Growing up, Greg Nelson always dreamed he would make his living surrounded by luxury cars. So after high school, he entered
a sheet metal workers apprentice program but soon realized it wasn’t the right path for him. He graduated and then went on to
college at Franklin University before taking a $15,000 loan from his father in 1981 to start Columbus Classic Cars. Today, he is
president of the $68 million Nelson Auto Group, employing 100 people at Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Lamborghini dealerships in
Marysville and Bellefontaine, with a Hyundai dealership opening in Heath this year. Smart Business spoke with Nelson about
strong leadership and how he managed the toughest day of his career.
Lead by example. I work 70 to 80 hours a
week, so my employees see me there all
the time. I think they feel like, ‘Hell, if he’s
here all the time and working hard, we
ought to do the same thing.’
They’ll see me greet a customer or pick
up a piece of trash off the lot. As insignificant as that sounds, it builds a foundation
for the rest of the business in terms of
respect.
Give back to the community. You can’t take,
take, take from a community. People see
through that; it’s superficial. I’m making my
livelihood here and building my business
here; I need to give back.
The community knows that. The customers see that and say, ‘We need to be
doing business with this guy.’
Maintain a positive image. My name and reputation mean more than the money
because if you don’t have a good reputation, what do you have? I’ve always felt that
if you do a good job with your customers
and your employees, the money will come.
Don’t be afraid to adapt. You have to be open
to change. I’ve always made my guys wear
shirts and ties selling cars. I looked at it as
a sign of respect: If we’re taking anything
from $5,000 to $400,000 from customers, I
wanted my employees to be presentable.
We did a survey of customers, and 68 percent of the surveys said customers prefer
the salespeople more casual in golf shirts.
A lot of them felt like a guy in a shirt and tie
had the upper hand.
If that’s what your customers want, that’s
what you’ve got to do. Now we’re going to
a golf shirt uniform. It’s hard because I’ve
been doing it the other way for 26 years but
I understand it, so I’ll make the change.
Be tenacious and strong-willed. So many guys
start a business and things don’t go their
way, and they just give up and quit. I’ve
never done that, and believe me, there have
been many times when it would have been
a lot easier just to quit.
But I worked hard, and I made it through
the difficult times. You need to be a person
who is determined to win.
Create a flexible strategy. I have passed on
some business opportunities because they
didn’t fit into my plan. What do you want to
accomplish? Where do you want to be?
If you don’t have a business plan, then
you’re not going to get very far. You’ve
got to have a plan and stick to it but
you’ve got to be flexible inside that plan
and make some modifications because
business is changing all the time.
Manage with integrity. If you don’t have
integrity, and if your work doesn’t mean
anything, you might as well just hang it
up and go home.
We had a situation where our service
manager, service writer, mechanic and
parts guy told Chrysler and a customer
they put a part on the customer’s car.
They really didn’t do that, and I heard
about it.
As drastic an action as some people
may have seen it, I pulled those employees in one by one, told them, ‘That’s not
the way we operate,’ and terminated all
of them the same day.
It hurt because I lost four good people
who made a mistake, but I could not justify having the rest of my staff see that. I
couldn’t condone it by letting them stay
employed here. That sent a strong message throughout all my dealerships.
Sometimes you’ve got to make those
tough decisions, but when you do, it sets
the tone. Now these folks know what
integrity’s all about: You’re going to do it by
the book, the right way, or you’re not going
to work here. That’s all there is to it.
It was probably the most difficult day
of my career because I had never dealt
with that before. We occasionally had to
reprimand an employee or terminate
someone but to have all those people in
on it was very tough on me, because I
thought I had done a better job. If I
would have let them get away with it,
then what was next?
I have a pretty high standard, but that’s
the way I expect it to be, and it seems to
work.
Nurture your staff. I’ve got people who have
been with me for 15-plus years. I’ve
watched these people grow and develop,
and I’ve given them opportunities to go
from salesperson to sales manager to general manager. That makes sense to me.
It’s interesting to see some young guys
come in who think they know everything. I
remember coming in and thinking, ‘He
needs slapped around a little bit.’ But they
learn from you, and they listen to you
because they see you doing it.
Stay genuine. There are very few car dealers
that come out on the floor and actually
thank the customer. A lot of them think
they’re beyond that; I guess I never forgot
my roots. As long as I’m in touch, things are
great.
When you forget your roots, arrogance
sets in. When employees and customers
see arrogance, they get turned off by it. It
becomes like a big corporate structure
where employees and customers think,
‘They don’t really care about me.’
We’ve always maintained a family feel,
and I still find the time to visit all the dealerships.
HOW TO REACH: Nelson Auto Group, (614) 793-9000 or
www.nelsonautogroup.com