Unlocking Potential In The Auto Industry by Mentorship and Training with Jack Pearson

Kyle Mountsier: 0:00You ever have a feeling of deja vu?

‍Unknown: 0:07

This is Auto Collabs

Paul J Daly: 0:10

right before the matrix agent comes to get me absolutely. It's been a while though. Yeah. What's your feeling your deja vu? You can't just say that and not say anything after it. Yeah, unless you say, Have you ever had the feeling of deja vu? Right? There's the joke. But yeah, I

Unknown: 0:26

got I got.

Paul J Daly: 0:29

But it's not funny. Once you're explaining you're losing. Yes, that's

Michael Cirillo: 0:34

true is just the life of an entrepreneur. Because we get up early. We sit at our desk all day, then we go home, eat dinner, find ourselves in bed, dream about being at work, where our brain speaks to us all night about, you know, walks us through the meetings we had that day. And then before you know, we're right back at our desk again, well,

Paul J Daly: 0:54

I thought you were gonna say we wake up in the morning, get some breakfast, walk into the office, pull back that little like, it's like a shoe on the end of a wooden stick and it's spring loaded, and you pull it back, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, and then you stand in front of it. And your most that it just like hit you between the legs. And then you just do it again the next. That's my version of monk

Kyle Mountsier: 1:16

doesn't help. We all wear the same clothes every single day too. So it just feels well. That makes it easier. It does make it easier.

Paul J Daly: 1:23

That's how I know I'm working. You

Michael Cirillo: 1:25

open my closet and it's a bunch of black shirts. And yep,

Paul J Daly: 1:30

I know. It's okay. I'm excited that today's conversation is the first one with our 40 under 40. Right we have a number of these lined up and today's the first one is just gonna be you got Jack Pearson coming in hot from across the pond. You don't know right? You know now and you'll know as soon as you hear the accent. So hope you enjoy this conversation with us in one of automotive news is 40 under 40 Jack Pearson. Jack, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. It's pleasure to have you here.

Jack Pearson: 1:59

Oh, no, I'm happy to be here and find you guys for a while and you know, appreciate what you guys have done since since the crazy COVID is

Paul J Daly: 2:06

Yes, indeed. Indeed. Well, first of all, I know you've gotten this a lot. But I want to again, on behalf of a so to congratulate you and you're 40 under 40 It's not not an easy thing to accomplish. And tell us about when you found out.

Jack Pearson: 2:20

I found out I was actually coming back from Arizona I was on doing an en de la training force there and I just landed back in into Chicago O'Hare checked my email and it says hey, reporters going to contact you you've been nominated and you want to accept it and just go through there. So the next week or so, I was struggling to come up with things about how to maybe make me sound somewhat intelligent. Crazy. You know, I've been in caucus 12 years, but it's a strange feeling because I also feel like I've got so much more to do. So I'm like, trying to be grateful and happy but also letting everyone know I'm not the finished product. And I'm not even close to being hidden what I want to do in the next six years. I

Paul J Daly: 3:02

mean spoken like someone who is truly immersed in a training and development mindset. Right? You've never really arrived you're always preparing. You gotta be the challenge

Jack Pearson: 3:13

and not the champion.

Paul J Daly: 3:15

I love it. You know, I have a little bit of a beef with the industry and maybe this is every industry because there's a 40 under 40 You're talking about this kind of little yesterday. What's the next thing you can win the Lifetime Achievement Award right like when you're in a wheelchair and on your way out there's really nothing else in between there so like let's just call it fame which I have crossed 40 Kyle hasn't yet he's still got he's still got got a couple swings left. But there's nothing at that point. There

Kyle Mountsier: 3:44

you go. That's how we're gonna fix that. Alright, so take it take us back because you said you've been in auto for 12 years and and you've got a bit of an accent if the people can't tell. Take us back to to the journey to to Otto like where did that? Where did that come out? Yeah,

Jack Pearson: 4:02

strange. So I came to came to America in 2008. I was lucky enough to go to University of Dayton in Ohio get a soccer scholarship there. So went there for four years and just just love life. Knew I knew I'd end up live in work in in America after that a lot of people complain about living in America, but it's just amazing. I just I just love life and super passionate to be here in America. Moved to Des Moines, Iowa. That's where my wife was from. And I was going to get into Sorry,

Kyle Mountsier: 4:33

I was about to say, yeah, the only way that you got to move to Des Moines, Iowa from the Midwest is because of a girl.

