Welcome to the next Chapter of CMA!

Welcome to the next Chapter of Carter Myers Automotive! On Wednesday, November 3rd, we officially welcomed the Miller Auto Group to CMA. We can now shout a big welcome from the rooftops to all of our new associates!

While the CMA support team was busy this past month with all of the work that had to be done to bring the Miller into the CMA family, there was also a lot of hustle happening in our dealerships.

We started the month with 257 new vehicles on the ground, and ended up selling 557 new. We showed incredible efficiency pre-selling our new vehicles and quickly delivering them to eager customers. However, on the used vehicle side, we only sold 521, which was down from last month and last year. Our used inventory was spotty from dealership to dealership and we had a few challenges getting vehicles quickly through the shop and recon so that they were available for sale. We need everyone’s help in making this process as efficient as possible! In addition, we need to approach used car sourcing as seriously as we take selling. Thank you for all of the sales associates, BDC associates, upgrade specialists and everyone else who is helping to source used vehicles right now!

The star for the month was the parts departments of CMA! Our parts teams together exceeded the ARC forecast in total sales, wholesale parts, and tire sales with several dealerships having all time records! CMA’s Valley CDJR, CMA’s Valley Honda Wholesale and CMA’s Valley Nissan set records; CMA’s Colonial Kia has exceeded their parts forecast every single month this year! CMA’s Colonial Auto Center, CMA’s Valley Subaru and CMA’s Volvo Cars of Charlottesville all crushed it as well!

In service, we had a few dealerships exceed their forecast – CMA’s Colonial Chevrolet, CMA’s Valley Nissan, and CMA’s Volvo of Charlottesville, while CMA’s Colonial Honda and CMA’s Colonial Auto Center just barely missed it. We are focusing on building our bench of technicians so that we can take in all of the customer work that is needed – thank you to Beth Lucheesi and all of our service managers for helping us to build a formal technician apprentice program and continue to grow the next generation of technicians. Also, don’t forget about the recruiting spiff if you help to bring someone into the organization.

Other shoutouts across CMA include:

• We had a few new sales associates make their mark and move lives forward this month: Justin Blackman sold his first four vehicles; Eddie Delgado sold 11 vehicles in his first full month!
• There was some incredible teamwork happening at CMA’s Valley CDJR. Mindy Hartzell stepped up the customer experience and created more than a few wow memories for our sales customers, while Nick Cappuzzo did the same in service – covering extra Saturdays, going to a customer’s house one evening to get a key, and going above and beyond. Brad Wimer covered and led by example in parts when we were very short-handed for the month. Great job in creating ONE Team and not separate departments in the dealership!
• Another great example of teamwork is the leadership up at CMA’s Volvo Cars of Charlottesville, with Brian Pugh as our lead tech and shop foreman, together with our parts manager Chris Purvis, working as one team to exceed their ARC, get every customer in without a wait, and taking ownership of the customer experience together with Todd and Jimmy in the service lane.
• CMA’s Williamsburg Ford body shop had their best month ever! Great job to Paul and Merilyne and the whole team! In addition, the service department finished #1 in the region in CSI and Sales had a perfect 5!
• Speaking of CSI, the team at CMA’s Subaru of Winchester has made incredible strides in their Service CSI. Chuck Mason led the way with the highest score, followed by Amy and Klarisa having their highest scores yet. The service team at CMA’s Colonial Kia showed improvement in the last two weeks with Ron Rose committing to a few new processes, working with Carleigh and Jess in the service lane. CMA’s Valley Honda is now above average in both sales and service And it was the first time in a very long time that all brands in Charlottesville were above average in sales and service CSI!!
• The BDC at CMA’s Colonial Chevrolet set more appts, shown, and sold than the previous year with 100 fewer leads this month. Great job!
• CMA’s Colonial Honda led the company in used cars sold with 96, and Wendy Sparks led their team and CMA with a total of 37 lives moved forward!
• F&I superstars included Russ Beach, Kim Garner, and one of our newer F&I managers, Kallie Travers!! Congratulations to CMA’s Williamsburg Ford for setting an all-time record!
• And one last thing, our Nissan sales team in Charlottesville has shown great improvement in sales efficiency and has moved the needle incredibly fast to get us closer to 100%!

Our top ten sales associates for the month were…drum roll please…

#1 Wendy Sparks, CMA’s Colonial Honda, 37 sold!
Damon Simpson, CMA’s Colonial Hyundai, 24
Brian McCaffity, CMA’s Colonial Hyundai, 24
Walter Cooke, CMA’s Colonial Honda, 22.5
Erik Kibler, CMA’s Valley CDJR, 22
Greg Jones, CMA’s Colonial Kia, 21
Rod Boothes, CMA’s Colonial Kia, 20
Tim Watson, CMA’s Colonial Honda, 19
Devon Paxton, CMA’s Valley Honda, 19
Felicia Schultz, CMA’s Colonial Auto Center, 18
Michael Sharper, CMA’s Colonial Chevrolet, 18
Jeff Holland, CMA’s Colonial Auto Center, 17
Corree Darcus, CMA’s Valley Honda, 17
Bob Kemp, CMA’s Colonial Auto Center, 16
Tim Hansbrough, CMA’s Valley CDJR, 16

Thank you to our Philanthropy committee for leading the way on Breast Cancer Awareness month for October. I loved seeing the pink everywhere, but more importantly, I hope that everyone encouraged a woman in their life to go get their mammogram. Prevention saves lives!

As we move into the holiday season, we will hold our annual Bike drive for kids in need in our community. Bikes are a kid’s first mode of transportation and a way for them to get outside, off of their electronics, and out with their friends and their community. Let’s bring in our vendor partners, customers, and others in the community to help with the effort and bring smiles to as many kids faces as possible for the holidays. Wheel around like a kid yourself and have some fun in your showrooms – when you have fun at work, it brings out the joy in your customers and your fellow associates. Working hard and having fun are not mutually exclusive, so let’s have fun this holiday season and finish the year in record fashion!

We are now in our next chapter of CMA. It’s November and I am incredibly grateful for the associates who have helped us grow to where we are today. I also am grateful for the 1,000 associates who are writing the next chapter which will be our future. We have almost 250 new hearts and minds with great ideas to add to our company. I very much look forward to all of us learning from our new associates and sharing with them our CMA culture.

See you all soon!
Liza