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Braveheart
In
the waning years of the thirteenth century the clans
of Scotland united to fight the tyranny of King Edward
I of England. One man, William Wallace, came to
symbolize everything that was good and noble in their
struggle.
Of
course you know you’d never catch me watching some
wimpy Alan Alda movie. When Braveheart came out in
1995, I saw it at least a dozen times. Remember the
scene just before the big battle when Mel Gibson (as
William Wallace) was riding before his ragged army,
wearing smeared paint and waving swords and axes at
the English. They
even “mooned” the enemy in defiance.
Now, you know that’s my kind of guy.
When
asked to surrender, Wallace’s reply was…
“Here
are Scotland's terms. Lower your flags, and march
straight back to England, stopping at every home to
beg forgiveness for 100 years of theft, rape, and
murder. Do that and your men shall live. Do it not,
and every one of you will die today.”
…Mel
Gibson as William Wallace in Braveheart 1995…
William
Wallace was a real, true-to-life, flesh and blood
person and the story, for the most part, is true, just
as it was depicted in the movie. When an English
Sheriff killed his wife Marion, the legend of Robin
Hood was created and passed on for generations.
Braveheart is a story about bravery and honor…about
the misuse of power, broken promises, lies and
deception. In the end William Wallace was betrayed by
those he trusted. It was some of his fellow Scotsmen
who sold him out to Edward the First in hopes of
favor. They betrayed him for power, land and position.
For
months now I have been predicting that this
confrontation was coming to a head. Well, this month
(written on November 27th) five Ford
Dealers filed a lawsuit against Ford Motor Company in
the U.S. District Court in New Jersey. The lawsuit is
aimed directly at Ford’s Blue Oval Certification
program.
Supported
by the Ford Dealer Alliance, the dealers are seeking
class action verification to sue on behalf of all
affected Ford Dealers nationwide. Several of the
dealers involved in the lawsuit are close personal
friends of mine.
Of
course, I believe the lawsuit will examine the fact
that even though Ford is suffering a documented
epidemic of safety and quality problems, they have
elected to roll out this allegedly bogus customer
satisfaction program administrated by none other than
the dubious J.D. Powers and Associates. Evidently,
someone other than me smells a rat here.
I
believe Blue Oval Certification was designed as a
thinly disguised, two-tiered pricing scheme designed
to eliminate some dealers and create unfair
competitive edge for factory-selected dealers.
In
a recently published interview Jac Nasser repeatedly
referred to this as a customer satisfaction issue. If
Mr. Nasser were really concerned about customer
satisfaction, it seems to me that he would dedicate
more time toward building better, safer cars and less
time to twisting supplier’s arms causing them to
take dangerous shortcuts. This is all about malicious
plots aimed at circumventing State Franchise Laws and
defeating their own loyal dealer body. If you’d like
to read more about the subject, archive my articles
for the last six months at http://www.dealeronline.com.
Now
these brave dealers have taken a stand and the heat is
on. These men are heroes. It would be really
disappointing if their fellow dealers sucked up or
turned their backs and left them hanging out in the
wind to dry. The Ford Dealer Alliance has set up a war
chest called the Blue Oval/Premier Legal Fund.
If
Ford is allowed to get away with this without
meaningful opposition, then every other manufacturer
will follow their lead. Everyone is waiting to see the
outcome. It is becoming increasingly obvious to me
that your NADA is going to sit this one out on the
sidelines for the rest of the game. This is about all
of the factories, not just about Ford. I strongly
suggest to every dealer, regardless of what you sell,
you need to reach for your checkbook. This affects
everyone.
On
other issues…did you see where General Motors is
charging ahead in Minneapolis with another (allegedly
goofy) initiative? They are going to test (and
ultimately fail) three concepts. First of all they are
stuck on the idea that the public will go for “built
to order” cars. Let’s face it; General Motors has
definitively proven they have never had the ability to
produce the cars that sell. Now they want us to
believe they’ve got it figured out. Aren’t these
the same people who invented VOMS? If they really had
their act together wouldn’t they have regained
tremendous truck market share while Ford and Chrysler
are on the ropes, distracted with their problems?
