My First Movie: Taking Those First Steps
Part One: An Introduction
an article by Rob Lohman
They say the beginning is never easy. This seems to be at least partially true. It has taken me a long (and winding) road to get me to making my first little short (a short little movie). When I was in high school there where two things interesting to me: acting (which turned out to be a love of things visual instead of acting) and computers. Somehow I rolled into the computer branch and began my career as a computer programmer.
Move forward a few years later and this is what I am doing professionally at this very moment. How this all relates to my first movie? Well, the love of things visual never went away and by 2001, the year I was mostly 23 years of age, my collection of DVD's had grown quite large. I saw every "making of," if you get a chance rent the El Mariachi DVD disc. Watch the movie, then watch it again with Robert Rodriguez's commentary track and play his 10 minute film school extra. Now if this is too your liking I suggest checking out his book Rebel Without a Crew) and got more interested in making movies. All these years reading internet sites, books and magazines about the subject suddenly caused an electronic charge in my brain that I needed to do something. Why was I not doing anything with my information and love? No clue.
The Beginning
I am a firm believer in preparation and doing things the hard way. Learn a lot, do a lot, fail a lot and get good at what you do. I immediately decided things were required: books, camera and ideas. Bought myself a pile of books about directing, lighting, digital movie making, etc. A while earlier I already had begun writing down movie ideas, scene ideas, character ideas. Anything and everything that could come in handy some day (even things I thought would never come in handy). I encourage anyway who wants to make movies to start the habit of writing things down. In about a year's time, eight ideas have been written down by me, what I call large ideas (a movie, a TV show or a short movie). Next to that there are also numerous ideas that are committed to paper about all sorts of things. It might never get used (some if it already got used now), but there is a lot of stuff for me to fall back on later!
While reading all the books (and still continuing to read the articles on the Internet) my mind started thinking about a camera. After a month or two the choice had been nailed down to the Canon XL1S camera (PAL edition since I live in Europe). Why this one? good preparation! This is one important piece of it. The camera is well known for its beautiful picture, extendibility (different lenses, third party support etc.) and support from Canon. The only thing against it was the price. Everything in Europe is expensive, cameras included. Fortunately for me there was a heavy project at work during the last months of 2001. This allowed billing overtime to the company, in turn allowing me to buy the camera (together with some savings of my own). First week December 2001 I picked up my camera: happy day in my life!
After some two months of experimenting (December 2001, January 2002) I bought myself the Canon filter set containing the following: ND (less strength then on the manual lens), UV filter (filters out UV light and protects your lens from dust, scratches etc.) and a Circular Polarizer filter (this filter can be rotated so that you can remove reflections etc. on surfaces like glass and water. On a car window you can rotate it so that you see through the window into the car or that you see the reflection instead). All of these filters have been used on my little short movie, they came in very handy! The UV filter is on my lens permanently to protect it. Also bought myself a case for the camera (not a real camera case but a toolset case) which has room for cables, tapes, batteries and all sort of things that need to be dragged along for the ride (this turned out to be a very wise thing to buy as well, it protected my camera and allowed me to bring everything with me in an easy to move case). At this time there was no money left to spend so the tripod had to be borrowed from a friend, a Manfrotto (no fluid head unfortunately).
The Movie
The feeling came that I needed to do a movie. What about was the question. Some ideas where already on paper (as described above), but I wanted to start small and easy for a number of reasons. My friends and myself all have jobs or school, so time is limited. Furthermore it usually is wise to begin small (and thus also making small mistakes), which has some nice side effects: it will be much cheaper, easier and faster too make! While looking around in my country for film schools I might wanted to attend (there are only 2), one required a movie to be submitted (on a very tight deadline, but we will get to that later). This was interesting. It gave me an opportunity to make something that could also be used if deciding to apply for this school, also giving me a deadline in which to work to stimulate me further. Splendid! The deadline was 3 weeks away (that is a very short period of time). What was needed was a simple idea, easy to execute: a story about a burned out business man. It wasn’t a very big interesting story, but it allowed me to make the following shortcuts:
Easy access to locations:
Since I am a business man myself (where did you think part of this story came from?) there was direct access to all of my sets without needing to dress them. If asked gently we would be allowed to film at my own work. This was granted (swell). The other location was my own house (and my lead characters house) which was easy to use as well.