Jack Pearson: 4:41

Yeah. So move there. And then that I was going to start coaching and trying to find a local college to go coach soccer. And turned up at team meeting. I was playing soccer for a team there. And this guy turns up in a Range Rover is also English. And so I was like, Hey, so what do you do is I sell cars he goes on Americans love the accent like you gotta get in. You gotta give it a go. So, I was like, ah, that is I do you gotta come in. Well, I didn't realize at the time he was kind of working his referral pay plan. So I don't know how authentic he was about really trying to get me on board but went down to a company called Willis automotive. They've got seven different new car lines great reputation, the area got in and interviewed and started selling Cadillacs loved it didn't know anything what I was doing, really, but after about two and a half years worked my way up to be Cadillac Sales Manager, which was strange because only 24 at the time and my team was double my age so strange dynamic there and

Paul J Daly: 5:44

work for sure. Especially highlight like especially a brand like Cadillac. Strange yet your sales staff is going to be older.

Jack Pearson: 5:51

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the the floor traffic stopped at like four o'clock in the afternoon because, you know, the Catholic buyers back then they had

Paul J Daly: 5:59

dinner in bed. Yeah, gotta go watch prices, right? Yep.

Jack Pearson: 6:03

Yep. So it was, it was strange, but just just love, love the industry. Love the train development aspect. And there's, you know, one thing about being being in America, there's always something else to go after, you know, you do something never like, good job. But there's always someone else that you can speak to someone else to mentor you and just just try and go a little bit bigger. And this and this. You know, if you're if you're hard working, there's always someone to push you up as well.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:30

Like so now go back, because, well, first of all, we could spend like a whole nother half an hour on just soccer. We'll try not to do that. It's all

Paul J Daly: 6:41

right. I talked enough about the Philadelphia Eagles on other shows that when we get when we get soccer time I'm okay with it.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:48

But I you know, I think especially in sales environments, and maybe I'm biased because I grew up in, in playing sports. But I think especially in sales environments, the history of having played a sport, really is extremely relatable, right? From the coaching and mentoring from the competitive nature, like you just said, you know, there's always like that next step, that next goal, what achievement Can I hit? Were there are there key things that you can point to and like your childhood or maybe even playing collegiate soccer, that have led to your expertise in sales engagements? Yes,

Jack Pearson: 7:31

for sure. The probably the biggest thing is, as a student athlete, for four years, you're always busy, like whether you're getting up at six in the morning, you've got you know, weights lifting at seven, then you've got practice, then you've got six asset classes, then you've got study tables, team meetings, whatever. So when I think a lot of people struggle to get into the real world, especially my, our generation, you know, we have a bad reputation. But being a student athlete and being busy, 1012 hours a day, you can go into a job, you know, and always get to work early, I'd stay late, put my hand up to help. Don't don't go out to eat for lunch, you bring your own lunch there, you know, just little things at the time management really helped me. And then probably the biggest thing is in this industry, you face a ton of adversity, and there's not much training or preparation for that as well. I mean, you get told no, all the time, all the time. And just like any sport, you're not going to win all the time, you're not going to be always be the fastest, the fittest the best. Like there's going to be a lot of other people out there that are better than us. So to have that experience of just going through a ton of adversity. And even today, when we hire someone on new, it's not really what they're good at. It's like, okay, you're good enough to be sitting here right now that we know that but what do you like when you know the stuff hits the fan? How do you overcome adversity, stuff like that? So I think that that helps us especially in this industry.