Isn’t Ron Zarella still the alleged Marketing Czar
of General Motors? (Who would have believed he’d
still be here? Dammit! I am about to lose another
bet.)
The
truth of the matter is the public will reject the
whole concept. Remember this, just my opinion, mind
you; any program designed by propeller heads will only
appeal to the small niche propeller head market. Maybe
they should have tried this out on SAAB or Saturn
first.
First
of all, most people are not going to wait for a car to
be delivered. We are into the instant gratification,
right now, spot-delivery generation. That’s why
dealers with the most cars on the ground and the best,
right-now selection will always sell more cars.
Secondly,
in case you haven’t noticed, the Internet is a bust.
Dot-Communist companies are dropping like proverbial
flies. The public has voted “No” with a very loud
voice! We are going to exchange our retail customers
who would have bought from us anyway for low-profit
fleet buyers. These alleged geniuses at General Motors
are going to use Oldsmobile as a test
market…brilliant demographic.
Thirdly,
they are sneaking in e-pricing, which is probably the
most destructive concept out there. The factory is
going to further reduce their already non-existent
markup in a blatant price fixing scheme, which must be
some kind of illegal. Personally, I think this is part
of a greater, more diabolical scheme to test whether
or not they can eliminate dealers and sell direct. If
there was a snowball’s chance in Hell they would be
successful, I’d be really concerned. But, what the
Heck, this is General Motors. Look at their track
record.
Hey…hey
did you see where Maryann Keller blew out at Priceline
Dot-Com? Truthfully, I really like Maryann. We’ve
done a few keynote speeches at some of the same
conventions. I haven’t caught up with her so all I
know is what I read. I read in the press that she
said, …
“For
car buying, the Internet is an idea whose time has not
yet come and may never come.” (Maryann Keller)
Think
about that a second; She was in charge of
Priceline’s Internet Auto Sales Division. I know
Maryann; She is a class act and an extremely bright
and competent person. She definitely knows the car
business. With all of their resources (since
declining) Priceline was asking her to lay off half of
her staff. All of this happening shortly after
Priceline CFO, Heidi Miller, also blew out. Priceline
is in panic restructuring after watching their stock
value deteriorate to $4.28 a share from $104.25
earlier this year.
(Note
to Priceline) I think it’s time to ditch the band
and for Captain Kirk to put away the guitar and warp
the hell outta here.
The
article I read went on to quote Maryann Keller as
saying…
“Right
now the American car buying public is very happy to
get information on the Internet; they are not willing
yet to transact on the Internet.” (Maryann Keller)
Exactly
what I have said all along, all of the dot-communists
have done little more than prostitute pricing. People
who say they are doing a lot of online sales are not
exactly being truthful. They are cannibalizing their
own customer base and lower their profits. Let me
quote myself again… “The Internet has not created
the sale of one additional unit to
anyone…anywhere.” Last I heard the average
Internet sale was hovering around $1200 a car total
gross.
Here’s
a good one…In the November/December issue of
“Across the Board” magazine (prestigious business
publication) there is a quote by J.D. Power’s senior
executive, Chris Denove. The blurb’s headline reads
“Death of a Car Salesman”. The first sentence
says…With 22 million people having sought online
auto-buying tips last year, the days of the car
salesman cold be numbered. I bet the magazine got that
extremely accurate number from J.D. Power and
Associates…Whadda ya want to bet? (I’m struggling
not to regurgitate here) According to the article
168,000 people actually ordered cars online last year.
(Sorry, couldn’t hold it)
One
interesting thing in the article was Denove’s claim
that twice as many dealers were using online buying
services this year. Does that explain why so many dot-coms
are in the toilet? Oh, I get it. He said Internet
dealers were using buying services, he never said
anything about them hooking up with Internet buyers.
Here’s
the good part…
“The
online buying services are particularly effective for
shoppers who feel intimidated by sales people and want
a dealer willing to give them their best price right
up front without a lot of negotiation.”
