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To
Boil A Frog
Over
the last thirty years I have visited the wonderful
state of Louisiana at least a hundred times. I
especially enjoy my visits to Baton Rouge and
Lafayette when the crawfish are in season. There’s
nothing on earth I enjoy more than real Cajun cooking.
When you really get to know the Cajun people, you’ll
find they are some of the most interesting and
colorful characters you would ever hope to meet.
There
is a story rooted in Cajun folklore about How To Boil
A Frog. The story says that since a frog is a
cold-blooded reptile you can’t just put him into a
pot of boiling water because the frog will immediately
jump out of the pot. BUT…if you put a frog into a
pot of cold water on the stove and gradually increase
the heat slowly bringing the water to a boil, the frog
will not notice, being cold-blooded as he is, and he
will simply sit there and allow himself to be boiled
alive.
The
chefs at Daimler-Chrysler, General Motors and
especially at Ford Motor Company must have read the
Cajun cookbook because it seems to me that they are
becoming experts at boiling live frogs.
Let’s
talk about “Blue Oval Certification”. As I
accurately predicted in my article “To Serve
Man” which appeared in the July issue of
Dealer Magazine and in the article titled “Mayhem
in Mayberry” which appeared in the August
issue, Ford has already relaxed the requirements to
attain “Blue Ovary Certification Status”
but just remember this; I have also predicted that
they will start to ratchet up the qualification
requirements once they have successfully disbanded
your defenses and sufficiently put you to sleep. I
think you’ll see that it is going to become
increasingly harder to qualify if you are not one of
their pre-selected favorite Dealers.
Unfortunately,
there are already a number of naïve Dealers who have
already qualified and they believe that this is the
way it is always going to be. If you are feeling
secure, then you are frog meat on the menu already. I
believe that “Blue Obstacle” is the
biggest single attack on Dealer rights we’ve ever
faced, no matter what franchises you have.
Don’t
you get it? What these suckers are doing is boiling a
bunch of frogs here. You’re sitting in a pot of
water and they are preparing to gradually turn up the
heat.
Right
now Ford Motor company and a select group of Judas
Goats are putting out a bogus propaganda campaign that
would lead you to believe that the majority of Ford
Dealers are enthusiastically embracing this “Blue
Oval Certification Ambush”…nothing could be
farther from the truth. Every reputable survey that I
have seen done by either private firms or your own
State Dealer Associations conclusively show that the
majority of Ford Dealers…some of these surveys
reaching into the 90+ percentages of Ford Dealers…as
being adamantly opposed to the two-tiered pricing
provisions of Blue Oval Certification. Most Ford
Dealers are not lukewarm on these issues; they are
overwhelmingly pissed off about Blue Oval
Certification two-tiered pricing.
They
keep proudly announcing the number of Dealers who have
achieved certification as if that indicates acceptance
of the program, but…in truth, for the time being,
what is the alternative?
Now,
I believe your NADA is probably going to sit this one
out on the sidelines. I think all you’re going to
hear is some hollow wimpy rhetoric about keeping the
lines of communication open with the factories. I call
this tactic Neville Chamberlain diplomacy.
It is going to be up to your state
organizations to defeat this thing.
I
predict that the Dealers are going to defeat Blue Oval
Certification as it now stands. As I write these words
several State Dealer Organizations as well as Dealers
aligned with the Ford Dealer Alliance are instituting
lawsuits against Ford Motor Company for violation of
State Franchise laws with illegal two-tiered
discriminatory pricing. If your State Dealer
Association is not already conducting polls and
preparing legal action against Ford, you need to
become an activist. If you don’t take stand and back
these people financially and vocally, then you deserve
to lose everything, which you probably will. I am
urging every Dealer to pick up a phone and a checkbook
right now and take action. It only takes winning one
lawsuit in one state to throw out the whole flimsy
program nationwide. If they can’t do it everywhere,
they can’t do it anywhere. I would love to see them
in court in all fifty states simultaneously.
Remember
this, Blue Oval Certification is not about customer
satisfaction and it never was. I believe it has always
been about eliminating targeted Dealers and defeating
your states franchise laws. I don’t know anyone who
opposes the Customer Satisfaction initiatives. If it
were only about customer satisfaction and not about
money, we’d all be enthusiastically for it.
