Larry Daugherty is the Fixed Operations Manager for the Victory Automotive Group. Victory started in Morristown, Tennessee in 1997 with a single-point Nissan store and now they are up to 47 dealerships covering Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Chrysler, Ford, Chevrolet, and Lexus. Larry's perspective comes from leading over 1200 employees from coast to coast and shares valuable lessons learned spanning a 37-year career.

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What Ted Ings and Larry Daugherty discuss in this episode:

01:09 - Larry shares a little about the history of the Victory Automotive Group, from a single point Nissan store to their expansion across the nation with 47 stores.

02:53 - There is roughly 1200 fixed operations personnel within Larry's stewardship including porters, lot attendants, and detailers with about 800 technicians. Larry jokes that a big part of the job is staying true to his faith because it requires a lot of praying to keep up with everything happening across all fixed ops departments from coast to coast.

04:18 - Larry got his start in the car business washing cars and then moving up through oil changes, and tire swaps after graduating high school was hired by a Dodge dealership in Knoxville. For nearly 22 years Larry learned the ropes of the business, fell in love with it and the rest is history.

05:44 - Ted inquires about the support that is required for the 1200 employees to excel at their job. Larry shares that even though there are several layers of management between his front-line people and him, "they just need good, honest guidance from people that will sit there and listen to them, see what the complaints are. You can't always make everyone happy but at least if they know that you're working with them and trying to get to that next level, that specifies a lot."

06:46 - It's important to address employee issues immediately as they come up because the sooner you fix them, things will be so much better than if you keep putting those issues off.

08:46 - Larry explains that the most important aspect for car dealers to focus on this year and beyond is to ensure that their employees have an environment where they can be happy. When people are happy, your customers are going to be happy.

Listen to the full episode featuring Larry Daugherty for even more insights!

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Thanks, Larry Daugherty!

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