Ziegler Supersystems, Inc. June 2003  Dealer Mag Article

Shock and Awe

My mother once said... “Jimmy doesn’t understand moderation. He’d kill a piss ant with a nuclear weapon when all he really had to do was step on it to get the job done.”

Overkill...the extreme solution...that has always been my method of operation. Don’t win by a little bit...blow the competition away! No apologies!  A clear sense of right and wrong and the conviction to stand up and say and do what you believe in...In so many socially-correct, new age circles “honor” and “decency” have become archaic, out-dated words stepping out of the way for social correctness and non-offense..

Shock and Awe...When the United States of America defended ourselves with overwhelming force against the unrelenting evil forces conspiring to attack us and kill our friends and families here on our own soil...make no mistake, the insignificant price we paid inconveniencing the trivial continuity of our lives and businesses was well worth the price. If you have a problem with what’s happening in your life and business...then stop whining and get moving!

An old legend says that many years ago the British Army chose to wear red uniforms, “Red Coats”, into battle so that if a soldier were wounded his blood would not be apparent against the background color of his uniform, giving no comfort to the enemy. The French adopted a similar philosophy and began a tradition of wearing brown pants into battle.

As the war winds down, the troops and the ships are coming home...don’t be seduced into a false sense of security...It ain’t over by a long shot! You really already knew that, didn’t you? They’re not done with us and we’re not done with them.

The real business plan is “Shock and Awe”...attacking the market with overwhelming presence and power.

Hey Dealers...Look at yourselves... you’re coasting aren’t you? Can you honestly say you’re doing the best job you’re capable of? Check your business card...if it says “Dealer”...then be one

Most of you have put your personal energy and drive in neutral.  Your sales department is operating on cruise control. People are sitting around on their thumbs, hoping it gets better. I am seeing so many dealers and dealerships accepting your fate like Lemmings following the leader into the sea to drown.

Captain to engineering...“Scotty, I need more power”

... “Aye Captain, I’ll do what I can… it’s the Di-lithium crystals, you know...I’m givin’ it all I can Cap’n...I can’t give it no more!”

“Warp five Mr. Sulu!”

“Warp five”...Pushin’ it to the limits that’s the theme of this month’s Zieglerisms, last month I was talking about “Whussy-Boys” and this month I am talking about “Whussy-Dealers”.  I am sick of hearing weaklings whining and blaming everything else on everything else but themselves. If your business sucks, then what do you intend to do about that? If your business philosophy ain’t working, then maybe you better get real and take another look at what you’re doing. The captain of the Titanic stuck to his flawed plan and took his flawed plan with him right to the bottom of the North Atlantic.

Wheels, Grill, and a new Attitude...

It started innocently enough...at the 2003 NADA Convention in San Francisco, an old friend of mine, John Titman, approached me at the Dealer Magazine Booth. He was disturbed that I was driving a new Cadillac Escalade with factory wheels and a factory grill. You see, Titman is the National Sales Manager for E&G Classics, the very best aftermarket company specializing in customs grills in the entire universe.

Titman said he would love to provide and install a new custom chrome grill for my Escalade...Did he say No Charge? As in FREE!

About now, I am sorta’ feeling like Tiger Woods wearing a Nike swoosh emblem on his hat. This guy is giving me, for free, an expensive custom after-market grill on my luxury vehicle just because I am a featured columnist (star…celebrity writer?) in this magazine and I should be driving a car with his product. 

Let me tell you...this grill is incredible. Once I got it on the car I felt this incredible super-human power surge. Down the road however I felt a severe depression. It became sickeningly obvious...I didn’t have any wheels. You know... custom rims. Talk about feeling inadequate...This Truck needs some rims in the worst way. I am now depressed and ashamed.

Then I had this terrible mind-wrenching flashback memory to a conversation with one of best my friends, John Lund, at Lund Cadillac in Phoenix.

Lund said... “Ziegler, look...your son, Zachary, is fourteen years-old.”... “Do you really want him to experience the humiliation and soul-scarring trauma of riding around in a new Escalade without custom wheels? 