Paul J Daly: 8:58

You had a when you answered like the pre podcast questionnaire, you said there are a ton of average people in the industry that haven't had their potential unlocked. Yeah. Tell us about your mentality toward that?

Jack Pearson: 9:10

Well, I answer it two different ways. So my coach at Dayton, he used to say 95% of people are average. And it sounds quite hard. And but really no one ever. People don't really push themselves unless they want got the inner drive or to they're in an environment to do that. And I really believe that and then if you want to be the top 5% If you get there in some environment, are you then going to put yourself in a better environment and trying to look for that top 5% of a better environment. You know, those people who do that, I think, really successful careers in automotive. But the other thing that's happened as two or three years is the market got so good. The market got so much better than really what we deserve. And now you now you're seeing a ton of people but back, you know, changing pay plans, cutting back on marketing not expanding, because they'd have no idea what happened. And really they got a massive boost without going through any adversity. So as things have changed a little bit now, they're going backwards. I think the better deal is that better people? I just taken advantage of it just keep going.

Paul J Daly: 10:25

So what are the things when you when you hire when you look at other teams, when you inherit teams? What are the elements you're looking for, in an average person? That kind of like, make a little light bulb go off in your head from a training development side? What are the things that indicate an average person has it in them to be above average?

Kyle Mountsier: 10:46

That's yeah, it's

Unknown: 10:48

a hard question. So

Paul J Daly: 10:50

it is, but I mean, like, if we're asking you,

Jack Pearson: 10:53

yeah, as the average person ever really asked for help. You know, to give you an example, we made a really great hire four years ago. He's on my team. His name is Luis, he was at a busy Toyota store, but if some 15 cars a month, but he was just, he was just kind of average there, he never really been pushed. Because no one had wanted ever helped him to a note, and he never really strive for better. Karma will happen to change his life, but he wanted a different direction. So I just asked him, if he had a mentor, he didn't really have a mentor, asked him what some of his dreams were. And then we just went really deep into those questions like, Well, tell me about your kids, tell me about what type of life you want to have. Tell me about the dream car you want to have, and do that. And then I think he saw, you know, when I have a little bit more potential, and then I just have to, then you just have to get it out of them. So we invest in training and development. And then after two years, he's my number one guy now, because he has a skill set, and we just unlocked that inner drive that he had. But it's just deep layer questions, and just seeing if anyone's ever put themselves in an environment where they're not gonna be the best or it's not easy.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:04

You know, I think I'm going to maybe rephrase your like your coaches. 95% of people settle for average, but everybody, some well, okay, I won't go everybody. I'll say the majority of that 95% At some point in their life, had a desire to be in the 5%. Right. Yeah, they wore the jersey of the person that they idolize. They, you know, they, they they change their perspective, are they are they are they? They tried to be something that they thought that they weren't. And at some point along the way, there was a life event or a thing that said, Nah, just, you're just not going to be that. Yeah. Right. And what you just said is like that a mentoring role in someone's life, you know, at some therapeutic level allows them to rediscover that five, that being a Five Percenter is possible. Yeah. Right? For sure. And that's when I shoot that was for me, Aaron Hill, right? That was the guy that kind of drew that out of me. I was like a, you know, nine to 12, sales, you know, car month guy. And then Aaron was like, he did the same. I love how you said, like, what do you want to buy? Who's your family? What do you want to do? Like, what are all these things that do? Yeah, you start going down the layers into your why? And it's like, you start to expose those things. And all of a sudden, someone gets reinvigorated to be a part of the 5%. And I think that like, just to go deeper in that and maybe you can comment on this as I think that our industry says a lot that we want to do training and developing. But what we maybe miss is that training and developing requires mentorship as a prerequisite

Jack Pearson: 14:06

offer show and they have to be able to look up to you as well. So what what I was telling Louis, I would tell him my dreams as well. I'm Mike Lewis. And can I need you to help our values and our goals aligned? Like if I helped you hit your goals, you're gonna help me hit mine, as well. And that's part of the mentorship as well.

