Permanent Press

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I'll begin with a story told to me by Doug Sr.
    GM had often used outside consulting firms to conduct sales studies.  One such study measured our sales penetration in the metropolitan Detroit area.  A map was designed showing dots that represented our customer addresses throughout the area.
    When it was delivered to the dealership to be studied and assessed for weak areas, there were two large areas where no sales were represented.  Those were considered areas where the dealer should concentrate more effort to attract sales. GM had used information like this for years to critique dealers and point out that they were underperforming in specific areas.
    Doug Sr. laid the survey map out and then looked at an area map.  The first weak area happened to be Belle Isle.  If you don't live around here, Belle Isle is a large public park and is uninhabited.  The second area was where a Ford Motor Plant was located.  He promptly called up the person named on the study to give him a piece of his mind.
    The idea behind it was perhaps good, but you would expect it to be carried out with common sense and thoroughness.
    What brought this story to mind was an article the other day in the Free Press about how new dealerships are on the rise with 66 new franchises added in the first half of 2011.  That sounds like a positive story... but I wanted to know which brands added these dealers.  Were they foreign or domestic? Were any new Cadillac franchises added, I'm wondering. There wasn't enough information given - like a news sound bite that passes for a story. This article was based on a report released by Urban Science, which is a global retail consulting firm.
    I also read a recent article where a dealer was talking about how he had taken a hard hit during the bankruptcy but now his profits are soaring.  The Urban Science guy stated that was the whole intent when the dealer body was shrunk.
    If they were consulted on dealer cuts, then it is in their best interests to show that it was a good idea for the long run.  It turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy, true or not.
    Okay, it isn't much of a stretch to see profits soaring from the point in time of the bankruptcy.  That is good news for that dealer but how is that good for the rest of us?  It's just a redistribution of wealth! Cut one dealer and give their customers to a remaining dealer and of course he's going to profit!  It's at the expense of the employees of the ousted dealer. It is concentrating the wealth instead of spreading it.
    More profit for that dealer does not result in any savings for the consumer.  With less dealers, there is less competition.
    Dealer profits up = less places to shop = monopoly = customer pays more
    More profit for the dealer also does not equal gains in market share for manufacturers. That is not what that means at all.
    My point is that some of these articles lead you to believe that any good news is good news for all. Numbers and statistics can be used by people to say anything they want them to say.  Sometimes using numbers seems to imply fact but the bigger issue is what message are they sending with those numbers and that message is not always factual.
    It is so hard to know what or who to believe!  On a Tuesday, I remember reading that the economy was in an upswing.  The very next day the tv gave the exact opposite message.  Did it change in one day?  Conflicting information; misleading information; too much information - you have to rely on your own common sense.

