Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 08/07/2024 Ask the Expert with Larry Dawson

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08/07/2024 Ask the Expert with Larry Dawson · WCHS Network Podcasts

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Speaker 1: Unlock your dream property with Meeks Realty Group, where Rich
0:03
Speaker 1: the realtor makes real estate dreams a reality, whether it's
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Speaker 1: residential or commercial. We've got Charleston to Huntington covered. Your
0:09
Speaker 1: key to exceptional real estate experience is start here Meeks
0:12
Speaker 1: Realty Group. Contact us at Meeks dot us.
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Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
0:18
Speaker 2: necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five adwchs it's
0:22
Speaker 2: employees or WVRC Media.
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Speaker 3: And the very pleasant good morning to you. You're listening
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Speaker 3: to ask the expert w SEEHS the voice of Charleston
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Speaker 3: welcoming back into studio this morning. You've clamored for him
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Speaker 3: and he's back. Larry Dawson is back here this morning.
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Speaker 3: We're talking about cars this morning. Talk a little bit
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Speaker 3: about Steven's Auto of Nitro. But Larry Dawson, formerly of
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Speaker 3: Larrydawson's Auto Sales of Nitro, is here this morning taking
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Speaker 3: your phone calls. If you want to get in with
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Speaker 3: Larry three zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight.
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Speaker 3: You can also text over questions the three zero four
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Speaker 3: nine three five five zeros ar eight every good morning.
1:00
Speaker 3: How you doing this.
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Speaker 4: Morning, Good morning, good morning. I made to drive up.
1:03
Speaker 4: It's boy, it's noticeable when the kids are out of school.
1:07
Speaker 3: Isn't it?
1:08
Speaker 4: The drive from Winfield year versus when the children.
1:11
Speaker 3: Are by just last five hundred yards differ which.
1:14
Speaker 4: Is coming back? So speaking that you know, and I've
1:17
Speaker 4: said this for many many years, we are going to
1:20
Speaker 4: that back to school business. And because when I was
1:24
Speaker 4: when I was operating, I got a lot of request
1:27
Speaker 4: normally starting around the first August at junior or Missy
1:31
Speaker 4: are going to go to college, or they're getting their license,
1:33
Speaker 4: or they were going to buy my cars. So we
1:36
Speaker 4: are entering into that, uh kid's kids for cars for kids,
1:41
Speaker 4: right back to school time. So if you if you're
1:44
Speaker 4: if you are looking Steven's Auto, you know their next door.
1:49
Speaker 4: I have a little office next door. But they have
1:51
Speaker 4: plenty of inventory. I've looked their inventory. I kind of
1:53
Speaker 4: you know, you have to see it because I'm decided.
1:55
Speaker 4: But come to Nitro and uh it, come to the
1:59
Speaker 4: Stevens experience in this listening audience. I don't know how
2:03
Speaker 4: far we reach. I know you're statewide, but they occupy
2:06
Speaker 4: mins of issue store down in Bluefield. They have a
2:09
Speaker 4: supercenter up in Summersville. Their flagship store is in Danville
2:14
Speaker 4: that Richard Stevens's father has started. It's a Chrysler and
2:18
Speaker 4: Ford franchised and they have a supercenter up around the
2:23
Speaker 4: Somersville area in Nicholas County, and their newest one is
2:26
Speaker 4: my previous own store is a Nitro but so they're
2:31
Speaker 4: kind of a got from Nitro Kenall County, and you
2:34
Speaker 4: know that's Danville, which is Boone County, and I think
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Speaker 4: that might be Mercer County down there around Bluefield and
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Speaker 4: Nicholas County in Somersville. So they have those states surrounded
2:44
Speaker 4: and we are when you have the intense heat, and
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Speaker 4: I've never seen in my years of the automobile world
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Speaker 4: experiencing the drought intense heat like we have this summer.
2:59
Speaker 4: Shoes melt your shoes. And this is the first summer
3:02
Speaker 4: that I guess I've entered into or sunsetting my career
3:07
Speaker 4: or twilight or whatever you want to I'm not working.
3:11
Speaker 4: I'm not working as much, but I do remember very
3:16
Speaker 4: hot days when that asphalt and everybody just has to
3:21
Speaker 4: take a little patience pill because patients do run for
3:25
Speaker 4: them and cars act differently. You know, when you climb
3:28
Speaker 4: in a car that's been sitting there for a day
3:31
Speaker 4: or a week or a month, and it's one hundred
3:34
Speaker 4: plus degrees that car. When you climb in, you're going
3:38
Speaker 4: to be very uncomfortable. And you know, that's just how
3:43
Speaker 4: it is. That the salesperson probably has been there since
3:46
Speaker 4: nine o'clock and maybe the consumer has went home and
3:50
Speaker 4: already showered an eight, and you know they're a little
3:52
Speaker 4: fresher and you come out and it is the evening
3:55
Speaker 4: hours approach. It seems like that's when the sun is
3:58
Speaker 4: just unbearably and I feel for both parties. I mean,
4:04
Speaker 4: you know, it's it's it's the salesperson that he or
4:07
Speaker 4: she's been there all day and this might be the
4:10
Speaker 4: third or fourth or fifth cushper and you know, you
4:13
Speaker 4: walk out and you get in, it's scorching hot car.
4:15
Speaker 4: And you walk across, like you said, the scorching hot
4:18
Speaker 4: asphalt or seema whatever maybe the pavement is. And I
4:24
Speaker 4: remember my days and my advice to the salespe people,
4:27
Speaker 4: not not only the Stephens Auto salespeople, but everybody out there.
4:32
Speaker 4: It's hot both ways. You know, you just have to
4:35
Speaker 4: create a little patience and slow things down and get
4:39
Speaker 4: in I know that the air conditioning working great at
4:41
Speaker 4: that building when Stephen's leased it from me, But it
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Speaker 4: is unbelievable how the heat has affects everybody, and you know,
4:51
Speaker 4: including me. I just yesterday evening, I had some chores
4:55
Speaker 4: to do at the house, actually down to the farm.
