When word got around that Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally had tried his hand selling cars at a couple of dealerships recently, people from the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Assn. had a question.
“What was your closing ratio and gross?” Association President Mark Schienberg asked Mulally at the 2007 New York International Auto Show, a big event in a city that allegedly disdains cars. More on that in a minute.
Mulally didn’t say what numbers he posted, first at Village Ford in Dearborn, MI, down the street from Ford world headquarters; then at Galpin Ford in North Hills, CA, the top-selling Ford dealer in the world.
But the Ford chief did expound on why he made time in his executive schedule to work a few hours at dealerships. “I did it for several reasons,” he says. “One of them is that the dealer body is critical to us.”
Read Article