This week we delighted to talk with Jason Cranswick Chief Operating Officer at MARUBENI AUTO INVESTMENT (UK) LIMITED and Managing Director of Norton Way Group.
Jason is unusual, in the fact that he has worked for dealer groups, manufacturers and a disruptor.
This background brings a vast wealth of knowledge that we tap into for this two part interview.
There are take-home points for everyone whether you work in sales, service, management or you’re an investor.
Here are the highlights:
{01:29} Where did you start?
{07:31} Management by walking about
{11:21} Mentors
{17:25} Vertical promotions
{19:53} Ego getting in the way
{26:53} Cinch
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. Some of you probably already know me as Skipping. I will start by saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi and welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Firstly, I want to say thank you very much for all the listeners out there because this podcast is just going from strength to strength. Today is my great pleasure to be sitting with Jason Kranzwick. Jason is the chief operating officer of Marabani Automotive Investments UK but also the management managing director of the Norton Wave Route. I've been really looking forward to getting Jason on the podcast because he's quite unique. He's got both sides of the motor industry. He's actually worked with the dealers and dealer world but also he's worked with the manufacturer. So Jason, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Good morning Skipping. Thank you for the very kind invite. I've been looking forward to this actually. I always enjoy speaking with you and thank you for the opportunity today. Well Jason, we've got to go back to your background. From John Lewis, I believe management training. Now the CEO of Marabani Automotive Investments, you've got both sides of it. It's quite a ride there. In the middle I believe you work with Volkswagen Group and SIT and Kupra and Sinch. We've got to talk about Sinch in a second there. But can I ask you, John Lewis, what did you learn starting with John Lewis? As relevant today, do you think, in the motor traders, it was when you started? Can you tell us about your time starting with John Lewis? Yeah, it seems a very long time ago. Now it was kind of 1986, 1987 when I joined there as a school leaver. I think what John Lewis had then, I think I've still got it now, is a real focus on retailing and premium retailing. Yeah. We're going to talk about definition of premium later. I think their ethos in terms of how they got people invested, colleagues invested as partners. Although there was no financial investment, it was a deaf deafener, an emotional and an ethos investment that they had. And also their approach to, as they called it then, never knowing the undersold. So the commitment that there would be fairness in pricing and transparency in pricing. It's ironic 30 plus years ago that that was what I was doing. You know, rather those values for me have followed all the way through my career in different iterations. It was in many ways still is an amazing business. But again, business has also gone through radical change. I believe they've dropped the slogan. Is that right? They've dropped that now. Yeah, they've dropped it because of the internet, because they took no longer with integrity so that they were never going to be knowing the undersold because the internet changed things. But what they've had to do is go off and react and adapt their business model and diversify. But at the core of it, you know, still if you want a great retail experience, more often than not. Go to John Lewis. Yeah, it's true. Absolutely true. And that whole partnership, you're right, there's no financial incentive for the employee. But working for them, do you definitely feel like you are a partner in the business? You do. I've still got friends that work in that environment. And I'm sure they still feel the same. That it is a, it's a very collegiate environment. They have the deal account, the partner council, as they call it. So there's definitely a cooperative approach. Everybody has to buy into the way, the ethos. Very, very principled when it comes to their values. A lot of things that we do or should do, like our 10 or 10s, that's what happens in the store. Every morning, the managers get the teams together and they talk about, yes, that is results. They talk about what the mission is for the next day. And actually the leadership, you know, then, and I think still does now, you know, walks the floor, you know, and I remember the C, I'm going to say COO, whether that was really his title at the time, you know, he was revered when he came into the store because he'd get his tape measure out. And the first thing he did, he'd measured the fixtures to make sure the fixtures were in line, you know, which is, I guess, what we do as leaders in our businesses when we go and walk through our dealerships and start looking at, you know, do we look like retailers? I love to show retails in the detail. I was talking a story about Mrs. Myve, who started R.R.G. Group and now Swansway Group. And he was renowned for no coats on the back of the