4:58
Speaker 4: I went home, took myself a little breather, and actually
5:01
Speaker 4: I think maybe I might a cat mapped just because
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Speaker 4: I was drained. You know, you go out and regardless
5:08
Speaker 4: of what your profession is, and this heat, it's tough
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Speaker 4: on you.
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Speaker 3: It doesn't you know, You're absolutely right, that doesn't matter
5:14
Speaker 3: what you're doing, even if you're just running errands. I
5:16
Speaker 3: found myself had a little bit of time off this
5:18
Speaker 3: weekend and was just running some errands around. I had
5:21
Speaker 3: four or five things I wanted to do on Saturday,
5:24
Speaker 3: and about halfway through, because I had to get out
5:26
Speaker 3: in the car, out of the car, and in the car,
5:27
Speaker 3: out in the car, out of the car. About half
5:28
Speaker 3: way through, I was like, you know what, I'm going
5:31
Speaker 3: to abbort this mission. About halfway through, go home and
5:35
Speaker 3: we'll pick this up tomorrow. Because I was just too hot.
5:37
Speaker 3: I mean, it was just getting in and out of
5:39
Speaker 3: the car. I was running around. I'd been up all morning,
5:41
Speaker 3: I had to work early and everything too. But I
5:42
Speaker 3: just want to get home to my kid and where
5:44
Speaker 3: it was somewhat cool man, because it was just uncomfortable outside.
5:47
Speaker 4: Well, the presentation of any commodity, you know, lessen you're
5:50
Speaker 4: selling air conditioning system, you walk into the showroom, it's
5:54
Speaker 4: blowing on you. If you have an outside commodity, whither
5:57
Speaker 4: it it'd be an RBA camp or boat automobiles, which
6:00
Speaker 4: I'm familiar with. This is the time of the year
6:04
Speaker 4: where you're really tested, and so I think the strength
6:08
Speaker 4: of any cellspeople is understanding, you know, first of all,
6:13
Speaker 4: and bringing someone into a comfort area, which is air
6:17
Speaker 4: conditioning their showroom or your office or whatever it may be.
6:21
Speaker 4: But it's it's a challenging time and it doesn't look
6:25
Speaker 4: like to me there's any end in sight in the
6:27
Speaker 4: near future.
6:28
Speaker 3: It's not much. I mean, like dip down to eighty.
6:31
Speaker 4: Nine, right, So it's you know, we have a storm
6:35
Speaker 4: coming up, but by what I'm listing seeing, it might
6:37
Speaker 4: be breaking up. We might get a little bit of rain.
6:40
Speaker 4: I feel very, very bad for the farmers or anybody
6:44
Speaker 4: that you know, our hay once again, I'm a farmer.
6:47
Speaker 4: I have a farm that there's no hay. I mean
6:53
Speaker 4: it's all the farmers that has cattle or horse that
6:59
Speaker 4: rely on or their pastures to grow. This hay is
7:04
Speaker 4: going to be. I mean, there's this. It's awful. It's
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Speaker 4: this weeds. All it's going to be is cut and
7:09
Speaker 4: knocked down. And so we're going to see the effects
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Speaker 4: of that.
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Speaker 3: This is the kind of weather if you have a vehicle,
7:16
Speaker 3: any vehicle really, but if even just a little bit
7:18
Speaker 3: of age with this air type of temperature for a
7:20
Speaker 3: long enough time, you could start seeing some problems with
7:22
Speaker 3: seals and things like that. I've noticed that on my
7:24
Speaker 3: vehicle that I'm starting to get some dry rot around
7:26
Speaker 3: the door. Normally, I think that that would naturally over
7:30
Speaker 3: the course of a season, you know, it would go
7:31
Speaker 3: hot and cold and wet and night, and it would maintain.
7:34
Speaker 3: But I think it's been dry and hot for so
7:36
Speaker 3: long it's just cracking and starting to deteriorate some. The
7:39
Speaker 3: cause of the weather.
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Speaker 4: Well, an automobile or a moving part with a petroleum
7:43
Speaker 4: or a gasoline, fire or electric regardless of what hell
7:47
Speaker 4: it is, it is engine by whether it be electric
7:52
Speaker 4: or diesel or gasoline, and I guess there's some other alternatives,
7:56
Speaker 4: but it is a box of metal and plastic and rubber.
7:59
Speaker 4: And you know that when you get this heat. I
8:05
Speaker 4: tell people that when you have extreme cold, you take
8:09
Speaker 4: precautionary measures with your automobile, and you need to do
8:12
Speaker 4: the same thing with Last night. Here's a great example.
8:16
Speaker 4: Last night, after I did my chores and I came home,
8:18
Speaker 4: it was probably eight fifteen eight thirty, I pulled a
8:23
Speaker 4: vehicle out of my garage by the NULLI that I
8:25
Speaker 4: talk about here, and I washed it because this must
8:28
Speaker 4: have been too hot to wash. I mean, I just thought, well,
8:32
Speaker 4: I'm going to go. It needed to be done. And
8:35
Speaker 4: there's this things that you have to do. That automobile.
8:38
Speaker 4: It deserves to be washed and cleaned and checked those
8:41
Speaker 4: tire pressures, this type of I mean, check those tires
8:44
Speaker 4: pressure because everything expands at heat.
8:47
Speaker 3: My poor mom's getting ran all over the place for
8:49
Speaker 3: their entire pressures.
8:52
Speaker 4: I think. Wasn't it down around I think it was
8:55
Speaker 4: in Boon County, maybe around Madison. Didn't they have a
8:58
Speaker 4: road that just literally lifting That's what I thought. It
9:02
Speaker 4: was just Jody Johnson, which Jody's just such a nice guy.
9:06
Speaker 4: He's a sales manager at the store, and he lives
9:09
Speaker 4: over in Boone County, and I think he and I
9:10
Speaker 4: was talking about it and he was going home and
9:13
Speaker 4: it was a stretch of asphalt that just raised. Now
9:16
Speaker 4: that's intense heat. And remember you're driving a car too.
9:21
Speaker 4: With this heat, it affects, It affects the body, affects everybody.