Paul J Daly: 14:28

So what are you most excited about right now? So your position you're at a JLR store right outside of Chicago? Yep. And what are your aspirations like what what's your position your role right now enveloping? And like, what do you want it to be? Like? Do you want to own a store one day where where are your goals? So

Jack Pearson: 14:46

right now, I love life. I've got a great job. I'm what they call the center manager, which is for some reason, the British way of saying General Manager

Paul J Daly: 14:54

I was gonna say it's, it seemed very, like the center manager. I was like, that feels like yeah,

Jack Pearson: 14:59

I'm we we spell it wrong as well, centro, it's not yet the end, is that a VR?

Paul J Daly: 15:05

But so they do they do it in your store, they spell it that way like they bring it across the pond. Yeah, yeah, I like that though.

Jack Pearson: 15:14

So my main responsibilities is leading the variable operations of the site, and also kind of the director for customer experience. And that's with service as well, just making sure everyone's happy and looking at different processes in here. But the majority of my responsibility is just hit making sure the variable operations run smoothly, and we keep growing the business. The next six months, I'm super pumped up for, you know, during COVID, we literally had no cost to sell. I know everyone says all inventory was down, but we ran a sales meeting, and we went over the inventory. And we had 10 new cars on the ground. And we showed our inventory pipeline of there will be zero new cars delivered in the next 90 days. appstore Oh, my goodness, and they kind of knew, but then I'm like, I gotta I gotta address the elephant in the room. Like, we're going to have no new cars for 90 days, guys, but it's going to be okay. Like, it's fine. I'm not worried about it. I was kind of sweating bullets here. But I'm like, it's gonna be okay, we're gonna figure it out. We massively expanded our used car operation, you know, we were probably one of the only stores in the country that sold for for us cars to every new and that, and that six months was probably more I mean, we sold for new cars one month, which was just, it's absolutely pathetic, but we didn't have any new cars to sell. So what new cars we sold 65 years. So the next six months, we've actually got inventory, we have about a 45 day supply of cars on the ground. And we've got a now we've got killer cars. I mean, Land Rover has just done and Jagger's, done such a good job. I mean, we absolutely love our product, we're super passionate about it. And we're going to now a customer comes in, if we don't have something available on the ground, there are 90 days to get a car. Before we were giving crappy customer experiences. We have no idea when the car is going to be here, we're going to have no idea if that sound system is going to be available. We don't think we're going to be able to get your car within a year, it might be a year, it might be three years, we don't know. And now it's like, Hey, you want to come in and spend$100,000 and you store we're gonna give you an amazing experience and we're gonna get that car here within 90 days for

Paul J Daly: 17:24

you. Funny thing about that? Why do people why do people choose like the the Land Rover experience over like a Mercedes experience because the highline buyer right, like they have a certain mindset, why are people walking in your store?

Jack Pearson: 17:36

There's a lot of there's a lot of choices, a lot of nice luxury SUVs. Now I'll tell you from the Range Rover point of view, so in Land Rover, you've got basically three families of cars, you've got the defender family, which has utilitarian adventurous car discovery, which is a little bit more family focused, you've got the Range Rover, which the nameplate, you say Range Rover, it means a little bit more to people. The Range Rover is really celebration of some success. And it might be it might be a nurse who's worked their rear end off of last three years, during COVID. They haven't made much money in their life, now they're making a little bit more, and they can now afford a 6070 $80,000 range rover on the front end is hey, I've kind of arrived. And I'm looking for the experience to go along with it as one it is our job to match up. You know, they've had this current vision board maybe for 10 years, and it's our job to help them celebrate that success and deliver them an amazing experience along with that car.

