Face to face: Picador

Leading from the front seems to come naturally for Graham Jacobs.

As the second generation in his family to head Vauxhall dealer group Picador, he welcomes the responsibility to motivate his dealership teams into delivering the best for his customers.

Occasionally, this will include “camp lessons”, as he puts it, to remind members of staff that customers need to be put at ease. Jacobs explained: “I have got really good guys, very knowledgeable, really into their cars and really nice chaps, but they look a bit miserable sometimes, so I give them camp lessons. 

“So I will stand in front of them during a morning perhaps, I just say, ‘look at you! If I was an old Doris wandering in here, I would be terrified to say something to you lot.  Put a hand on your hip, smile a bit more, just think a bit more like this.’ 

"They look at me as if I am going mad but you can’t help but smile and you can’t help, but think, what Graham is saying is right.

“They are intimidating places to come into, aren’t they, car dealerships?  Really intimidating. So my advice is always give camp lessons. They look at me and think, ‘oh for Christ’s sake, what is he on about now?’

"But they don’t mind it really because what I say is: ‘boys, look I know that you are really nice blokes, every one of you.  You are great and you have been so helpful to me over the years. But customers don’t know that – it is the way you are perceived so put a smile in your voice, smile before you dial’.”

If employees aren’t willing to put on that smile, Picador is not the workplace for them.

It’s a constant message from Jacobs, the CEO, and his managing director Robert Oakeley.

Jacobs spends half his week out at his dealerships for departmental meetings or even just passing on messages and ‘touching base’, to ensure the company philosophy – be friendly and people will buy from you – is maintained.

Picador has represented Vauxhall in Southampton since the days when Jacobs’ father Lionel, still chairman, joined as head mechanic in the early 1960s and then bought it in 1966 from owner Reg Haines.

Jacobs remembers his parents sold everything they had, including their house, to fund it, and moved into the flat above the showroom.

His childhood bedroom long since has become his office. Jacobs joined the family business in 1981, when its annual volume was around 80 units.

Expansion with Vauxhall into Chandlers Ford, Winchester and, with an acquisition of Pat’s Garages a year ago, into Lyndhurst, has seen its volume increase 10 fold.

Picador owns the Southampton and Chandlers Ford properties, aims to buy the freehold at Lyndhurst and is early into a 25 year lease at Winchester.

It took on Southampton’s Chevrolet franchise in 2008 after previous franchisee Denkale was terminated by General Motors UK.

Although Picador negotiated a rent reduction and had some GMUK support, when the lease expired on that showroom in 2012 Picador was unable to find an affordable new home for it in the city.
It’s a closure Jacobs would like to have prevented, as he rates the Chevrolet brand and would like to represent it again in future.

The group has just bought a piece of land beside its Southampton Vauxhall dealership to allow for expansion of the showroom, but Jacobs hopes it could also accommodate a new-build showroom for a second franchise – he’s open to discussions with any brand.

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Last year Picador made more than 2.5% return on sales, more than three times the Vauxhall franchise’s average, and it’s in the top 50 for sales and service CSI.

Absorption is 72.6%, well clear of the industry average of 60%.

Asked why the company has done so well with Vauxhall over the decades,  Jacobs credits the culture his employees share: “It is down to our repeat customers really. 

"People love people, don’t they? They love dealing with people that they know. My father is the kindest, most gentle man in the whole world, such a good guy and people love him.

"I try and emulate it as much as I can – understanding that if you have got people that work with you that think you are a good guy, they will perform for you. We employ about 140 people in the group, and if there were four people that I would never have round for dinner I would be amazed.

"That says something, doesn’t it? There is nobody here that I don’t love seeing in the mornings, they are all such good people normally.”

This culture has been fostered by years of being open and approachable, sharing responsibility and being willing to immerse himself in the detail when the going gets tough.

It’s a leadership trait frequently shared by the most successful franchised dealerships, whether owner-driven or led by a talented group employee.

Jacobs explained it means doing things together, understanding employee’s personal problems, looking after them and making sure they’re able to do their job and look after the customers.

“It's friendliness that makes the difference. I would never walk through the showroom without smiling or saying thank you to a customer for coming to see us, and I have done that for as long as I’ve been here.

"The staff see that and do it too, and the customers see that and keep coming back. If you are in an industry where service is absolutely paramount and the way you are handled is of utmost importance, you don’t half notice it when you don’t get it, don’t you?”

Maintaining focus on quality of service is challenging, but it’s an aspect Jacobs loves.

“I am not saying that our staff are 100% good at what they do, they are not, but what they are is 100% passionate about things that matter.

"That counts for an awful lot more than poaching a service adviser that is trained up to the hilt but doesn’t actually care about the customer. 