9:27
Speaker 4: I don't recall. I was in business thirty seven years,
9:30
Speaker 4: and I was ten years prior to that. So for
9:33
Speaker 4: forty seven years of my life I was in the
9:36
Speaker 4: automobile business out there working on the asphalt. There may
9:40
Speaker 4: have been a hotter summer, drier summer, I don't recall.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, the data suggests not very many. Yeah, that's true.
9:47
Speaker 3: It's been so hot, man. And when you're out there,
9:49
Speaker 3: and this leads into when you have a job, like
9:53
Speaker 3: if you're in sales and automobile sales, that's really important.
9:57
Speaker 3: You mentioned a moment ago, maybe trying to bring in
9:59
Speaker 3: somebody inside to the air conditioning, maybe look at a
10:01
Speaker 3: car that's on the showroom or something like that, because
10:03
Speaker 3: nobody wants to sit outside and have a twenty minute
10:06
Speaker 3: conversation standing still in one hundred degree heat when asphalt.
10:09
Speaker 3: You don't want to do it. Man, it's just not
10:11
Speaker 3: a comfortable place to be. You have to you have
10:13
Speaker 3: to break that up a little bit. You got to
10:15
Speaker 3: make people comfortable and you got to be comfortable yourself,
10:17
Speaker 3: because you're just gonna get short tempered. Even if it's
10:19
Speaker 3: not anger, it's going to be you're not going to
10:21
Speaker 3: feel like dealing with you know, negotiation whatever it is,
10:24
Speaker 3: or finding out about something that just shortcuts the conversation.
10:27
Speaker 3: Some it's good to take it off location and get
10:29
Speaker 3: a little cooler.
10:30
Speaker 4: That's true, and I think you'll find that probably that's
10:35
Speaker 4: the characteristic of people. I mean we we probably operate
10:40
Speaker 4: really good at one hundred percent between thirty five and
10:44
Speaker 4: eighty ish. I was telling somebody the other day. When
10:47
Speaker 4: that is that the mom or goes up or goes
10:49
Speaker 4: down in between those levels, you know it fixed. The
10:51
Speaker 4: body checks our personality, if you know, and our personality
10:55
Speaker 4: is our sales tool in the automobile way.
10:57
Speaker 3: That's a great point, right you know that.
10:58
Speaker 4: I mean that is that you're you show me the
11:03
Speaker 4: top salesperson at a store that is retelling something and
11:09
Speaker 4: normally a higher ticket item automobile boat RV. I always
11:13
Speaker 4: reflect back to that because we're kind of on the
11:15
Speaker 4: same field. I'll show you a person that you'll enjoy
11:18
Speaker 4: being around if you'll look over and see that they
11:22
Speaker 4: were the tops or the top tier. Is somebody that's
11:26
Speaker 4: going to say, you know, they're fun to be around,
11:29
Speaker 4: they're nice people. You want to go play golf with them,
11:31
Speaker 4: you want to go to lunch with him, you want
11:33
Speaker 4: to do something with them. And that's normally that's that's
11:36
Speaker 4: the gene or genetics that helps sealespeople improve it. Just
11:41
Speaker 4: once again, I want to brag one more time, Jody,
11:43
Speaker 4: if you're listening to me, Jody's one of the nicest
11:45
Speaker 4: guys I ever met. And I never knew Jody after
11:48
Speaker 4: I've got through talking to Jody when he first I
11:50
Speaker 4: knew his father and his father the same way. But
11:54
Speaker 4: when you meet someone like that and he sticked their
11:56
Speaker 4: hand out and shake and has that smile and has
12:02
Speaker 4: that forwardness, that that is just a trait that excels
12:08
Speaker 4: in the automobile world or the retail world, you know,
12:11
Speaker 4: real estate. My niece is one of the top relators.
12:15
Speaker 4: I brag on her a little bit. She was a housewife,
12:19
Speaker 4: two children, my nephews and kind of middle life, decided
12:24
Speaker 4: she was going to get in the real estate business.
12:27
Speaker 4: I was maybe one of the people she referred to
12:30
Speaker 4: and said, what do you think? And Jamie has really excelled.
12:35
Speaker 4: And Jamie is a hard worker, and she's in a
12:38
Speaker 4: very competitive business, you know, relator car people, you know,
12:42
Speaker 4: very competitive and I think she's been in it probably
12:46
Speaker 4: seven or eight years. But I think it's the personality.
12:50
Speaker 4: Well I know what it is. It's drive in the personality.
12:53
Speaker 4: Maybe it's the Dauphin Jean, but I see it all
12:55
Speaker 4: across the board in sales and when you walk into
13:02
Speaker 4: a retail outlet that you're going to buy something and
13:07
Speaker 4: you are approached and it doesn't bond, it doesn't click.
13:13
Speaker 4: That's the number one reason why people doesn't buy. They
13:17
Speaker 4: say it's price. It's not price. You just don't want
13:20
Speaker 4: to do business with someone that you're just not bonding with.
13:25
Speaker 4: It started out bad. Well, if it starts out bad,
13:28
Speaker 4: it's only going to get worse. And as before we
13:31
Speaker 4: get to the price, you know, you walk into a
13:34
Speaker 4: box store to buy a large screen TV, or maybe
13:38
Speaker 4: you're going to replace your bedroom suit and when you approach.
13:41
Speaker 4: If it doesn't start out well, it's probably not going
13:44
Speaker 4: to end up well. And that's what I was taught
13:47
Speaker 4: long time ago in sales. It's not the price. You've
13:51
Speaker 4: kind of decided your budget. You've decided you and your
13:55
Speaker 4: wife are going to replace your living room suit or
13:58
Speaker 4: your automobile, or maybe your HVAC is going bad and
14:03
Speaker 4: you're thinking about it. So you know, you go to
14:05
Speaker 4: look at a new unit, but that salesperson walks up.
