When Bob Serpentini purchased his first car dealership in 1980, he wasn’t looking 45 years down the road at what Serpentini Auto Group might become. Back then, at age 22, he just wanted to sell as many cars as he could. “I was a good salesman, but I wasn’t really a good businessman at that point,” says Serpentini, today the president of Serpentini Auto Group. “I didn’t even know how to read a financial statement when I bought that dealership. I’d like to say I had this great vision, but I just wanted to sell a lot of cars.” Serpentini had dreamed of owning his own dealership since he started washing cars at Spitzer Automotive at age 15. Driven by this dream, he saw “an unbelievable opportunity” to buy an underperforming Chevrolet dealership in 1980, when others saw only obstacles. “It was a terrible time for the economy. The interest rates were going crazy,” he says. “The reason I got the store is that nobody wanted it because it had been losing money for quite a while. Nobody wanted to take a chance, but I got lucky.”
Determined to sell through the storm, Serpentini dove into the automotive business headfirst. But to grow from that first dealership into the largest Chevrolet dealer group in Northeast Ohio, with six Chevrolet Certified Service facilities and five state-of-the-art collision centers, Serpentini had to learn that running a sustainable business demands more than just steady sales. Most important, he learned that he couldn’t grow on his own, as he shifted his focus from selling cars to supporting the team around him.
“The secret sauce is our people,” Serpentini says. “I recognize that we can’t do what we’re doing with just me. As a matter of fact, I have very little to do with it. It all starts with my people.”
Focusing on service
After buying his first dealership, Serpentini began his evolution from salesman to manager.
“Going from a salesman to a manager is different because salespeople typically have a little bit of an ego. ‘I’m a good salesman,’ so it’s ‘I, I, I.’ Then you realize when you transition to manager or owner, it isn’t about ‘I’ anymore; it’s about everybody else’s success,” Serpentini says. “I realized that I had to help these guys succeed, because I couldn’t do it all myself.”
Starting out with 15 employees, Serpentini quickly learned that his team was far more valuable to the business than the cars sitting on the lot. They were the key to keeping customers coming back after the first purchase, so he worked hard to keep good people on the team.
“It’s important to make sure that everybody understands not only how we expect our customers to be treated, but how we treat the people that we work with, as well,” says Serpentini, who now employs about 700 people across all six dealerships. “You can be as focused as you want on the customer, but in order for the customer to have the experience you want, you have to start with great people who know what’s expected of them.”
Serpentini, who always enjoyed dealing with people much more than dealing with paperwork, modeled his expectations for customer service early on. To this day, he still loves visiting his stores to talk with customers — some of whom he’s been serving for generations. Instilling these service-focused relationships throughout the business has been foundational to growth.
“I always tell my salespeople, ‘The best salespeople are the best listeners,’ because you have to understand what the customer wants,” Serpentini says. “If you don’t give them good service, you’re not going to get them back. The only way you’re going to be successful long-term is by listening to the customer.”
Restructuring to
sustain growth
Serpentini’s next leadership transformation came during the crunch of the 2008 recession, when “the world almost came to an end for us,” he says. As the economy crumbled and the automotive market constricted, Serpentini’s office manager delivered the dire news that the dealership was running tight on money and needed a cash injection — fast.
So, Serpentini put more money into the dealership, “but that was a big mistake,” he says, because within 60 days, that extra cash had evaporated, too, teaching him a valuable lesson. “Just throwing money at a problem doesn’t fix the problem,” he says. “The correct question should have been, ‘Why are we running short of money? And if I put more money in, what’s going to stop us from going through this money, too?’ You have to fix the problem first; otherwise, you’ll reach a point where you don’t have any money left to throw at it.”
That’s when Serpentini knew he needed to make some changes. Recognizing that expense control was not one of his strengths, he brought in a consultant to restructure the business.
“I realized I needed to change the way I operated and be more disciplined,” he says. “I know how to sell cars, but how do I structure this correctly to have a sustainable business that will be able to grow consistently every year?”
Armed with a better business plan and a diligent financial strategy, Serpentini worked closely with his bank to strengthen the cash flow of the business, emerging from the downturn even stronger as a result.