Traveling time:
Driving from my home to work is only a 15 minute drive. This was handy because my 2 person crew (friends of mine) could sleep at my house. The only downside to this was they had to picked up from far away and dropped off at the end of the weekend (some money went into car fuel here). This tremendously cut down on the time to shoot this movie. We shot this movie in 3 days, 2 of which we where at work.
Even though things were looking favorable two more things where cut: sound and light. While one of my crew (the lead actor) is an audio engineer (and had brought professional audio equipment with him) I decided to not use any audio. My idea was to let the movie be told from the perspective of the character, as if he was looking back on his own live. To add to this feel the movie is going to use music and VO (Voice Overs) of the character talking about his own life). Second, we probably would not have any time to do extra takes if the audio was not correct. Besides this I also choose to not use any additional lighting, due to a number of reasons. Money (of which there was not much left), no time to buy any lighting gear or rent it (which cannot be done easily here), and again the time that would be required to learn how to light and place these lights. These two things together saved me days of time (really). If I had not done this all the footage that would was needed to be shot would never have been shot, no way!
Equipment
The following equipment was used to make this short movie:
Canon XL1S PAL (standard 16x II lens)
Canon filter set (ND, Circular Polarizer & UV filter)
Manfrotto tripod (no fluid head)
Dolly (a little car from work with big wheels)
2 MiniDV tapes
Some power extension cords
Firewire enabled laptop from work (comes with my job)
Windows 2000 professional
Adobe Premiere 6.01 for editing
Pre-production
The total project was supposed to last three weeks, one and half weeks where spend on pre-production (idea, script, planning etc.). Came up with my basic story idea in a couple of days, putting it down in a couple of sentences. The next thing I did was to write down the number of scenes the idea needed, describing and numbering them (came to 20). although I had started writing a true script there was no time to finish it (had no vacation during my pre-production). This was mistake number one. I should have taken the time to write at least a very basic script outline (this should not take too long if you already have a scene/story outline).
One thing that triggered my slow script writing (and therefore running out of time) was language choice and my choice to do voice over. Since my native language is not English I was debating with my self to make the voice over English or my native language (Dutch). This together with actually coming up with voice over lines was too much in the small time available. From my first thoughts voice overs did not seem that more difficult than "normal lines". I was probably wrong in my assumption. It is probably "easier" (not implementing that the craft is easy!) to write character dialog then voice over dialog, because you do not want the voice over to be cheesy, easy and tell the viewer everything. It must, however, grab an audience, inform them and keep them interested in what they are seeing as well. This turned out to be more difficult than I had initially thought. It really became a double cutting sword. On one side it was working in my favor (not having to record audio on set) and on the other side it was working against me (more difficult to come up with interesting lines). This problem must still be tackled this very moment. Wish me luck.
My second mistake in pre-production was to not storyboard, mostly out of time constraints. The other part was a little arrogance from my part thinking that I had the shots in my mind and that the movie would not need that many (since it was a little short movie). How more wrong could I have been. I realized there was a problem after the shoot was over and editing had started. Suddenly there were scenes that could not be put together. Let me explain this a bit more with an example from my movie:
My main character has entered his work and is walking down a hallway. The camera is following him with a dolly down the corridor as he turns into a office room. This scene needs to be cut to a scene where he is working. The problem here lies in that I do not have any footage to go in between these two shots. It feels very unnatural to see a person walking down a corridor (with his coat etc. on) and then suddenly working. Something needs to happen in between. Now if the jump in time was bigger, say from leaving his home to working, that would have been acceptable. An audience just simply fills in the blank here. In my case the jump is just too small. It does not seem to work.
If there had been an storyboard session (even if it was rough with pictograms or something) this probably would have been noticed before it was shot. I am currently thinking about drawing some pictures, shots and sequences that where in my mind before the footage was shot to help me in my final editing moments. It can be quite disorienting to have a pile of footage and no visual guideline other then a scene list! Not every movie will need a full drawn out storyboard, but I truly have learned that it is a good thing to really think about how scenes and shots will connect to each other both before it is shot (also handy while you are shooting).