14:09
Speaker 4: You've got about fifteen seconds that salesperson do to bring
14:14
Speaker 4: you in to an atmosphere that you're going to feel
14:18
Speaker 4: comfortable with. And that was one of the things that
14:21
Speaker 4: I learned that. And if you feel us going bad,
14:25
Speaker 4: if just for whatever reason, there's nothing wrong with said,
14:28
Speaker 4: let me get you a salesperson that probably can help
14:31
Speaker 4: you a little bit better. You're not giving up. You're
14:34
Speaker 4: doing justice to the business you're working for. But I've
14:39
Speaker 4: seen it over and over and over and over and
14:41
Speaker 4: over and over. I won't name the story I drove
14:44
Speaker 4: by yesterday, but had I posted on Facebook and a
14:47
Speaker 4: lot of people say, oh, whatt you just retired? Well
14:49
Speaker 4: I am, but I'm still gotten by cars. That the
14:52
Speaker 4: last two days. I bought seven cars. And let me
14:55
Speaker 4: tell you something. It's been hot now. I mean it
14:56
Speaker 4: was one hundred plus. And we drove by story yesterday
15:02
Speaker 4: and I looked over as new car store and I've
15:06
Speaker 4: torn that stoop or steps going in set sells people
15:11
Speaker 4: and every one of them was sitting there with a
15:14
Speaker 4: cell phone. And I made a comment to the fellow
15:18
Speaker 4: that was writing with me. I said, you know that's
15:21
Speaker 4: not a good approach. You know that walk up and hello,
15:26
Speaker 4: welcome to WHS. My name is Larry Dawson, a sells repid.
15:30
Speaker 4: What may I do to help you? That's how I
15:33
Speaker 4: was taught to do it. And you have a young
15:35
Speaker 4: man here by name a Sean that lots of times
15:38
Speaker 4: meets me in that room with a smile and a handshake,
15:42
Speaker 4: and I think he quit asked me to play golf.
15:45
Speaker 4: The reason I didn't want to it was Barry Heels. Now,
15:49
Speaker 4: if he said can we go down and sleep in
15:50
Speaker 4: your home course, he and I probably already played about
15:53
Speaker 4: five times. But I'm not a good golfer at placing shots.
15:59
Speaker 4: I'm okay golfer, and Barry Hills is kind of an
16:03
Speaker 4: unforgiving golf. It rolls down, so he was enthusiastic. He's
16:08
Speaker 4: asked me, I probably ought to tell him that it's
16:10
Speaker 4: not that I didn't want to play golf. I didn't
16:11
Speaker 4: want to go to Barry far in all my years
16:15
Speaker 4: of playing golf, is that I've never played Barry Hills
16:19
Speaker 4: because I've never wanted to play Barry Hills. Kind of
16:21
Speaker 4: how I met Richard Stevens. Richard Stevens's brother Mike was
16:25
Speaker 4: our golf pro several years ago at Sleepy Hollow, and
16:29
Speaker 4: he was a nice, nice golf pro. He was a
16:32
Speaker 4: very good golfer, and he was a little older than
16:35
Speaker 4: my son that I lost. But they were buddies. And
16:40
Speaker 4: I've met Richard down there on the golf course he
16:42
Speaker 4: may or not may. I think he played in the
16:44
Speaker 4: member member remember guest, remember something, and he and I
16:47
Speaker 4: got to know each other. But you know, it's when
16:50
Speaker 4: you meet someone like that and you remember good things
16:55
Speaker 4: because normally, and Richard will tell you normally. When I
16:57
Speaker 4: see Richard, I asked him how his brother is.
17:00
Speaker 3: Now.
17:00
Speaker 4: That's been twenty five years ago, but he made an
17:04
Speaker 4: impression up on May and my family. Actually I lost
17:07
Speaker 4: my son about twenty years ago, but he was quite
17:10
Speaker 4: a golfer, and he did a lot of instructions to
17:15
Speaker 4: helping Justin accelerate in his game. And you remember things
17:19
Speaker 4: like that, and you know, they were affiliated with the
17:20
Speaker 4: Automobile World. I was affiliated with the Automobile World, so
17:24
Speaker 4: you know. But that's just something that you remember. If
17:29
Speaker 4: you have a not so fun memory of meeting people
17:34
Speaker 4: in the sales film, that probably will stick with you longer.
17:38
Speaker 3: It makes you feel sometimes when somebody's like slamming down
17:43
Speaker 3: their phone, finishing up their sentence, putting down their phone,
17:47
Speaker 3: sighing and saying, hey, how can I help you today?
17:48
Speaker 3: You know, even when they try their best, you get
17:51
Speaker 3: the lead into that you get it very well, like
17:53
Speaker 3: I'm sorry to interrupt you during the time you're being
17:55
Speaker 3: paid to help me. The thing that we had a
17:59
Speaker 3: car dealership when I when I worked in the in
18:02
Speaker 3: the rental business. It was a huge car dealership up
18:04
Speaker 3: in Michigan. They had four or five different locations in
18:07
Speaker 3: central Michigan. And at one of the locations, their sales
18:11
Speaker 3: manager up there, or maybe it was the whoever was
18:13
Speaker 3: in charge up there. They had a row of coolers
18:16
Speaker 3: in the back of their of their showroom and all
18:19
Speaker 3: of their salespersons. I thought, always thought this was pretty
18:21
Speaker 3: brilliant because it helped anybody that was a little bit
18:23
Speaker 3: reluctant to make that initial approach, helped them out right away.
18:26
Speaker 3: You know, you're if if it was in winter, they
18:28
Speaker 3: would have like hot chocolate or coffee. If it was
18:30
Speaker 3: a summertime, they'd have coolers up there with drinks stuff
18:32
Speaker 3: in water and sodas and things like that, And so
18:34
Speaker 3: the salesperson whoever was up would simply just grab a
18:37
Speaker 3: couple of drinks, water bottles, something like that, walk over
18:39
Speaker 3: the person, Hey, can I offer you something drink? Anything
18:41
Speaker 3: I can get for you. By the way, we just
18:42
Speaker 3: got in this great new mustang over here. You should
18:44
Speaker 3: see this thing. Take your time. I'm over here. If
18:46
Speaker 3: you need anything, or if you need another drink, just
18:48
Speaker 3: let me know. And just making that initial contact, then
18:50
Speaker 3: maybe circling back or something. But it got them to
18:53
Speaker 3: talk to the person right away as soon as they
18:55
Speaker 3: came in an initial contact with something very positive. I
18:57
Speaker 3: always thought that was kind of brilliant. I don't know
18:58
Speaker 3: how it worked. I mean, ultimately I think they're still
19:00
Speaker 3: in business, so probably pretty well. But I always thought
19:03
Speaker 3: that was a good way to approach, to get over
19:06
Speaker 3: somebody's initial reluctance to approach somebody that just showed up
19:09
Speaker 3: on a lot. You know, it's like, you don't know
19:10
Speaker 3: if they want to talk to anybody or not. Well,
19:12
Speaker 3: if you're offering them something, they want to talk to you.