That
quote was attributed to Denove.
Does
J. D. Power and Associates say one thing to our face,
and something else behind our backs? This is not an
automobile publication and, to me, his remarks appear
to be very anti-dealer. This isn’t the same good ole
boy back-slapping the dealers at those Internet
conventions that I remember Chris Denove. I have
always suspected and said repeatedly that I think J.D.
Power and Associates is behind a lot of the factory
anti-dealer schemes. I don’t trust them as far
as…besides, doesn’t Power have an interest in
CarClub.com? Conflict of interest I meant to say.
You
know, if he’d have been a little bit smarter, Al
Gore might have taken Florida by a landslide, by ten
thousand votes or more. All he probably needed to do
was to have hired J.D. Power and Associates to
tabulate and interpolate the results. Hell, he might
have won by twenty thousand votes…or even more.
Last
year I wrote that Ford Motor Company was about to take
a hard fall. In speeches and articles over the last
three years I have predicted that Trotman’s cost
cutting, and then Nasser’s “Jac the Knife”
foolishness, was going to cause serious quality and
safety problems. We’ve all sat by and watched as
Ford stock dived into the toilet under what I feel is
an incredibly incompetent regime from the very top
downward.
Did
you read the Nasser quote when asked about the Tulsa
Auto Collections where he allegedly said …
“It
is clear that we can’t do what we wanted to
do…maybe what we wanted to do wasn’t right. I am
not even sure about that.”
(Jac Nasser)
Excuse
me…unless I misread something, he even said he’d
look at an offer to sell the Auto Collection. In the
press release I saw he even admitted that the Auto
Collections weren’t selling as many units as they
were under private ownership but they were profitable.
Duh! What he didn’t say was how their profits
compared. I’ll guarantee you they are in the dumper
compared to where they were before Ford tampered with
them. I have always said the Auto Collections were
Ford’s way of blowing more than $100 million dollars
to prove that 100% of their crap doesn’t work in a
retail environment.
In
many other industries, I believe Nasser and Rewey
might have been tarred and feathered and rode out of
town on a rail for producing a fiasco like this one.
Personally, I always thought of the Auto Collections
as the Bob Rewey legacy to Ford Motor Company…a
monument to management innovation.
Personally
I have one question I would like to see Bob and Jac
answer… “How can such monumental arrogance stand
in the face of so much glaring evidence indicating a
track record for such a great degree of bumbling
incompetence?”
Then
early in 2000, I started predicting that
Daimler-Chrysler was entering what I called “The Age
of Constipation”.
In
my opinion, this guy Jüergen Schrempp is a world
class zero. After reading “Taken For A Ride” I
felt my opinion of Schrempp was validated even if only
half of what the authors wrote about the
Daimler-Chrysler merger was true. How can anybody take
this character seriously? Is this a cartoon or real
life? He’s in charge of Mercedes?
Then
he had the arrogance to admit publicly that he duped
Eaton and Lutz and basically made fools out of them by
lying about the whole “Merger of Equals” fiasco.
He never intended to develop or support Chrysler. The
whole deal was a trick played on inferior Americans by
superior businessmen. Of course I was saying all of
this in print when all of those other publications
were still sitting around on their thumbs writing
about the automotive Internet revolution, or quoting
Chris Denove, while they were waiting for some real
news to jump up and slap them in the face.
Now,
just one year after Stallkamp got the axe; Jüergen
unceremoniously gives the boot to Jim Holden, head of
Daimler-Chrysler North America. Now, we see the last
Americans at Chrysler lining up at the counter at
Kinko’s running off mass copies of their updated résumés.
I think you’re going to see a mass talent drain at
Chrysler as Americans flee in droves.
As
plants are being shut down and German flex plants are
being considered, rumor has it that Jüergen is headed
for a showdown with the UAW. This ought to be an event
worth selling tickets to. I predict it ain’t gonna
turn out the way he envisions it.
Rumor
has it that the Germans have different views of a
woman’s place in the office. I predict some
professional females will have legal grievances
concerning their treatment in the workplace with the
alleged prevailing new Aryan attitudes.