The Secret Service Sends the Police to the Dealership

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  In early August of 2009, Vice president Joe Biden came to the New Center area to talk about stimulus grants for battery research at Nextenergy. He would also talk about the economy and jobs. This was a stone's throw from the dealership.
    One of the guys at the dealership made a large banner that said "PLEASE SAVE OUR JOBS". It was hung from a 3rd floor window,well before Biden's arrival time. It was an attempt to draw media attention and possibly catch Biden's eye.
    It was not to be. There was a large police presence in the area for the event.  The banner had only been hung for about 20 minutes before two policemen came by and said that the Secret Service had directed them to have us take it down.
    These policemen were cordial but firm about the directive.  We knew we were within our rights to keep the banner, but to keep the peace and not create a fuss, it was taken down. What a regret that is now.  Perhaps if it had happened later in the process...
    The dealership always had a good relationship with the police.  They were helpful and came quickly when needed.  They always looked out for us and were always on our side.
    I know police and crime go hand-in-hand in the news.  In response to the 17 shootings last weekend - more police and better lighting were recommended.  While these are both positive ideas, how much can they really accomplish?  Shootings and crime happen in broad daylight.  When that happens, it is like an attitude of "Whatever happens, happens. I'm doing this!".
    The problem is much bigger and harder to solve than more police and lighting.  People have to have jobs.  They have to be able to support themselves and their families.  Desperate people do desperate things.  Drugs, alcohol, crime - those are all unhealthy ways of dealing with the stress of feeling overwhelmed, powerless, and hopeless.
    It's always great when big companies relocate to the city.  I applaud them because it is not without risk.  Small businesses are also needed.  Factories are needed.  This is not just a Detroit issue - the reality of our country is we have a lot of unskilled and/or undereducated people who need jobs too. The situation is already here, not in the future.
    If you watch television, it sounds like everyone can go to college.  While that might be the ideal, the reality is not everyone goes to college. Period.  I so believe that we have to have manufacturing if we're going to make it in this country.  We can't survive on services and information.  We have to produce something that is real, that we can see and touch.  There is no shame in that reality.
   The dealership was a small business that sold real products.  It employed between 60 and 70 people.  That makes 60 and 70 families that had income and health insurance.  Did they all live in the city - no, but many of them did.
    One of the jobs at the dealership with the most turnover was that of the porter.That is kind of a catch-all position that involves moving cars around, washing them and other miscellaneous tasks around the dealership. They say it is easier to hire upper management than it is to hire a good porter.  It did pay above minimum wage but it was our experience that the porter usually didn't want to work very hard, was unreliable and was famous for saying "that isn't my job" when asked to do something.  Of course there were exceptions.
   On a lighter note:
    One of the more colorful characters that filled this position was "Louisiana Lonnie" and with him came a couple cohorts by the names of "Wicked Wanda" and "Homeless Johnny".  When you work with people, you get to know them and their stories and sometimes their personal lives show up at work.
    Lonnie had been in some trouble in Louisiana and somehow found his way to Detroit.  He was personable and extremely grateful to have the porter job.  In the city, you took chances on people who were down on their luck and needed a second chance.  Sometimes it works out.  Lonnie was a pretty good worker but his personal life...
   Wanda had taken Lonnie in.  She also had another roommate that she had taken in from being homeless.  Somehow he got the name "Homeless Johnny", no disrespect meant. They didn't quite know where Wanda was collecting these guys.
    She used to give Lonnie a lift to or from work and sometimes brought him a lunch.  She became "Wicked" about 3 months after Lonnie had been working at the dealership.  She showed up looking for him and she was there to do some damage. "I'm gonna kill him, that #!%!" she yelled from outside the building.  She had something like a tire iron in her hand.
  Luckily for him, someone warned Lonnie and he got out of the area.  They yelled out to her that he wasn't there and for her to go home and eventually she left without a call to the police.
    She threw him out and Lonnie disappeared for good a few days later.  Wanda sent Johnny to see if they had money(a paycheck) for Lonnie as he had crossed her and owed her money.  They did have a paycheck that they were holding because he had not returned his uniforms and also they didn't know where he was.  Keith gave Johnny a ride to Wanda's to pick up the uniforms.  This was right in the middle of the "combat zone" northeast of the dealership.  Keith remembers sitting in his Cadillac wearing his nice suit and thinking "I've gotta be nuts being here for a few uniforms!".  All eyes in the area were on him.  Fortunately, It all worked out safely.
    Lonnie wrote sometime later that he was back in Louisiana and they did end up sending him his last paycheck.  You get involved in the drama sometimes and you feel bad for people in these situations but short of adopting them you give them a chance to work and support themselves and they make their own choices after that.  That's all you can do.