The pressure was too much to bear...I rushed out and bought more than $5000.00 worth of 23”custom wheels and tires including a two-inch lift kit for the Escalade to compliment the customized E&G Classics Grill. Bear in mind, my Cadillac is already equipped with 24-Karat Gold emblems courtesy of Mark and Peter Hennessy at Hennessey Cadillac in Duluth, Georgia where I bought the ride. (We also got our Lexus from the Hennessey’s’)

Now picture this...Saturday afternoon in Atlanta…Zach and I are riding around (dude’s are cruising) in the Escalade the same day we got the new wheels installed. Fresh carwash and wax...we’re driving down the street in Atlanta with all four windows down...our baseball hats turned backwards...with the radio cranked up as loud as those Bose speakers will push the music...and we’ve got the radio tuned in to the most offensive gangster-thug rap radio stations you could ever imagine. The car is shaking with the bass music beat. Zach and I are both looking forward bobbing our heads to the beat (like a Steve Lyons doll) I keep turning to him and saying... “Don’t laugh”.

You should have seen the horrified looks we were getting from other people in traffic...People next to us at red lights cringing and making faces...even that nice Mexican family was pointing at us and speaking excitedly.

My new street-name is “The Too-Big Notorious Zig”...I already have all the 14 Karat Jewelry or as my new friends and associates call it…my “Bling-Bling”…and I already have the tricked out Escalade and the attitude. All I need now is a Doo-Rag…a Rap Group and a Posse.

Heart of a Lyons

Ordinarily this is a story I’d probably shoot some Ziegler-venom at …if it wasn’t for such a worthy cause.  By now, I’m sure everyone is aware that Steve Lyons, president of Ford Division, has created a “Bobble-Head” Doll likeness of himself and sent one to every Ford Dealer who signed up for the  “It’s All About Share” program. Your first inclination might be to say...”What a pompous ass!”

Well, initially some dealer friends of mine fired off angry emails referring to the monumental arrogance and pomposity and egotism of creating a “Bobble-Head Doll” of yourself and how that reflects upon the character of Mr. Lyons.  “They’re shutting down the water-coolers in Dearborn to save money, but Lyons can make his own Bobble-Head.” It wasn’t exactly the scene where the villagers are wielding torches chasing the Frankenstein monster up into the burning windmill…but…there was some indignation expressed. Well...hold on a minute here. The $20,000 he invested on this program isn’t a drop in the ocean for the ultimate good and enthusiasm he’s trying to create.

I am starting to become convinced these guys are really trying and maybe we need to let them breathe ...just a little.

Then...then I received an email from Wes Peterson, a small-town Ford Dealer who is also a volunteer EMT for the Spring Valley Ambulance Service in Spring Valley, Minnesota. They are in desperate need of funding to save lives in that community.  It seems like Mr. Peterson is selling Steve Lyons Bobble-Heads on EBay.com and making a lot of money for his charitable cause, Item #32198890096. Some personally autographed Steve Lyons Bobble-Heads donated by Mr., Lyons are bringing hundreds of dollars for the cause.

This is above and beyond the call. Steve took time and initiative to autograph and ship these dolls, knowing he was creating a collectors item and increasing the value. Let’s face it, Jacques probably would’ve signed a bunch of Nasser dolls and then put them in the vault for his retirement.

I am commending Mr. Steve Lyons for rising above petty corporate politics and getting down on the level with his dealers to advance this worthy charitable cause. Let’s call this project...The Heart of a Lyons...Thanks Steve for helping!

Go to Ebay.com and look up the autographed Stave Lyons Bobble-Heads personally autographed Ford Collectors items and make your most generous contribution.

NOW... (Drum roll)... Big News...Mike Roscoe, Editor and Chief of this magazine announced plans for Dealer Magazine to release a “Ziegler Bobble-Head “as a special promotion just before NADA 2004. That’s right, my own “Jim Ziegler Bobble-Head Doll”.