chairs and retails in the detail. And there's a story about the managing director of Tesco's many years ago. Someone interviewed him on a business Sunday program said, they made more money than any retailer ever made. And they said, what's the secret to your success? He said, it's frustratingly simple. What I do is I spend my life visiting as many stores as I possibly can every week. And when I go in, I like to make sure that hand baskets are sprayed on the left-hand side and the right on the left-hand side, they get run out quickly and no one has a hand basket. Then I go to the bananas. I make sure the bananas are displayed just as they're turning yellow. Because if they're too green, they don't look inviting. If they're too yellow, people don't get their life out of them. Now, the interviewer said, hold on, you're the managing director of Tesco's. You learn however much it was and bonuses are you going to sell me millions? And you may tell me that you make sure bananas are the right color. His answer is beautiful. He said, yes. Because if my staff see me making a fuss about the little things, it rubs off onto every single thing we do. It is so true. And I think what we aspire to do, and it's not always easy to do the management by walking about and going and walking the floor when I was heading up Network Development for Ourdy, we did a network-wide customer service activity and we used Ritz-Calta and we ship them in from the US, they're consulting firm. And they talk about their credo, which is a bullet point card that every colleague carries and every day they look at the credo and it's kind of their weight. The managers have what they call lion time, which is where the managers of the hotels have to stand in the foyer and watch what's going on. For me, big areas, it sounds bizarre to the toilets. It's not bizarre. If you're a toilet, it's a poor condition. It's a good indicator as to the depth of understanding that the managers and leaders and staff have of that business. And these are the things that we've got to tune into and I'm sure we'll talk about later on in terms of how you prioritize stuff. But that whole management by walking about is where any manager or leader gets the most about you. And it's hard as jobs get bigger and physically. And that was perhaps one of the things postcode is making sure that people are leading from the front. And. Okay. Yeah. So, Jason, a young Jason growing up in school, what do you want to do with your life? What was the dream? I always like to see what the dream was and then where you've ended up there. What was the dream? What was your skill? Jumping buses. Okay. Evil, can evil. No, seriously. Well, any kid gets more than evil. As a youngster, I used to enjoy a real passion for motorbikes, which is finding out things have come full circle. And, you know, my big thing, I really wanted to go and jump buses on motorbikes, but, you know, that's a really stupid thing to do. So. But that makes it, I see when your post last week, was it you're in one of your toy shops, you called it. I'm trying to work out which one to go ahead with. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I wanted to do. But, you know, with with Candace, I did, okay, at school, you know, I was like a lot of my peer group. I didn't do sixth form. I left school at 16. I didn't have a particularly clear view of what I wanted to do, what my purpose was. But that's where going to John Lewis was great because I did college one day a week on a day release. It was a BTEC. You remember, you know, the days of, you know, white yes schemes and BTECs and so on. I was in Australia, but I've heard about them over here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But what it gave me, I guess, was a career journey, a career plan. And it was great because I went in at 16. I left at 19. You know, I was already, I guess, at department manager level at 19. But one of the things I did see, which was typical of retail, as I hit a glass seat, where actually, Ben and I, this was in the late 80s, it was kind of like, well, you, you, we know you can do the job. You know, you've, you've evidence you've got confidence. However, we don't promote until people are of an age. So it's kind of stand still for a few years. And that is a concept for me. Didn't, didn't sit where because I wanted to get on. And that's what led me to, to join the motor trade in, you know, the, the late 80s, you know, I kind of started automotive as a motivated, but somewhat frustrated, you know, 19-year-old. So that was Vinders Group then. Was it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did. I did. And, you know, fabulous. You know, we talk about businesses with, with strong principles and, you know, bear in mind, at that time, Frank Vindis was still very much in, in, in the chair and, you know, the disciplines that Frank and following through from Frank that Nigel and Gary, you know, instilled in, you know, you, this it with you still now, you know, the kind of the, the three ring maximum on the telephone. You know, if, if God help you, if you didn't answer the phone after, or if you answer the phone after three rings, God help you if it