One final thing I did in my pre-production phase was planning: calling all the people again to make sure everyone was ready to go, writing a second scene list in the order I was planning to shoot it (instead of the order they would appear in the movie). Planning all the shots around locations is a good idea, it allows you to go through your sets as fast as possible. You also ensure that important things do not change in the mean time. First day and half were at work and the last day and a half at home. We started out at work because this was the most important set where we could only be at specific times. My own house was available to us whenever we wanted. This list proved to be a very good thing to make because everyone knew exactly when we where going to be where and what we were going to shoot. It also allowed me to track everything while my mind was in a thousand different places (working with equipment, instructing actors etc.). I am going to drop the bomb here. Take half of the scenes of the first day of shooting and mirror them on the second day of shooting, moving everything half a day back. Why? Two reasons. You are not going to shoot everything within your chosen timeframe so over calculate. Reason 2, your very first day (ever! Remember this was my first movie and perhaps yours too!) will be chaotic, disorganized and above all very informative and learning. That last part is a very, very good thing. It takes a lot of time though, so double half of your scenes from the first day to the second day.
Production (the actual shoot)
There we were. At my work with a car full of people and equipment (it was a small car). It was end of the afternoon of a Friday. Out three day shoot was about to begin, boy, was I nervous! For the first time in my live I was embarking on creating something of my own (truly my own) with the help of other people. We unpacked our gear from the car and headed inside, some co-workers interested in what was about to happen. Luckily for me not much people were around. When you set up your very first scene to be shot in your live, I don’t need anyone to watch other then the people who I truly need (and trust around me).
Only one scene got shot from the 3 planned the very first day, luckily for me the most important one: my main character working during the evening. The scene was shot in about an hour. The rest of the time was spent unpacking, fiddling with the tools, discussing the scene, instructing the actors and repacking the equipment. although this scared me off a bit at first it turned out all right the next day when we shot a heck of lot more scenes. We had gotten our important scene which we couldn’t do any other time (we needed an evening scene and only had access to work the next day during day time). The other scenes where miscellaneous scenes which could also be shot during day time.
I learned an important lesson here: as with everything in live it takes a lot longer then you initially think (or perhaps hope). Later that evening, after dropping of equipment at home, I took my crew (3 people total, including myself) out for diner in a very nice restaurant. We had a nice time eating, laughing and discussing our first day of shooting.
Do not forget to feed your crew! Sounds simple enough, and it is. Everyone needs food and drinks to survive the day. Your actors and other crew will be happier with a full stomach (not too full) then an empty one! For my movie I needed to shoot a short little lunch scene where everyone was eating around a table. Knowing this when scheduling my scene and knowing that we needed to lunch ourselves as well on Saturday I planned this scene in the middle of that day. Just before we needed to shoot this scene we went off to a bakery to get all kind of things for lunch. When all the crew (including the actors) and myself sat around the table to eat our lunch letting the camera roll (and moving it around a couple of times). This worked out very well! Together with fuel for my car these where the only costs I truly had. Pretty doable.
While filming the second day I made my next big mistake: forgot to bring an important piece with me: the lead character’s laptop (actually my laptop from work). It was still at home. Instead of going back to get it (which would have taken at least 30 minutes plus the time to get everyone working again) we found some old unused laptops and used that instead. No-one will probably notice the difference anyway since the focus is not on the prop, but on the character using it! During shooting I was also very please with my earlier made decisions to not record audio or do lighting. In simulating working (and phoning for example) the characters just talked about anything they want (some pretty hilarious things like trading an old car tire for a mother-in-law). The sound will not be used, so it does not matter! Together with not having to set up lights, which I have never done (so removing lengthy testing and fine tuning), this turned out to be great time savers. Without these "restrictions" the shooting would have never been completed in 3 days!
Together with my crew I learned a lot of things: thinking about how to shoot a scene, moving the camera around, doing more then one take, different angles to shoot at etc. etc. Listen to what you crew has to say, in my case they had some very good ideas! My first shooting experience has certainly been an exciting journey! I can still remember the thrill of seeing your first footage on the TV, raw, just shot. Together with my crew we watched the "dailies". It was a fun experience. Some things worked and looked great, others did not. One thing we all noticed immediately where auto focusing problems. These where most evident during our dolly shots down a hallway (these could have been shot in manual focus since the character keeps the same distance throughout the "walk") and shots inside an elevator (here the auto focus had difficult focusing on a light surround a button). Next time I will try to shoot as many things in manual as possible, otherwise beautiful shots look now rather dull. Oh well, this was mainly a learning process anyway!
