Business Innovators Radio - Max Martinez- Special Finance Manager at Toyota of Hollywood, FL

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

In this episode of Auto Dealer Influencers, hosts Patrick Jarman and Marco Salinas interview Max Martinez, the Special Finance Director at Toyota of Hollywood in Florida. With 13 years of experience in the auto industry, Martinez shares his insights on the importance of multiculturalism in auto dealerships.Martinez emphasizes that his dealership does not discriminate and that dealerships should cater to their clientele’s needs. Toyota of Hollywood has a multicultural team of salespeople who can speak their customers’ languages and assist them every step of the way. Going the extra mile is crucial in building lasting relationships with customers and setting successful dealerships apart from struggling ones.The hosts also ask Martinez about the challenges he faced early in his career. Martinez shares that learning the craft and the process of selling cars was difficult at first, but he was good at making friends out of customers. He also had a great team of managers who taught him little by little, and he praises the Lord for the experience.Martinez’s experience in the auto industry and his emphasis on multiculturalism provide valuable insights for auto dealerships looking to improve their customer relationships and sales. Listeners will gain a better understanding of the importance of catering to their customer’s needs and building lasting relationships with them.This episode is a must-listen for anyone in the auto industry looking to improve their dealership’s success and customer relationships. Martinez’s insights and experiences provide valuable lessons that can be applied to any dealership, regardless of location or size.Auto Dealer Influencers Podcast https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/auto-dealer-influencers-podcast/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/max-martinez-special-finance-manager-at-toyota-of-hollywood-fl

Welcome to the Auto Dealer Influencers podcast. Go to walk to you by TurboPass USA. Featuring conversations with successful auto industry influencers and innovators, sharing tips and strategies to help make the car buying experience less stressful and more enjoyable. With your host, Patrick Jarman. Welcome back to another episode of the Auto Dealer Influeners podcast. I have my usual suspect of, co-host joining me today, Mr. Patrick, Jarman, say hello.

Hey, hello. And along with us, joining us is also a very special guest. His name is Mr. Max Martinez. And Max is with the Toyota of Hollywood, Florida. I'm sorry, Toyota of Hollywood in Florida dealership. What is your position there, Max? I'm the finance director's assistance. Finance director's assistance.

Very good. Thank you very much for joining us today on auto dealer influencers. Also, it's my pleasure, guys. Thank you for having me today. Absolutely. So let's start off with this, Max. We'll go right into it. Tell us about your background in the auto industry. How did you get into this space and how long have you been in this space? Going on 13 years, I've always worked in sales. And 13 years ago, I found myself in need of a new job and I started selling cars. So I sold cars for about two years. Then I defanance for nine. And I have the extra two years also assisting in the director department. So pretty much 13 years total. Yeah, very good. So what was it that ultimately, I think, like, inspired you to go this pathway? Was it just plain simple, hey, I need a job? Or do you kind of have some friends or some family that's already in that space? At the time, my family was getting alone and hanging out with one of the sales managers. So, yes, I have a few friends that I knew at the time. So I was working on a call center, a direct TV call center, selling a direct TV product.

and then they lay off the whole department. It was like 20-something people that got let go. And I met a phone call. And the very same week, I started working here. I had plenty of experience in sales. Never saw the car in my life. But I was good talking to people. So that was my startup.

Wow, man. That is really awesome. I love it. Well, tell me about some of the challenges that you faced earlier in your career before you, you know, got to some of these more like finance director type roles or positions. Challenges from the beginning. Just learning the crafts. Just learning the process.

But as everything is you got to sell yourself. So, you know, I was really good at that. I'm getting to making a friend out of a customer and everything else, you get to learn little by little. So, so as you learn, as you grow and praise the Lord in this dealership in this particular store, the group of people that have a lot of experience. So I had a really good team of managers that would teach us, you know. So little by little you get to learn. Absolutely, man.

That's great. And that's definitely one of those key components. What about so you're at Toyota of Hollywood. what are some of the things that you think that set a successful auto dealer apart from those other dealerships out there that are struggling? Obviously, you guys are doing very well. What are some of the things that you guys are doing differently from the others that are out there that are not doing so successful? Well, this place does not discriminate. This play is definitely multicultural.

This plays, we have a salesperson that speak to your language, and we can definitely communicate with you and we'll cater to your needs. You know, we have to do stuff to make it easier for you. We'll assist you on every step of the way. So definitely going the extra mile. You have to cater to your clientele, and that's one thing that we do. We have a huge group of very good salespeople. Our team closest to 100 sales rep. We have 28 finance managers, so we're able to cater to the community.