Lawyers and Consumers and Dealers...Oh My!

If you read my previous columns back as far as January, you’d be aware that certain South Texas Attorneys are advertising in the newspapers asking consumers if they think they may have a lawsuit against car dealers. I have been all over this story for more than a year. Now, According to Car Dealer Insider Newsletter, Texas Attorney, Jeffrey Weinstein, is one of the attorneys advertising to consumers to fill out a questionnaire about the procedures and disclosures the dealer used when selling them their car. 

The headline in the attorney’s newspaper ad reads...

“Were you upside down in your trade-in?”

When the consumer responds to the ad, the law firm implies you may be qualified for a claim against the dealer if proper disclosures weren’t made and documented. The attorney then sends the consumer a multi-question form to fill out describing every possible error and omission a dealership employee might possibly have made during the sale or delivery of the car.

The questionnaire is heavy with questions about disclosure…did you purchase a service contract…did the Finance Manager disclose to you that the dealership made a profit marking up your interest rate…were you told that this is the best interest rate you can get…were you given a filled out copy of the contract and informed that you could take it home and study it?

Consumers who answered Weinstein’s ad in the paper were instructed to call to receive their questionnaire. The questionnaire they received states they may be entitled to make a claim against a dealer if:

a.     “The dealer was paid a kickback for secretly marking up your interest rate.”

b.     “You were told that you were ‘upside down’ in your trade-in vehicle;”

c.     “You purchased an extended warranty, theft protection or credit insurance.”

d.     “You were told that the APR on your contract was the best rate the dealer could

        find for you.”

e.      “You were not provided a copy of your Truth in Lending disclosures until after you

        had already made the deal and signed the contract.”

I spoke about the upcoming plague of These “Attack Attorneys” in my presentation at the 2003 NADA Convention in San Francisco back in February. They are coming on like a swarm of bees; filing dozens of lawsuits in Texas...similar suits are being solicited and filed in Florida...and California ...as well as several upper Midwest states. If you’re not using a written F&I Menu...then you’re at high risk.

These fishing expeditions are vague, appear to coach to the customer, showing them a way out of their agreement, and usually require the dealership to furnish additional documents to aid in discovery for the claimant, which also generates other potential litigations for those attorneys.  Most of these flimsy, transparent lawsuits never actually make it to court and are usually settled in the plaintiff’s favor because most dealers and insurance companies don’t want to pursue the downside of fighting the cases regardless of how frivolous or without merit the claims appear to be..

Nevertheless, as I have predicted repeatedly, these lawsuits are going to proliferate and we will see our industry under siege by former tobacco industry attack-lawyers who have a track record of winning through this legalized form of extortion. It is real serious and constitutes a very real threat. According to the AIADA, at least 62% of dealers were sued by consumers last year. Its epidemic and it’s a growing trend.

Toyota Goes For the Youth Market

There was a recent article in Auto Snooze featuring Toyota VP, Jim Press explaining why Toyota is pursuing the youth market with their new product line Scion. If you’ve followed my articles you might remember back last fall when I translated the Japanese name “Camry” into English…literally translated it means “Buick”. There have been many articles praising Toyota as being the juggernaut in the automobile industry. We’ve all heard how they net profited more than $8 billion last year and they have enough cash on hand to buy every other manufacturer in the industry at their current capitalized value. In other words, these guys have got more money than everyone else in the industry combined…BUT…I still stand on my prediction they’re in for a hard fall. Jim Press and company represent the arrogant, cocky, know-it-all mentality that has crashed many a corporation up on the rocks.

The Scion is a knee jerk reaction to the realization that Toyota is rapidly becoming a “Mature Franchise” with their average Toyota buyer well into their mid forties. One article I read quoted James Lentz, Toyota's
U.S. marketing chief as saying… "We all have articles pinned to our walls about how stupid an idea this is but Scion represents a bit of a rebirth for
Toyota." (He used the word “rebirth” meaning to me they have written Toyota off as dead)

Wow! What do you want to bet this article gets pinned on this guy’s wall too? Do you think he already has one or two of my articles pinned on that wall now? My prediction is that somebody’s butt will eventually be pinned to that wall after they blow billions proving this is a ridiculous idea.
 