This is it for the first installment, I hope everything was readable and you did not got an information overload. Next time we are going to talk about the editing process, color correction effects work and a bunch of other things. I promise to include a whole bunch of pictures then to balance out the text some more. If you have any comments (positive, negative or any you want to share), ideas, suggestions, remarks or questions you can reach me at visuar@iname.com
Monday, March 19, 2007
Calif - Wilson, thoughts
Wilson pays workers well to boost profits
Automotive News / March 19, 2007 - 1:00 am
David Wilson, president of David Wilson Automotive Group in Orange, Calif., says the key to his company's success is grooming strong dealership general managers.
Wilson's 15 dealerships in California and Arizona recorded revenues of $1.67 billion in 2006. The company ranks No. 13 on this year's Automotive News list of the 125 largest dealership groups, based on new retail vehicles sold in 2006.
Wilson discussed his operating philosophy with Staff Reporter Donna Harris.
You've said your company thrives on strong general managers.
I have a 25 percent partner in every dealership. They have earned that partnership out of sweat equity, and they are treated like they own 75 percent.
How did you arrive at that philosophy?
The ultimate oxymoron is "minority stockholder rights." There is no such thing. I realized that from my experience as a 25 percent partner. When I became an owner, I was going to treat my junior partners in a much different way.
Do they have a lot of autonomy?
I am running the company; I'm not running dealerships anymore. In 1989, before we opened Tustin Lexus, I helped the general manager interview salesmen. I recognized I didn't have time to help interview salesmen. I was running Toyota of Orange. I said, "Hire whomever you want."
I didn't go back to that dealership for three years. It is the same way with the other stores.
You say you overpay your employees. Why?
If you don't pay people enough, you get more turnover. Our managers would be training people and interviewing people all the time. Let's sell something instead of looking for people.
How do you find good general managers?
We grow our own. We don't hire general managers - we hire salesmen. We've had many general managers from other dealerships apply for general manager positions. We say, "We do have sales openings." We have three examples of people who were general managers somewhere else, started as salesmen at one of our dealerships and are now partners.
The policy keeps people from quitting. I had a fellow who had been a general sales manager for me, and he quit to become a general manager for somebody else because we didn't have an opening. He came back because it did not work out. He started as a salesman, even though he had been with me 10 years. Now he is a general manager.
You have a reputation for paying your employees more than they would get for comparable jobs at other dealerships.
We overpay our people by 20 percent, but we net 5 percent on sales before taxes. Our people are hyperproductive. If a comparable dealer has six sales managers, we might have four. They generate the income of six managers, but I am only paying four.
Our vacation policy is two weeks after one year. Most everyone else gives one week after one year. We give three weeks of vacation after five years and four weeks after 10 years. We have a pension plan and a profit-sharing program. We don't pay anybody minimum wage - 150 percent of minimum wage is the starting salary at any dealership. And we let our people work overtime.
What impact does that have on employee turnover?
In the last 20 years, I have never advertised for employees. All of our people are promoted from within. We have second and third generations working for us. They know what a great place to work it is, and they recruit good people. We hardly have to fire people because we are hiring only productive people.
You run very large dealerships.
We average over $100 million in revenues per dealership. The opportunity for economies of scale is in the big stores. If you want to be a big dealer, you need to be in a big market with a volume brand. You have to have a plan. You have to have some belief in yourself and your ideas.
We have a benchmark of $1 million per employee. I send the general managers a report reminding them of that every month. If a store has 100 employees and is on track to do $90 million, they have to get rid of 10 employees or jack up sales.
All the stores are within one or two employees of that benchmark. Some are more efficient. Toyota of Orange has 150 employees and is doing $240 million in sales.
Some would argue you are successful because you have the right brands.
I am lucky to have Toyota, Lexus and Honda. But I have spent over $100 million on blue sky. I didn't win that money in the lottery.
The only open point I got was Right Toyota in Scottsdale, Arizona. I held the land for six years at a cost of $50,000 a month. I was in it for the long run, and it's now the number-one Toyota store in its region.
It was the same way when I got the first Lexus franchise. A lot of people turned that car down. I started building in 1987 and opened in 1989. I spent $8 million before I saw the car. There were a lot of sleepless nights thinking: "Am I going to lose Toyota of Orange over a Japanese luxury car that some people say isn't going to work?"
I lost money the first four years at Desert Lexus. Sure, it looks good now. But it wasn't always that way.
