Matt Nimey, Owner and Matt Adams, General Manager, Nimey’s New Generation Cars

November 30, 2022
ASOTU was on the ground with Matt Adams and Matt Nimey during the 2022 800% Elite Automotive Club Retreat.
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Matt Nimey is Owner of Nimey’s New Generation Cars.

Matt Adams is the General Manager of Nimey’s New Generation Cars.


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Kyle Mountsier: 0:00This is In The Dirt with ASOTU.Paul Daly: 0:05

We are here in the dirt at 800 elite club. We're in Atlanta, Georgia, right? We have 15 minutes apart, but we had to come to Georgia to actually have a conversation together. So that's perfect. Let's talk about a few things. Number one, tell us about Tell me about your store in the audience about your store?

Matt Nimey: 0:19

Well, we actually talk about two stores now. Yes, two stores? Yeah. gratulations.

Paul Daly: 0:23

Yeah. So we did the second store come into play September 19.

Matt Nimey: 0:27

Oh, wow. New, new fresh. Yeah. All right. So

Paul Daly: 0:30

so tell tell us about the stores. So we got an

Matt Nimey: 0:33

independent store man who could talk about it.

Matt Adams: 0:35

So we have an independent store. In Utica that started 65 years ago. It's an old gas station repair shop. Matt's father who you know, a couple days and just you know, servicing cars, fixing cars on the grind. And then Matt's father got sick. And Matt took over and just built it up. And I came on with Matt about a year after we opened our new facility, which is state of the art. It's built, like looks like a Chevy store if you just drive by. And then from there, we've just been grinding ever since. And then, you know, a month ago, we bought a Buick GMC store. And that's the quick summary.

Paul Daly: 1:16

So So you have a Buick GMC franchise now? Yes. Which one is what was it?

Matt Nimey: 1:21

It was a Buick GMC franchise? No. I mean, like, what was the name of Lee? It was Boonville. New York.

Paul Daly: 1:26

Yeah. So we're about there to where Boonville is? On my way to hold for it. Yeah, I know exactly where it is.

Matt Nimey: 1:33

So I actually bought my first truck there when I was like my first newer truck. Yeah. When I was like new to you. Yeah. When I was like 20, or 21. And I think I remember telling my parents like, I really liked this store up there. And it's always sort of, you know, I drive by every weekend, I forgot to camp or whatever. And it's always like, in the back of my mind back in my mind. And about three years ago, I started a conversation with the owner and I came back and I was talking to my mother my mother owns of companies with with me, and we're partners. And she's, like, you know, definitely like the store. I think we should look into, you know, buying and I talked to the owner and blah, blah, blah, well, three, three years, three years later in February, it'll be three years, and we made it happen. So it's here. We're in there. We're selling cars, fixing cars, and trying to hire staff. And it's coming along. Yeah, we're excited. It's literally

Paul Daly: 2:27

called Boonville for everyone listening. Yeah,

Matt Nimey: 2:29

it's Boonville New York.

Paul Daly: 2:30

It's like not like hey, where do you live? They live out in Boonville like Boonville is an actual place I love

Matt Nimey: 2:34

it. It is it's good. It's like it's there's a lot of like old school yeah, like you know a handshake still mean something? Yes. And if people are respectful You won't believe how many people come in and just like Oh, thank you for coming to town it's so great to see all these cars here. We're so glad somebody you know is coming in and keeping the dealership tension to it. Yeah, cuz they used to have three dealerships they they actually used to have four dealerships in that town and they all closed and this was the only dealership left and they're just really excited to support the place so they come in and they're friendly. They're inviting we've had couple of people bring in like doughnuts. Does that

Paul Daly: 3:09

town have like this big fair every year? Yes. Huge. I've driven through during the fair must be like, right, and it's a couple

Matt Nimey: 3:16

they have a couple of it. They have the woodsmen field days, which is gigantic. So like all the loggers and logging companies.

