Automotive News NADA Show Daily - February 9, 2013 - 16

16 • FEBRUARY 9, 2013

SATURDAY NADA DAILY

Q&A BILL KNIGHT
L I N C O L N N AT I O N A L D E A L E R C O U N C I L

Lincoln dealers cheered by brand’s makeover attempt

ill Knight has seen the auto industry from many
sides.
For 14 years, he worked
for Ford Motor Co. in various sales
and marketing positions. Then he
joined Penske Automotive Group,
where he worked for eight years as
an area vice president. In 2008, as
the financial crisis was gathering
strength, Knight decided to take the
leap and become a car dealer, buying two dealerships in the Tulsa,
Okla., area: a stand-alone Ford
store and a Lincoln-Volvo dealership.
Now Knight is serving a two-year
stint as chairman of the Lincoln National Dealer Council. His term coincides with a transformation attempt at Lincoln. The redesigned
2013 MKZ sedan, the first of a new
generation of Lincolns, is just now
arriving in dealerships. A second
new vehicle, the MKC compact luxury crossover, was introduced at
the Detroit auto show last month in
concept form.
Lincoln also is working to improve the customer service experience at dealerships in an effort to
emulate boutique luxury hotels.
The brand is kicking off a dealer
training program and a concierge
service to help customers configure
their vehicles.
Knight talked with Staff Reporter
Bradford Wernle about the brand
and its future.
How was 2012 for Lincoln dealers?
Our volume was up about 15 percent in new and used, and we were
able to grow our service business a
little. We’ve had to be very resourceful as a stand-alone Lincoln
dealer.
What does 2013 look like for
Lincoln dealers?
Clearly we’re most excited about
the impending arrival of the 2013
MKZ. That’s the first of the transformational products we’ve seen from
Lincoln. It brings some excitement
to the brand we haven’t had for
awhile.
What did Lincoln do right in
2012?

Bill Knight
Age: 50
Dealer since: 2008
Dealership: Bill Knight Lincoln,
Tulsa, Okla.
Other brands: Ford, Volvo
Average monthly sales at
Lincoln dealership in 2012: 20
new, 21 used
Quote: “No one hides from the
reality of where the brand is
today. Everyone is very humble
about where we are but very
confident about where we’re
going.”
I think they have worked really
hard on right-sizing the dealer network. In the top 130 markets there
are just over 300 dealers, and that’s a
number I’m not sure we thought
they could get to. This is a journey. I
don’t think any of us back away from
the realities of where the brand sits
today in the eyes of the luxury customer. I look at our responsibility on
the council to provide that retail insight as we move through the journey. We’ve launched things like the
Lincoln Dealer Academy that focuses on the customer and the experience the client gets.
We no longer talk about Ford’s
commitment to the brand. People
ask me all the time if I think it will
work. My answer is I don’t know.
But this is what I do know: I will take
my chances with what Ford is giving us. They’re giving us their best
and brightest. I will take my
chances with Jim Farley, Matt
VanDyke, Kevin Cour and Andrew
Frick (Lincoln’s executive sales and
marketing leadership team). Now
we move from the question of commitment to the question of execution.
We are a challenger brand. We
understand that. We think there is a
place for a successful American
premium brand.
Where would you like to see improvements?
The quicker the MKZ can get
here, the better. We also know from
[Ford CEO] Alan Mulally that
they’re not going to deliver the
MKZ until they’re absolutely sure

different than three years ago.
Some of your staff went through
pilot training last summer at the
Lincoln Dealer Academy, which
should open soon. How did that
training go?
That pilot we went through was
the best, most transformational
training in terms of how we treat
each other and treat the client that
we’ve ever gone through. The key is
to capture that for everybody else,
using the hospitality approach to
both sales and service.

the product is going to be where it
needs to be. We know they’re not
going to ship it until the quality is
right.
They are right in the middle of
shipping the product as we speak.
How much of a problem have
the repeated MKZ delays been
for dealers?
On one side we are disappointed.
We would have liked to have seen
them in December. To take the
longer view, when the car’s ready to
be shipped, that’s when we want it
to be shipped. That’s so critical as
we’re trying to attract a new customer base, whether that takes another week or another month. It’s
not ideal and not what we had
hoped for. But the Lincoln of eight
years ago would have just shipped
the car. That says a lot about the
way we’ve changed.
Lincoln has had many false
dawns in the past. How will this
time be different?
I do believe that Ford understands that every great car company has a premium brand. When you
look at it today, Lincoln is what they
have. I think the laser focus on Lincoln is what’s going to be different,
and it’s a different company today
than it was before. If you think
about it from a Lincoln-Mercury
perspective from 2000 to now, it’s
been mostly bad news. We had to
go through what we’ve gone
through with the loss of Mercury,
but now there’s an energy within
the company around Lincoln that’s

How did the training change the
way your people treat customers?
The person who trained us wasn’t
a car industry person. He was a hotel and restaurant industry person.
It was fantastic.
There’s this hospitality awareness. There are different ways we
now actively talk to, listen to and
treat our customers. I would not
call it rocket science, but it’s a completely different point of view. It’s
the point of view of the restauranthotel industry. We’ve found it to be
absolutely applicable in how we
treat and talk to our customers. Our
challenge will be to sustain that.
That will be where the gold is if we
can find out how to sustain that.
What is Lincoln doing to separate the sales process for dealers who hold both Ford and Lincoln franchises?
That clearly is a challenge. What
we’ve seen from Lincoln, what
they’re working on is how do they
grab the hearts and minds of the
salespeople in a dual operation,
whether that’s from a monetary
perspective, a product perspective
or excitement perspective. What
we’ve tried to help them do is create
programs that will work in a sideby-side situation or a stand-alone
situation.
Lincoln has a new ad agency —
Hudson Rouge. What do dealers
think of the Lincoln advertising?
We’ve been very happy with the
work they’ve done so far. It’s very
different from Ford. Everyone has
their own opinions. At our dealer-

ship, we have seen a significant increase in people talking about Lincoln. We had our best month of the
year in December. I don’t think
that’s coincidental. Just the fact we
have a strong point of view, the Lincoln Motor Co. launch. Sometimes
the talk is negative. A lot of times it’s
positive but the good news is
they’re talking about Lincoln.
Is Lincoln doing enough to keep
former Mercury owners in the
fold?
I think Ford has worked really
hard to try to allow for that Mercury
owner to find his way back to the
Lincoln showroom. We also know
the reality is that a lot of those owners found their way to the Ford
showroom, which is OK for a dual,
but not for a stand-alone. The reality is that when you look at where
we’re going, it’s difficult for us to
appeal to that owner group. We just
don’t have the products at the price
point that is going to appeal to
many of those customers.
Lincoln is concentrating on the
top 130 luxury markets. What is
happening with the brand outside those markets? Is Lincoln
being more relaxed about your
meeting the facility requirements?
A couple of things: We have a Select dealer on the council who represents the voice of the small dealers. We have been adamant that the
standards are the same. That’s one
of the things we hope we’ve accomplished. This hasn’t been dictated
to the dealer body — who can stay
and who can go. For a small dealer,
if they want to engage with the
brand and make the commitments
all of us make, they can stay. If they
don’t, it will be hard to comply.
Lincoln is raising invoice prices,
ending the holdback and adopting an approach similar to other
luxury brands. This move was
somewhat controversial when it
was announced. How are dealers receiving it?
I think it’s too early to tell. The
standards Lincoln is asking a dealer
see LINCOLN, Page 18

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