Jonathan Thompson, founder and CEO of Automotive Marketing Gurus joins Jake in today’s episode of the Jake Dunlap Show and brings forward the importance that changing people’s perception of the automotive dealerships and creating a better customer experience has over the future of the automotive industry.
He candidly talks about his life, from growing up in a mixed family in South Georgia to his college years and the start of his career and shares with us the experiences that shaped his convictions and work ethics.
Join us today and learn from JT about gratitude and positivity and how to grow a company with consideration towards your clients and employees.
Time stamps:
00:43- Introducing Jonathan Thompson, the "go-to" Digital Marketing Guru for Agencies, Direct Dealerships and Groups trying to modernize their customer services;
01:47- Going back to the beginnings- growing up in South Georgia as a military brat (his father was in the air force) and trying to find things to keep him busy and away from trouble;
04:19- Getting in trouble and starting to make his own decisions about the people and the environment he was hanging around;
08:00- First steps into adult life- flunking the first year of college because of low attendance and getting his first job in a car dealership;
12:07- Going back to college, winning back his scholarship and starting a new job at a call center (Fresh Beginnings aka Elead CRM);
13:58- Realizing sales is his future;
19:35- Starting to work for Force Marketing after attending a VA conference and trying to pitch them to build a call center in their company;
24:10- Deciding to start his own company right when Covid started;
27:01- Growing his company with consideration to his clients and employees;
31:00- How digital marketing (social media, websites etc) combined with traditional marketing (radio, mail, billboards etc) complete a customer’s experience;
38:10- The importance of positivity and gratitude;
42:39- Things that get JT excited about the future- changing people’s perception about dealerships;
45:36- Parting words.
Quotes
“Growing up, it was different down in South Georgia, for me specifically. I’m a military brat, my dad was in the Air Force, he picked up a lovely lady from Taiwan (...) I was always getting in trouble because I felt like I just didn’t have enough to do and there was a time where they wanted to put me in gifted classes, and you know, I went through them, and it was all just because I kept on disturbing the class, so like, what’s wrong with this guy? He keeps getting A’s but he keeps getting in trouble.”
“Throughout all my times of trouble, I had a lot of learning. And a lot of what I learned was, I needed to look at myself and stop counting on my parents to try to put me somewhere and make something of me. (...) I can’t just rely or try to depend on my parents or my environment to stimulate me.”
“You know, growing up, comparing yourself?! Yeah, you look at everybody else…I remember, I would watch some of my peers, especially in middle school going into high school, they would be wearing Polos’ and Tommy Hilfigers’ and I was like, “I want some Polos and Tommy Hilfigers’!” And I remember I used to ask my mom (...) and she was like, are you kidding me, they’re 50 dollars, 60 dollars shirts that you’re just going to tear up. But she got me three. I remember it was a green one, a white one and a red one. And boy did I rotate those shirts off!”
“To keep your Hope scholarship you have to have good attendance. Well, even though I had great grades, I actually ended up flunking out my first year because of attendance. And so they took my Hope scholarship away and I was just distraught. (...) So I found a job in the newspaper, 500 dollars a week, selling cars in a Honda dealership (...) that’s how I started in the car business, I went there and I didn’t even know I had a knack for sales.”
“He does one of the largest mail deals, still to this day that I’ve ever done. Sixty-nine thousand dollars, I’ll never forget it. (...)and I quickly realized at the time, my company doesn’t treat me right. (...) I’ve been putting up sixty- seventy thousand a month with no cut plan.”
“I wanted them to remember JT, not necessarily Force Marketing. I wanted them to remember the great hard work that I put in and I didn’t want to offer them products that may or may not make an impact.”
“If you provide remarkable products and services you truly know they’re remarkable, they will just generate that gravity to leads and opportunities. It will just happen. If you treat your employers right, if you treat your customers right, it is like gravity.”
“Dealers calling vendors, vendors and dealers calling leads, leads, you know? These are people! Remember that they are people and treat them as such. Converse with them. Be funny. Don’t just try to get into their wallet, 'cause that is one of the fastest ways to break a relationship.”
“It took me years of practice, but if you start to understand that your thoughts make your feelings, which creates your behaviors… you gotta start at the beginning and think about how can I change my thoughts, how can I wake up every single day and appreciate and have gratitude for what I have.”
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Get in contact with JT:
Linkedin
AMG Group:
Website
Linkedin
Facebook
Youtube
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Mentions:
Polo- first full line of menswear created by Ralph Lauren
Tommy Hilfiger - an American premium clothing brand, manufacturing apparel, footwear, accessories, fragrances and home furnishings.
Honda- a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment.
Mitsubishi- a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries, including the automotive industry.
Kia- a South Korean multinational automobile manufacturer.
Hope scholarship
Elead CRM- a cloud-based customer relationship management solution created for automotive retailers by automotive industry experts.
Force Marketing- leading providers of technology-enabled, data-driven multi-channel marketing services for automotive clients.
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Follow Jake:
Website
Instagram
LinkedIn
Twitter
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