Paul Daly: 3:21

Yeah, it was like, I felt like I felt like I was transported somewhere else when I was driving through. Because every I felt like everybody was there. Yes. And it was like, unlike anything you experienced, like in the city or anything like that.

Matt Nimey: 3:34

I think there's something like, you know, I could be wrong, but I think something like 60,000 People go to that go to that. Oh, wait.

Paul Daly: 3:43

That's unbelievable. So you're you're kind of revamping and getting getting the wheels back on the store?

Matt Nimey: 3:50

Yeah, you know, they, I guess the wheels were there. And it just you know, the the owners they had been there a long time. Yeah, five brothers great guys friendly as can be. But they're at a point in their life where they, you know, want want to go on and move on to other to other things. So you know, the technology was was there was a big vacuum there. Yeah. For technology. We wanted to get some new modern stuff in the store. We are pretty advanced that are our independent stores. So we run it like a franchise.

Paul Daly: 4:17

Yeah. Let's talk about that. So what do you do? And what are you doing on the independent store? If you like we're talking about technology. The Summit we're at right now is about technology.

Matt Nimey: 4:25

Yeah. So we implement a lot, Matt. You know, Matt, especially when he came on board, he got even more in the tech. I was always like, I like tech, but I'm really not that great

Paul Daly: 4:33

at it. But your first reflex to like, hey, let's get better tech. Yeah,

Matt Adams: 4:37

well, you notice so the stigma independent dealerships is down. They switch switch things every month. Yeah. Oh, you have to sign a contract because they don't trust you're gonna stay with them. Yeah. And we found like that we were doing that. We're like, Oh, we don't do that. And they're like, Wait, okay, we've actually like we're not giving anybody a shot, right. So we said listen, like we're gonna win. gonna pay a little more for these products and things that we think work and we're gonna stick with them, and we're gonna write it out. And if it doesn't work, it's because of us not because of the product, the program, you know, so and we found that we've had success because we've stuck with certain things.

Paul Daly: 5:12

So what are you doing at the store, you have, obviously have no kind of OEM requirements, you have free rein, you can put the pieces together as you want to. What are you really into right now from from tech stack?

Matt Adams: 5:25

Well, there's a lot so I think it's important to give a little backstory on our independent store, like we are very service based. So a lot of a lot of our sales side has developed from from our service background and fixed ops background. So we've kind of transitioned some of our our customer database to the to the sales side, and how can we you know, capture those customers and make sure they're not going to the new car store down the road and to buy a used car, you right, and buying a used car and then complaining about it, and we're gonna fix it. Right? So how do we fix that process?

Paul Daly: 5:55

So do you find because you're so you have like a service legacy, that when people come to buy a used car from you, is there this assumption that the reputation carries over and that the cars that you're selling are in great shape? Or fully reconditioned? Like does that does that translate? Like, I think it would?

Matt Adams: 6:11

In a perfect world? Yeah. But I mean, there is just the stigma but no, we're just returning customers. Yeah, right. Like I you know, I have probably eight to 10 customers a month that I've sold cars to for the past 567 years and they know that but the average off the street it's just for some reason used car dealers have this stigma and and that's what we were battling and that's what Glen battles and that's what all of our deals.

Matt Nimey: 6:35

Yeah. And that's what I found going into this franchise only been there a month. Yeah, I'm no pro. But it's, it's amazing how people trust the franchise. But when our independent store at the point one I was taken over, like in in what and how we service our customer and service to cars. It doesn't even hold the camera to it.

