Approaching 100 years in business, Dimmitt Chevrolet is a family-owned dealership located in the greater Tampa Bay area of Florida. The business was started in 1924 and has since won the Chevrolet Dealer of the Year award, been rated by Automotive News as a Top 100 Dealer to work for and recognized by the Tampa Bay Times as a Top 50 place to work. Lawrence Dimmitt III is the third-generation owner and is in the process of transitioning ownership to his daughter, Liz Dimmitt, who currently serves as managing partner.
As managing partner of Dimmitt Chevrolet, Liz works with the store’s Executive Team to oversee daily operations. Previously, Liz worked in finance and private equity in New York City. She also works as a cultural strategist and art industry analyst. She holds a BA in finance from Georgetown University and an MA in visual arts administration from NYU.
Dealer Magazine: As a fourth-generation car dealer, you have deep family roots in the industry and are currently the managing partner at Dimmitt Chevrolet, a dealership started by your great grandfather. What changes to the car business do you think would most impress your great grandfather were he alive today?
Liz: I think the level of sophistication of today’s vehicles. Today’s cars are basically computers on wheels. No doubt, Chevy’s new mid-engine Corvette would blow him away!
Our use of digital advertising and social media to communicate with customers would also be a big surprise. My great grandfather, Potsie, was very creative with his newspaper ads, and I like to think we continue his outside-the-box style in our digital strategy.
Dealer Magazine: Your father, Lawrence H. Dimmitt III, is transitioning ownership of the dealership to you. Are you experiencing any generational pains during the transition?
Liz: Not really. You know, things are constantly evolving and changing in the auto industry, so change is something we’re used to. And, of course, we’ve had a long time to prepare for this transition. Our family’s been through it twice before, and we’ve learned from these previous experiences.
Plus, we’re fortunate to have a long-tenured management team who are all invested in preparing their successors and my transition to dealer. They’ve been very helpful in coaching me to take on new challenges and responsibilities. Their insight and feedback are invaluable, and they add a layer of stability to our dealership.
The three key members of our executive team, Scott Collore, Bobby Johnson, and Sam Pilato, have been here for 10, 10, and 23 years respectively, which provides a serious level of stability at the top. And my father isn’t going anywhere right away. He’s here and is available to me at any time. We talk daily.
Dealer Magazine: What’s the best advice you received about the car business?
Liz: The best advice I’ve received is that we’re not in the car business, we’re in the people business. This rings true every day. We have a staff of 130 and our customers come from the community around us. When all is said and done, it’s really all about those human relationships. And that’s what we spend the most time investing in, talking about, and improving upon.
Dealer Magazine: What appeals, excites or surprises you most about retail automotive?
Liz: What surprises me most is the low margin or sometimes no margin on new vehicle sales. I don’t think the public really understands this part of the equation.
What excites me most is the need to be creative and innovative and think differently. I’m talking especially about digital tools and how we use them. We also have to explore new profit opportunities. A typical dealership is actually many different businesses under one roof. It’s both fun and challenging to strategize about these different businesses and how to maximize their return.
Dealer Magazine: In what ways has Dimmitt Chevrolet embraced digital marketing?
Liz: We’re all-in on digital marketing. It’s where we spend the most time and the bulk of our advertising money. Digital is where we tell the Dimmitt Chevy brand story and how we recruit new employees and communicate with customers. We are very invested in digital marketing and find ourselves constantly having to learn and innovate to say on top of trends.
This is especially true with social media, which is mission-critical for Dimmitt Chevrolet. We’re a family store and are proud of our family-friendly atmosphere. Social media is the best way for us to communicate our culture and to stay connected to our customers. When you think about it, social media is a great way to communicate back and forth. We get instant feedback. We get to share pictures and stories. And our stories can evolve and react. Social media is a powerful tool for us to distinguish ourselves, especially via Facebook and Instagram.
When it comes to digital marketing, we try anything and everything. We also create videos to post on social media and YouTube.
Dealer Magazine: Do you use an outside source for filming the videos or is the work done in-house?