Honda is having a similar epiphany. All of the articles I am reading praising Honda and Toyota are praising these corporations past glory…their recent past granted …but still past glory. These articles assume, incorrectly, that Honda and Toyota still have upward momentum…whereas I am saying they have reached the top of the roller coaster looking down.

Chasing Generation Y

You know the ditsy little chick with pierced lips, tongue stob, tattoos covering her entire right shoulder…purple hair…both knees ripped out of her jeans…rubber flip-flop shower shoes…yeah that’s her. She’s right over there hangin’ with the dude with the mullet hairstyle and his eyebrows pierced. They both have part-time minimum wage jobs at the movie theatre and bussing tables at Steak and Shake BUT they are our future…AND some executives think they are the future of the retail car business.

AND several, as in most, of the major manufacturers are throwing stupid money at the mythical, ever-elusive Generation Y Buyer.

Generation Y are those kids born between 1977 and 1994…in other words, we’re targeting buyers between the ages of 9 and 26 years of age. These pompous factory goofballs and dipsticks that are pushing this Gen Y marketing effort are quick to point out that this generation accounts for 28% of the U.S. population. Of course, J.D. Power and Associates is right in the middle of all of this perceived buffoonery with their alleged executives and alleged researchers spewing out statistical trivia on how to market to that all-important Generation Y buyer.

These incompetent fools see one Vin Diesel movie and think they have it all figured out.

They’ve hired every new-age alleged consulting firm to help them with their projects...including some perennial statistical spin doctors, right in the middle of the mix pops up the omni-present J.D. Power and Associates. Think about it! I want to barf every time I read some press release about how to sell or market to Generation Y.

Well Hyundai performed a focus group with a young twenty-something cross-section panel and asked some fairly blunt questions about Gen Y marketing. Let’s face it...Hyundai and Kia are the Generation Y targeted manufacturers because of price point and value at the low end.

In an article in Advertising Age magazine by Patricia Riedman, April 28^th, Ms. Riedman wrote that most members of the panel felt that the manufacturers were trying too hard to get to them…. “Overkill” was the word they used.

When asked about what they thought of the Honda Element…the article said one interviewee “Grimaced”. There were unanimous sentiments like “too pricey”…and “too small”…and “too much plastic”.

"They're aiming "$30,000-plus vehicles at us, and we can't get in the door financially for that price," the article attributes one interviewee as exclaiming.

Well duh! Haven’t these factory MBA geniuses figured it out yet? These kids don’t have any damn money. (The word “damn” in southern dialect is a two-syllable word) They also are marginally qualified credit risks...Just like every generation before them didn’t have any damn money  and any damn credit until they got older…and when they get older they’re still not gonna want these ugly-ass cheap little cars.

You can advertise on MTV and sponsor every drunken Spring Break Beach Butt-Grabbing Binge from now til the cows come home BUT this market isn’t going to be viable until it matures and then it ain’t gonna want the crap you’re pushing.

Maybe you can get Bare Naked Ladies to do a commercial for you like Mitsubishi did? Then you can achieve similar successes.

Guess what? Who do the dealers tell me are buying the majority of these allegedly butt-ugly Honda Elements? You guessed it…Mom and Pop…those forty and fifty year-olds we were trying to run away from. It appears that perhaps we succeeded into moving our existing buyers down into cheaper cars.

Of course the Ford Focus is still the undisputed best-selling Gen Y car in the world…NOT because it’s stylish or because the factory has imposed some goofy bullpoop technology-based, non-sales approach…it is selling because it’s a cheap, good, little car…that’s it. Cheap and good and they’ll buy one cause that’s what they can afford. It ain’t all of this bogus alleged research and rocket science these flatulent propeller heads are trying to make it out to be. Generation Y…and Generation X before them and the Baby Boomer Generation before that…the youth market has always been about kids buying previously owned cars. It was always the natural progression and this crowd hasn’t really changed the formula.