Whoosh…Superman
lands. Have no fear…Deiter Zetsche is here. The new
Chief Executive Officer of Chrysler is in and Ted
Cunningham Executive VP of Sales is out. Ted is on the
bricks along with Kathleen Oswald and Tony Cervone. I
wonder if ole Deiter even handed them a blindfold and
a cigarette?
Prediction…I
strongly believe you might be seeing for ole Jüergen
himself out there on the bricks soon. I don’t think
the German board members at Daimler-Chrysler are going
to be as forgiving as their Ford and General Motors
counterparts. Okay, I know my track record is a little
weak in this area. Admittedly, I have lost bets on
Zarella and Nasser’s longevity. Of course I my
reasoning was logical, based on the erroneous
assumption that the boards of those corporations were
comprised of rational, logical, clear-thinking
business people. Don’t look at me. I frankly don’t
know how Nasser and Zarella can justify their
continued employment.
By
the way…regardless of what Schrempp says, look for
Chrysler to be sold back to some stupid Americans at
fire sale prices. I wonder if Kerkorian still wants
it?
In
the meantime, I foresee quality problems at Chrysler
as they try cost cutting measures similar to those at
Ford. Let me ask you…I just heard that somebody said
you have to take a two-by-four to their suppliers to
get results. Tell me that someone in a top management
position at Chrysler didn’t make such an asinine
statement? Is
this the Twilight Zone or a Three Stooges Movie or
what? If that’s true, I’d like to be able to buy
the company myself just so I could fire that
guy…with a bad reference.
You
know, Trotman…Schrempp…Nasser…now Deiter.
Personally, I’ve had it with the way you Europeans
and Australians do it. My family heritage is German. I
really do love your beer and your sauerkraut guys and
those cute little leather pants with the suspenders
and the little green hats with the goat’s beards and
stuff…but, on the other hand, I’ve got to tell
Alex and Jac that I’m really not so crazy about your
hot tea and your kangaroos. Sometimes I have to wonder
if any of you really have a shred of a clue when it
comes to the American market.
Well
folks, I m actually watching the sun come up through
my window here. I got so involved in this one I hardly
touched the snifter of Remy Martin Cognac sitting here
at the keyboard. There’s a battle brewing and it
isn’t going to be pretty.
I hope everyone supports the cause. With the
National Conventions coming up wouldn’t it be a hoot
if the factory executives looked out at the “Make”
meetings and saw a sea of angry dealers with their
faces smeared with paint, all of them dressed for
battle…and all of a sudden you all bent over and
gave them the traditional Braveheart salute.
“In
the year of our Lord 1314, patriots of Scotland,
starving and outnumbered, charged the fields at
Bannockburn. They fought like warrior poets. They
fought like Scotsmen. And won their freedom.”
...Mel
Gibson as William Wallace from the movie Braveheart…
More
Food For Thought
Looking
forward to the NADA convention in Las Vegas, I think a
lot of things will be shaking. As always you will find
me at the Dealer Magazine Booth. Please stop by and
pick up a button that says “Ziegler’s Right”.
Also
I will be the featured keynote speaker for the annual
Moss-Adams CEO/CFO Conference the day before the
convention. I promise to be irreverent. My schedule is
on my website at http://zieglersupersystems.com
I really appreciate all of your emails and letters.
I
have been blessed with good health and a great life.
My business is prosperous and I have a lot of good
friends (and some mean enemies). I want to thank Mike
Roscoe, publisher and editor of this magazine. His
guts to take a stand and print my column are
monumental testimony to his character. If you want to
read biased, rewritten fiction passed off as news, I
can steer you to ten other publications.
I
am a professional speaker. Over the last two years I
have performed keynotes and dinner speeches for more
than fifteen state dealer associations and I have
keynotes currently scheduled for five more state
association conventions. Please ask your state
association about the possibility of hiring me to
speak at your annual event? Even though, without
exception, every state association that truly
represents their dealers constantly rates me as a top
speaker, I am never invited to speak or present
workshops at the NADA convention.
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