen, the robot sales process then, I love what you're saying. There has to be a process. There has to be a framework, but you can do what you want within the framework. You're not talking about scripting. You're not talking about that. And I know that we completed some sim checks for your business recently where we come in. It sounds like a mystery shop. It's where we actually just sell a scar from start to finish. What happens to the airline industry? Every six months, a pilot has to go into a simulator to prove they know how to fly a plane. And I tell you, it always opens up your managers' mind so much that, hold on, I didn't realize that myself as a person was or was not doing that. Didn't realize it. It's just such a great way to inspect what you expect the people to do. Exactly. And I'm very grateful for you doing those for us. I think having that sort of the person perspective is really useful as well. And again, the spirit of it, it's not there to catch anybody out. It's to reinforce the great behaviors, but also for us to be able to check ourselves in. And in the world we live in today, which is authorized and regulated and modest, then we have to demonstrate that we have oversight. So those sim checks are fantastic. And I was really grateful to spend time. You're only yesterday going through the first round of what we've done in North May. And we do them already in the RIG business. And it's a great, as the approved person for our business. It was a great comfort to understand that we've got a third person perspective on our processes. And of course, it dovetails into the work that, again, a bit of a plug for you, the work that we're doing with sim co-in terms of our sales skills and our customer handling skills. This year alone, across 450 colleagues, as total colleagues within North May, we've got a couple hundred of those, a customer facing. And I don't know. I'm sure you'll send me the bill for it soon, if you haven't already. But I think we've done about 5,000 hours. Now on the principle that 10,000 hours gets you to expert. I think by the end of the year, we collectively will be. But those sim checks are fantastic. And I recommend them to anybody who's looking to just test the temperature. Double check that things are working as hoped and to identify what can you do next in the spirit of continual improvement. I love you and Maya and Steve, your approach that this is not a stick. It's not a mystery shop. These are actually, how does a salesperson listen to themselves, to coach themselves and we stop it. So they do work well now. Can we talk about your, put a different hat on now? North May role, because you've got Marabani and Norton role. You wear two hats there. You've had a long conversation about culture in the business, mindset, attitude. That's what you're all about, the books that you read and the books that we've read and love. Okay. How much time you spending on getting the culture right in the business? How much your time is dedicated to getting that? That's a good question. So I'm very firmly in the Norton Way business, every day it would have been since turn of the year. And my answer to that is I think about it all the time. Now whether that's always translated and felt, let's debate separately. But the big driver for me is culture. If I can translate a vision that people can understand, if we have a strength in values that we operate by, if we have that growth mindset individually and collectively, and if my focus is on the resilience that we build within our business, then the profit will follow. And we're seeing good evidence of that now anyway. But the cultural side is so important because at the end of the day, when you've got a business, I take it up to Marabani Auto Investment level, and there's myself and Aaron who you know very well and Jonathan in HPL, it's the three of us plus our leadership from Japan who are running the business. And we can't be in every one of our 40 locations every day. When it's turning over 75800 million, you can't count every pound as it comes across the counter. So you have to get the culture right. But you refer to it right at the beginning, some cultural norms. It starts with having a definition. And the R.R.G. business is a great example of, you do not put your coat on the back of the chair and thank you to Michael and Mr. Smythe for instilling that as a culture because it lives on today. You'll notice as you came into my office yesterday, in Norway, you won't see my jacket either because it's just normal through. But I think that cultural side, culture trumps strategy every time. That's not my phrase. Many, many bigger brands of mine have come up with that. But I firmly believe it. Yeah, so true. So, so true. Well, listen, with your Marabani hat on now, can you tell us a bit about Marabani? Because I've spoke to Aaron for many years. We've been working with Aaron for 20 years or something like that there. But Marabani, a lot of people may not know about him because I didn't know about Marabani until they bought R.R.G. group. He can tell us a bit about them. They're bigger than maybe what a lot of people might think. Yeah, I mean, Marabani is one of the world's biggest companies. To put it into context and proportion to be in Tokyo, which is where headquarters are, it's a Japanese trading house. 