was, yeah, it was one of the boss. It's because it has been done quicker, you know, but also still relevant today, still so relevant, isn't it? Rooking at the basics. Absolutely. Our phone ringing today is probably our, our live chat or our email book, you know, we've got to be on point. And they know, because I talked to them about it a lot to thank, really the Vinders family for to bring me into, into the industry at that time. And back me, because I went in as a trainee and I was sales manager of, of their, of their business in Bedford at 21 years old. So, you know, you know, they, they, they put a lot trust in me. So in those early days, do you look back at any mentors, any influencers, people that you look up to, you think, hold on, I'm in this situation, what would John do? What would Dave do? Does anyone stand out in your mind? Yeah, there's, there's two people and I often refer to them. So in my, my very young years, I guess, I had a boss in my early twenties, I went to being GSM of a, of a business for Goffrey Davis. Goffrey Davis had recently been acquired by Cavadale, which was a fast growing PLC of its time. It eventually reversed up through quicks into, I guess, ultimately look at, but I had a boss, Chuckle Kevin, Kevin Slade, and he was, did the principal for three sites and I worked in one that he didn't, wasn't attending me. He was a Jagger and Mazda, and I ran the Honda business for him. And, and he was great, because again, he came from the hotel industry. Okay. So his background was, you know, sort of serving at high levels, hotels, and then he came into automotive. And again, he and I did things like bringing people out of retail, you know, in the early nineties, we were bringing people out, John Lewis environments to deliver great customer service in automotive. You know, we moved away from kind of the standard model there. But Kevin was great, because he was always, he'd always push it back. Well, what would you do? But he would be there, you know, to provide his opinion, but he wasn't there to just spoon feed it in. And he was, he was a real mentor at the time. So I, I got a cut, it's a game that's the one minute manager, is that Kenneth Flanger? Oh, yeah. Don't come to me with that problem. Come to me with a couple of solutions. It's the same thing. What would you do? What would you do? And the thing is, and one minute manager, I'd recommend that to anybody. It was on my early, early reading list for sure. Great. But it's about the monkey. Yep. And you know, I think a lot of people like to just throw the monkey. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll kill your back. Yeah. And they just throw and I've seen that through my career. And my mission is to help people recognize number one, they own the monkey. Yeah. Yeah. And is it the, well, again, on the reading list, the chimp paradox, I think is a great one. Understanding you can't control the monkey. You know, you can influence certainly, you know, how you react to it. But also getting people to become responsible and accountable. And again, that's something that's that's followed through is not easy. And there's a lot of environments that are built of, of, right, you don't own the monkey. In fact, you are nothing. You just come to me for everything. Yeah. I think that's the environment I've always tried to break away from this. No, no, no. Well, Jason, I was doing some work with your managers and talk about process. And we'll get to on that later. But one of the things that really hit home with your managers is that monkey on the back story. And it's absolutely brilliant. Because again, these monkeys, they breed, don't they? Because what happens is that salesperson, that service advisor comes to you, it's like, I've got this problem, got that problem. And they've just given it to your manager. And by the end of the bloody day, the poor managers running a zoo, they got monkeys everywhere. And it's just, people, brand new, listen to this podcast, brand new into management. There's some books that you just got to go and listen to. If you're listening to them on the way to work, go and read them. It's brilliant books. Absolutely. I agree with you. And again, in the spirit of sort of sharing, one minute manager is great because it gets people to think. And quite often, the quick reads, necessary, we did not to be the ratios readers, but actually you can find time to it, you should. And the other one for me is the Jim Paradox, which again, has a tenuous link to the zoo. But actually, the fact that we're wired in a way, in the certain bits we can and can't influence. But if you are aware of the fact that you've got this chimp that might do something, depending on the set circumstances, then try and reframe the circumstances. But just on your point, that skip, and hopefully it's relevant, is when you go into a new business and I've been into a few, you immediately go in and you know you've got to go and start solving problems. You know you've got to go in and create a template. You've got to maybe put in new operating processes and so on. So it's very easy to step over that line of being the solution provider because probably initially that's