Automotive News - October 21, 2013 - Supplement - S38

38 ❙ OCTOBER 21, 2013
S H O R T L I N E A U T O G R O U P, A U R O R A , C O L O .

Bilingual staffers at Colo. dealership
help strengthen community ties
Printed in Automotive News July 1, 2013
Jamie LaReau
jlareau@crain.com

n 1998, Bill Carrera spoke very little English. However, Shortline Subaru in Aurora, Colo., hired him to sell cars.
"I ask, 'How could they have hired me
when I couldn't even respond to the questions?'" Carrera jokes.
But in just four years, Carrera became the
store's sales manager, proving he is a quick
study and the kind of employee Shortline
Auto Group's owner, Don Hicks, wants.
The dealership group's employees should
reflect their communities, Hicks says. Over
the past few years, Hicks has steadily hired
bilingual employees, focusing on Spanish and,
this year, Korean speakers. Hicks also has salespeople who speak Bosnian, Romanian and other European languages.
Nine of Hicks' 150 employees speak one or
Hicks: Staff
more languages besides
should reflect
English. Hiring bilingual
the community. employees is a key goal
for Hicks. He plans to increase his bilingual salesforce by hiring one
bilingual employee every four to five
months, depending on the market's needs.
Hicks also is increasing advertising to nonEnglish-speaking consumers. This year's
budget to advertise in Spanish- and Koreanlanguage newspapers is 25 percent higher
than last year's.
Aurora is a suburb of 335,000 east of Denver. Hispanics account for about 29 percent
of Aurora's population, Carrera says. And although Koreans make up slightly more than
1 percent, both are rapidly growing groups.
Hicks says that the group's new-vehicle
sales and customer satisfaction scores have
risen in recent years and that his bilingual
staffers are attracting new consumers.
"They are more comfortable speaking in
their own language and that alone makes
them come to us first," Hicks says. "They
know we cater to them and we understand
them."
Statistics are unavailable on how many U.S.
dealerships employ bilingual staff members,

Shortline Subaru's sales manager, Bill Carrera, right, stands with most of Shortline Auto
Group's bilingual and multilingual sales staffers in the Subaru showroom. Nine of the
Colorado dealership group's 150 employees speak at least two languages.
but the practice generally is more common in
larger dealerships in the Southwest and South
and on the East and West coasts, says Chip
Maher, dealership management consultant
for the National Automobile Dealers Association 20 Group Program in McLean, Va.
Maher says it's unusual for dealers to hire
bilingual employees in areas with "just an
undercurrent" of ethnic growth, such as Aurora. But, he says, "the larger the store, the
more metro the store and the more regional
it is, you're certainly going to have to go that
route to serve the customers."
Shortline's three Aurora dealerships sell
Subaru, Hyundai and Kia brands. Hicks also
owns a Porsche store in Colorado Springs,
about 65 miles south of Denver. Annual
new- and used-vehicle sales are about 5,000
for the group, Hicks says.
About 10 percent of Shortline's customers
are Hispanic, Carrera says.
"The most important thing is that, even as
the sales manager, I go and talk to the Hispanic customers in Spanish," Carrera says.
Even if the customers speak English well

enough to work with English-speaking salespeople, when it comes to signing documents
and understanding financing, Carrera builds
trust and closes the deal by speaking to customers in their native tongue.
Since three other Spanish-speaking salespeople joined Carrera at the dealership
about four years ago, the store's annual newand used-vehicle sales have roughly doubled. But because the sales gain has coincided with the country's economic rebound,
Carrera says he cannot attribute all of the rising sales to the bilingual employees.
Still, he says, "we believe that our bilingual
salespeople are selling about 30 to 50 cars a
month for us that we wouldn't be able to sell
if we didn't have that team with us."
Finding bilingual job candidates is easy,
Carrera says. He advertises for them online
or posts job notices at the businesses a particular ethnic group frequents.
The challenge is training them.
"That takes more patience and experience," he says. "But we're not surgeons. This
is something you can learn." c

Automotive News - October 21, 2013 - Supplement

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