How is your Ford dealership in Orange County doing?
It is the second or third most profitable Ford store in California. We were selling 300 new units a month there five or six years ago. Now we are selling less than 100.
That was the reason I bought a Mazda franchise to put in with it. Ford did not want that. But what can you pay employees? It gave me the opportunity to keep people and shore up the expense base. Nobody wants duals, but manufacturers have to be realistic.
You are opening Toyota dealerships in Mexico. What's that like?
Mexico is the land of opportunity. Toyota has been there only a couple of years, and they already have 10 percent of the market.
For customers with good credit, the interest rate is 15 percent. Mexican dealers make 6 to 7 percent. We can make more on the interest than we do on the car.
Do you plan to expand in the United States?
I have potential general managers pushing, wanting to know when we are going to get another store so they can be a partner. Our goal this year is to exceed $2 billion in revenue. I have a list of people I call four to six times a year, to let them know to give me a call when they think about cashing in.
Didn't you consider going public?
In 1995, Merrill Lynch approached me to go public. My controller explained to me that we will make the money we would have raised in a public stock offering in five years anyway. So why sell for five times earnings? I did not want to retire.
We had what they call an all-hands-on meeting. You have lawyers, underwriters and CPAs in one room. I looked at those 20 experts, who were making $300 per hour, and realized who was paying for it all. It was our last meeting.
Is there room for more public dealership groups?
Ultimately, there will be more publicly held groups, because the manufacturers limit acquisitions. There may be spinoffs. There is a tremendous amount of venture capital available, and some dealerships have terrific and proven returns.
Lots of private groups do as well as or better than the public companies. They don't need public money. But at some point, what is the exit strategy for those people? This is an evolving as well as a consolidating industry.
Automotive News / March 19, 2007 - 1:00 am
David Wilson, president of David Wilson Automotive Group in Orange, Calif., says the key to his company's success is grooming strong dealership general managers.
Wilson's 15 dealerships in California and Arizona recorded revenues of $1.67 billion in 2006. The company ranks No. 13 on this year's Automotive News list of the 125 largest dealership groups, based on new retail vehicles sold in 2006.
Wilson discussed his operating philosophy with Staff Reporter Donna Harris.
You've said your company thrives on strong general managers.
I have a 25 percent partner in every dealership. They have earned that partnership out of sweat equity, and they are treated like they own 75 percent.
How did you arrive at that philosophy?
The ultimate oxymoron is "minority stockholder rights." There is no such thing. I realized that from my experience as a 25 percent partner. When I became an owner, I was going to treat my junior partners in a much different way.
Do they have a lot of autonomy?
I am running the company; I'm not running dealerships anymore. In 1989, before we opened Tustin Lexus, I helped the general manager interview salesmen. I recognized I didn't have time to help interview salesmen. I was running Toyota of Orange. I said, "Hire whomever you want."
I didn't go back to that dealership for three years. It is the same way with the other stores.
You say you overpay your employees. Why?
If you don't pay people enough, you get more turnover. Our managers would be training people and interviewing people all the time. Let's sell something instead of looking for people.
How do you find good general managers?
We grow our own. We don't hire general managers - we hire salesmen. We've had many general managers from other dealerships apply for general manager positions. We say, "We do have sales openings." We have three examples of people who were general managers somewhere else, started as salesmen at one of our dealerships and are now partners.
The policy keeps people from quitting. I had a fellow who had been a general sales manager for me, and he quit to become a general manager for somebody else because we didn't have an opening. He came back because it did not work out. He started as a salesman, even though he had been with me 10 years. Now he is a general manager.
You have a reputation for paying your employees more than they would get for comparable jobs at other dealerships.
We overpay our people by 20 percent, but we net 5 percent on sales before taxes. Our people are hyperproductive. If a comparable dealer has six sales managers, we might have four. They generate the income of six managers, but I am only paying four.
Our vacation policy is two weeks after one year. Most everyone else gives one week after one year. We give three weeks of vacation after five years and four weeks after 10 years. We have a pension plan and a profit-sharing program. We don't pay anybody minimum wage - 150 percent of minimum wage is the starting salary at any dealership. And we let our people work overtime.
What impact does that have on employee turnover?
In the last 20 years, I have never advertised for employees. All of our people are promoted from within. We have second and third generations working for us. They know what a great place to work it is, and they recruit good people. We hardly have to fire people because we are hiring only productive people.