Liz: We make our videos in-house to keep them cost-effective, timely, and authentic. They feature our employees, which is useful for our customers when they visit the store. They get to meet the same people they’ve seen in the videos, not actors.
Once you embrace it, video is an impactful tool. We have some staff members who excel at it and others who are still learning. That’s part of the fun, too. Sometimes our videos have great production quality and others are more “organic.”
Our customer service staffs’ replies to digital leads include video introductions of themselves. Another benefit is that we can show customers what a specific vehicle looks like and demonstrate its features via a walk-around video. For Service, video, and photography help us to demonstrate what needs to be fixed and why. Video of a leak is way more compelling than just telling a customer about it.
Dealer Magazine: Which third-party vendors do you work with to generate leads or manage inventory?
Liz: We’re fans of vAuto, AutoTrader, CarGurus, TrueCar, Fair, and Rodo and because they provide us the best ROI. We obsess about our vendors and constantly monitor our third-party providers, from month to month, to understand what we’re paying and what we’re getting back as a return on our investment.
I’d like to point out that we’re happy with Elead, which is now part of CDK. Their system is efficient and effective. We track all the notes, any contact, and even life events of our customers so everyone on our team can be up to date at any point in time.
Dealer Magazine: Let’s talk management for the moment. Do you see yourself as more of a hands-on manager or a delegator?
Liz: I’d say I’m both; I’m hands-on but also a delegator. I’m here and engaged, but I’m not a micromanager. I really am more of a cheerleader and coach and focused on the big picture. I review reports and processes and attend meetings, but I definitely turn things over to my team and trust them to do a great job and get results. My team is awesome!
Dealer Magazine: What’s special traits or skills do you look for when hiring?
Liz: Mostly, we look for potential. The potential for growth, to evolve, and to become a leader.
I also want to be surrounded by kind people. I prefer people who are thoughtful and respectful and who I know are going to treat our colleagues and customers well. We want team members who enjoy what they’re doing and the people they work with. Again, as I said earlier, we’re in the people business.
Dealer Magazine: Gross profits on new vehicles are lower than in previous years. How is Dimmitt Chevrolet addressing or making up for these lower numbers?
Liz: We’re focusing more on our used vehicle inventory and sales, which, of course, starts with getting good trades. We also try to emphasize our financial products and the service side of our business. While it’s still important to chase the new vehicle sales volume to qualify for incentives, we’re also constantly putting our heads together as a team, to innovate and get strategic in finding new profit opportunities within the dealership.
Dealer Magazine: Let’s talk tools. Which DMS solution do you use? Same question for CRM.
Liz: CDK for DMS and Elead. CDK has definitely improved. We were using a different provider for our website, but now we’re running everything through CDK and getting good results. Same with Elead. We have a big staff and hope to see customers interacting with all our departments. Having access to all those notes and keeping track of all the information is critical.
Dealer Magazine: What single piece of technology makes the greatest difference to your store’s success?
Liz: Digital marketing, for sure. It enables us to micro-target customers and to get tailored information in front of the right eyes. Digital tools make it easier for us to tell our story and connect with customers in a much more efficient and cost-effective way. We’re constantly learning how to squeeze more value out of the digital space. It’s a full-time job for someone to keep up with what’s happening and to determine the best ways to use social media. We’re always looking to expand our understanding of what we can do digitally.
Dealer Magazine: What separates your dealership from the competition?
Liz: I’d say our community involvement and staff longevity. Our longest-tenured employee is approaching her fortieth anniversary. Repeat customers return to our store, year after year, and see the same managers. We foster a true family atmosphere. The Dimmitt family is, of course, heavily involved, but we also consider all of our employees and customers, family. We celebrate the good and tough life events together.
Dealer Magazine: What steps do you take to ensure customer satisfaction?
Liz: We are committed to making our customers the focus of every single thing we do. We think about the customer with every action we take and never forget that a high level of customer service is paramount. I think something else we do is we listen to their feedback and make adjustments, even tiny adjustments, throughout the day. We pay attention to what people are saying online or in surveys and we react.
Dealer Magazine: Millennials are now the largest single consumer market. What are you doing to attract more millennials to your store as either customers or employees?
