Patrick Abad, General Manager, Beaver Toyota

Kyle Mountsier: 0:00This is in the dirt with ASOTU.Paul Daly: 0:04

I'm Patrick, we've all come to here. We all have a little letter that we need to get. One day we should fake intervention, Patrick. We'll get your wife in on it.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:17

Trick. You've been too kind to your employer.

Paul Daly: 0:22

Sorry. Patrick said thanks so much for spending a few minutes with us. The most of the ASOTU community already knows who you are. I'm Patrick. Abad beaver Toyota, also investor in ASOTU. That's right. Full disclosure. Yes. That's why you dressed like this now? Yes.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:37

I removed all color from my wardrobe.

Patrick Abad: 0:39

No more, no more suits it NADA. I'm sorry.

Paul Daly: 0:42

You don't need to? Well, that's how you know. Well, you don't need to wear a suit anymore. Yeah, no, you made it you made Brian Benstocks got a long way to go.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:52

Okay, here's, here's, here's the cool thing is I got to sit in and listen to a bunch of marketing people come in and talk to Patrick about what happened that year. And we're going through all this marketing stuff. And there's like a couple people that just talk marketing. Let me let me break this down for you. And then everybody else it was like, so we helped Patrick, get in the community with this. And that, and this, and that. And it was like this, and that it was just over and over? Well, and it's not just Patrick, but it's the whole team at Beaver. I'd love to hear like, what are your plans this year? As you're getting into the community and pouring deeper into the Greater Atlanta community? Like, where are you sinking your teeth in and is serving the community mission?

Patrick Abad: 1:40

Well, so this year, and I budget for all this stuff, right? Because it costs money. You know, there's there's two sides to it, there's the money side, and then there's the people side to get in the hands in the dirt and get you know, putting your hands and feet in the community and actually doing things. So but you need to have the money to do that to when when you get the money to do it, then you a whole nother thing of world open up for you to actually get into community. So last year, we did well, this is next year, like I've doubled the budget, like we're going after it. And I have people that are literally dedicated to it. Well,

Paul Daly: 2:15

why are you doubling the budget? We said we're going after what did you see in the money that you spent, where you're like, it's worth it?

Patrick Abad: 2:22

Because we are I think on that breaking period of the dealership where people are really starting to truly believe that our dealership is full of good people who do good things. And I'm like, want to double down on that. You mean not that you have cheap cars? Yeah, no. Yeah, cheap cars or, or you can you know, we give you five grand over KBB for your trade. I don't I don't do any of that crap. What I want to keep doing like if I could literally transition my entire marketing budget to give it back to the community. I think we wouldn't sell $1 last car not willing to take that chance yet. But because of the success the stores had I could do both. Yeah, I can be the marketing and then transition into the community side. So we got a lot of stuff planned this year like wait. Our girl who's in charge of getting the committee like every month, I told her I want a massive presence in I don't care if we're building houses for Habitat, we're packing backpacks where we're doing meals, I want that type, right? We're gonna write the checks, but I want that hands and feet. So everything smooth things, and our employees want to do we just, you know, I think in a lot of car dealerships, nobody gives them an outlet to do that, if that makes sense. Yeah, so that's it. We're gonna create outlets. And I don't know what it's gonna be right. Our community. We just had all the nonprofits from Forsyth County, do their big annual meeting in our conference room the other day, right. And that was our girl in there. We bought them lunch, we did the deal. And now they're talking about okay, how can we put the Beaver people in there mentoring kids at the high school, that type of stuff? It's gonna be cool. It's gonna be great year for it.

Paul Daly: 3:47

Every time he talks, I'm like, sounds good. Where do you find the time to? I mean, because it's not like your store isn't like working. Now. Right? You're working?

Patrick Abad: 3:57

Gotta pay for it. Yeah, right. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 3:59

You gotta pay for what on the store working thing side? Because, you know, there are a lot of people that are just like we're having conversations going. There's there's some uncertainty. You know, I think there's there's resolve, but also uncertainty, right? Like resolved, we're going to be do good. The industry is going to do well, but also a level a certain level of like, maybe trepidation or uncertainty on the trends like, how are you working within the store to make sure that like all of that uncertainty is is not impacting performance.