You run very large dealerships.
We average over $100 million in revenues per dealership. The opportunity for economies of scale is in the big stores. If you want to be a big dealer, you need to be in a big market with a volume brand. You have to have a plan. You have to have some belief in yourself and your ideas.
We have a benchmark of $1 million per employee. I send the general managers a report reminding them of that every month. If a store has 100 employees and is on track to do $90 million, they have to get rid of 10 employees or jack up sales.
All the stores are within one or two employees of that benchmark. Some are more efficient. Toyota of Orange has 150 employees and is doing $240 million in sales.
Some would argue you are successful because you have the right brands.
I am lucky to have Toyota, Lexus and Honda. But I have spent over $100 million on blue sky. I didn't win that money in the lottery.
The only open point I got was Right Toyota in Scottsdale, Arizona. I held the land for six years at a cost of $50,000 a month. I was in it for the long run, and it's now the number-one Toyota store in its region.
It was the same way when I got the first Lexus franchise. A lot of people turned that car down. I started building in 1987 and opened in 1989. I spent $8 million before I saw the car. There were a lot of sleepless nights thinking: "Am I going to lose Toyota of Orange over a Japanese luxury car that some people say isn't going to work?"
I lost money the first four years at Desert Lexus. Sure, it looks good now. But it wasn't always that way.
How is your Ford dealership in Orange County doing?
It is the second or third most profitable Ford store in California. We were selling 300 new units a month there five or six years ago. Now we are selling less than 100.
That was the reason I bought a Mazda franchise to put in with it. Ford did not want that. But what can you pay employees? It gave me the opportunity to keep people and shore up the expense base. Nobody wants duals, but manufacturers have to be realistic.
You are opening Toyota dealerships in Mexico. What's that like?
Mexico is the land of opportunity. Toyota has been there only a couple of years, and they already have 10 percent of the market.
For customers with good credit, the interest rate is 15 percent. Mexican dealers make 6 to 7 percent. We can make more on the interest than we do on the car.
Do you plan to expand in the United States?
I have potential general managers pushing, wanting to know when we are going to get another store so they can be a partner. Our goal this year is to exceed $2 billion in revenue. I have a list of people I call four to six times a year, to let them know to give me a call when they think about cashing in.
Didn't you consider going public?
In 1995, Merrill Lynch approached me to go public. My controller explained to me that we will make the money we would have raised in a public stock offering in five years anyway. So why sell for five times earnings? I did not want to retire.
We had what they call an all-hands-on meeting. You have lawyers, underwriters and CPAs in one room. I looked at those 20 experts, who were making $300 per hour, and realized who was paying for it all. It was our last meeting.
Is there room for more public dealership groups?
Ultimately, there will be more publicly held groups, because the manufacturers limit acquisitions. There may be spinoffs. There is a tremendous amount of venture capital available, and some dealerships have terrific and proven returns.
Lots of private groups do as well as or better than the public companies. They don't need public money. But at some point, what is the exit strategy for those people? This is an evolving as well as a consolidating industry.
A dealer with a bias toward centralization
Baltimore dealer group is known for innovation
Automotive News / March 19, 2007 - 1:00 am
With seven dealerships, Schaefer & Strohminger is a relatively small group. But the Chrysler group and many larger dealership groups cite the private Baltimore company as a model of operating efficiency and a source of ideas to borrow.
Schaefer & Strohminger CEO Joe Jankowski has a reputation as an industry maverick because of such innovations as eliminating general managers at dealerships. Jankowski, 51, discussed his business strategy with Staff Reporter Donna Harris.
You are considered a pioneer in centralizing your operations.
Back in 1992, we centralized accounting. There was no technology to do this. I had an IT person build a customized system. It was considered taboo. I was the Antichrist.
In those days we had general managers who wanted complete control over financial statements and cash flow and how inventories were handled. There are people in the auto retail industry still talking about centralizing operations and whether they want to pull that trigger.
We dramatically reduced staff. We had 38 total accounting people in five or six stores. Today we only have 15 people for seven stores. In 1997 we eliminated general managers. We have store managers who run sales in our dealerships.
Our fixed-operations people report to our two fixed-operations directors, who work for the management company. One specializes in service and body shop, and the other in parts. We used to have a formal director of sales but eliminated that position. Co-owner Dave Strohminger fills that role now.