In
a series of related events, you might recall that I
warned you that increased attacks on the states
franchises laws would be coming at us from many
fronts. Now we see the Consumer Federation of America
holding a press conference on February 8th
titled “Anti Competitive State Laws Cost Car Buyers
More Than $20 Billion Per Year”. (You can read the
entire report at http://www.consumerfed.org/fincarpr.pdf)
Although the Consumer Federation of America represent
themselves as a consumer group, this appears to me to
be one of the most lop-sided special interest group
propaganda pieces I have ever read. You almost feel
the manufacturers’ influence pulling strings here.
They are even advocating warranty work be done by any
private service facility the consumer chooses. This
initiative represents a serious assault on every
state’s franchise protection.
Hooray!
Hooray! The NADA rides into battle with trumpets
blaring and sabers flashing. They actually have issued
a blistering rebuttal to this slanted report, which I
personally believe must be an overtly left-wing
manufacturer-inspired communist plot. The NADA
response is up on their association’s website. I
found it at http://www.nada.org/content/MediaCenter/SpecialReports/franchiselaw.htm.
At
the 2001 NADA Convention in Las Vegas, I had a long
personal conversation with incoming NADA chairman, Bob
Maguire. Bob has been a friend of mine for more than
twelve years. I expressed my concerns with what I
perceive to be lack of backbone involving the NADA’s
perceived nonparticipation and apparent departure from
the battlefield in key battles with the
manufacturers…Oh… and I also mentioned that I was
mad as Hell that I have been systematically excluded
from speaking or conducting workshops at NADA
Conventions since 1993, even though I am in high
demand speaking to State Dealer Association
Conventions and my seminars on Sales Management and
F&I are jammed to the walls every month with
Dealers and Managers. I wish Bob the very best and I
offer my support.
As
I indicated to Bob, “To Hell With Open Dialogue With
the Manufacturers” the only thing they understand is
a judgment against them.
I
caught myself chuckling out loud a moment ago as I
reread an article that first appeared in the Sydney
Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia) later reprinted in
The New York Times titled “Nasser
buckles Ford into Back Seat”…February
7th, 2001.
As
I read it, the gist of the Australian newspaper
article appears to be insinuating that William Clay
Ford is the local mushroom in upper management
circles. As you may be aware, the secret to raising
mushrooms is to keep them in the dark and feed them
bullcrap. The article claims that Billy is frustrated
at sometimes being left out of the loop in day-to-day
operations. The article also pointed out how,
evidently, Nasser has insulated himself by removing
any viable successor for his job and there is no
strong number two in the company. The article says
that Nasser’s vice-presidents have been “cagey”
about sharing information with Bill Ford.
The
Ziegler take on this story is that it fits everything
my sources tell me. I get the impression Nasser has
high contempt and low respect for Bill Ford or any
authority. If I were a psychic I would be picking up
vibes from Nasser saying,
“Look Billy, go play with your damn trees and
leave us alone here.”
I
do not find it hard to believe that he’s removed any
serious talent in the ranks to assure job
security…especially in light of his frequent costly
stumbles, which are mentioned in the article. The
article bluntly states… “Nasser
himself is deeply unpopular within the company.”
Hell, I coulda told them that. I think they are
too generous in just limiting his unpopularity to just
within the company. Even Nasser had to admit that
quality issues cost Ford a billion dollars in profits
last year. What with all of the product-related
fatality scandals and then with profits, product
quality and Dealer-Factory relations going to Hell, I
am genuinely surprised the board hasn’t pulled the
plug on this sloppy act already.
Now
that all fifty State Attorneys General have signed a
resolution about illegal payment packing look for
Dealerships and Dealership Managers nationwide to be
investigated and prosecuted for quoting deliberately
inflated payments to retail customers during the sale.
Right now I am seeing more than 50% of the managers in
my F&I School are Sales Managers learning how to
make a profit while staying legal. The heat was on
already but it didn’t help the cause when our pals
at AutoNation just drew one of the biggest fraud cases
in U.S. Automobile sales history. Remember all of
those ads they ran in Denver portraying traditional
dealers as seedy “Men in Plaid”? Now Gunderson
Chevrolet in a Las Angeles suburb, AutoNation’s
biggest in the state, is charged with fraud, deceit
and misrepresentation in cases involving 1500
customers. The charges center around allegations of
selling “used” vehicles represented to be
“new”…forgery…failing to disclose “rental
cars”…odometer fraud…adding service contracts
without the buyer’s consent and later refusing to
honor service contracts…representing “Lo-Jack”
accessory as being free and hiding the cost…failing
to install “Lo-Jack” after charging for
it…misrepresenting loan payments, interest charges
and bogus finance practices in general. Many of these
practices were caught on undercover camera.
