Word: gill
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...Gill, 38, owns an Oldsmobile dealership in Columbus, Ohio, that in the past year has moved $30 million worth of Achievas and '95 Auroras and whatnots out of its showroom and off the lot. Plenty of people bought new and used cars from this man, and he talks openly about how he got them to do so: "I never let a customer walk in my life. I had just one goal in life: to be the No. 1 volume dealer. What could I do to close that customer on the showroom floor now? Our approach was to deliver them...
Wait a minute. Tom Gill is still trying to sell Oldsmobiles in Columbus. Why is he describing his methods in the past tense...
...game? Had fun? That's what car dealers like Gill and Flow are saying these days, and the valedictory chorus is swelling. Of the 178,000 people who peddle new automobiles in the U.S., most form the brash bottom line between the products of Detroit's Big Three and potential customers. A growing number among these vendors of domestic wares are claiming to have found a kinder, more humane way to do their job. This new breed speaks, often in near evangelical terms, of basic values and touchy-feely sympathies that have traditionally been anathema in the cutthroat race...
...Even Tom Gill of Columbus has had moments of doubt. During the first three months of his new, nice-guy dispensation this spring, his Oldsmobile dealership's sales dropped nearly 50%, largely, he believes, because his competitors were shiftily using the old, illusory tactics -- lowballing him -- to undercut his prices. "It got real frustrating," he says. "For me to tell a customer I'm not coming down in price was like steering a ship in reverse. It was hard." Then, unexpectedly, Gill had the best May and June in the five-year history of his operation. Customers came back...
...this upward blip an accident or a reward for good behavior? Gill does not know for sure, and neither, at this point, do the many observers who are pondering what has become the auto industry's most intriguing question: Will the era of skinned customers give way to the age of the golden fleeced...