Summer in the City

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Something serious and something funny today.
    While there was determination to fight and hope for a reprieve, the dealership had to proceed through the wind down process. The economy during the summer of 2009 was rocky.  There were no good leasing options and leasing was a big part of the luxury car market in Detroit.
    There were about 100 new cars in our inventory, those being all 2009's.  There could be no new orders for 2010 models but there were already some orders placed for customers before the termination letter came.  New models would usually begin to arrive in August.
  We had to fight to get those orders filled.  GM tried to divert those customer orders to other dealers.  We had to scream and yell at the district sales manager to straighten this out.  It was all so frustrating and GM seemed to be making a difficult process even harder every step of the way.
    After the June termination, GM was not communicating with our dealership as they had done previously.  We did not receive important bulletins or pertinent information that was needed even for the wind down process.  We had to rely on dealer friends to give us vital information.
    The inventory became stale.  Some customers came in expecting fire sale prices.  Some people did not want to buy from a dealer that is going out of business... they might as well transition to the place where they would get their vehicle serviced.
    There was no "trade bait". Often dealers will trade with each other and we didn't have anything new to offer.
    Looking back, it was an amazing feat to sell those cars, be weighed down by the overhead, keep ALL the employees working, fight day to day battles with GM and just carry on.
What was it like to work in the city during the summer?
    Of course it was hot.  People would be walking around, up and down Woodward, up and down Cass.
Guys from the 1/2 way houses would wander in, trying to get some cool air or take "sink baths" in the service department bathrooms.
    I asked Keith if there was something nice about summer there and he said and I quote: "The hookers were more scantily clad".  We both laughed so hard.  Keith!  He followed with the fact that sometimes they would pull together a barbeque during lunch on the used car lot.
    He got to know a lot of the locals and there were definitely some characters. Bicycle Man - dressed all in black, looking like an assassin.  He would pull up on his bike in front of the building, get off and pull out a tape measure that he kept like a gun in a holster.  He would stare through the windows (they would stare back), squint and eyeball them as he "measured them up" as if for a coffin.  It was all very dramatic. He would then put the tape measure back in the holster and get on the bike and ride away. He would be around for several days in a row.  Then he would be gone for months before reappearing.  Eventually he just stopped showing up and they never knew what happened to him.
    Another crazy was "the inspector".  He would inspect every car, taking an hour to perform his ritual.  For the most part these guys were harmless. Sometimes they had to be shooed away if customers were nearby.
    One day, Keith was standing in the office talking with Reverend Ed Rowe when they noticed a beating going on across Woodward.  Rev. Rowe said "somebody's got to help that man!"  Nobody moved and in the next minute, Rev. Rowe is out the door walking fast toward the street.  Keith used a few choice words and followed.
    As they got closer, it was two men stomping a guy on his head. They yelled at the men to stop and leave him alone.  The men did stop and moved away as Keith and Rev. Rowe approached. They thought the guy was dead.  They knew the police were coming and wanted to stall the men until they got there.  Keith picked a metal pipe and calls for them to come back.  They yelled back and forth but eventually they ran before the cops came.
    Rev. Rowe asked Keith later what he was going to do if they came back and Keith said he was planning to take their heads off with the metal pipe.  Rev. Rowe said something like"Oh Lord.  I can't condone that but I guess I'm glad you had a plan".
    The guy lived and told the police it was a squatters rights problem from some abandoned house on Piquette.  All in a day's work.
    Next up: Joe Biden, Louisiana Lonnie, Wicked Wanda and Homeless Johnny

Ouch!

    When someone throws a jab at someone that I love/like/admire - I feel it. Another thing about me is that I hate being misunderstood.
    Something occurred last night that I feel I want to address - now.
    A small group of former employees and family members met up for bowling and socializing. Keith went and now wishes he hadn't.
    He was talking with one of the employees who said "When are you guys going to open up something so we can all come back?".  Keith said he didn't think that was going to happen.  She said that when she sees old customers, they comment on how good it was to deal with Dalgleish Cadillac and how unhappy they are now dealing with other establishments.  Nice comments.
   Then she said something like "Boy are they MAD at you all for leaving."  Keith was like What?! Repeat that... Without really defending that point and throwing some other jabs - Keith realized she felt the same way.  The implication was that WE wanted out.
    If we were the kind of people to leave(abandon) the city of Detroit, we would have done that after the 1967 riots.  There had been other opportunities - offers to open up in other locations outside the city.  In hindsight, we most likely would still be in business had we done so.
    As a business owner, you would have the right to sell or change locations. That right was taken away from us and the dealership was forced to close.  No one benefited from this.
    For all the hassles of owning a business in the city of Detroit - the crime, the bums and addicts wandering around all day and night, the high insurance costs because of the crime... we even had higher health care premiums for employees than suburban sites.
    For all that, we still wanted to be in business.  It was ours...
    So, to hear this person throw blame - that infuriates me, especially from someone who had a front row seat to the slow death of our business.  I know the toll.. I experienced the grief, the worry, the sadness, the anger and feelings of helplessness.  I was there.
    My God, we felt that we were the ones abandoned!
    To lose it all and fade into the gray... to watch commercials for Cadillac and know we are not a  part of this anymore - it's like a pencil going over the paper slowly erasing our name.  It still feels this way.  To hear on the radio how GM is coming back and we are not part of that - that is like a knife in the back.
    How could anyone think we wanted this?

  Next time: Summer in the City