Even
though AutoNation/Gunderson Chevrolet has refunded a
ton of money to allegedly defrauded customers (Rumors
say more than a hundred thousand perhaps) the dealer
license could be revoked and possibly some managers
could be prosecuted for criminal charges. Wayne
promised us he’d teach the industry a new way to
sell cars…he was right about that. Thanks AutoNation!
And
the new winner is…(tearing open the envelope) “The
Pontiac Aztek”. It all started four years ago years
ago when I wrote an article about how butt-ugly the
redesigned Ford Taurus was. AND NOW…after four
unchallenged years of undisputed rule the Taurus falls
to a new contender. This survey was scientifically
conducted. I asked twenty inner-city kids with their
hats turned backwards…nineteen to one agreed that
although the Taurus was extremely repulsive, the Aztek
was certainly one ugly son of a bitch deserving of the
title.
Can
you imagine? These people, honest to God, they want
you to accept that they know what the public wants and
needs and then they come out with a fallopian tube
design like this abomination and then they put a
window sticker on it at close to $30,000 reasonably
equipped. How on Earth can any of us take these
factory guys and gals seriously when this is where
their head is? The emanation of incompetence is
blinding. When they launched it last summer, some fool
told me that they were projecting 70,000 units in the
first year. They’ll be lucky if they can find
Dealers who are strong enough to push 25,000 of these
pigs off the lot. The car (Or whatever the Heck that
thing is) reeks of
“Propeller Head” engineering influence.
It’s so supremely “Geeky”. There’s just
something about The Pontiac Aztek that screams out to
me… “Shoulda been a Saturn.”
Back
to the 2001 NADA Convention, Rick Wagoner gets up and
does this straightforward speech and says that he,
personally, made the decision to cut out the
Oldsmobile division, then he doesn’t even show up at
the Oldsmobile meeting. He just left Lovejoy out front
to take the heat…and heat there was. These dealers
were pissed and they vented.
One dealer said something to the effect that
they (General Motors) sacrificed 280 Dealers to save
one man. I assume he was talking about Ron Zarella.
Why is it that nobody can seem to explain how Zarella
remains employed given his performance record? The
worst part about Zarella, in my opinion, I think the
guy really believes he’s a Superstar. Many
Oldsmobile Dealers echoed my sentiments that
Oldsmobile was axed to prop up Saturn. (Read my
article last month’s issue)
On
the eve of the convention, Friday afternoon, I was the
featured keynote speaker for the Auto Team America
CEO/CFO conference at the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas.
This is one of the most prestigious events at the
convention and it was quite an honor.
There were close to 400 Dealers, Industry
Figures, CFOs and CEOs in attendance as well as the
press and guests. As promised, I was irreverent and
arrogant. The audience response was extremely
positive.
Daimler-Chrysler
is out of control in freefall and Dieter just ain’t
the guy. These fools better reach back and pull
another Iacocca out of their anatomy and fast. The
figure I heard is another $3 billion in short term
losses. They already lost $2 billion in hard money in
the last six months.
Last
summer I visited Washington D.C. with my son Zachary
and my trophy wife, Debbie. We were eating at the ESPN
Zone restaurant and an older man came out of the
Men’s room with a three foot stream of toilet paper
hanging out of the top of his pants in the back. It
was flapping around like a tail and everyone was
cracking up laughing as he walked by unaware of why he
was drawing such attention. He turned around and
looked around behind him and still didn’t see
anything. Well
that’s the same hilarious feeling I get when I see
Deiter and Jürgen trying to run Chrysler. These
guys haven’t got a clue and it’s about to get a
lot worse. I could never take Schrempp seriously; the
guy is a poster boy for buffoonery in my book. Every
time I see a picture of Jürgen Schrempp I think about
the old guy with the toilet paper tail walking through
the crowded restaurant. All of these extreme cost
cutting measures are going to resurrect the same
quality demons at Chrysler that are sinking Jac
Nasser’s career at Ford.