Patrick Abad: 4:30

You keep it out of your store, you put a bubble around it and you protect your people, you protect their mindset, you protect it, you protect that feeling, right? If you continue to just like if I was to backup marketing, and cut down inventory that would scare that should create uncertainty. As long as I'm pushing forward. It keeps it out. We say it all the time. It actually doesn't matter. And I've probably said this on one of the podcasts that 30,000 used cars sold every single month in in Georgia. Do I care if it goes to 15,000 As long as I give my 400 I don't care. Right, right. Right. Yeah. So that's that same. That's that bubble. And how do you protect that bubble? Well, guess what? If I have to, if I have to spend a little bit more to get what I was getting them, you know what I should have? I should have planned for that. Because it was so easy. Right? I think I think the uncertainty is coming from, it's not just not uncertainty shouldn't exist. It's certainty. It is certainly it is not going to be the same. Reality, right. It's certainly

Paul Daly: 5:28

no, we know this. Right. We all agree on it.

Patrick Abad: 5:31

Yeah. So just, what are you going to do to make sure that what you have done, you can maintain? If you don't do the things to create what you have done, then you will create an uncertainty in your people. And that's scary.

Paul Daly: 5:45

Let me ask you this. Dealers of all types, shapes and sizes, going to see some of this content. You have, you have like a machine that's moving from just an operation side. And then you also have a marketing slash community relationship. Machine. That's moving. Right. So there's some people that could say, like, yeah, you've you're there. I can't relate, because I'm here, if you walked into a store, that was, you know, set itself on advertising things like 5000, over KV, right, doing all the tactics, okay. And you walked into the store, and you were in charge. Now, what is the first thing you would try to change in that store?

Patrick Abad: 6:24

What well, so here's how I feel. When you when you're trying, it's an investment. I'm doing the same thing I did three years ago, except now I'm experiencing the results. People say, yeah, you can spend that. Because you're doing x. Now, I didn't used to do X, right? You actually have to decide who you're going to be. And you have to play the game. Now. You have to invest. Now you have to train now you have to develop now you have to do all those things to who you want to be. And never, and never get shaky on it. Right. Never vary from that. Right? Because I've been spending,

Kyle Mountsier: 6:59

like if you want to decide your 100 car store, cool, decided, yeah, that's what you do spend toward that hire toward that train toward that. You want to be a 600 car store. Cool. Hi toward that spend toward that train toward that?

Patrick Abad: 7:11

Yeah, I perfect example. I had made some changes over the last couple months, right? Because some some things So what do you say, when the owner is like, you have 60 days. get you here. Some people get to here. But if you're trying to get here, right, I told somebody the other day, I said, listen, here's the thing, we're going to continue to grow. And if I thought we were going to plateau, as an organization, I would allow you to catch off. But we're not. I'm not spending for it. I'm not planning for it. I'm not developing for it. I'm not building our inventory for it. Like everything is about who we're going to be not who we are. And I think that has to shift in people's minds. That's what I would do if I walked into a store like that. But he's saying that. I say a guy like me does not operate well in that environment. I just wish

Kyle Mountsier: 8:00

you would say you have 60 days is the wrong job.

Patrick Abad: 8:03

It's the wrong job for me. Yeah, it might be there's other people that can take that job. And they can work within a box. Right, right. I can't work within a box.

Paul Daly: 8:11

Well, you've tasted the result of not working in a box

Patrick Abad: 8:15

Thinking big and never varying from from the plan. Now you can tweak it, but you don't abandon it. Right? Yeah. You don't abandon how many people like they try something that like 30 days later, I'm out. It's not working. It's not generating?

Paul Daly: 8:29

I mean, because it takes time. It's one of the reasons I don't, I don't really cook much. Because there's a reason they say like, you have to let the flavors develop. I like someone else letting the flavors develop. Because I'm not that person when it comes to food. That's right. Yeah, right. But I get it, you use the word develop.

Kyle Mountsier: 8:46

I love that theme. And like the theme of being certain that there is uncertainty, and also knowing that like you have to operate now how you want to be in the future. Those are things that I think people can carry back

Patrick Abad: 8:59

and you don't go crazy with it. Yeah, right. You just the numbers that you can there's reporting and the numbers and strategies and you know, if selling 1000 new cars puts you at 600% sales efficient Well, that's not reality. Right. Right. You got to see what your potential isn't plan for the potential.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:17

Yeah, that's great. Well, as always, Patrick, always a great conversation. Love you guys. Enjoy the show. Thanks for sitting down with us for a couple minutes and luckily you got a sweet seat. Thank you for listening to in the dirt with ASOTU. We love the automotive industry and the people who make it run day in and day out. We would love to connect with you more through our daily dose of fun, a free email that you can sign up for at ASOTU.com That's a s o t u.com. We put our heart and soul into it every day. Thanks again for listening. Join us next time for more Conversations In the Dirt with ASOTU

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