150 plus years old. It's got nearly 500 subsidiary companies. In Japan, more of a household name alongside a Miss Fishy Corporation or a Sumitomo, which are other Japanese trading houses. The described as what's called a Soga Soga in the Japanese. They're there against Soga. Soga Soga Soga is the Japanese term for a trading house. Lots of different sectors, mining, shipping, global energy, automotive, financial services, you name it. And to put it into context, if you had three cups of coffee in Japan, one of them would have come from Marabani. So that's the scale of it. They are huge. Here in the UK, the brand wasn't necessarily well known unless you were in the world that I was for some time of franchising. I was very much aware of them in my time of Volkswagen Group. And Marabani purchased RNG in 2000, purchased the Norton Way in 2008. And very supportive, very encouraging of the businesses operating well, but ultimately didn't necessarily come in and do a branding exercise and neither should they need to. But yeah, Marabani is a huge organization. For me, it gives us great comfort that we've got this very longstanding, very, very successful global shareholder who are really interested. I mean, that's one of the anywhere I can describe it. I spent a lot of time talking to my boss, Masai Yamasan, who's Japanese, who is based in Manchester area, colleagues in London, in the Marabani Europe head office. And spent a lot of time talking to headquarters colleagues in Tokyo as well. So yeah, I like the Japanese business. The creed, if you call it that, is Sae Shinwa. Innovation, fairness and harmony is how that translates. And that translates back into our culture. We want to be innovative, definitely fair. And that's what I want to be saying that. And the big thing is harmony. And that's what Aaron and I and Jonathan are creating within our group of companies now is harmonies. It's not about consolidation. We don't have to be consolidating everything we do. We have to act with scale. It's like we're a pretty big business. We sell about 50,000 new and used cars and motorcycles in a year. Turn over three quarters of a billion. I've am top 20 something. If you were to glue the businesses together. But what we are able to do now is get the benefits of scale without having to have just one consolidated entity and the balance between how I do things, how Aaron does things, how Jonathan does things with the backup and support of our Japanese shareholder and colleagues. I think gives us a relatively unique position in industry. Yeah. It's Paul Bradley again on this podcast. And I wonder if our client said, I'm really strange from the outside. It looks like they acquire a business and then just let them get on and run it. Like RIG, they did this Norton Way. They just acquire the business in 2008. I believe it was and let them just get on and run it. Are you going to bring it together as one group? Are they still going to be individual entities? What's the vision, the plan for the three? Because you've just acquired HBO recently within six months, I think it is something like that. Yeah. So six months ago, we completed the bill on HBO. Look, that's good. These have been described as it's a harmonious environment, a portfolio of business that sits under one common umbrella, which is Maravani Auto Investment UK. I was brought in a COO of that business in 2021 to drive the growth and synergies across the group, which you've already identified we were achieving. I think Maravani has an awareness within the industry now that maybe wasn't so aware before. And we're certainly catching the interest of a lot of people, which is great. But similarly, I'm the MD of Norton Way. Aaron's the MD of RIG, Jonathan's the MD of HPL. And the three of us get on great. We're different characters in part, but we're very similar in others. And I think we've got something special going on here. Okay. The future of Maravani, are you looking to acquire further businesses? Yeah. Yeah. We're on the growth path. I think our intention was clear with the acquisition of majority shareholder in HPL. I think it was clear that we wanted to create a very vertically integrated business, which we're doing. We've got to share who's ambitious. I mean, got to remember outside of the UK. But I don't know. HPL is not a franchise dealership. No, three use car supermarkets and credibly successful. Jonathan established the business 30 years ago. It's knocking on the doors of six acres up in Preston. We've got in olden, we've got the, what was originally a Renault dealership and the Volkswagen dealership, which now conjoined into the use car supermarket and also an athlete and a smaller one. Jonathan's done an amazing job here in his family building that up and delighted that he came into our family, you know, Christmas time and remains as a shareholder. But also is now part of our executive committee. So great business there. But no, we want to grow outside of the UK. If anybody wants to do a bit of research, go and have a look around and suddenly you'll find just how Big Maravani is overseas. And you know, that's something that, you know, is important to us because in automotive today in the UK, it's a hugely consolidated, you know, the emergence of supergroups has happened already. It's not happening. It's happened. It's live, you know, and you've got to have as proven by others a very strong, very well integrated stack of businesses, a platform or an ecosystem. So with the Maravani had still on them, what do you look for for a business? When you're looking to acquire business, you're looking at some of our HVL and again, you'll be other people that I'm sure you