Dealer Spotlight: Texas Motors Ford
How a one-store dealer stays ahead by staying involved

Much like the Ford brand’s famous slogan, the Texas Motors Ford dealership in Fort Worth, Texas, is built for the road ahead. When the economy began its downward spiral in 2007, owner Cliff Johnson had enough wherewithal to do something about it right then; not when it was too late like so much of the competition. He calls it, “staying on the tip of the spear.”

“We recognized the state of the economy early on and made a lot of difficult decisions,” Johnson says. “Those decisions put us in the driver’s seat.”

Some of those tough choices included reducing expenses, downsizing personnel and an overall focus on scaling back rather than expanding.

“A one-store dealer can turn on a dime,” he says. “A big group takes much longer to adjust to change than it does for me. I learned to cut expenses early on.”

His extensive history in the automotive industry – even more specifically with the Ford label – didn’t hurt his discerning decision-making skills either. After college, Johnson spent 19 years in various sales positions at Ford Motor Company. From there, he started what would become a seven-year stint as the general manager at a Ford dealership in San Diego, California.

In March of 1994, he received an opportunity to buy into Texas Motors Ford dealership, which at that time had been operating for more than 50 years in Fort Worth, Texas.

“It was too good to pass up,” Cliff Johnson says. It’s a good thing he didn’t. Two years later, Johnson took full ownership, and today Texas Motors Ford has 110 employees operating out of a 125,000-square-foot facility that sits on a sprawling 20 acres. (Johnson moved the store to a new facility in 2002.) In 2009, the store delivered 967 new vehicles and 1,160 used vehicles. Johnson, who owns the dealership with his two sons, Steve Johnson and Cliff Johnson III, says his employees are part and parcel of their continued success.

“I think that if you focus on your employees first,” he says, “they’ll do a better job for your business.”

To stay connected with his associates, he has implemented a unique management style in his dealership, which he refers to as “MBWA” (Management by Walking Around). To that end, it’s rare that you’ll find Johnson in his office. He prefers to be on the floor greeting customers, in the mechanical shop talking to his technicians or catching up with his employees in their offices.

“It’s more likely that an employee will share more with me in his space than he would if he were in my office,” Johnson adds. “It also shows that I care, and I do care.”

His open-door policy isn’t the only advantage his staff can enjoy. He offers competitive pay plans, great benefits packages, intensive training programs and even keeps his mechanical shop and body shop air-conditioned for the comfort of his technicians.

“Unless you have employee satisfaction, you don’t have customer satisfaction,” Cliff Johnson says.

As the recipient of Ford Motor Company’s Presidential Award for Customer Satisfaction in 2009, which ranks him in the top 10th percentile in customer satisfaction of Ford Dealers nationally, he knows a thing or two about keeping his clients happy.

In fact, his desire to keep his customers satisfied is what led him to JM&A Group in the first place. Before partnering with the company 12 years ago, Johnson says the F&I operations at his store were definitely not his top priority. He knew that if he wasn’t pleased with his own F&I techniques, his clientele and employees certainly weren’t either.

“We were doing a lousy job in F&I,” Johnson says. “I called JM&A. They came in and analyzed my operations, set up a plan and then exceeded that plan.”
Since then, he has more than doubled his profit in the F&I department. He credits his success to the comprehensive training programs offered by the company. “Training is a huge factor,” he says. “They do video training with us, so my guys get to see themselves on camera.”

In addition to the training, JM&A Group helped create an effective F&I menu system for the dealership and put together a better pay plan for his service advisors. Perhaps the biggest change, though, was within Johnson himself. He says he now makes the F&I processes at his dealership a main concern. “I am not a finance guy, but I can say I know exactly what is going on in my F&I department at all times.”

For Johnson, the secret to staying ahead in an economic downturn is simple: stay involved. Whether he is on the showroom floor greeting customers or in the F&I office talking numbers, he keeps close tabs on every aspect of his dealership. By doing so, he is able to keep expenses low while maintaining a high level of employee and customer satisfaction.

"I call it keeping the troops informed," Johnson says. Or, as the slogan goes, ensuring that his dealership is built for the road ahead.>>>

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