19:14
Speaker 3: You know, if they're like, no, thank you, they're fine
19:15
Speaker 3: with that.
19:18
Speaker 4: We were taught in the early years to start to
19:23
Speaker 4: sell with the phone call. Now that has been pretty
19:27
Speaker 4: much taking away from the new car stores like the
19:29
Speaker 4: Incoming Yes, yeah, because that most of them has a
19:33
Speaker 4: business development Center BBC. They answered the phones and they
19:37
Speaker 4: are in a cubicle about like you an hour. They're
19:40
Speaker 4: not out there.
19:41
Speaker 3: Oh I never thought of that before. You don't call
19:42
Speaker 3: the dealerships directly anymore. Yeah, yeah, filter a cent and that.
19:45
Speaker 4: You know, it's not my bad ball, it's not my game.
19:48
Speaker 4: But there was a lot of good people that had
19:52
Speaker 4: excellent sales experience on the telephone, and now we seem
19:58
Speaker 4: like we're relying or what they call leads and Facebook
20:02
Speaker 4: and things like that, and there's nothing that's a I
20:06
Speaker 4: look at as an additional I think my telephone conversations
20:12
Speaker 4: as I was taught that I probably excelled in. There
20:16
Speaker 4: was areas that I did not excel in. In my
20:19
Speaker 4: automobile world. I was not the best by no means.
20:23
Speaker 4: I just would work hard. But when someone would call in,
20:27
Speaker 4: I always I knew that they were calling for reason
20:30
Speaker 4: and help them out. Whether listen, people will even call
20:34
Speaker 4: sometimes that this isn't you, but can you give me
20:37
Speaker 4: the name of the person across the street that's just
20:39
Speaker 4: plumbing with salot supply, or Neurandex or Hakes mobile homes,
20:43
Speaker 4: or you know the town and country. But help them
20:46
Speaker 4: out because that will go so far. When when I
20:50
Speaker 4: first got in the automobile business, you had instructions to read,
20:56
Speaker 4: or they would bring in some type of training videos.
21:00
Speaker 4: And I'll never forget to swim because I think Jack
21:03
Speaker 4: points us on Capitol Chrysler probably was one of the
21:06
Speaker 4: best salespersons as a dealer I ever met. And he
21:10
Speaker 4: was telling me this story one time about families would
21:15
Speaker 4: come in and that used to be a family experience.
21:20
Speaker 4: It was a family experience. So you come in and
21:24
Speaker 4: you know you're the way that a lot of people do,
21:27
Speaker 4: and they'll say, well, let me go home and think
21:30
Speaker 4: about it. Well, they're telling you they're going to go
21:33
Speaker 4: shop that they might say they're going on, but they're
21:37
Speaker 4: normally going to go to another car dealership. And look,
21:40
Speaker 4: and Jack was telling me about and I don't recall
21:44
Speaker 4: the salesperson, it was way before my time, but you
21:47
Speaker 4: were talking about the coolers and the refrigerators. Well, he
21:50
Speaker 4: kept ice cream in the freezer.
21:53
Speaker 3: There you go.
21:54
Speaker 4: So as the family gathered up in the family sedan
21:57
Speaker 4: as they was getting ready to leave because they said
21:59
Speaker 4: they were going home, he would let him all but
22:01
Speaker 4: get in and right before they leave, you I got
22:04
Speaker 4: something for you. Well he would run in and get
22:07
Speaker 4: that guy into that premium ice cream and walk out.
22:09
Speaker 4: So for a gift for you coming in shopping, I'd
22:12
Speaker 4: like to let you have this ice cream. Well, somebody
22:16
Speaker 4: hands you ice cream. Where do you have to go?
22:19
Speaker 3: Now?
22:20
Speaker 4: You got to go home. You can't go to that
22:23
Speaker 4: other lot, sure, because it's going to matt On you clever.
22:26
Speaker 4: And so he would he knew where you lived, or
22:29
Speaker 4: she knew, or the salesperson knew. So when about the
22:34
Speaker 4: time you were walking in the door and the phone
22:37
Speaker 4: was ringing, and guess who was on the other line.
22:40
Speaker 4: The salesperson so by the way we've looked at we've
22:44
Speaker 4: refigured this deal, we might be able to save you
22:47
Speaker 4: a little bit more money. But that's how it was
22:50
Speaker 4: to stay in communications with your potential customer. And it's
22:58
Speaker 4: changed so much. It's it's by this I call it
23:03
Speaker 4: fake book. You know, this thing goes on, but that conversation.
23:06
Speaker 4: We can come up with all the monitoring devices that
23:09
Speaker 4: you could possibly come up with a tech or AI
23:12
Speaker 4: or whatever, but the basics was talking, right.