can't tell us. But what are you looking for when you look at the business to see if it is a fit for Maravani? It's got to add value. So it has to be a valuable business. It's got to be off scale because there's no point, no point. It takes as much work to do something small scale as it does on a larger scale when it comes to the deals. It's got to fit well within our portfolio. We do want to create an ecosystem of businesses. I think cultural fit is really important because when you go and often look at the businesses, the likelihood is you're going to want to lock in the know-how. So you've got to be able to bring people into your environment that then get what you're about. Yeah. We don't have a massive team that's going to go in and swap team in as some of our peer group would be able to do and do. What we're looking for is something that can provide the upsides, the harmony, as we said before, and actually give us the strength as an overall business. So we'll look at things that maybe other people won't look at. We're interested in a diverse portfolio. But I guess the other bit and come back to your early point, we're doing stuff. And to your early point, yeah, even if we hadn't done so much stuff for a number of years, for a number of reasons, we're doing stuff now. And there was a pivot point a couple of years ago where we said, right, we're now on. That's why I'm a marathon. No, I think it was interesting. HPL, it makes sense when you explain exactly what you're trying to do with the businesses where I suppose Robert Forrester, it wouldn't be something he would look at. It just wouldn't be on their radar at all there. And we're already seeing the synergies. We're recycling our second life, third life part of the changes, going back up into HPL. We're able to harmonize our systems and processes. We're able to learn a hell of a lot from what they do. And we've got Carverse, which is our supermarket in the Nachtmei business, which there's a lot of ideas sharing between the two now, which is fantastic. It puts us on a different seat. I think one of the big things I wanted to bring to Marabeni was a chair at the top tables. So if you look at, for example, the value of Nachtmei, R, G and HPL combined, when it comes to buying, for example, classified advertising, yeah. Suddenly, I've got an invite to sit at the top table now, rather on the kids' table, at Christmas, because you glue the thing together, whether it's just behaviorally, even if it isn't through a consolidated business. And suddenly, we're scaled. And as I said to you before, if you look at the AM top, whatever, and our combined businesses are up at the right end of the scale, rather than down at the small end of the scale. We interviewed John O'Hannell and I understand you know John very well. John very well. And he said that the economics at scale still works. I believe he's working very hard at the moment to increase that scale in all areas there. Dash has said there's going to be five or six supergroups. I suppose going to be, as you said, kind of it's happened. So a pure intense purpose, it's already happened, or it's fairly, fairly clear as to what's going to happen there. I suppose it's probably going to be five or six supergroups, you know, burning mind that, what's they're going to be? If we're talking franchise dealers, which is a smaller number, any franchise dealers, it was five thousand, I think most people would agree there's probably going to be, you know, four thousand, maybe it's the number. Well, if you've got five or six supergroups, you know, that's a hell of a lot of opportunity still left for anybody. It's not in a supergroup. But you're going to have to be a decent group, you know, if you're going to be anything. And that's, you know, our most admiration for what John does, John and I know each other very, very well. You know, got someone who's done a fantastic job of creating, you know, his business. But he's brought with it the disciplines from his previous sites. And yeah, yeah, complete admiration for John's do. We talk about processes. And I interviewed John on the last day of March, or was it first of last day much? Doesn't matter. It's one of them. I think it was the last day of March. I said, John, is this date really going to work for you? They said Simon, if I haven't got my processes right now, if I'm busy today, I've got something wrong. And he's so right, isn't he? Absolutely. So right. So, it's not there before others. It would be my view. And, you know, if there's someone that I would benchmark as an excellent operator, it would be John. You know, he knows that from me personally. And, you know, I think he's got a lot to, there's a lot of people can learn from what John does. There's a lot of great advice on the podcast as well. Again, people go back and listen to John, I'm handling it. There was a great advice on there. So on talking about advice then, we have lots of investors listening to this podcast. Okay. What advice do you have for the investor who's acquired a business and trying to integrate it into their current business? That's a tough gig. You've been through, I suppose, with HBO in a slightly different way. What advice would you give for someone trying to integrate a new business? I think you've got to have a plan. You've got to have an intent to integrate. I think the start is the start point. Do the first things first. So there's a lot of stuff that would need to be done, kind of prioritise the things that are most