Paul J Daly: 18:36

Like that. It's it's almost

Kyle Mountsier: 18:39

like their success. It's it's like you're providing an existential moment in their life potentially, right that this is like

Jack Pearson: 18:46

two people. Yeah. So so

Kyle Mountsier: 18:49

when you think about that, like what are the unique things that you feel are a part of not just like, you know, being a progressive car dealer in general, but delivering that particular thing that they that that someone entering that type of purchase process needs or wants, right? To get?

Jack Pearson: 19:13

Yeah, there's a few tangible things you can do towards the end of the process. You can bring in a bottle of rose a you can bring in flowers, and but if you really start at start the journey customer comes in. We have what's called a CNA during our sales, sales process, customer needs analysis. Everyone's kind of got one, maybe you've got written one down, but on our customer needs analysis, we've got a big circle and in the middle, it says what is the goal of the customer and it's our job to help them make a decision. And if they come in and say, Hey, I'm looking for Range Rover Sport, a lot of dealers will say, Great, what's the stock number? Do you have you seen it online? Great. Let me go grab the keys. I'll be right back. We have probably five or six different questions we like to answer. It's like he probably didn't just step in the dealership today to get a ranger like Well, what's happened in your life? Tell me a little bit more about it. Instead of asking if they want a cup of coffee or a bottle of water it see what what americano can we get you? What cappuccino? What what type allottee do

Paul J Daly: 20:10

we have in our language now? And

Jack Pearson: 20:14

yeah, I'm a coffee snob. So I call myself stuff is trained to be a coffee snob as amazing

Paul J Daly: 20:20

and get along real well.

Kyle Mountsier: 20:21

Paula moon in Chicago, we got a SOCCER GUY. Coffee. Yeah, it's over. It's done.

Jack Pearson: 20:28

We want to find out why, you know, is this, how long you've been thinking about it? What special were you going out to celebrate tonight, and then once we know the real purpose, then we can adjust our sales process on it. And sometimes it's not always the customers in the market today, we're going to find out why. But we also by asking those deep level questions, we're able to generate a lot more rapport with the customer. And it becomes more of a relationship. And then buy after about five minutes of conversation with thanking them for doing business with us when they haven't signed anything yet, like was thank you for choosing Jaguar Land Rover social to help you with this range of like, we take this really, really seriously. And you know, perks about Java to help you know successful people, you know, great customers like yourself with this purchase. So we try and start with the relationship. And then we do a lot of different tangible things towards the end. Just add a little bit icing on the cake. I mean, we actually interviewed a salesperson last week. And they were asking, you know, did you dealership do anything different? etc. And I said, Well, we have a we have a lady in the showroom right now that is a realtor. But she just started her own Pilates studio about a year ago. And she's been really successful. And I said the sales lady who's working with us, Laura. And I was like Laura should know this. And as she's going into the delivery, delivery bait to pick up a car, we put a sign up for someone's name, congratulating them on the purchase. If we know anything that's really important to that person will try and highlight that and the delivery. So I said to this person, we're interviewing for salesperson who said, I'm going to guess that Laura has a picture of this lady's logo on this congratulation sign. And I was like, I'm 99% certain, you know, but I was still putting myself out there. And sure enough, I've walked out with this person who's interviewing for a sales position, and she saw this logo on that. And that just made me feel pretty warm. Because I'm like, that's the deal that we just made. And this lady's you know, she's crying. I've worked so hard to get his planning studio going up, you've recognized that, you know, you guys celebrate female entrepreneurship. I mean, it's just like, yeah, we've got that customer for life. It wasn't

Paul J Daly: 22:41

expensive that cost you like $0 You already printing a thing, but we potentiality

Jack Pearson: 22:46

Yeah, my sales lady. She just went through so many different layers of questions to get there in the relationship. We do things like that. I mean,

