JB: What are the negatives of having a single brand partner?
BG: Ford can’t hit the bullseye with every product. We had a great time launching the new Fiesta – a perfect car, with perfect timing at a perfect price. But the new Focus last year was a challenge.
JB: Why?
BG: Too many of them to sell and pricing was a factor. In the interim Ford had put the prices up six or seven times. And it isn’t radical enough.
So you don’t have a constant state of perfection. It’s like a sports team: always changing, thinking about how they can get to the next level and Ford is good at that, most of the product it has and is coming is really good.
JB: What factors have characterised Q1 2012?
BG: If you’d asked me this at the beginning of January, I was worried about what was going to happen. We had a lot of overage stock, there was a change in senior management at Ford, the ‘feel good’ factor didn’t exist.
There was a whole pile of different things which were interconnected, giving me cause for concern. But the first quarter has been very good.
I really don’t know why and that worries me, because I’d like to think I’m pretty close to the market. We do fleet, but my business is focused on retail and that’s dependent on the ‘feel good’ factor and consumer activity.
Now I might say consumers felt comfortable about their jobs; banks were suggesting they could sense consumers wanted to spend their savings.
So March in particular was a joy. If I analyse it further, I’ll need therapy.
JB: What were your numbers in terms of Q1 2012 compared to 2011?
BG: March last year was the biggest individual March we’ve had – we’re not going to end up doing the same as that.
Our expectation is that we will be down and the reason why we won’t do as well as last year is because the incentive money on the table for us was a super cash booster.
The super category bonuses weren’t available to us this year, so we will be down in the P&L stakes by about 10%.
March will still be a profitable month and put us ahead of our expectations for the full year.
Our profit before tax last year was £1.6 million. This year’s budget is less.
JB: Our data and insight business AMi shows you hit a financial black hole in 2006 when profit per site slumped to £176,125 and gearing got as high as 72% in 2007. Now you’re at £460,286 and 38.5%. What happened?
BG: We had a significant write-off then. We had to tear the carpets up, look inside everything we did, reconfigure the business, and survive long enough to get the good times back again. So, we re-engineered ourselves.
We revisited the market places we were in. We had one site that was not contributing and we had other things we had to do in terms of our businesses that we wanted to get better
Ford said: “what are your plans, anything you need from us?” I said no, just stick with me.
Nick - 18/04/2015 08:49
After buying a ford transit van from from peoples in Edinburgh I had problems with the driver side door after a 6 week wait I dropped it of to the Edinburgh branch on the monday morning & was told it would take about 3 days . On the Wednesday I called the Edinburgh branch & was told it was being repaired in Falkirk , I then called Falkirk who then told me they had just started work on it that morning & it would be the end of the week I called on Friday & the Falkirk branch said the van was ready but they wouldn't drop it of to edinburgh & after I complained I was given the managers name in Edinburgh (mark Tully) who then proceeded to blame Falkirk & there was nothing he could do so I had to travel to Falkirk from Edinburgh my self As a small business working from the back of my van I can not do with out my van for a week I'm very disappointed in the lack of professionalism & the lack of after care . When I originally was looking at transits at peoples they pulled out all the stops even shipping in a van of the colour of my choice but now that I've payed the best part of £20,000 they're not interested I would not recommend these dealerships to anyone