We now have centralized accounting, legal, information technology, tax, human resources, warranty administration, fixed operations and Internet lead management.
What's your next initiative?
We just started taking incoming service calls in a centralized environment. We have Web-based service scheduling, and our entire phone network is linked to handle this. So when a customer calls, the person who answers the phone can immediately help schedule an appointment. If they can't handle the call, the customer will be linked to a service manager or adviser.
We already field phone and Internet sales leads in a central environment. Internet sales represent about one-third of our total volume. We record all incoming calls for quality purposes, and we track them for advertising sources. Each advertising source has a different 800 number, and we monitor those calls. We try to help the customer immediately.
How much have your centralization initiatives saved the company?
I couldn't tell you anymore - it's so deep in the culture. It's really a savings in personnel.
What about used cars? F&I?
We are bringing in a used-car sales trainer so we will not take our eyes off the ball.
We also are driving higher levels of finance and insurance profits. In the last year, we have moved our numbers up by over $100 a unit. We expect to add another $100 per unit this year. We are running $920 a unit now, and our goal is to be at $1,000 per unit.
We've had a really serious focus on training personnel and setting expectations. You get what you expect. We have three managers consistently selling over $1,000 per unit. And they are very customer-friendly.
You have said your focus is on selling prepaid maintenance plans.
Maintenance plans are part of a holistic approach that moves the customer from the sales department to the service department and captures customers for the long term. We have three stores doing in excess of 50 percent sales penetration on maintenance plans. The goal is to have every store sell over 50 percent of its customers maintenance plans.
We have dramatically lowered the price of the product, to $295 for three years worth of oil changes and rental cars if they bring their car in for service.
How soon do dealers start losing their customers' service business?
From Day 1. Forty-five percent of people who buy cars from us never show up in the service department for customer-pay work. After three years, 75 percent of our customers are gone.
We have high customer satisfaction. But why don't they come back for service? If 75 percent of customers are gone three years after the vehicle purchase, lots of stuff has to change.
We are going to have mandatory training over the next four months for every service adviser and manager. We are going to certify these folks, and we will give them continual feedback. Whenever customers walk into the service department, they will know exactly what to expect from that experience. We expect increased sales.
What's your goal?
If we retain 50 percent of our customers after three years, I would consider that a wild success.
Our average hours per repair order used to be 1.6. Right now it is running at 2.1. We think this program will take us to 2.5 hours per repair order.
Why did you divest your Toyota dealership?
It was in a tough area of town, we couldn't get inventory from the factory, and somebody offered us a significant amount of money for the property. We were going to have to build Toyota a new facility. So instead of putting capital in, we took capital out.
You have bought out competitors only to close the points.
We are strengthening our operations and doing more with our existing brick and mortar. On two occasions we have bought competitors and closed the points.
We purchased a Mazda store at a very good price. There are seven Mazda dealers in our market, including our two. There is not another competitor until the 15-mile radius. As part of our strategy, we studied traffic patterns. The harbor is a natural barrier between us and our competitors. And between two major interstates, I-83 on one side and I-95 on the other side, there is a swath down the middle that is about 400 square miles. We now have control over that geographic market.
There are seven Hyundai stores in the Baltimore market. The dealer who sold us the Mazda store also owned a Hyundai store within that same swath. We took that dealership and moved it 3.5 miles to an existing facility. We still have one of the only two Hyundai dealerships in that geographic area.
Your company has a long history.
It is the oldest Baltimore city dealer. It was started in 1917 by two brothers-in-law, the father and grandfather of the existing dealers.
If you question anyone in this town about our reputation, we will be off-the-chart good. Hopefully we will stay ahead of the curve so we will be here for the next 90 years.
Automotive News / March 19, 2007 - 1:00 am
With seven dealerships, Schaefer & Strohminger is a relatively small group. But the Chrysler group and many larger dealership groups cite the private Baltimore company as a model of operating efficiency and a source of ideas to borrow.
Schaefer & Strohminger CEO Joe Jankowski has a reputation as an industry maverick because of such innovations as eliminating general managers at dealerships. Jankowski, 51, discussed his business strategy with Staff Reporter Donna Harris.
You are considered a pioneer in centralizing your operations.