what you were put into doing. The answer to it, I'll work tirelessly to achieve, is that ability to transition from being the solution provider, which is probably what happens on day one to day hundred and one, and helping people come up with their solutions on their versions and getting people to think for themselves almost. Somebody else is hundred percent. You know, it's probably somebody else's 70 or 80 percent. But if they can do it and they own it, then it's freed up time for that other person to go off and do stuff only they can do. And that's my mantra, I guess, when I'm going into businesses to work to do what I do. Yeah, get people to actually too often we see maybe some line managers in businesses that they're still doing the job for their employees all the time. Senior managers, they just like, hold on, let them do the job. Give them the whole responsibility for it because they can't do anything because they're scared to do anything because you're not letting them. Yeah, and you know, I think again, there's a lot of people that have only ever been in the motor trade channel. Yes. And off that, as you've mentioned before, many people are only in the one channel. There are only ever been in dealer, you know. There's also a real habit in our industry for only, you know, vertical promotions. So what you end up getting is you get people that have a mile wide, a mile deep, but in tried reference point. And actually what we're often needing is a mile wide and more than an inch deep reference point that you need to have those dimensions. So, you know, from a personal point of view, I don't blame people for not knowing what they don't know. Yeah. You know, and it's as a result of a lot of our industry industries norms, but I think what we've got to do is try and get different reference points, different perspectives, and also help people think outside the box. And that's really the role of the leader. We did a session week 10 days ago with them, a Marine commander, it was the second session with them. And this guy is a behavioral expert now, an author, but he was talking about his experiences of going through, you know, commando selection. And, you know, how different people have different perspectives of combat situation. But, you know, what you've got to get to do is understand how you can rely on a team, you know, the role of discipline, resilience, but also the speed to acceptance that has to come when you're in those kind of scenarios. And the reason we did it is not that we want our teams to become the RICO on those, but we just wanted them to have some awareness and understanding of what goes on in other areas that could be translated back into their place. And the big one that came out of that, and I didn't expect it, is the one of, you know, empathy. You know, sometimes... I wouldn't expect to that. Yeah. Yeah. And he says, you know, be prepared to throw you through your, you may, a magazine when they're out, but know that they're about out and know to throw in. Yeah. Rather than leave them hanging, you know, empty. Yeah. And you'd be selfish by shoveling away your magazines only for your own use. And, you know, I think one of my missions in all of this is for us to create a very kind environment for kind to each other. The likelihood is then that that will have, you know, strength and depth, will have sustainability and resilience and actually would end up with a great business, but it starts with being kind. Yeah. So I'm really interested. Your time as a dealer principal development coach, you've seen lots of great companies and probably some companies that needed coaching. Okay. There's a book, this is going to sound like a book review on this one, but there's a group we both read. It is a bit like that. But the goods are great. Okay. Jim Collins, great, great book. Okay. But I want to ask you, what are some of the ingredients of a really good business? When you're a dealer, principal development coach with Volkswagen Group, when you walked in there, what were some of the elements there that you thought this company is not just good. It's great. Yeah. Let me take you back one step as to how I ended up in that job. It was a happy accident. Okay. I got to my early 30s. I was MD of a Land Rover business. I was running on behalf of the family, but ultimately, it was a family business that never got to be me. You had a very small child in somebody else's business. I didn't have a million pounds in cash or freehold property. So ownership wasn't going to be the next step. So I thought, what can I do with the skills I've built up? And Volkswagen Group were looking for someone to go into coach heads of businesses. So I thought, well, I think I could do that, although I had no academic qualification for it. But I guess the realization I had, and I saw that time a couple of years, almost as a sabbatical, really, that actually gave me a chance to realize it isn't about what I can do. How can I get other people to do what I can do? And it gave me a chance to really think about how do you motivate, how do you unlock the potential in others, which has been a continuum through my career. I guess what I saw in that good to great