Paul Daly: 6:54

Well, you know, we had a we had just a one of my companies, we just hired a designer. And we we explained to her how the franchise use car system came to be right and we started back like before there were horses and buggies. Right? And then there was a car and then Henry Ford figured out how to manufacture the car. And he needed to sell it right. And we just gave her the whole and she was like, that's interesting. I had no idea that Ford the company didn't own the dealership that I shop at. Right. And I always I've always had to be reminded that most people think that way. Yeah, that's the majority show. Like that's where the credibility,

Matt Nimey: 7:33

they think they're gonna go back on on GM or back on Ford. Exactly. They

Paul Daly: 7:36

don't realize that, that there's this middle layer of ownership. And so I think that that's why the credibility, right, because you think about it, someone sees the commercials on TV, right? And they see the logo on the building, there's just an A level of credibility that comes with that when if you have an independent brand, until you've spent a lot of money and a lot of time building that brand is credible in

Matt Nimey: 7:56

which we're doing. Yeah, which we're doing.

Paul Daly: 7:58

Yeah, tell me about that. Because that really is the antidote, like the long game is just doing a great job over and over and over and over for a lump. But that takes a long time. And one of the ways you can force multiply your efforts, right is build a brand and these days, right, we can communicate as much as we want. So you're doing that, what are you doing to build the brand and kind of speed that whole curve up?

Matt Adams: 8:19

So you know, obviously, we spend money on digital and things like that. But I think we've really dialed into just owning our market and owning our city that we live in. I mean, there's 60,000 people and you know, we're not trying to sell 60,000 cars a month, you know, so I mean, if we can have a small fraction of that. So we've really invested in the community and in how can we just get ourselves as people in front of our people in our community so they can see us? You know, so how are you? How

Paul Daly: 8:45

are you doing? So we just we recently tactical, because I think like people always want to walk away Facebook. Yeah, me Facebook. So

Matt Adams: 8:51

I mean, we recently just partnered with, with a local zoo, and we're donating a vehicle to them, and they're going to turn that into the Zoomobile. And they're gonna go around to schools and bring animals to different places. And that's something that's gonna have our logo on the side and, and that's something we're super excited about. Because, you know, a, we're getting back to an organization that, that that we we love, and they do a lot for our community and it's helping us you know, bring education and it has wheels, so, you know, it's automotive? Absolutely. We want to spend money on so, So little things like that. And then you know, at the new store Matt's get involved in community events up there. So I think that in one thing I've learned from Glenn is like, you can spend so much money you know, advertising but if the people don't, don't trust you, it really doesn't matter.

Matt Nimey: 9:32

And we've never done a good job expressing, like, retail or taking advantage of what we do for the community. So we're constantly like, especially especially Cindy, she's always serving the community always involved in nonprofits always, you know, doing cook like baking stuff for people and and putting on events at our church and like, she started an MS walk like all these things that she does for public service and we do and people in the In the dealership volunteer time, we had something we sort of force everyone that works at our company, we tried to give these couple hours a quarter and and to serve in the community. But we've never done a good job of expressing that to anybody else. So unless you saw us doing it, you wouldn't know because we don't brag about it.

Paul Daly: 10:17

And here's the thing. I can't remember where I saw it. But I recently saw a graphic that really broke down the difference between sales, marketing, advertising and brand in a really effective way. And what's something like this sales? What was this, I have a great car, do you want to buy it? Marketing was, were a great place to buy a car advertising was, were a great place to buy a car, were a great place to buy a car, we're right, you pay the money, just so you get the repetition. And brand had a picture of a customer walking up saying, I heard you're a great place to buy a car. And I was like, That sums it up in such a great way. And so like you can spend the money in advertising, and repeat a message. But until you've really done the work to connect with the people in the community to the point where they already know something about you, they have a feeling that is inclined towards you, then you're just going to be have to you're going to be locked into that long game of building experiences one at a time, which isn't a bad thing to do, right? Like, that's how legacy businesses do it. But you know, when we want to go faster, yeah. And when we're gonna go deeper, want to make more of an impact, and we want to buy more stores. And we want all of the brand credibility to transfer from one to another to another. That's where the real community work comes in. How are you if you are or are you planning to integrate the brands? Do they have the same name like the new store in the US started? They have some synergy between the two.