Back in 1992, we centralized accounting. There was no technology to do this. I had an IT person build a customized system. It was considered taboo. I was the Antichrist.
In those days we had general managers who wanted complete control over financial statements and cash flow and how inventories were handled. There are people in the auto retail industry still talking about centralizing operations and whether they want to pull that trigger.
We dramatically reduced staff. We had 38 total accounting people in five or six stores. Today we only have 15 people for seven stores. In 1997 we eliminated general managers. We have store managers who run sales in our dealerships.
Our fixed-operations people report to our two fixed-operations directors, who work for the management company. One specializes in service and body shop, and the other in parts. We used to have a formal director of sales but eliminated that position. Co-owner Dave Strohminger fills that role now.
We now have centralized accounting, legal, information technology, tax, human resources, warranty administration, fixed operations and Internet lead management.
What's your next initiative?
We just started taking incoming service calls in a centralized environment. We have Web-based service scheduling, and our entire phone network is linked to handle this. So when a customer calls, the person who answers the phone can immediately help schedule an appointment. If they can't handle the call, the customer will be linked to a service manager or adviser.
We already field phone and Internet sales leads in a central environment. Internet sales represent about one-third of our total volume. We record all incoming calls for quality purposes, and we track them for advertising sources. Each advertising source has a different 800 number, and we monitor those calls. We try to help the customer immediately.
How much have your centralization initiatives saved the company?
I couldn't tell you anymore - it's so deep in the culture. It's really a savings in personnel.
What about used cars? F&I?
We are bringing in a used-car sales trainer so we will not take our eyes off the ball.
We also are driving higher levels of finance and insurance profits. In the last year, we have moved our numbers up by over $100 a unit. We expect to add another $100 per unit this year. We are running $920 a unit now, and our goal is to be at $1,000 per unit.
We've had a really serious focus on training personnel and setting expectations. You get what you expect. We have three managers consistently selling over $1,000 per unit. And they are very customer-friendly.
You have said your focus is on selling prepaid maintenance plans.
Maintenance plans are part of a holistic approach that moves the customer from the sales department to the service department and captures customers for the long term. We have three stores doing in excess of 50 percent sales penetration on maintenance plans. The goal is to have every store sell over 50 percent of its customers maintenance plans.
We have dramatically lowered the price of the product, to $295 for three years worth of oil changes and rental cars if they bring their car in for service.
How soon do dealers start losing their customers' service business?
From Day 1. Forty-five percent of people who buy cars from us never show up in the service department for customer-pay work. After three years, 75 percent of our customers are gone.
We have high customer satisfaction. But why don't they come back for service? If 75 percent of customers are gone three years after the vehicle purchase, lots of stuff has to change.
We are going to have mandatory training over the next four months for every service adviser and manager. We are going to certify these folks, and we will give them continual feedback. Whenever customers walk into the service department, they will know exactly what to expect from that experience. We expect increased sales.
What's your goal?
If we retain 50 percent of our customers after three years, I would consider that a wild success.
Our average hours per repair order used to be 1.6. Right now it is running at 2.1. We think this program will take us to 2.5 hours per repair order.
Why did you divest your Toyota dealership?
It was in a tough area of town, we couldn't get inventory from the factory, and somebody offered us a significant amount of money for the property. We were going to have to build Toyota a new facility. So instead of putting capital in, we took capital out.
You have bought out competitors only to close the points.
We are strengthening our operations and doing more with our existing brick and mortar. On two occasions we have bought competitors and closed the points.
We purchased a Mazda store at a very good price. There are seven Mazda dealers in our market, including our two. There is not another competitor until the 15-mile radius. As part of our strategy, we studied traffic patterns. The harbor is a natural barrier between us and our competitors. And between two major interstates, I-83 on one side and I-95 on the other side, there is a swath down the middle that is about 400 square miles. We now have control over that geographic market.
There are seven Hyundai stores in the Baltimore market. The dealer who sold us the Mazda store also owned a Hyundai store within that same swath. We took that dealership and moved it 3.5 miles to an existing facility. We still have one of the only two Hyundai dealerships in that geographic area.
Your company has a long history.
It is the oldest Baltimore city dealer. It was started in 1917 by two brothers-in-law, the father and grandfather of the existing dealers.
If you question anyone in this town about our reputation, we will be off-the-chart good. Hopefully we will stay ahead of the curve so we will be here for the next 90 years.
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