23:17
Speaker 3: I really wonder. We'll take a break here in just
23:19
Speaker 3: a second, by the way, but I really wonder, and
23:21
Speaker 3: you bring up a great point there. I understand ultimately,
23:25
Speaker 3: somebody who's in charge of a business, whether if it
23:27
Speaker 3: be a relatively small business like Larry Dawson's Auto sales
23:29
Speaker 3: or somebody that owns a huge conglomerate and they're the
23:32
Speaker 3: CEO of the conglomerate, they're trying to make money and
23:34
Speaker 3: sometimes you know, you're making redundancies in certain places. And
23:38
Speaker 3: one of the things that have been you know, for
23:40
Speaker 3: for decades now is that we go to this telephony
23:44
Speaker 3: systems and things like that, we've eliminated the middle person
23:47
Speaker 3: on the phone, you know, thinking that that is a
23:48
Speaker 3: redundant position that we can do it through computers and
23:50
Speaker 3: stuff like that. I really do wonder pursue into what
23:53
Speaker 3: you were talking about, how much more profit you would
23:55
Speaker 3: actually see as a business owner if you still had
23:57
Speaker 3: that middle person on the phone with the skill set
23:59
Speaker 3: that you're talking about, especially in something like sales or
24:01
Speaker 3: something like that, where instead of sending it to a
24:04
Speaker 3: call center somewhere that doesn't know your location and stuff
24:06
Speaker 3: like that, that's doing the pre sale, the prep for
24:11
Speaker 3: the lead. If you actually had somebody that knew the
24:13
Speaker 3: area that you were actually talking to someone, and you
24:15
Speaker 3: were able to fund that position, it seems to me
24:17
Speaker 3: eventually that that would pay for itself. That all this
24:20
Speaker 3: cost cutting that we've had to get down to computers,
24:23
Speaker 3: it's really a matter of velocity, right. I mean, if
24:25
Speaker 3: you're making enough money to pay for the people where
24:27
Speaker 3: you don't need the computers, then you're making the same
24:29
Speaker 3: amount of money anyway, right, Why not make it a
24:31
Speaker 3: better experience? I was thinking, this isn't a sales thing,
24:33
Speaker 3: but I was thinking the other day I was driving
24:35
Speaker 3: by a This was a couple months ago now, I
24:38
Speaker 3: was driving by a pharmacy and I had to take
24:41
Speaker 3: an alley because I made a wrong turn. I had
24:43
Speaker 3: to make an alley. I was coming by, I was
24:44
Speaker 3: coming back to work. I couldn't stop. But somebody had
24:46
Speaker 3: broken in to the pharmacy's dumpster and it was the
24:50
Speaker 3: one towards the back where the pharmacy actually uses it,
24:53
Speaker 3: and so they had broken the lock on it, and
24:54
Speaker 3: they were going through their filling their bikes, putting stuff
24:57
Speaker 3: like that. I'm like, that is not good, not good
24:59
Speaker 3: at all. So I get on the Google machine. I
25:02
Speaker 3: look up the phone number, make sure that I get
25:03
Speaker 3: one with the three or four area code and stuff.
25:05
Speaker 3: So I think I'm calling locally, you know. So I
25:07
Speaker 3: call this pharmacy, and I don't go to the pharmacy.
25:10
Speaker 3: I go to the main number. I'm like, I don't
25:11
Speaker 3: need to fill medicine. I'll just go to the main number.
25:13
Speaker 3: They send me somewhere to timbuck too. I have no
25:15
Speaker 3: idea where I'm talking, so I'm trying to explain to
25:17
Speaker 3: I'm like, there's somebody literally taking stuff out of your dumpster. Now,
25:20
Speaker 3: I don't know if there's medicines, and I don't I
25:22
Speaker 3: have no idea what's going on. But there's where's this store?
25:24
Speaker 3: And I'm like, the one I'm sitting outside of. I
25:26
Speaker 3: called the number. Then it dawned on me. I'm like,
25:28
Speaker 3: oh oh, so I'm I just hang up on him,
25:31
Speaker 3: and I call back and I hit like the emergency
25:33
Speaker 3: fill my prescription number. So I'm talking to some poor pharmacists.
25:35
Speaker 3: I'm like, look, I know this isn't your deal, but
25:37
Speaker 3: I don't know how to get ahold of anybody else
25:39
Speaker 3: that's actually locally at your store, your your your dumpster's
25:42
Speaker 3: being robbed, like right now, you know everything's being taken
25:45
Speaker 3: out of that just heads up. Thought I would let
25:46
Speaker 3: somebody know, but it was impossible to get through to
25:50
Speaker 3: just the local store that I was sitting out in
25:52
Speaker 3: front of. Basically I had to drive drive by then
25:54
Speaker 3: just then because of this you know call center thing,
25:57
Speaker 3: and I get it. There's a place in there somewhere
25:59
Speaker 3: as industries where we decided that that was a more
26:02
Speaker 3: efficiently sort of way to do things, that the benefit
26:07
Speaker 3: was that you're going to be cutting costs and that's
26:09
Speaker 3: going to ultimately help the business. I'm not so sure
26:12
Speaker 3: that's true. I'm not so sure that you wouldn't be
26:14
Speaker 3: more soften as a business if you didn't still have
26:16
Speaker 3: that middle person in there, and you would make just
26:17
Speaker 3: as much money. But what I know. I just know
26:21
Speaker 3: that that pharmacy was getting fleeced, and I was like,
26:23
Speaker 3: I have no idea how to talk to somebody about this.
26:25
Speaker 4: Let's take a break and we'll talk about nitro.
26:27
Speaker 3: Let's do that. Oh yeah, I got some stuff about
26:29
Speaker 3: nitro too. We'll do that when we come back. Larry
26:31
Speaker 3: Dawson is here this morning. We're talking about the auto
26:34
Speaker 3: industry and talking about Steven's Auto of Nitro. Give us
26:37
Speaker 3: called this morning. If you want to talk to Larry three
26:38
Speaker 3: zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight three
26:40
Speaker 3: four five fifty eight fifty eight, you can text three
26:42
Speaker 3: zero four nine three five five zero zero eight, take
26:44
Speaker 3: a break and be back right after this. You're listening
26:46
Speaker 3: to ask the expert. I'm Dell Cooper. That's Larry Dawson
26:48
Speaker 3: on five eight WCHS The Voice with Charleston.
26:51
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27:31
Speaker 3: Ten minutes hill on the top of the hour you're
27:32
Speaker 3: listening to ask the expert wcchs the voice of Charles
27:34
Speaker 3: and Larry Dwlson's in the studio with this morning. Taking
27:36
Speaker 3: your phone calls three zero four three four five fifteen
27:38
Speaker 3: fifty eight three zero four, three four five fifty eight fifty.
27:40
Speaker 3: You can also text questions the three zero four nine
27:42
Speaker 3: three five five zeros or eight. We'll gonna talk a
27:44
Speaker 3: little bit about the city in Nitro. If you want
27:45
Speaker 3: to talk about Nitro and gives a call it those
27:47
Speaker 3: numbers are ascend in at text and we can do that.