is the willingness to learn, the capacity and the willingness to learn, I think is the overriding factor, and also the willingness to reflect. And it's funny, you talk about the good to great, those businesses in that book and many people have read it, were very cognizant. They were prepared to analyze, they prepared to adapt, they reacted to the landscape in front of them that they could see, and they were always changing. The ones that didn't work so well were the ones that were ignorant to the changes, didn't read the signals, perhaps were overwhelmed with hubris and ego. And as a result, didn't see the signs until they were too late. So you've kind of opened the door in this one. Yeah, good to great, I'd say is definitely a good read. There's a better one in the series, which is called How the Mighty Fool. Now, I hadn't heard of this book until yesterday, so I haven't read it yet. You have to tell us about this. Again, Jim, the last 24 hours. No, I'm not. Sorry, I've not done that. As you said in the motor trade, maybe I'd take a bit longer to read things. Jim Collins again. Yeah, Jim Collins. It's funny, I read that book in 2010, something like that. And I remember when I went to, so I was asked to take on the role of head of network development and customer quality for Audi. I've been working in Volkswagen Group for a number of years, I've done some special projects for the MDs office and an opportunity came up to take on this role. I remember going to a presentation where all the MDs of the different brands in Volkswagen Group presented. Martin Sander, who again was a real mentor to me, he was the new MD of Audi in UK. And he was on stage talking about how good to great and all of those attributes I set before. And I remember I went up and door stepped in at the end of the presentation and said, I've got another book for you, I'll send it to you. And it was called The Mighty Fool. And I said, the reason it's better is it is all about those that didn't make the journey and what can we learn from them. And yeah, it was quite a pivotal point, I guess in my career with him and also with Volkswagen Group, because it is a great book. But I say it centers around people's ego getting in the way. And I think that's the big thing as an industry, we've got to make sure it doesn't happen. Did you see that when you went into dealerships where the dealer principal wasn't great, the business wasn't great, was it ego getting in the way, was it any lessons from that you've seen from how The Mighty Fool that were happening in these dealerships? Yeah, I mean, ego is a small word, it covers a lot of different sort of motives or influences. I actually think it's openness, probably as much as ego. And as an industry, we tend to get measured on. So how do you mean openness, Jason, from ego? I think for me, are people receptive to there might be a different way, can't people respond to that, that people might have something to add? And also, are people receptive to the fact that letting someone in might help rather than hurt? And I think as an industry, there's many examples where very autocratic leaders who very finger pointing, very judgmental, and people feel as though they're going to be vulnerable with if actually they let them in. But for me, that vulnerability is powerful. To be honest with you, if I have to make loads of decisions every day, we will do, and I'll be honest with you, a lot of them aren't right. But my driver has to be as long as I've made more right than wrong, then we'll be okay. But also, you know, Make the decision. That's the big thing. But I have seen it where people just aren't, it starts with not being open, and as a result then, nothing can help, nothing can change. Whereas if people just open up and go, okay, I trust, I've got no reason not to trust. Actually, you know, I can see that you've maybe got experiences I don't have, then it's organic and quite rapid, the changes that come about within a business. So that's just some examples of my perspective. Can we go on and talk about your time at Sinch? The disruptors, and the reason why I say that, if we look at Kazoo's share price, and look at last week, I think they're down to 44 million, they floated, I think it was 6.5 billion, which is a bit of a slide. In America, we have people listening to this in America, Carvana, I believe their share price is down 95% or something like that in their death spell. Is that place for these disruptors? Because you're unique again, because you work with Sinch. Now, I understand Sinch is slightly different, but I want to get your views on these disruptors. Is there a place for them? Is their days done? And also, Sinch, Peter Smive might say, well, they just want them to be a bloody bank, ask to be a bank for them. So I want to get your views on your time at Sinch, and the disruptors, please. Yeah, okay. So it's well recorded. My time at Sinch, and I think it's still easy to get my viewpoint from there, you know, using that that we're done, and most of it remains the same. Got real thanks and gratitude to Alfred in particular and Beyse Maubraud in Constellation to allow me the chance to experience it for a number of