And as you know, South Flood is a melting pad. So we have all kinds from everywhere coming daily. and that thing is part of the special sauce that we have. Yes, yes, I understand. Okay, so you guys are making sure that everybody that comes in there has someone that can relate to them, that can speak their language, that maybe understands their background and their culture and different things like that. That's awesome. What about technology? What about technology, Max?

What do you think about the way that technology has evolved or changed the auto dealer industry in recent years? Have you seen any of that yourself with your own eyes? Absolutely. Wow, the biggest changes that happened in the last few years was e-contracting, where we embrace, you know, doing everything electronically. I mean, it's been available for a while, but a little by little, everybody started adjusting to it. And nowadays, we definitely embrace technology. We definitely embrace software that will make our job easier because it helped us in funding. It helps us on a lot of aspects of the transaction.

Yeah, no, definitely. And so what are you yourself or maybe the dealership itself, doing to stay on top of, you know, industry trends and the latest things that are going on out there. What is it? How do you guys kind of keep your ear to the street on that stuff? Well, mainly people like yourself and your company that reach out and I'm willing to do a demo, I'm willing to demonstrate. Like I said, our team is pretty big and we have a lot of experience. So it's not. We do filter stuff. We do filter to the upper management. And we also take risk. We also try. We'll also give you guys a chance. And we, you know, whoever brings an idea,

let's take a look at it. We might be the first one to bring this to the market. Absolutely. So you were mentioning that you had done a demo, obviously, at one point with TurboPass, and now you guys have been using TurboPass, correct? Yeah, we have been using TurboPass for the last three years. Okay, can I ask you over the last three years, what has your experience been like with TurboPass?

Do you feel like it has benefited your dealership and has it helped with the customer experience? And if so, like in what ways has it helped you using this? Yeah, absolutely. TurboPass itself is a great technology because it allows to verify income. Some lenders will waive actually verification of employment where they don't have to go out and make a phone call to the employer. It will help you with a verification of address. So there are certain things that TurboPAS help us fatally stay and truth and funding, which we love. And on top of that, these lenders, the lenders that we are utilizing them, they cater to the Turbopass Arena by giving us a special discount.

So sometimes you get a bank fee and you could get a break. you'll get a discount on that bank fee due to using a turbopass, which they tend to like. They do like a lot because they have always fraud with the bank statements. Sure. Yeah. Is that something that you guys are seeing more of over there? Has fraud become a bigger issue with the car buying experience in recent years? I think it has always been around.

I think it's not a new thing. But sure, I mean, we can tell. And that's having a tool like turbopassi definitely help us have more confident on the actual documentation that we have and how we're able to. And sometimes they might not even be fraudulent. It might be just a mistake where we filled out an application incomplete or the application was not properly filled out. And we can double check it because we have access to this tool that gives us insight that

otherwise, you know, you might be getting the wrong information. Absolutely. That's great, man. That's really cool feedback. What about when it comes to attracting talent, Max? Obviously, you know, dealerships are looking for the top talent in that industry. What have you seen that your dealership is doing to, you know, recruit the right type of people? and keep them there, keep them happy like yourself.

You've been there for a while. Obviously, you're pretty happy, right? Yeah, absolutely. Man, I guess our team is huge. And the diversity affecting everybody to do a certain way. So one of the things that we allow is, as long as you get the job done, let's just make a job, let's get the job done. Let's do the legit way.

Let's find the correct way, your way, whichever way works for you, to get a hold of that customer, to reach out, to make that sale. Everything within that is allowed and is able to be projected to the world. We encourage it. We encourage it to, you know, to everybody bring up their feedback and give us idea. I mean, you definitely have to delegate. And that's massive. If you try to control everything, there's only so much that you can do.

So you definitely have to delegate and count on your people. We have great management team. And, you know, everybody has their role that everybody shows up. So you definitely have to show up to work and do your part on the job. And everybody brings something great. In my particular store, everybody does, you know, an amazing job of completing the task, getting the jump down. Yeah, that's great. Patrick has, you know, obviously been with TurboPass for a while and he has a more extensive knowledge of what you guys are doing and how you're doing it.

I would like to hear him ask, you know, a little bit more of a nitty-gritty type question. If you don't mind, Patrick. Yeah, sure. I'd say my favorite question to ask is how is your dealership balancing the needs of your customers versus the needs of your business, right? Like how do you determine pricing and inventory levels that mean customer demand, but also maximizing profits? You want to give a good price to the customer so that they like it and they buy, but you also need a good price for your dealership. So you're coming out of that deal as profitable as possible. So what's Toyota of Hollywood doing in that regard?