important. The cultural piece is incredibly important. That's our learning, you know, from what's happened within Marabenie, you know, in the UK, but also overseas is make sure that people understand that, you know, the culture and the ethos of the parent, you know, there's some things you really do have to prioritise nowadays, you know, whether it's systems and information security or whether it's, you know, regulatory frameworks and so on. That's just one, two, three on the list, isn't it? But you also have to accept it's going to take some time and you're going to have to iterate, you know. So quite often when you go and acquire a business, the chances of it being an absolute plug-and-play is unlikely. So you've got to have alignment between the leadership. You've got to make sure that you invest heavily in taking people on the journey with you. You know, this is if you're trying to integrate, you know, businesses into a portfolio, you know, for sure, if all you're going to do is going to do a walk-in and take over, then you do what you want to do. People do do that. But, you know, I guess I can only talk from my experiences of trying to create something that retains all of the upsides, all of the strengths of the business, which is why you bought them. Yes, exactly. That is why you bought them. Yeah. And harmonize that with things you do already with the intent of everybody winning. And that's only for my personal view. It's not easy. It takes a lot of investment of time and effort, a lot of belief. But I think it also starts, and certainly for me, you know, when I talk to any prospective, you know, company that would be interested in, I perhaps spend a lot of time talking about what it's like on the other side first, you know, because, say, my intent is to find opportunities where we lock in the know-how that we continue to grow what was already a good to great. Yeah. Good to great. The good business, how can we take it great? What can we add to it? And I love the win-win. I mean, HPL, again, still a shareholder within the business. That's that model that you lock in that talent that's there. That's why you buying them. Exactly. Which is great. And listen, I have to ask you this question. I know we've been talking for a while now. I've just looked at the time there, but I'm loving this. I've got someone here that's had the OEM side of the business and the dealer side of the business. So I want to get your views on agency. Yeah. Dale Wyatt posted this morning on LinkedIn that UK bosses, Stellantis and South Cooper are both departing. So Paul Wilcox and Richard Harrison are leaving. He didn't say this specifically, but he can't implied that both those OEMs are going down the sales agency route. Anyone who knows Dale will know that Dale was very anti-agency. But I want to get your views because you have sat on both sides of the fence. Sales agency is it good? Is it bad? Were the advantages, disadvantages? Is it happening anyway? Or do you think it'll be a huge U-turn? Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. You mentioned two names there, both of which were my bosses in previous life. The agency's going to happen, isn't it? You know, it's pretty close. Of course. I think what we've got to look forward to is true agency. Not this quasi-agency that seems to be emerging where move to handling fee, but the balance sheet impact is still the dealer. I think it gets to a point where it's true agency where the liquidity and the balance sheet impact is upside for the dealer and downside for the OEM. That's all shifted to the OEM. That's probably not a bad place. It's going to happen anyway. I can control it in my vision. Many of you have seen it. I've got a little mouse map here on my home desk, my little smart city. I see agency up here as a headwind. As a tailwind, sorry, as a headwind. The speed is the speed we turn it to a tailwind. Should we get behind it? We do a hell of a lot of fleet. We're already dealing with agency in another branch there. It's the only way that you can process thousands of cars into the fleet very effectively. From an OEM, you were talking about agency back in 2000 and... Yeah, I left also. I'm grouped in 2015 and it was already a very firm agenda point back then. Look, it's going to happen. I've said this previously. In an omnichannel world, agency is one of the mechanisms that supports omnichannel retailing. What we've got to do is dealers. It's a change. We're great at changing and adapting. I think of all the other things that we do have full control of. Our use car business today, our services departments, our ability to generate revenues from other areas. What we've got to do is be adaptive. That much use word of agile is very relevant to us. Ultimately, what we've got to do on want is what the OEMs need to do on want, which is to be a collaborator. They've made it very clear. They want larger scale relationships with meaningful partners that deliver a win-win outcome. Agency will be a function of that. That's my view. That's my personal view. I'm sure it's a view that's shared by some others and I'm sure it's a view that's opposed by many others. That's my view. Yeah, it's interesting. Should investors be concerned about the model? I understand Deloitte wrote a report that it's going to reduce the retailers process by 50%. I wonder how that affects the value of the business. I know lots of people on the podcast are, I'm going to use the word paranoid about the value of their business with it. But