“That changed the look of our operations dramatically, and it made us much better,” he says. “I was much more focused on process, not just selling cars. It made me evolve and understand that you can’t stand still, so we’re constantly looking to get better.”
Serpentini’s goal throughout this process wasn’t just to make more money, but to put the business in a position to give more back to the community. He involved employees in shaping the company’s philanthropic focus by selecting causes to support, including local schools and hospital systems.
“We can’t just be takers. We’ve got to put money back in,” he says. “We’ve got to provide value to our communities, not just because we sell or service cars, but because we’re good corporate citizens.”
Since then, Serpentini has donated a percentage of annual sales back into the community. The company tries “to be the fastest yes” when local school districts ask for fundraising support, donating about 10 cars every year for local schools to raffle.
“What that did for us is it showed people that we were more than just a car dealership, that we’re actually people who care, and people also want to do business with people like that,” Serpentini says. “The more we gave, the more business we seemed to do.”
Sharing growth opportunities
Serpentini’s third growth spurt came at another critical juncture in 2020. By this point, Serpentini had matured in his approach to business operations and finances. Now, he wanted his employees to enjoy the benefits of the dealership’s success.
“I realized then that I needed to start making more opportunities for my employees, because I have long-term employees — one particularly had been with me from day one, but many for 15, 20, 25 years or more,” he says. “We needed to grow to give people opportunities; otherwise, they would be stuck, or they would leave and go somewhere else.”
In January 2020, Serpentini acquired three Pat O’Brien Chevrolet dealerships in Medina, Westlake and Willoughby — doubling his store count with existing locations in Strongsville, Orrville and Tallmadge — creating the largest Chevrolet dealer group in Ohio and one of the largest in the country. He knew the deal would be good for the business, allowing him to centralize his operations across a larger footprint while leveraging economies of scale that would bring costs down at each store. But more important, he knew that the expansion would be good for his people, providing career advancement opportunities across the organization.
“It was a game changer,” he says. “I moved my people around to give them opportunities, and it’s been incredible. I’m watching people that I’ve worked with for years now running these stores, and it’s fun to watch them evolve and grow. Now, we’re very focused on developing our people and putting them in position to move up the ladder, so when another opportunity comes, we’re ready for it.”
Serpentini invests in employees through both internal and external career development opportunities. For example, he sends many of his managers to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Dealer Academy in Virginia for six weeks of leadership training that exposes them to “every facet of the dealership,” he says. “They understand the intricacies of the business, and they understand what it’s going to take to become a general manager.”
Monthly management meetings also bring together managers across the company to share best practices, discuss process improvements and tackle issues together.
“It’s amazing what happens when you get all the store managers sitting together and sharing ideas,” he says. “If one manager is struggling in a certain area, for example, another manager may offer an approach or a piece of advice that worked for him.
As much as the stores love to compete against each other for top sales, these meetings foster an underlying foundation of collaboration that keeps the team united. Plus, since many of his managers have worked together at other locations as they’ve moved up in the company through the years, Serpentini says, they tend to have an “emotional investment” in each other’s success.
“There’s no question: my people are competitive, but they help each other, as well,” he says. “Somebody who’s not a team player typically doesn’t work in our organization.”
Equipping the next
generation of leaders
Although still actively involved in the business, Serpentini continues to hand responsibilities down to his team as he builds a bench of future leaders to carry on his legacy of excellent service.
“The key has been instilling my vision in my management team, but then letting them do it,” he says. “I’ve made sure that I’ve empowered my people and given them opportunities to succeed. I have to be able to step away and know it’s going to be OK. I want them to go on without me and not only not miss a beat, but do better than me.”
Serpentini’s sons, Bobby and Ryan, are both involved in the business, along with several other managers who have committed their entire careers to the dealership.
“I want them to take it to the next level,” Serpentini says. “It may be different than I did, but I have to just let them do it now.”
Looking ahead, Serpentini has his eye on more potential acquisitions to expand the dealer group’s footprint while continuing to hone every aspect of the operations, improving the experience for employees and customers alike.
“We’re poised for growth again,” Serpentini says. “We’ve been very focused on building a bench because you might have the money to grow, but if you don’t have the people, it’s not going to work.”
