SMARTBUSINESSINSIGHT. ADVICE. STRATEGY. ™ BROWARD/PALM BEACH

Driven toSUCCEEDHOW CRAIG ZINN HELPS

EMPLOYEES HIT CHALLENGESHEAD ON AT CRAIG ZINN

AUTOMOTIVE GROUP

HOW CRAIG ZINN HELPSEMPLOYEES HIT CHALLENGESHEAD ON AT CRAIG ZINN

AUTOMOTIVE GROUP

SMART LEADERSLife Insurance ConceptsTed Bernstein on how toplan for a crisis and dealwith one when it strikes

FAST LANEHow Ed Pozzuoli buildspersonal trust withemployees at Tripp Scott

SMART LEADERSLife Insurance ConceptsTed Bernstein on how toplan for a crisis and dealwith one when it strikes

FAST LANEHow Ed Pozzuoli buildspersonal trust withemployees at Tripp Scott

January 2009 | $3.00 | www.sbnonline.com

Craig Zinn,President and CEO.

Craig Zinn Automotive Group

Martine Zinn

PHOTOS PROVIDED BYCRAIG ZINN AUTOMOTIVE GROUP

Cover Story The Craig Zinn Automotive Group

JANUARY 2009 | SMART BUSINESS BROWARD • PALM BEACH

DriventoSucceedHow Craig Zinn helps employees hit challenges

head-on at Craig Zinn Automotive Group

B Y M A R K S C O T T

When Craig Zinn walks into his business, he’ll shake everybody’s hand and askhow everyone is doing. Lately, the answers from employees haven’t been pos-itive. • With gas prices skyrocketing, the sale of any vehicle with a V-8 engine

has proven quite a challenge. So what does Zinn, president and CEO of Craig ZinnAutomotive Group, do when his employees feel like they couldn’t sell a truck or SUV tosave their life? • He goes out and buys breakfast for the whole team. And with scrambledeggs, bacon and french toast in hand, he gathers the troops and begins to look for solutions.• “Things are a little tough today? Let’s sit down. I want to talk.” Zinn says. “We’re break-ing down the negatives, and we’re going to enhance the positives through open communi-cation. Let people know you don’t want to just have your ass kissed. You want to knowwhat’s really going on. • Make it clear to your employees that you’re not going to bite theirhead off and you really want to know what’s bothering them. If you do, the chancesimprove dramatically that they will be candid with you.

12 JANUARY 2009 | SMART BUSINESS BROWARD • PALM BEACH

“When I seesomething wrong

and I try to correct

it, I look for five

things that are

right, and I try to

reinforce them.”

Cover Story The Craig Zinn Automotive Group

Craig Zinn,President and CEO.Craig Zinn Automotive Group

“You always have to say, ‘What can I do tohelp you be more productive?” Zinn Says.“If they say, ‘That manager over there, hewont’ get off his butt to talk to my cus-tomers,’ the first thing you want to do is goto the manager and say, ‘Is what they aresaying true?’You get the negative attitude,and you realize you have a problem withthe manager. If you create a closed systemwhere people cannot give you positive ornegative feedback, you’re dead. Youbecome the ostrich, and you believe whatyou want to believe instead fo believingwhat you’re seeing.”You have to pay attention to your peopleand teach them to be open about the chal-lenges they might be facing on the job. Ifyou don’t, you wont’ have a aclue what’shappening in your business. When youpay attention, it can produce a big payoff.“You will find that management nowbecomes another tool in the toolbox tohelp your people be more successfulinstead of being an obstacle to their suc-cess,” Zinn says.Get to know your peopleYou and your employees need to share acommon purpose and have a plan in placefor how to make it happen. For Zinn, theoverwhelming goal is to service the cus-tomer at his organization that has revenuethat exceeds $140 million.“I started in the car business washing carsand putting parts on the shelf and deliver-ing parts and seeing that the whole busi-ness revolves around the customer,” Zinnsays. “If you don’t relate to the customer’sneeds and wishes, you are dead. Whatyou’re trying to create is a culture of,‘We’re here to assist the customer.”Obviously, you can’t do it all by yourself.So you need this culture to support youremployees in their efforts to help your cus-tomers.Zinn promotes the idea of “kaizen,” the