Liz: Our digital strategy enables us to tell our brand story and to promote a brand that is attractive for people to work at or shop at. Plus, we’re constantly evolving our management style so that we’re managing for the modern workforce and customer base. We give lots of feedback and information and our managers interact with customers and staff in a variety of ways. The days of the high-pressure car deal are over, which appeals to more than just millennials.
We also try to help our team and customers achieve a good work-life balance. We recognize that their time is precious, and we try to be respectful of it and efficient with it.
Dealer Magazine: Let’s shift to women and automotive. What’s it been like as a woman leader in a male-dominated business?
Liz: I started my career in finance, another male-dominated business, so I really didn’t notice anything different when I transitioned to automotive. I’ve never been in a female-dominated industry, so I don’t quite know how to answer. I do, however, often find myself to be the only woman in the room and feel pressure to be twice as good and twice as nice. I don’t always succeed.
Dealer Magazine: How do you define leadership?
Liz: I was always taught that it’s the job of a leader to hire and maintain the highest quality staff possible. Then, your job is to give those people the tools they need to succeed and to remove any obstacles so that they can do the job to the best of their ability. It’s my goal to bring together and maintain a truly excellent staff.
Dealer Magazine: I understand your current executive team is all male and over 60. How has that been working out? Any age or gender-related issues?
Liz: Perhaps age-related, but not in the way you’d expect. For example, my dad’s assistant, Bonnie Kopcik, has worked with him for forty years. She’s known me since I was a baby. She put up with me as a teenager. I used to call her from school when I forgot my lunch or needed permission for something because I knew she’d be there to pick up the phone. It’s trippy to think back to those days and then to realize she’s now a colleague that I continue to rely on to keep us organized.
Likewise, our executive team has been a part of my family and my life for years. I still sometimes find it strange to be a grownup in the board room working alongside them. They’ve been around for so long that we squabble like family, but at the end of the day, we know that we love and respect each other and have the dealership’s best interest at heart.
Dealer Magazine: Do you serve as a mentor to other women working in retail automotive?
Liz: I’m fairly new to this industry and consider myself more of a mentee than a mentor. That said, I do mentor some of our staff. I also mentor women in our community. I try to be a resource where I can.
Dealer Magazine: Let’s talk about your community involvement. Do you work with any volunteer organizations or NGOs?
Liz: Yes. Mostly in the arts, because culture and art are my passion. I serve on the board of the Tampa Museum of Art, the Foundation Board of Zoo Tampa and on the advisory board of the Sarasota Museum of Art. I also serve on the board of a nonprofit called Love IV Lawrence, which was created in memory of my brother and is dedicated to changing the conversation around mental health.
Dealer Magazine: Could you describe your work as a cultural strategist?
Liz: Sure. As a cultural strategist, I work with clients to drive economics, conversation, and audience via a cultural strategy. The arts and culture are big business, and there is a great benefit in partnering with them to reinforce or enhance whatever strategy you are trying to achieve.
I’m currently working on an exciting project called Fairgrounds in St. Pete, Florida. Fairgrounds will be an immersive art experience. Basically, you’ll buy a ticket to explore and experience a completely artist-created environment with a loose narrative where you can choose your own adventure path. Our tag line is “Art for all. Play for all. Joy for all.”
Dealer Magazine: Let’s get back to retail automotive. What do you see as the biggest opportunities and the biggest challenges on the horizon for dealerships?
Liz: I think the biggest immediate challenge is to find a way to overcome the lower new-vehicle gross profit numbers. The opportunities will come from innovating around and adapting to this challenge. One example would be to tap into currently undermined profit centers such as accessories and vehicle customization.
Dealer Magazine: Okay. Crystal ball time. What’s ahead for Dimmitt Chevrolet in the next, say, five years?
Liz: We consistently rank in the top 200 of Chevy dealers in the United States, and I really want to be in the top 100. I’m competitive. I want to be up there. I also want us to capitalize on new products. Chevy has some super sexy, yet affordable new vehicles, such as the mid-engine Corvette and the new Blazer. I want everyone to buy one!
Dealer Magazine: Final question: What one word or expression best defines you?
Liz: Direct.