Tom Stuker is president of Stuker International, an auto dealership consulting firm, who has worked with more than 15,000 dealerships in the past three decades. The Chicago-based consultant first gained notoriety by becoming the first United Airlines frequent flyer to hit the 10 million mile mark, earning him the airlines first ever Titanium Mileage Plus membership card along with plenty of press coverage in the wake of the George Clooney film Up in the Air (which was about a similarly well-traveled executive). In January, he gets his own reality show, "Car Lot Cowboy," which will showcase Stuker's team advising troubled dealerships. The show premieres on Jan. 17 at 10 p.m. on Spike TV.
How did the idea for the TV show come up?
When the Up in the Air movie got a lot of publicity, I got an awful lot of media attention. I was on "Nightline" just before the Oscars, and a few days before that piece was aired I got an e-mail from my agent asking if I'd consider doing a reality show. I was thinking it would be about my traveling, because it was right after that, but they said it would be about training sales people. The folks who put the whole package together sat down with me and asked, "How do you feel about wearing a cowboy hat?" I said, "I'm from Chicago and I live in New Jersey. There's not a cowboy hat within 500 miles of me!"
They explained the concept of the show, and how they saw me as this cowboy character who kind of rides in to help these dealers. I told them if they paid me enough money, I'd wear nothing but the cowboy hat.
What are the most common problems you encounter at the dealerships you work with?
There's probably about 10 common problems, and they haven't changed much over the past 30 years of me doing this. Starting in the sales department, most dealerships do a panic hire. They wait until they're short handed. In other words, they hire for the floor, not the market.
If they lose two people, they think they need bodies and they lower their standards. They just throw them out there with very little training. Then they panic train. They get the manager to train them, and the manager has to balance the fact that he doesn't have the time or the wherewithal to do it. Most managers are really strong A-type personalities that have advanced because they sell more. They can't articulate that training over a seven-day course.
In the management ranks, the weakest link is middle management, because if a dealer has to choose between getting the most organized person into management or advancing the strongest salesperson, they advance the salesperson. You have the blind leading the blind, for the most part.
What sorts of challenges do you see on the parts and service side?
I have another person I bring if I come across a dealership with significant fixed ops problems. Fixed ops is the backbone of almost every dealership. The object of fixed ops is to have 100 percent penetration, which means paying for basic expenses of the dealership through that channel. Service departments in general are very well run and organized.
Here's the irony: The typical service department I could walk in right now, they could tell me how many spark plugs they sold last week, their profitability and costs and everything. They can do that for spark plugs. But go to a dealership and ask them how much money they spent on advertising, and what that did for them. Every time a person goes into a service drive, there's a simple way to keep track of customers in service department. There's very little accountability on the retail side. They spend a lot of money to bring customers in, and there's not much accountability.
The sales figures in the auto industry seem to be improving. What are you seeing at the dealerships you visit?
Well-run stores are seeing improvement, and lousy stores are still lousy stores. Some dealers could succeed in spite of themselves and sell more cars just because more people are coming in. I'm seeing it more in specific pockets around the country rather than across the whole nation.
Tom Stuker is president of Stuker International, an auto dealership consulting firm, who has worked with more than 15,000 dealerships in the past three decades. The Chicago-based consultant first gained notoriety by becoming the first United Airlines frequent flyer to hit the 10 million mile mark, earning him the airlines first ever Titanium Mileage Plus membership card along with plenty of press coverage in the wake of the George Clooney film Up in the Air (which was about a similarly well-traveled executive). In January, he gets his own reality show, "Car Lot Cowboy," which will showcase Stuker's team advising troubled dealerships. The show premieres on Jan. 17 at 10 p.m. on Spike TV.
How did the idea for the TV show come up?
When the Up in the Air movie got a lot of publicity, I got an awful lot of media attention. I was on "Nightline" just before the Oscars, and a few days before that piece was aired I got an e-mail from my agent asking if I'd consider doing a reality show. I was thinking it would be about my traveling, because it was right after that, but they said it would be about training sales people. The folks who put the whole package together sat down with me and asked, "How do you feel about wearing a cowboy hat?" I said, "I'm from Chicago and I live in New Jersey. There's not a cowboy hat within 500 miles of me!"
They explained the concept of the show, and how they saw me as this cowboy character who kind of rides in to help these dealers. I told them if they paid me enough money, I'd wear nothing but the cowboy hat.
What are the most common problems you encounter at the dealerships you work with?
There's probably about 10 common problems, and they haven't changed much over the past 30 years of me doing this. Starting in the sales department, most dealerships do a panic hire. They wait until they're short handed. In other words, they hire for the floor, not the market.
If they lose two people, they think they need bodies and they lower their standards. They just throw them out there with very little training. Then they panic train. They get the manager to train them, and the manager has to balance the fact that he doesn't have the time or the wherewithal to do it. Most managers are really strong A-type personalities that have advanced because they sell more. They can't articulate that training over a seven-day course.
In the management ranks, the weakest link is middle management, because if a dealer has to choose between getting the most organized person into management or advancing the strongest salesperson, they advance the salesperson. You have the blind leading the blind, for the most part.
{C}What sorts of challenges do you see on the parts and service side?
I have another person I bring if I come across a dealership with significant fixed ops problems. Fixed ops is the backbone of almost every dealership. The object of fixed ops is to have 100 percent penetration, which means paying for basic expenses of the dealership through that channel. Service departments in general are very well run and organized.
Here's the irony: The typical service department I could walk in right now, they could tell me how many spark plugs they sold last week, their profitability and costs and everything. They can do that for spark plugs. But go to a dealership and ask them how much money they spent on advertising, and what that did for them. Every time a person goes into a service drive, there's a simple way to keep track of customers in service department. There's very little accountability on the retail side. They spend a lot of money to bring customers in, and there's not much accountability.
The sales figures in the auto industry seem to be improving. What are you seeing at the dealerships you visit?
Well-run stores are seeing improvement, and lousy stores are still lousy stores. Some dealers could succeed in spite of themselves and sell more cars just because more people are coming in. I'm seeing it more in specific pockets around the country rather than across the whole nation.