Japanese philosophy of striving for contin-uous improvements in all aspects of life.He brings it up with his employees con-stantly.“Every time we get together, we discusssituations and how we dealt with them andhow we can improve those situations.”Zinn says. “We do it with role-playing. Wedo it with training. We do it with bringingin people that are not in our industry whocome in and motivate strictly in terms oftalking about how people organize theirlives.”It can’t just be about work if you expectyour employees to buy in to your desire toserve the customer.“I’m spending more time with my sales-people and my managers than I am withmy family,” Zinn says. “I need to haverespect, and I need to have earned thatrespect. Not by saying, ‘I’m the boss, andyou do it my way.’But you do it by saying,‘This is how we would like to do it,’ andyou allow input, and you always keep thatfeedback door open.”The idea of bringing in breakfast is justone example of showing that you’re notlooking for a bunch of automatons who arejust there to put in their time and go home.“When you wake up in the morning, didyou go over your daily planner? Did youreview what you need to get accomplishedtoday?” Zinn says. “We talk about timemanagement. We talk about health andmental attitude. Did you go to the gym thismorning? Did you eat a good breakfast?These are all things that many companiesdoing the right things do. They getinvolved in their people’s daily lives.”By supporting a culture based on the ideaof ladies and gentlemen serving ladies andgentlemen, you create a positive environ-ment.“You have everyone believing in positivethings that happen,” Zinn says.In any business, especially one in whichyou’re trying to make a sale, the effect ofpositive attitudes is tremendous.“When I go into any business and I sensethat people really love what they aredoing, they are very quick to share andvery quick to tell you how great it is towork at this company,” Zinn says. “At thesame time, people that are negative aregoing to be even quicker to tell you howbad it is. That’s getting on the positive sideof the curve and allowing the people tofeel that they are running the show.”

Don’t focus on numbers“We’re not just selling cars; we’re trying tobuild long-term relationships.”It sounds like something that a car dealermight say, and in fact, those words wereuttered by Zinn, who, obviously, is a cardealer.But if you ask Zinn what one of his great-est frustrations is as a car dealer, you startto see that maybe those words are more toZinn than just a corny cliché.“When I go through my deals and gothrough my daily business and I see thtatwe literally made too much money on acustomer, I get more upset than I do whenI see we lost a customer because we didn’tdo things right,” Zinn says. “If you over-charge a customer, you will never do busi-ness with them again.”If Zinn finds that a customer was over-charged, he will write the customer a checkfor the difference between what he or shewas charged and what he or she shouldhave been charged.It reinforces the idea to his employees that

they are all in the business to service thecustomer in the best way possible.That commitment has to be represented bymore than just words in a training seminar.It has to be practiced in the way your com-pany does business.Zinn uses the example of a customer whocan’t find what he or she is looking for asone of his stories.“They wanted a Prius, and we didn’t haveone so I showed them a car that gets 30miles a gallon instead of 40, and it wasn’treally what they wanted,” Zinn says. “AndI say, ‘Hold it right there.’ Regardless ofwhatever price we gave them, we weren’tgoing to make them happy. So why push?Be ladies and gentlemen and say, ‘Whenwe have a car available, we’ll contact you.’To get pushy and arrogant is where thingsbreak down.”When you take steps to show you car aboutmaking a deal that benefits both you andthe customer, your employees should fol-low suit in their own actions. The key is tomake customer satisfaction your primary

