Welcome to Episode #2 of our weekly podcast here at Miracle Ford! In this episode, we talk with General Sales Manager of Miracle Ford and Miracle CDJR (Miracle Auto Group). In this episode, we get to learn a little be more about Mark, his beginnings in the business, and he also shares about the benefits and details of Leasing vs Buying a new vehicle. Enjoy!

Transcript

John Haggard: 00:01 Welcome to the Miracle Ford podcast, where each week we hope you will be able to learn the best ways to purchase, maintain and accessorize your new or preowned vehicle and how to sell your vehicle for the highest resale value possible, when you’re ready. I’m your host John Haggard, and throughout each month, right here we’ll have different team members join us from Miracle to bring you tips that you can actually use. And by the way, we will also post a transcript of each podcast so that you can easily refer to it for information that you’d like to pull out right there at your fingertips. Today on the podcast, we’ve got Mark Ledford, he’s the general sales manager for the Miracle Auto Group, and that includes Miracle Ford in Gallatin. And Hey Mark, welcome to the podcast.

Mark Ledford: 00:41 Hey John, how you doing today?

John Haggard: 00:43 I’m doing great, man. Good to be here. You know, before we start, a lot of people want to know, well, who is it that I’m dealing with if I came down to Miracle today? Who are these people? So I thought it’d be kind of fun to learn a little bit about you, how you got in the car business, how long you’ve been, say at Miracle and just how did you get started?

Mark Ledford: 01:00 Fantastic. I love the business. I’ve been with the Miracle Group coming up on six years now. My father was extremely inspirational in bringing me into the business many, many, many moons ago. Been around the business for about 35 years now. Been in the business, so to speak, for, I’m coming up on but 25 years now. So, it’s a fun business to be a part of. And, again, my father was extremely inspirational in bringing me into the business.

John Haggard: 01:27 And how did you get started? Were you sweeping the lot, were you sweeping, you know, cleaning out bathrooms, what were you doing?

Mark Ledford: 01:33 Yeah, tell everybody all the time. You know, it’s Kinda funny because I’ve kind of worked in a lot of different areas. You know, from the time that I was a kid and really where I guess I could say I cut my teeth and started was just working in detail. You know, in the summer months growing up as a high school kid and in between summers and football practice and all that stuff, you know, just coming into work, and being around the business a little bit. It was fun. It was just meant to be for me, I guess.

John Haggard: 02:00 We know they always say, if you’re going to learn the business, learn it from the inside out and really start at the bottom rung and, and work, you know, work your way all the way up.

John Haggard: 02:09 So today’s topic is leasing versus buying a vehicle. A lot of people were asking questions about that. And of course that’s a real wide topic. You could probably spend maybe a couple of hours on that, but, we’ve asked Mark to help us understand some of the differences between leasing versus buying. And just to know how to make the right decision, how to save the most amount of money so you can keep that money in your pocket as much as you can. So I guess Mark, just from a summary standpoint, the difference between leasing and owning, what should somebody do? What are the factors that say, this is where you go, this is what you do?

Mark Ledford: 02:45 I think honestly, John, what we try to do is just sit down with the customer, have that d

Welcome to the first episode of a weekly podcast that we will be doing here at Miracle Ford! In this episode, we talk with General Manager and part owner of Miracle, Jim Galvin. Jim talks about his beginnings in the business, the history of Miracle Ford, and the values that have held strong in the company from day 1. Enjoy!

Transcript

John Haggard:  Welcome to the Miracle Ford of Gallatin podcast, where each week we hope you will be able to learn the best ways to purchase, maintain and accessorize your new or preowned vehicle and how to sell your vehicle for the highest resale value possible, when you’re ready. I’m your host John Haggard, and throughout each month, right here we’ll have different team members join us from Miracle Ford to bring you tips that you can use. And by the way, we will also post a transcript of each podcast so that you can easily refer to it, pull out that information that you need right there at your fingertips. Today on the podcast we have Jim Galvin, the general manager of Miracle Ford. Hey Jim.

Jim Galvin: John, how are you doing?

John Haggard: I’m doing well. I’m doing well. You know, a lot of people may not know this Jim, but you are actually more than just the general manager of Miracle Ford. In fact, you’re part of the local family that owns Miracle. So I thought it would be fun for folks to know a little bit more about you since you are home town and you are at the store as opposed to a corporate owner who lives in another city. So first question. People always want to know how someone got started in a business. So tell us a little bit about how you got started in the car business.

Jim Galvin: John. Thank you. It’s quite interesting. I started back in 1984 washing cars for my father while working my way up through college at MTSU. There, I really got the idea, and said, you know what, this might be something I might want to look forward to. So I worked my way up through college and got to work also in each department as a service advisor, as a parts counter person, and then I went to the used car department and got to learn the appraising and how to do that. Then from there, I worked my way up to a sales manager and then from there as the GSM to a general manager and now part owner. But the neat part about the whole transition is that I got to, after I finished at MTSU, I enrolled at in NADA Academy Dealers school for two and a half years. I really got to learn the in’s and out’s of how to run a dealership, learn the financial statement, and really make my dreams come true. And I’ve been doing this now for close to 33 years now.

John Haggard: 33 years. And so back in the day you started washing cars you said, so you got a good paycheck on that. Did that help you get through college as well?

Jim Galvin: Well, it got me going back and forth to school with gas money and working my way through college, which was great. That was a great start. And just the fact that working hard back there and just knowing what to do really made the difference. Then I just knew from then that this might be the opportunity for me and it’s worked out since.

John Haggard: So tell us how Miracle Ford itself got started. There are a lot of Ford dealers across the country of course, but there’s Miracle. How did you choose the name? Just a little bit about the history of how Miracle Ford itself came to be.

Jim Galvin: Yes, I get that question all the time. A lot of people don’t know, but my father worked for Ford Motor Company. He worked there for 25 years and when he worked there, he called on this area here in Gallatin, which was Wade Motors. And when he called on here, he really said, you know, one day I would like to get out of the wholesale business and go into the retail business. Well he got that opportunity back in 1980 and bought Wade Motors out. When that happened,