I suppose the point you said, it's coming anyway. We've got to get used to it. You made this file when you said about a consultancy, right, and paper, and we work with a lot of consultancies on far horizon projects. Let me use a term that many will resonate with any of you. Glasses guide right about vehicle values, but they don't buy vehicles. No truth. So as dealers, we've got to go and build a business that is future fit. You've got to have a business strategy for a digital world. That doesn't mean everything is online. And agency, well, if it comes and when it comes then modify your approach to fit that model. That's what the entrepreneurs and the dealers will do to me. The Jason, I've always come from the dealer world. I started washing cars and a general sales measure. I've never been a dealer principal. It was a. Which I know you watch. I'll skip mine. That's where I started my life as a 17 year old kid. So I've not seen the OEM side of it. And one bit because I've got you here. I don't understand. There's always has to be an element of push from an OEM because surely the you have to plan the production run, what? 12 months in advance, 18 months, whatever it is. You're always going to have to guess what's going to happen. So there's going to be an element of push there. How is that going to work in the sales agency model? I mean, look at Tesla. Tesla. They dropped the value of their cars. What 19%? OK. What did it do to the price of all electric vehicles in the UK? And what do you do to the value of Tesla? Yeah. I want to get your views on that. If I can. How does the OEM deal with that push element? Do they just do what Elon Musk did? Was Elon Musk smart to do it? I don't know. It's interesting. We took a long time back, Elon Musk, and for sure, he took a risk. Yeah. The question is whether it was a gamble or whether it was a risk based on an assessment of materiality. Let's be fair. You know, what he did, he pulled the lever first. He turned the wheel earlier into the apex. And actually, he came out with a result for his business, which meant that he might have lost some short term, but suddenly he got a massive upside, perhaps, in terms of production fulfillment or was able to switch margin from one chance to another. From my experience of OEM, the big topic in any OEM is market steering. And it is literally that. The OEM has the hands on the wheel or the hands on the levers to decide, OK, we're going to switch it out of new into use. We're going to switch it from that model where we've got great margin into that model where we haven't got great margin. You know, hang on a minute, we've got oversupply in China. If we pull that lever, why don't we push that into Europe? And that's what the OEM has. And I guess also in a world where you've got captive finance and so on, we're going to switch it out of the vehicle into the finance. So we're going to use tomorrow's residual value to support today's volume. And that's what the OEM has to hand in a way that perhaps the dealer doesn't. But that's looking at it through an OEM lens. But I think what you do have to do is have belief that the OEM does have that long-term vision. And ultimately, the OEM wants that lifetime value of customer locking in for which there's a slice of the salami for the dealer. And that's the general obstacle. But I don't know, you've opened Pandora's box there, Skip. Certainly have that. Well, Elon Musk, was it a gamble? Did it pay off? He is a gambler. I think he is a gambler. So definitely interesting pants. And people love him or hate him, I suppose. Oh my. That's it. My venture might we all these would say. So listen, in wrapping up then, what's one thing you think someone listening to this needs to be focusing on our next couple of years in our industry? Well, what are you going to be focusing on our next couple of years? I'm going to be focusing on having our business very much become an ecosystem. We're going to focus on unlocking the benefits of being a platform with us. We're going to be doing a digital platform or a network of businesses. We're going to double down in terms of our mantra of Sashinwa, innovation, fairness and harmony. That's what we're going to really focus on. What we're going to do is we're going to create, certainly if I look at it through a North May lens, we're going to create a very kind, very resilient, very prosperous business. So that's what I'm focused on this year and next year. Hopefully that will put us in a good position to catalyze on opportunities the market will give us. They can, what? I'm going to have to practice that. I'm going to finish that, right? Yeah, thank you. Perfect. Listen, thank you so much for this. Any tip or idea that someone listened to this now, that's the future, then, can go and put in place today. Let's say you've got a sales manager, service manager, listen to this. What's one tip you want to leave people with? Gosh, just have an enquiring mind. Just open your mind. That's all I can say because that'll help you deal with the changes. It will help you be receptive. It will help you sense his wired. Just open your mind and flow. Really? Listen, I really do appreciate it. Jason, how do people get hold you? What's the easiest way for them to get hold you? There's early 10, just jump on the 10. I'm on that. Perfect. Jason, thank you so much for this. I really do appreciate it. Let's get asleep. That just leads 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, food link to him. Thank you.