27:49
Speaker 3: I wanted to tell Larry because Larry's allo such a
27:51
Speaker 3: great advocate of the of the city of Nitro and
27:54
Speaker 3: the things that have been going on there. And my
27:56
Speaker 3: wife was originally from there. She grew up in Cross Lanes,
27:58
Speaker 3: went to Nitro High School. But because of our kid,
28:01
Speaker 3: we live in Charleston now when she visits her mom,
28:04
Speaker 3: her mom lives in Crossing's Proper, so we don't drive
28:06
Speaker 3: down to Nitro very often. Just this past weekend we
28:09
Speaker 3: were down there, having to go down there for some
28:10
Speaker 3: different things, and man, she was just one of the kids.
28:14
Speaker 3: Say to they squee they squeen, you know. She was
28:16
Speaker 3: just really a big fan of all the things. She's like, Wow,
28:19
Speaker 3: I can't believe that this place that was an eyesore
28:21
Speaker 3: since I was a kid is no longer here anymore.
28:23
Speaker 3: And look what's this business? I didn't even know this
28:24
Speaker 3: was here, Like left and right and left and right.
28:26
Speaker 3: She was just like a kid in a candy store.
28:28
Speaker 3: She was so happy because I mean it's been, you know,
28:31
Speaker 3: probably a good four or five years since she's taken
28:33
Speaker 3: a solid drive through Nitro, and just everything that's changed
28:37
Speaker 3: just in that amount of time. She's over the moon
28:39
Speaker 3: over well.
28:39
Speaker 4: Nitro is led by Mayor Dave case Bolt, which is
28:43
Speaker 4: an excellent, excellent person and the leader. He has surrounded
28:48
Speaker 4: himself in every segment of Nitro and has got it
28:54
Speaker 4: moving forward from the trash collection to the waste water
28:58
Speaker 4: I mean, he is very involved, and I'm glad to
29:02
Speaker 4: say that I'm affiliated with him somewhat with this board
29:05
Speaker 4: I set on. But it's just a good group of
29:09
Speaker 4: entrepreneurs that is a Nitro that's leading the business. Yes,
29:13
Speaker 4: there's a McDonald's which is a national brand, and there's
29:15
Speaker 4: this Speedway, and there's a Wendy's, but there is just
29:19
Speaker 4: so many small entrepreneurs. That's why I'm glad that Richard
29:24
Speaker 4: and Chase came down and we were able to make
29:26
Speaker 4: our deal because they fit that slot, you know, as
29:30
Speaker 4: I was aging, and I mean with face that don't
29:33
Speaker 4: live forever. You might think you're going to, but you
29:35
Speaker 4: take the deal's families pass that down. I think they're
29:38
Speaker 4: on a third generation. And Mark Sanders across the street
29:41
Speaker 4: from me, it's when the second generation, and Chuck Boggs
29:46
Speaker 4: is on the third generation, which has a real estate
29:49
Speaker 4: coming in and list goes on and on and on.
29:51
Speaker 4: Of second my son wasn't involved and we're wanting to
29:56
Speaker 4: come to Nitro and be an auto dealer. He has
29:59
Speaker 4: his own deal down South, so I understand that. I mean,
30:02
Speaker 4: you have to look at but Eugene Mallory has Abbot's record.
30:07
Speaker 4: He's been there a long time. I mean, I just
30:09
Speaker 4: can go down to Strip Jeff's Applies as Jeff's father
30:12
Speaker 4: and my parents, his mother and father and my parents
30:15
Speaker 4: went to Hawaii together in the seventies. My father and
30:20
Speaker 4: mother occupied Dawson Stevie and Applies. He's catecorner from me.
30:24
Speaker 4: The police station's over. Wonderful police chief, wonderful fire chief.
30:28
Speaker 4: I mean, we just have it all going on, brand new,
30:32
Speaker 4: state of the art swimming facility and pickleball court that
30:38
Speaker 4: I just see the passion when Dave talks about it,
30:40
Speaker 4: you know, I think, actually I think he kind of
30:43
Speaker 4: want a torment down there. I saw a picture of
30:44
Speaker 4: something Facebook and Dave's my age. I mean, I play golf, Dave.
30:49
Speaker 4: He's a scratch golfer. So that's what we have in
30:52
Speaker 4: the model of Nitro. And you get off the Institute accident,
30:57
Speaker 4: you're just a couple of miles away from the city,
30:59
Speaker 4: the city line, and in same way with when you
31:03
Speaker 4: get off the Nitru accident, you can come over a
31:05
Speaker 4: golf mountain. If you're in Saint albans Our sister city.
31:09
Speaker 4: Scott James is the mayor over there. He's aggressive. I
31:12
Speaker 4: don't really know Scott. What I know of Scott's he's
31:16
Speaker 4: I think he's a very good mayor. But you come
31:19
Speaker 4: across the bridge from Saint Abbas to Nitro and we
31:23
Speaker 4: share the common goal of I did see an article
31:28
Speaker 4: where Scott he's going to tack some property in Saint
31:32
Speaker 4: Albans as well and do what we're doing. If you
31:35
Speaker 4: drive down through twenty five or first Avenue as we
31:39
Speaker 4: called a Nitro from one end to the other, you're
31:41
Speaker 4: going to see a lot of vacant property that has
31:44
Speaker 4: been dropped down only for us to market. And we
31:48
Speaker 4: have a contract one a very nice piece of property.
31:51
Speaker 4: I do not know what's going to go in it,
31:53
Speaker 4: but right now the sewer lines are being moved for
31:55
Speaker 4: two new businesses. I think it's going to be too.
31:59
Speaker 4: I believe it's going to be who new businesses. The
32:01
Speaker 4: same same thing we did with the Taco Bell that
32:04
Speaker 4: was a probably sixty seventy eight. He might have been
32:07
Speaker 4: an older building than that that that took up the
32:10
Speaker 4: entire block and we're able to bite, tear it down
32:15
Speaker 4: and sell it and Taco bells here. And I've heard
32:18
Speaker 4: that that's kind of the number one flagship for Taco Bell.
32:22
Speaker 3: It's a nice one.
32:23
Speaker 4: Now listen, mister Peyton's office, I think it housed an
32:26
Speaker 4: old house. Let Harvey tell you tomorrow or tom. But
32:30
Speaker 4: he's got he's got a beautiful facility. I've been in it.