Scion is nothing more than a knockoff...a Japanese imitation of Saturn which is another documented loser for more than a decade now. BUT, at Toyota, a smirking, full of himself, Jim Press believes he can out-Saturn Saturn…which ain’t saying much.

This is one of the stupidest industry moves since Jac Nasser sat at the feet of new age guru, Noel Tichey, and installed every new age, half-baked, intelligentsia-inspired…as in that ain’t-never-gonna-work-in-a-million-billion-years…techno-geeky, stupid conceptual idea the master served up to the Australian-Lebanese alleged diminutive little tyrant.

Saturn, on the other hand, believes they are the Generation Y leaders in the market because they’ve always sold little cheap cars with conceptually stupid commercials. (Opinion based on a geek factor 11 in recent ads)

They have always been proud of their cute, allegedly goofy, warm and pukey, no-haggle, happy-clappy sales process. Okay sales representatives, let’s all line up and sing our little Saturn song to our new owner. 

This is Ziegler speaking...I must tell you honestly...Saturn now has some of the best product in the entire General Motors line-up. For years those Saturn people have been wimping and whining that the reason they were falling on their butts was because they had no product…well guess what?  You’ve got great product now and if you continue to fall on your butt…or should I say stay on your butt and you can’t make it with what you’ve been given, then General Motors should put Saturn Division out of its misery once and for all …If Saturn can’t make it with this product line-up...then pull the plug...close the factory and turn out the lights. Saturn has been...and continues to be one of the biggest financial drains on General Motors since its inception. Now you’ve got the product…you Saturn Guys and Gals are out of excuses, put up or shut up. The industry still blames the factory propping up Saturn for the assassination of Oldsmobile.

As we wind this article down…of course there really is a Generation Y and they will become the leaders of tomorrow just as we did and as did the generations before us. BUT…there is no magic marketing formula and no herd mentality that prevails. I look at my fourteen year-old Zachary, who fits squarely in the middle of this target group and he is all over the board. What he really wants is a Ford Mustang...as of today at least.

When I hear some fools trying to quantify this group and pompously try to dictate how they are and what they’ll buy and how you have to sell to them. You clue-impaired morons! Your dealers know how to sell cars…you don’t. Factory people need to get the hell out of the way and let us do what we do best.

Of course, Scion and Element and Saturn and any other entrants into the Gen Y Absurdity Derby are going to dictate one-price sales systems and “For God sake don’t let any sales people approach them or bother them unless they want to be bothered.” We know from extensive bogus research that this generation doesn’t like to be sold. Quit it! You fools are actually telling your dealers not to sell. Selling is the only damn (two syllables) reason you fools have your over-compensated jobs with your over-rated titles to start with. Your dealers have been aggressively selling your cars, including your crap for decades.

Where’s my Remy-Martin…there it is. Okay, as I pour another snifter of 125 year-old French Cognac…let me justify why I am sticking with it.

Okay...okay...I know it’s from France...BUT...You see 125 years ago when this Cognac was put into the big wooden keg, those Frenchmen were the good Frenchmen...not like the bad Frenchmen we have today. Those good French guys back then liked us and they wanted me to have this. I promise that 125 years from now I won’t drink any of the Cognac that is being put into the kegs today by the bad Frenchmen.

AND...I will drink no liquor bottled by The Dixie Chicks!

More Food For Thought

Have you seen Mike Roscoe’s latest? The all-new Dealer Magazine interactive website is so good...it’s awesome. This magazine has created a forum with up-to-date, interactive communication between all dealers and managers and even factory executives. It is the best dialogue format I have ever seen. Please go to this website and poke around a little. Stop into my Dealer Advocate Section and leave me a message or comment...Also, be sure to harass my friend Dan Myers on his Dealer lawyer section.

Keep those calls, letters and emails coming, I appreciate all of you.

This Man Means Business!