A word of advice to young minority would-be dealers: The daily grind is rife with successes as well as defeats. The key is to brush off the failures and keep moving ahead, said Ray Fregia, dealer principal of Courtesy Ford stores in Danville, Ill., and Sauk City, Wis.
"Don't get discouraged," he said. "It's so easy to do in this business."
Fregia said he's happy when a mailer has a 3 percent success rate, meaning 97 percent of them of failed. Not every deal with a customer gets approved, and Fregia said he doesn't get every store he wants to buy as he tries to expand his group.
But that's life as a retailer.
Sometimes, people will have to say, "Hey, you know what? I'm gonna keep on the grind, I'm not going to let this one failure or one thing that didn't go my way stop me from the grind because I've got a bigger picture in mind," Fregia said Wednesday during the NADA Show "Diversity in Auto Retail" session. "My goal is so much bigger than this one failure or this one deal or this one thing not going exactly right."
He was joined by Kathryn Mataga, general manager of Mataga Buick- GMC-Cadillac in Stockton, Calif.; Ivan Figueroa, general manager of Steve Landers Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram in Little Rock, Ark.; and moderator Jeff Breeland, a dealership management consultant for NADA.
Mataga said having thick skin is a necessity for anyone considering a career in auto retailing. Up-and-comers should understand, she said, that "just because somebody says you can't do it doesn't make it true."
"Have faith in your ability and your ideals, because that's what you're bringing to the table," Mataga said. "When you're diverse, when you're different, see that as a positive thing. See your diversity as a strength."
Mataga said it's important to keep "a positive mental attitude, because only you can control you; you can't control other factors outside of you."
Figueroa believes you have to fail sometimes in order to ultimately succeed. Don't give up, he said.
Figueroa came to the U.S. from Puerto Rico when he was 19 and got into the car business soon after.
"One thing that we can control is drive," said Figueroa, now 43. "How we can learn from this person that is in another level or a manager? That's the way that I grew up, learning different procedures and sitting down with them, watching how they do it, how they conduct themselves, how do they talk to people, how do they behave?"
Figueroa added: "Looking back, in my experience a lot of people from different backgrounds have invested a lot in me."