To
add insult to injury, German Mercedes employees just
received a substantial profit sharing bonus at a time
when Chrysler is laying off a reported 26,000
Americans.
Did
you see the interview where Jürgen Schrempp said that
Bob Eaton was aware that it wasn’t really that
“Merger of Equals” crap they were feeding to the
press releases? According to Schrempp, It was just a
psychology to get the sale to go through easier.
Schrempp spouted some pompous garbage about how he
doesn’t announce his chess moves in advance.
He indicated that Eaton was aware and he
implied that Eaton was in on it.
That wouldn’t surprise me. I never thought
much of Bob Eaton personally. Of course I have a
decided bias against these guys with good hair. He
rode in on the tail end of Lee Iacocca’s brilliant
restructuring of Chrysler and promptly took every bow
and waved at the crowds at every photo opportunity.
When everything that was already in motion before he
got there started to peter out and they were running
out of gas with no new ideas, he sold the crown jewels
to a foreign corporation and boogied with the cash.
With
Toyota and Honda currently at nearly 16% combined
share of the retail market I foresee import market
share continuing to make dramatic strides as
Volkswagen finally starts shipping some automatics and
Toyota develops competitive large trucks. The Koreans
are coming on like gangbusters. Under their current
business models with the Nassers and the Schrempps and
the Zarellas of this world at the marketing helm, I
predict we’ll continue to see domestic market share
erode. I believe that 15% market share for Toyota is
in the cards in the next few years.
The
convention was a lot of fun. My wife and I were guests
at the Universal Underwriters party, which was
spectacular as always. Sunday Night we attended the
Ford Motor Company party as guests of Jerry Reynolds
Dealer Council President and Jim O’Connor of Ford.
If you find that a little strange, you have to
understand, this was a social event…no politics.
There are times you bury your differences, even if for
just an evening, and maybe you even explore common
ground. As Ford’s guest I was honored and gracious.
Walking around with a snifter of Remy Martin Cognac, I
visited with a lot of my Dealer friends at the Ford
party but, when a person is driven by their
principles, you’re obligated to do the honorable
thing…I wouldn’t speak any politics at this event
with, not with anyone. I was there to enjoy the
evening, not to become part of a statement. That’s a
gentlemen’s thing you see. It was a wonderful
party…Sincerely, Thank you for having my wife and
me. We had a great time.
Did
I change my mind about anything…Naw!
Sometimes
we lose sight of the core belief…the reason we are
all here…I love Ford Motor Company…and I love
General Motors…I have always loved Chrysler
Corporation. These issues we have with some
mean-spirited people and what they are doing within
these companies doesn’t mean we hate the company or
even that we dislike everyone that works there.
I really think it is my love for these
companies and for The Dealers that fires the passions
with which I write these articles.
Speaking
of fire what’s that smell…sniff…sniff…strange,
for a moment there I could almost swear I caught a
whiff of some sort of boiling amphibian?
More
Food Ford Thought
I
was called “The Voice in the Wilderness” and now I
find myself assuming the role of Senior Statesman.
Many people listened to my speeches and read my
articles and called me a crackpot…now I find myself
becoming a respected futurist with a track record of
accuracy after examining my predictions over the last
ten years in hindsight. It’s been uncanny.
Representing
Ziegler Supersystems and Dealer Magazine, I have
addressed more than 15 State Dealer Conventions over
the last three years and, in coming months I will be
the keynote speaker for many State Dealer Association
Annual Meetings and Conventions including
Georgia…New Jersey…Ohio…Minnesota…The
Tri-State Convention…and, of course, Texas, for the
second year in a row. I am talking to Wisconsin, North
Carolina and New Mexico about possibilities. During
this time I have been featured speaker at more than 20
other industry events as well as more than 60 Dealer
20-groups. In every one of these I have been
overwhelmingly at the very top of their ratings.
I
performed workshops at 3 National NADA Conventions and
was always rated at the very top. That was a long time
ago. It’s time to put me back on the program. Its
called the National Dealer’s Association remember?
It’s about the Dealers and the message, not
about booth space. It’s not about which competing
magazine I write for. It’s about what’s right.
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