“If you don’t relateto the customer’s

needs and wishes,

you are dead.”Craig Zinn,President and CEO.Craig Zinn Automotive Group

JANUARY 2009 | SMART BUSINESS BROWARD • PALM BEACH 13

goal. When you do that, the numbers willcome.“If our goal is to have the highest customersatisfaction index in the country, we’re goingto sell a lot of cars,” Zinn says. “If our goal isto sell a lot of cars, we’re not going to havevery happy customers. It really works well ifthe goal is not numbers but achievable atti-tudes and perceptions about your business.That would be the ultimate desire.”By focusing on attitudes, you teach youremployees that they should always strive to bethe best, not just when they are tyring to hit aquota.“You remind people that, ‘You think youknow it all, but you really don’t,” Zinn says. “Iown the place and I know I don’t know ital…You have to continually challenge them,train them, and remind them of why they cameto work for you and that every day they cometo work for us is a pleasure.”Keep employees focusedIf you want to maximize results, do whateveryou can to make sure your employees canfocus on their jobs and have as few distrac-tions as possible.“If their heads are up their behinds becausethey are going to pay another $200 a month inhealth insurance, they are not going ot be pro-ductive on my sales floor,” Zinn says. “Weneed to buffer and protect them.”Zinn says many employees have been con-cerned lately about their health care costs.“I can’t guarantee that my rates aren’t going torise from my insurance company to me,” Zinnsays. “But if I tell my people, ‘This is what it’sgoing to be for the next 12 months,’ that’swhat it’s going to be. I’ll eat the difference.”This philosophy also serves to further yourprimary goal of keeping the customer happy.“The cold, hard rule would be walking out ofthe meeting and saying, ‘From now on, youtell every customer, when they come in to pickup their car, no cashier’s check, no car,” Zinnsays. “Not in my store. ‘But boss, didn’t youhear what the banker said?’ I say, ‘I’ll dealwith the banker, you make the customerhappy.” Don’t create an environment wherethat customer is going to say, ‘Those idiotswouldn’t let me take the car home becausethey wouldn’t take my personal check.”You need to make your employees feel that Ithey do their jobs in the way they were trainedand always strive to service the customer, theywill be safe.“Go out and be productive and together, we’llmove forward,” Zinn says. “But if you walk inin the morning and you get beat up and bashedaround, and before you know it, your insur-

Born: Bronx, N.Y. I’ve been in Florida since

two weeks after I was born. I’m not a native

Floridian, but I’m as close as they come.

Education: Northwood University, Midland,

Mich., associate of arts and bachelor of arts,

business administration, accounting and mar-

keting; General Motors Institute, Flint, Mich.,

graduate degree in dealership accounting

How did your childhood influence you?

I remember being on a Little League team. It was in 1968 when Robert

Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated. I was by far one of the bet-

ter players on the team, and I’m a member of a particular minority, and the

coach didn’t want Jewish players on the team. I remember one African-

American boy, and I thought he was better than me – we didn’t make the team.

He looked at me and says, ‘I was better than anybody.’ I said, ‘I know you

were.’ I’ll never forget that experience. It didn’t matter how talented we were. It

was discrimination. I swore I would never tolerate that. It’s motivated me. It’s

made my wife and I get involved in the Anti-Defamation League and other char-

ities that deal with what I refer to as discriminatory practices that changed my

life.

Whom do you admire most?

Roger Penske. He’s a winner, and everything he does he does it to win. He’s a

tough competitor, but he doesn’t cheat. He believes in his people and in his

process, but he listens and he learns.

To look at a guy like Mr. Penske and say, ‘Someday, there is more I can do and

more people I can touch.’ He has always been someone I’ve looked up to since

I met him. I do compete with him, and I beat him every once in awhile.

ance is going up, your customers can nolonger give personal checks and your trade-insaren’t worth what they should be, you have allthis negative stuff in your head and you’resaying, ‘I don’t need this crap.’ When peoplethink that way, your customers know it imme-diately.”Zinn says it’s simply a matter of being posi-tive with your people, even if you have to benegative once in awhile.“For every ass chewing, there has got to be at

least five attaboys,” Zinn says. “When I seesomething wrong and I try to correct it, I lookfor five things that are right, and I try to rein-force them. That creates the attitude that myboss isn’t looking over my shoulder to findthings I’m doing wrong. He’s looking over myshoulder to praise me, to move me forward. Ithink it works in any business.” <<

HOW TO REACH: Craig Zinn AutomotiveGroup (800)432-7178 or www.czgroup.com

14 JANUARY 2009 | SMART BUSINESS BROWARD • PALM BEACH

Cover Story The Craig Zinn Automotive Group

The Zinn file