A consortium of experts from all aspects of the automotive industry is being assembled with the intent of helping dealerships in all phases of their business.
The Lion Partnership, which is expected to launch some time in the next four weeks, is being put together by Toronto-based Peter Smith. He is a Canadian partner at Mobile Dealer Data, which is based in Minneapolis.
Smith has more than 30 years experience in the automotive business, including working for dealerships as a General Sales Manager, Senior Sales Executive and Sales Manager. He has been President of Marketing One Technologies, an advertising services company based in Oakville, for the last 14 years.
Smith said the Lion Partnership will be primarily focused on the Ontario market and he has assembled experts from sales, service, fixed-ops, accounting, detailing, collision, to buying and selling dealerships and land.
“The whole concept is collectively bringing the strength of experts in this industry that (dealerships) can call and we have someone to help you and we will protect your investment,” said Smith in an interview with Canadian auto dealer. “It will be people I call subject matter experts.”
He said each of the experts has more than 10 years in the business and 20,000 hours, or the equivalent of a medical degree. He has 10 experts so far and expects to have another six by the time he launches.
“The people I am assembling into this consortium are allowing us to focus on what’s wrong with this business and how to change it,” said Smith. “We can analyze where the issues are. We can mystery shop you. We can do data analysis of where internet key points are being used.”
He said the experts will retain 80 percent of the money they generate, 10 percent will go to the consortium and 10 percent will be directed to pay for marketing. He said there is no cost to become part of the consortium.
“The basic win for me is taking the intelligence of experts and putting them together,” said Smith. “The collective income of the consortium pays back to the consortium like a dividend, but the main compensation is what business (they individually drive). I’m not looking to gain anything financially out of this from others because I don’t believe it’s fair.”
He said to the best of his knowledge there is no other company offering this service.