years, wanted to get deep into digital transformation in doing that within the John Deen organization before. So when the opportunity came to join Sinch, it was a bit of a no brain, you know, post-COVID and everything was heading in that direction. And as you say, people like Carvana and Kazoo were setting a template that could be followed. A couple of differences, I think, were Sinch, and they still provide us. Number one, you know, Sinch was created as a marketplace. Now, marketplaces behaving a certain way. People participate in marketplaces for different reasons. So you've got dealers participating in them, OEMs participating in them, you know, the recent rental businesses participating in them. Because, you know, what everybody was looking for at that point was kind of the proof point as to whether online vehicle sales was worth it, whether consumers would buy vehicles virtually and, you know, with an end-to-end digital process and self-serving the whole concept of online channel, you know, and it's talking about kind of its place in our industry going forward. It's there, so let's not fight against it. It worked then and it worked now and it will work in the future. You know, the question is, what proportion of consumers or businesses will buy a vehicle without touching and feeling it? Now, a good thing, I guess for me, as a bricks and mortar dealer now, is a lot of customers will use it for research. They'll use it to self-serve to a higher level than we saw pre-COVID. But the good news is a lot of customers still want to come into the dealer to conclude and transact and the proportion of online only sales is still modest, if not small. Yes. However, the proportion of omni-channel retailing and through the research stage or whatever is super high. Now, in the only comment, I guess I'll make coming back to your point of our own viability is we've got to remember is consolation already had, prep centers, chock in, logistic, you know, access to inventory. So they had all those things that the others had to go off from outs or or procure or work out. So, you know, admiration for what our foreign constellation of double-seach is they've unlocked the vertical integration that already existed. Throw that into our world. That's what we do. We vertically integrate in businesses. You know, many operators are looking for how they can join up the stack, take up more slices of the salamias it comes through and actually create a vertically integrated structure. And there's some great examples of those within our industry that have done that or already it's a really good effect where they've maybe got a dealer business, they might have rental business, they might have a used car outlet, a finance brokerage, you know, they've probably got their own, in some of them, the best example, they've got their own auction houses and their own trucking, you know, so they've created their own versions of it. And I think that's the difference. That's the game changer. You've got to have a vertically integrated business because the online vehicle sells piece on its own may not be enough to make the commercials work. See, since makes sense, some of you, because they did have the auction houses that we buy cars, they had the prep centers, they had so much there. Kazoo is exactly what you said, they start from scratch there. I don't know, Kazoo, are they going to make it? I'm smart enough to know that, but there would appear to be in the world of pain still. Yeah, it's good. I don't know. And if you're on the way to comment, because I don't know. But what I do know is that we've all up to our game as a result. Yeah, so true. I was in one of our used car prep centers that's in build at the minute. I was there yesterday looking at the fantastic photo studio that's being installed, the workshop base that dedicated to use car prep. We were talking about which lines the cars that have just been purchased will go into which ones are going with, waiting cosmetic and image. For me, it's about creating that industrialized sausage machine that creates high quality use cars that we then sell through the websites or dealer forklets. We've all done that. And I think we have to thank the online disruptors for opening our game for us, because without it, we may not have felt we had a burning platform without it. But with it, with that pressure from the online only retailers, I don't think there's a dealer in the land who hasn't gone huge step forwards to this transformation. Yeah, so true. So disruptors, they have changed. I think that I suppose Kazoo can do that we can't do as a dealer at all. Choice and vision. Yeah. And listen, I was going to say, first-hand experience of your prep center. And last time I was there, Gus, thank you very much. Help me out on this one. I curved my wheel on the way and I said, what have I done? He said, no, we're going to sort of for you. And so quick and done. And by the time I've gone home, wheel done. Gus, your prep center is absolutely brilliant. So yeah, first-hand experience on this. So thank you, Gus, for that one there. I really appreciate it. 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, food link there. Thank you.
