How we built a business out of recession - chapter 9 - Jason, Rybrook sign-up
The story of CitNOW*
This is the 9th chapter about CitNOW, the company started from a kitchen table in Winnersh, Berkshire. If you’d like to read from the beginning, here’s a link to chpt 1. Each chapter is a 5-minute read, it’s an early draft of a book.
CitNOW was founded by Andrew Howells and Donna Barradale in 2005, although the company was only registered in 2008. In February 2018, we sold the company to Tenzing, a UK private equity company. It has been sold again since.
Several dealer groups significantly impacted the company's development in the first year or so when we only sold live video presentation. I would never have predicted the changes that were about to happen or how significant they would turn out to be**.
My introduction to Rybrook was a meeting with Jason, the Sales Manager at the Jaguar dealer in Warrington. A few weeks later, I was asked to present to more of the local management team at their monthly meeting. Group presentations were just starting to happen, and I welcomed the opportunity.
The upstairs office, designed for two, now had the Volvo Sales Managers from Warrington and Chester present, Jason, the Dealer Principal (DP) for the three sites, plus me. I was disturbing their monthly meeting, squeezed onto the agenda and into the room to make a quick presentation before they returned to more significant matters.
I knew they wanted to see a demonstration, but I didn’t have many dealers to choose from at the time. There was really no one suitable to ask and only me out selling, so I asked Anthony at Holdcroft if he could do me the biggest of favours and make a live presentation while I was in this meeting. I’d stressed that I probably wouldn’t get too long to present, and could he make himself available between 11:15 and 11:30 am?
Typically, my presentations started with some slides about the rationale for remote presentation and one or two early customer case studies. I got to the third slide when the DP interrupted.
This is all fine Andrew, I’m sure your slides are very interesting, but we’re here to see the demonstration. Let’s crack on mate.
Jason had alerted me about the DP, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when he wanted to speed up the entertainment.
I explained that I would need to make a call, which could take about 5 minutes before I was ready. I immediately called Anthony on his mobile, but it went to voicemail - shit. I then phoned Holdcroft and spoke to Lisa, who told me he was busy with a customer. This wasn’t going well. I didn’t think she was in on the favour I’d asked for - how long was he going to be? I had visions of him being outside with a potential buyer, just starting to show someone around a Honda Civic. He could be hours, and my presentation would fall flat on its face.
I needn’t have worried. Fortunately, he was finishing a phone call, and I soon had him back on the phone, the Rybrook guys still making small talk behind me. I was already on the landing page on my laptop, and Anthony soon caught up. Within a minute or two, he had live video streaming from his camera at Holdcroft into my presentation in Warrington. Anthony was about to play an absolute blinder.
He’d already pulled a car out from one of those neat lines and had parked it much closer to the showroom entrance in preparation. I let him know that he was hands-free and that various people were in the room listening. He barely blinked; you’d have thought he’d been doing these demos for years.
They all crowded forward to get a better view of my laptop, and very soon, I could relax a bit and just watch as Anthony calmly took control. He walked them to the car, stopping to point out the showroom he’d just left, returning to the vehicles on the forecourt. It was textbook stuff or would have been if we’d written one. I knew it was going well when they started to ask questions - can you show me a close-up of the front alloy - let’s have a look at the mileage on the dash - now absorbed by the vehicle in Stoke and the possibilities opening up, not the technology making it happen.
The video quality wasn’t brilliant, but it was good enough to make a lasting impression. As the live demo continued, the DP took back control of the situation, slightly bemused that I’d persuaded a dealer, a potential competitor to help. He honed in on Anthony and what he thought.
Have you been using the service for long, Anthony? What do you think? Sold many cars as a result?
Anthony’s answers were honest and credible. He freely admitted that he didn’t use it for every sale, nothing like, but it did get used, and it was making a difference to his numbers.
We’ve seen enough Anthony. Thanks very much, said the DP finally. With that, I added my thanks and the call ended.
They wanted to discuss it further and had a meeting to get back to, so there was no immediate decision, which I hadn’t expected.
I packed up quickly and left, deciding to decamp to a cafe I’d spotted earlier, now on my way back to the M62 and the long journey home to Wokingham. Suddenly, I was feeling hungry and needed some late breakfast. I also rang Anthony and thanked him again for doing such an amazing job.
I eventually bought an older Honda Civic from Anthony, finally retiring the Vauxhall Corsa. It was a small thank you for his help when I most needed it. I also offered him a job if he ever wanted one. He’d mastered skills I was still learning: how dealers work and behave. It’s a testament to Anthony and his loyalty that he’s still with Holdcroft, now one of their Franchise Directors.
A few days later, Jason gave me the good news. He would take a licence for Rybrook Jaguar, as was Phil, Volvo Chester and Doug, Volvo Warrington. Jason was going to start with his installation first. Provided that all went smoothly enough and there was some early adoption from the sales team, the other two would quickly follow.
Jason and Phil both proved to be impressive operators over the next 12 months, their only option a live presentation to the customer. They recognised the inadequacies of the technology and their sales teams, yet they still found a way to make it work.
*CitNOW was our company’s trade name before we sold it in 2018.
**Those profound changes are coming in the next chapter.