Well, inventory is definitely being tough and it's not much available. We're still selling a ton of cars, but everything is like on the new side is pre-sold. When customers are inquiring about car, whoever signs up first, whoever puts the down payment first is the one that's going to get that particular vehicle because there's really not that many to borrow around or to be picky about it. So what's available is sold already. When we have truckloads being delivered daily, those trucks loads are most likely 98% of them are sold. They might be one or two or three that maybe the deal didn't go through. sometimes the person does get tired of waiting. It could take 20 days.

It could take 60 days. It could be sometimes up to 45 to 60 days. Right. That part right there creates a little bit of talent. And that's no fault of your own, right? That's the manufacturer. The manufacturer. I know mainly that parts of the octa will be going up.

So sure, it has to be profitable for everybody. And obviously, the only profitable, it has to be planetable because 98% of the yield. We do finance. So bank will charge it literally. I'm only able to give it this much. You got to make it work. You got to make it worse.

So that's how we, that's how we do doing. Okay, got you. Yeah, no, that's good information, Max. And we're just about to wrap it up. I just had a couple of final questions for you here before I let you go. The other thing that I wanted to ask you was tell me about the future. What do you think the future of the auto industry is going to look like over the next year or two years? Obviously, there's been some economic shakiness going on.

on in the world and our country. Are you guys affected by that right now? And what do you think like the car buying experience is going to be like in that regard here in the next year or two? And definitely the entire world has been impacted. The car industry has been impacted. I mean, we're selling what we have. And this is an essential business. I mean, everybody that comes to this state needs a car.

Transportation is very limited. So I don't think it's going away anytime soon. It definitely will never go away as long as we have roads to drive on. and as long as there is a piece of metal available, we're going to sell it. So in reality, we just need more cars. We definitely would love to have twice as much inventory as we used to, but we don't.

But we sell what we have and what makes the big different, and we definitely are really good at that. That's why the reasons we're number one and a lot of experts of what we do is because you have to cater to the customer. You have to be able to be flexible with them. You have to be able to, you know, care for them before selling a car, they're a human being. It's a person in front of you, a family, you know, a hardworking person. All they need is somebody to take care of them. So, and that's one thing that, you know, Honeywood does

very well. That's great. Last question for you, Max, before we let you go, tell me what Max Martinez does when he's not at the dealership, when he finally has a little bit of time off. What does your downtime look like? Who do you spend it with? That kind of thing. What are your hobbies? Oh, wow. Well, I'm definitely a busy guy outside of being a full-time father, you know, husband. I got two kids. I do participate in my local church, you know, men's Bible study and so on. So I stay active. You know, there is no downtime for me whatsoever. Possibly Sunday. But on Sunday, I'm doing the errands that I can do during the week. So truly it's nonstop, nongoing. I love it. I think it's an amazing life that I have of, you know, everything that I get to do and participate. Being a family man is awesome. You know, be able to influence my kids and my society, my community, my coworkers, I think it's amazing because, you know, I've been giving this role to lead and leading, you know, is very, you get to see the fruits, you know. I was just having a conversation with my wife about a person that I met. A long time ago, I would say about 14 years ago, and I remember that person.

I help him get into one of the jobs that person was getting at that time. And then now they became a salesperson for me at Toyota Hollywood. And now they're a finance manager at Toyota Hollywood. So I've seen that person grow, you know, and how, you know, I was a positive influence in that person's life. life. So that was very inspiring, very amazing. And I just happened to be talking to my wife a few days ago about it. So you can tell, you know, you can see how how my personal life and what we've been doing, you know, could influence somebody else. So that's really great. No doubt. I love it. I absolutely love it. Max Martinez with Toyota of Hollywood. And this is not the other Hollywood, right? This is Hollywood

in Florida. Just a few miles away from Miami is where you guys are keeping yourself busy over there in Fort Lauderdale. Fort Lauderdale. Max, thank you again so much for your time. I know you're a very busy man and we really appreciate you squeezing in a few minutes to talk with us today on the Auto Dealer Influencers podcast. Absolutely, guys. Thank you so much for having me today.

Have a good one, my friend. All righty, guys. And that does it, guys, for another episode of the Auto Dealer Influencers podcast. We'll catch you here next time. You've been listening to the Auto Dealer Influencers podcast, brought to you by TurboPass USA. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or to listen to past episodes, please visit turbopassusa.com slash podcast.