Automotive News - October 21, 2013 - Supplement - S27

OCTOBER 21, 2013 ❙ 27

J O H N B O W M A N C H E V R O L E T, C L A R K S T O N , M I C H .

Operations overhaul helps small store
be competitive in Chevy-heavy area
Printed in Automotive News July 22, 2013
Jesse Snyder
jsnyder@crain.com

LEONORA ANDERSSON

atie Bowman Coleman and her father, John, didn't always agree on
how to modernize the family business, John Bowman Chevrolet in
Clarkston, Mich.
In fact, Coleman, 49, left the dealership in
2009 and enrolled in General Motors'
women's retail network program, training to
open her own store.
"But the family interceded, and we settled
our differences," she says. She returned in
2011 and replaced her father as dealer principal in early 2012, months before his death.
The store had done well since John Bowman
purchased it in 1976, as Clarkston grew from a
sleepy Oakland County suburb 40 miles north
of Detroit into a built-out bedroom community in Michigan's richest county.
But what Coleman took over in 2012 was a
single-point operation surrounded by four
Chevy stores less than 15 miles away. And in
an era of stair-step factory incentives that reduce the wholesale costs of higher-volume
outlets, she needed to grow to compete
against larger dealership groups in metro
Detroit.
Coleman took swift action. She opened the
store on Saturdays, revamped the Web site
and advertising, replaced a sales manager,
expanded service capacity, refurbished the
showroom and made the store more inviting
for female customers. Expanding the fourcar showroom was impractical because it's
landlocked in a busy business district.
Through the first half of 2013, sales of new
vehicles rose 42 percent compared with the
same period last year to 736 units. Used-car
sales rose 20 percent to 352. Service business
is up 40 percent.
It's still a single-franchise operation, but
Coleman says the store is already more competitive against the big groups, as measured
by Chevrolet's regional sales yardstick that
compares the market shares of dealerships
within metro areas.
"We're already up three levels of sales effectiveness," she says. "The changes are
working."

Katie Bowman Coleman of John Bowman Chevrolet says the changes she made are working:
"We're already up three levels of sales effectiveness" on Chevy's regional sales yardstick.
The modest-sized showroom still holds
only four vehicles, but after a recent updating it is brighter and seems larger. The solid
walls that closed off the sales team's offices
around the perimeter have been replaced by
transparent panels.
The oldest of three daughters, Coleman
didn't always think her future was in the auto
business. She grew up knowing her way
around the compact dealership before heading to Granville, Ohio, to study speech communication at Denison University, her parents' alma mater. She spent the next five
years working for the Ralph Lauren fashion
house.
"I didn't officially work at the store until I
was 27," she says. "I started working the
parts counter and drove the parts delivery
truck. Dad had me on a full rotation through
every department - back end, front-end finance, on the sales floor, then accounting in
the main office."
And now back in the family business, Coleman added a master's degree in finance at
nearby Walsh College, attending nights and

weekends. And a year after giving birth,
Coleman went through the National Automobile Dealers Association's yearlong dealer
candidate academy program.
Coleman has long worked to enhance the
dealership's reputation as female-friendly,
says Rhonda Jensen, director of service,
parts and body shop. Coleman has hired
more female sales and service-writing personnel, but in a sense it's just tweaking a
family tradition started by her father, she
adds.
"I started as a car biller 23 years ago,"
Jensen says, "but Mr. Bowman let me sell
cars after I finished my regular work every
day, then moved me to service writing and
eventually I took over service."
Making it easier for women to buy a vehicle
and get it serviced is only an extension of
how to treat any customer, Coleman says.
"But it absolutely is a competitive advantage" when women are the primary deciders
on 80 percent of all vehicle purchases, she
adds. "Nobody has a larger proportion of decisions of what is bought." c

Automotive News - October 21, 2013 - Supplement

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