32:33
Speaker 4: He's worked with me, he and Tom uh And he's
32:37
Speaker 4: got a very nice, very nice law office right there.
32:40
Speaker 4: And he's right on the Putnam County side of Nitro,
32:46
Speaker 4: across the block from him. I'm helped the gentleman buy
32:52
Speaker 4: two parts was there. And he has Steve's barbershop which
32:55
Speaker 4: his father occupied I believe years ago. And the Pamper
33:00
Speaker 4: Poodle I believe is the name of it's beenner forever.
33:03
Speaker 4: You take your dog in there, and they washed them
33:05
Speaker 4: and bathe them and clip their toenails. And that was
33:09
Speaker 4: part of the old Lemma property. I think o'shell owns
33:12
Speaker 4: the next two. But o'shll Crago Ocean's office, which is
33:15
Speaker 4: Ray bur Ray happens to be my next door neighbor
33:18
Speaker 4: in Winfield. But he bought the I guess it's the
33:23
Speaker 4: better food franchise from o'sholl or he's occupying. I don't
33:28
Speaker 4: really know, but what Ray worked for o'shal I think
33:31
Speaker 4: that's only job Ray has ever had. Nice guy. I
33:34
Speaker 4: think raised a little bit younger me. I got the
33:37
Speaker 4: experience of knowing O'shee years ago. And this was a
33:40
Speaker 4: barber and he found Nitro and did a Geno's and
33:44
Speaker 4: decided to put his commissary and his office there, and
33:49
Speaker 4: Nitro in a little town called Nitro. And so if
33:52
Speaker 4: you drive through there and you look back and you
33:55
Speaker 4: start going down those city streets, and you see most
33:59
Speaker 4: of them are first or second generation, and they're still
34:02
Speaker 4: occupying Mars. Mister Mars passed away a few years ago.
34:06
Speaker 4: Wonderful man still has Mars Jewelers right there. I don't
34:10
Speaker 4: know that gentleman really well, but that Cook Funeral Home
34:13
Speaker 4: has been there for a long, long long time. And
34:17
Speaker 4: you see institutions and they don't leave. So that tells
34:21
Speaker 4: you something about the people of Nitro. And once again,
34:25
Speaker 4: I'm very thankful that Chase and Richard chose the spot,
34:27
Speaker 4: or I chose them, or they chose U. You know,
34:30
Speaker 4: somehow we got together. But Nitro is a nice community.
34:34
Speaker 4: And if you go into the city that the city
34:38
Speaker 4: lines of Nitro, there's not a lot of automobile dealers.
34:43
Speaker 4: Keith occupies Keith Volkswagen's he does more mechanical work, but
34:48
Speaker 4: his wisdom as Volkswagens. And then there was previously Larry
34:52
Speaker 4: Dustin's out of sales. It's now Steven's Auto and Nitro
34:56
Speaker 4: and that's what you have in Nitro now Joe Powell
34:59
Speaker 4: has the Chevrolet stores operate under Walker Chevrolet. That's when
35:03
Speaker 4: the outskirts of Nitro and METHENI has a large truck
35:09
Speaker 4: sells and service there as you get off the institute
35:12
Speaker 4: or excuse me, get off the Nitro accent. But that
35:15
Speaker 4: makes up the city of Nitro. But it's your wife's right.
35:20
Speaker 4: If you've not driven down through Nitro, please come to night.
35:24
Speaker 4: And we have the two newest bridges probably in the state,
35:27
Speaker 4: the Dick Henderson Bridge that comes from Saint Albans over
35:30
Speaker 4: the Nitro.
35:31
Speaker 3: What a difference from Holy Cow, you.
35:33
Speaker 4: Know that thing you kind of avoided going across. I
35:36
Speaker 4: believe it was twenty and thirteen is when they did
35:39
Speaker 4: that bridge. And so for the life of a bridge,
35:43
Speaker 4: it's an infant. And I just came here, you know.
35:46
Speaker 4: We come across the newest bridge that spans from the
35:51
Speaker 4: Saint Albans exit to the Nitrow exit and that I think.
35:55
Speaker 4: I think it's like four lanes on each side. When
35:58
Speaker 4: they're done with its almost there, So you don't have
36:03
Speaker 4: that old blues bridge, right, old Dick Anderson. So Nitro
36:08
Speaker 4: is poised to be one of the finest little cities,
36:11
Speaker 4: if not in Kenall County and Putnam County.
36:14
Speaker 3: That's right.
36:15
Speaker 4: That's the other thing. It involves two counties.
36:18
Speaker 3: That's right. I'm always massively impressed when I go through,
36:21
Speaker 3: and I know my wife really was this time around.
36:23
Speaker 3: That's Larry Dawson from Larry Dawson and talking him this
36:27
Speaker 3: morning a little about Stevens Auto of Nitro. You can
36:29
Speaker 3: find more information online. It's Stevens Nitro dot com. Stevens
36:32
Speaker 3: of Nitro dot com. Their phone number is eight eight
36:34
Speaker 3: eight seven one two eleven sixty two eight eight eight
36:36
Speaker 3: seven one two eleven sixty two, located right there in Nitro,
36:40
Speaker 3: West Virginia. Larry, thank you so much for your time today.
36:42
Speaker 3: Appreciate it as always.
36:43
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
36:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, we'll see you back here next time. That's
36:46
Speaker 3: Larry Dawson previously of larr Dawson's Allicehills talking about Steven's
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Speaker 3: Auto of Nitro. This morning, we're gonna ahead and take
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Speaker 3: a break, wouldn't we come back? It's going to be
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Speaker 3: time for five DY Live with Dave Allen, followed by
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Speaker 3: Hope Kerchival at ten o six. I'll be back this afternoon,
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Speaker 3: Rio six with Dave Weekly. Have a great day everyone.
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Speaker 3: You're listening to five AD w c HS, the Voice
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Speaker 3: of Charleston.
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Speaker 2: Five E w c HS A M ninety six point five,
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Speaker 2: then Charleston one oh four point five Cross Lanes, a
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Speaker 2: w v RC Media station.
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Speaker 3: We're proud to live here too.