Kyle Mountsier: 22:54

have you read unreasonable hospitality? Their book? Okay. out there. I gotta believe it. Dude is all in. Right. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. I love it. Yeah, this is like that, that like, that reeks of in a good way of dream weaving of just like being so intentional with a person. And this is what's crazy. Like, yeah, we're talking about it in the in the construct of luxury dealership luxury experience, like Paul just said, that didn't that cost? Like, less than half a penny of ink. Right? Yeah. But change the perspective of this person on your business. You're ever. It's, it's critical. It's incredible. Yeah. And that takes training to recognize to understand to make sure the process is is crafted in a way that allows that to be exposed through the sales, you know, and the purchase journey. So kudos to you for leading your team. Well, hey, Jack, we can see why people have selected and the people have spoken in in you leading your team and being nominated as this 40 under 40. So kudos on that. I can't wait to see what you do next. Because I feel like I'm going to need someone to like start vlogging what happens in your store because it seems like that's going to be super, you know, something recognizable in our industry. But thanks for spending a little bit of time today here with us on Auto Collabs

Jack Pearson: 24:24

so I really appreciate appreciate you guys passionate for the industry. I hope you guys keep exploding. It's cool to see how many passionate people come on and viable you guys because that's what our industry needs unfortunately don't have the best reputation you know, it's a fun, outgoing passionate industry and I think I think you know, people like yourselves like to change changing

Paul J Daly: 24:49

one bit at a time. Of course there's a soccer connection. Guys. I

Kyle Mountsier: 24:58

was so happy in that moment. My contention, okay, okay, I'll just I'll only talk about it for a minute we'll move on past this scenario. The soccer thing always gets me excited. Stop

Paul J Daly: 25:08

pretending that you didn't talk about it eight minutes before we started the podcast. That is true. But But granted, in all fairness, if the person's a Philly fan, you I, you allow me the same courtesy of. Yeah, I mean, it's a very relevant to you conversation if

Kyle Mountsier: 25:21

anybody ever took you know, like went to Niagara Falls and stepped foot in Canada, we make we make fun of Microsoft's there it is. It is what it is.

Paul J Daly: 25:31

Michael Cirillo makes fun of Canada more than any American community. That's kind of

Kyle Mountsier: 25:35

true. Yeah, that's true. Well, the other thing that I think well, one, we obviously will get there unreasonable hospitality, this idea of what does a purchase a service process look like that uniquely cares to the individual, beyond just this is the process that we put everyone through. But it's the process that we put everyone through so that we can expose the things that allow us to go above and beyond right, and that it's so expected in his culture, that he would be able to bring someone to the showroom, and look across the showroom and be like, I bet you anything this is going on and then to go inspect it and know that the little thing little card had a unique thing for that customer in that moment. That was for all intents and purposes free. You just had to be aware.

Paul J Daly: 26:24

I mean, MC you're about to be part of opening a dealership that is stating to be all about customer experience. We'll see Yeah, if you really want.

Michael Cirillo: 26:36

But you know what, like, when you really think about it, the last the last three cars that I've purchased, and this is gonna sound crazy. Some people are gonna gnash their teeth. The last three cars I've purchased. Nobody at the dealership thanked me. It was always like, Alright guys, enjoy your new ride. Right? It was always one of those. Nobody thanked me. It

Unknown: 27:06

was sincere.

Michael Cirillo: 27:08

Were so overthinking that the basis of a better customer experience could look like a genuine handshake. Look in the eyes and say, Hey, thank you so much for choosing us. We know there's a lot of options out there. It means the world to me. Yeah. And I sincerely appreciate you. Yeah, I

Unknown: 27:27

don't know how solid today's episode.

Paul J Daly: 27:29

I think we should think I feel like now we should thank people for listening to this podcast. We think you you have more options in podcast than people do in cars. Let's just put it that way. So we want to thank you on behalf of Kyle Mountsier Michael Cirillo the whole asoto team. By the way, our producer Nathan, I feel like we need to go down the list now. We work really hard to put this stuff on so you can watch it. So thank you for watching and listening. We'll see you next time on Auto Collabs.

Unknown: 27:55

Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news and automotive, retail media and pop culture. You can get it now@asotu.com That's ASOTU.com If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time. Welcome to recording

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