“I would far rather have somebody that cared and was passionate about it and tried to do things right than ticked all the boxes on paper.”

When Picador recruits – and Jacobs said this isn’t often as the only ones who’ve left in 15 years were the ones he wanted to go because they didn’t fit in – it interviews thoroughly for the person with the right attitude.

Around 65% of Picador’s new car customers are repeat business.

He said that is rising, despite the recession, because people trust that the business will still be there in 10 years’ time.

Elsewhere in the south of England there have been several Vauxhall dealership that went bust.

Thanks to some shrewd property sales in the past Picador is stable, with cash at hand, and is not beholden to the bank.

Jacobs has two thick books of customer commendations at his Southampton office.

“Nowhere do I go in town and think, ‘oh my god I am going to be attacked by a bloke with a gear stick in his hands,’ because we always resolve issues.

"It’s understanding that the £500, £600, £700 or whatever it is that it costs to sort complaints out is going to stop them from going to the local boozer saying to everybody: ‘Don’t deal with that bunch of rogues at Picador’.”

He added that it was impossible to get it 100% right 100% of the time, but he loves the challenge of resolving customer complaints.

“We always pay. When we have got it wrong it normally reaches me and I say, ‘right, well let’s arrange a meeting.’  

"We have never gone to litigation, ever. Again it is the way you handle it. They know that really if they don’t accept what I tell them they have got to go to litigation and nobody really wants to do that, do they?”

Alongside the customer focus Jacobs and his senior managers also keep a tight grip on the business controls and KPIs, of course.

At quarterly regional meetings with Vauxhall he always expects Picador to be in the top three for mystery shops, for email data capture, for lead responses etc.

As opposed to those being parachuted in at a struggling site and having to focus on the 80% that needs fixing, Jacobs said Picador’s management is focused  on the 10-20% still left to improve.

Establishing the right culture in sales and aftersales and putting in programmes and processes was something Picador was doing 15 years ago.

He sits down each month with each department head to itemise every business line per site.

With four branches, it’s an opportunity to question the results, to analyse why one is outperforming another and the cause for that.

Another example is Picador’s league table for its service advisers – they get measured and bonuses for a variety of additional sells, and nobody wants to be bottom.

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“What we have tried to do is to use our USP as being Southampton’s or Hampshire’s friendly dealer in a commercial way. That is our USP, I really think that, because we are no cleverer really than Snows or Hendys.

"What we are very good at is being as clever, but being nice with it and I think in unstable times that accounts for an awful lot.”

The management’s time is also spent looking constantly for the “little chinks” that offer a great result, a boost to the existing business. 

One example was the VXR8 high performance saloon.

After the recession hit and GM needed to improve cashflow Picador bought 80 VXR8s in 2009 with “phenomenal support” from the carmaker and marketed them through the internet.

It’s an indication that although the stocking costs lie with the retailer, those in a strong financial position are able to capitalise on the pack deals.

Competition is much tougher now, and those opportunities are fewer because Jacobs finds other dealers are having to be just as smart.

The diversity of product ranges and competing carmakers also means a new car launch is not such a special occasion for some consumers.

Despite that, as motor retail continues to evolve he’s determined to keep Picador strong and to continue delivering the best possible service to Vauxhall and his customers.

Graham Jacobs on Vauxhall

“I think the synergies of Chevrolet and Vauxhall are so strong that GM should capitalise on it, not try and split it up.

"The trouble is you can understand it from Vauxhall’s perspective. If they are not working together, they don’t see it as one big picture, and if we put Chevrolet at that end of the showroom with a car £3,000 cheaper than the Corsa, Vauxhall isn’t going to like it for so many obvious reasons. 

"But is that man likely to look at a Corsa at £10,000 and think ‘never mind that, I will go and have a look at Kia and Hyundai’?”

“The psyche at the factory is we have got to do this together and they do stress that. Vauxhall is a great manufacturer to work with generally.

"From a retailer’s perspective, it understands that without successful retailers it is dead in the water, so of course everything it tends to do tends to be driven by those guiding principles. 

"There are not many things, like in most dealer agreements I’m sure, that it can just force us to do and wouldn’t force us to do if it didn’t think they didn’t adhere to those sort of guiding principles.

“We see a lot of manufacturer initiatives that we think ‘well that is great, keep behind that please’.

"I sit on a number of specialist committees for marketing and the most recent one has been flex-finance. It has been great and we have said for goodness sake stick with it.

"It takes six months for the salesmen to understand what it is all about let alone the general public. 

“I think Vauxhall is learning and it understands that for us to be successful we need to be doing things like marketing, fixed price servicing and fixed price repairs and service plans and all the other good stuff that is essential to making money in this industry at the moment.”