Matt Adams: 11:42

Yeah, and our logo. Yeah, Logos identical. It's just different color as a little thing. So the names a little bit different are used car stores called 90s. New generation cars. Yeah, new stores, man. I mean, Buick GMC. I mean, it has the Nymi name. Yeah. Which is which is our brand, you know, you know, Matt and Cindy built it and, and there's a big backstory to it. And in everybody knows the family, you know, and that's important, and especially in

Paul Daly: 12:06

a town like you just got Boonville right. It's, it's a town where people and for those of you listening, it's a town where although it's 60,000 people it's a pretty tight community. It's very tight, very generational, very legacy. A

Matt Nimey: 12:17

lot of a big like, corporate companies come in and they're gone within two years. Oh, yeah. It's, it's relationship buying relationship selling.

Matt Adams: 12:26

And that's, that's one thing we've seen is you know, we had a big family owned Auto Group on pretty much all the dealerships. There's two parties and carbone, right carbone, and Steve, oh, Steve Carbone sold off. So that's the analogy. Yeah. And now they've been bought out by another company. And in That's right, their credibility just isn't there even when they were Lithia Lithia is this huge conglomerate but people just didn't get the experience. They were bringing people in from out of town. Yeah, they just didn't connect with people.

Matt Nimey: 12:52

They've always had local managers until they bought got bought out. So it was local people sell to local people was there was that community there at the at the baseball game, that softball game or the hockey games, they're, you know, coaching the sports, and then you bring people in from out of state. And it was

Matt Adams: 13:07

so we saw this happening? And we said, hey, listen, we really got to dial in and like now's the time and go, Yeah, you know, so and that's what we've been doing for the past, you know, year in we've seen results. You know, it's like a snowball. It's not perfect. We've had ups downs, we've stepped backwards forward, personnel issues as it is, but like, we have a core of people that are the base of our, our dealership, so yeah,

Paul Daly: 13:32

so a lot of lots changed, right? 2022 is crazy. 2021 2020. Now you're heading into 2023 with a new and an independent what's what's the battle plan? Like? What is the big area of focus going into 2023?

Matt Adams: 13:45

We're going to take all of the good people in the automotive industry or who think they can be good in the automotive industry, and they're going to work for us. So hiring ones Yeah, I mean, we're gonna

Matt Nimey: 13:55

we're hyper focused on finding the best. And what are you doing to do that? Talking to people? Yeah, it's

Matt Adams: 14:01

just talking to people. I mean, we found like, in everybody in this 800% group will tell you like you don't place an ad and have people come to you at this point in the industry. You need to go find them like they're that next you know, 50 car a month. 30 Karma The guy is probably your waiter at a nice restaurant right now. Yeah, and he just doesn't even know the automotive can make him a big paycheck and make him you have this

Matt Nimey: 14:24

awesome light. Yeah, Matt came you came from a sneaker store

Matt Adams: 14:27

right? And you know, I went school thought was gonna be a cop and I was working in a sneaker store and then I met Matt and the rest is history. I

Paul Daly: 14:33

love it literally. Love that story. And

Matt Nimey: 14:35

then we got robbed from Denny's. Yeah, I

Matt Adams: 14:37

mean, it's just like this industry. I don't think

Paul Daly: 14:39

Denny's a lot my crushes rate. Absolutely. That is teach you how to work man.

Matt Adams: 14:44

Right and Yeah, but there's just not enough people to know automotives an option in this industry. And I think that you know, I've been following Glenn since he was a Dan Cummins and I just I stumbled across these guys that are super active on on social media and it has just hooked man like I Want to be like that? Like, I want this is this interview? See, it's possible, right? You can build like a comedy and you guys like Alex Flores who just built these huge dealerships from nothing. And how many industries can you do that? And

Paul Daly: 15:12

now it's saying automotive, there's no ceiling, but there's also no floor. Right? Right, which is the most beautiful thing, especially for somebody who's looking to turn flip the script for some people who think they're locked into a career path that has nothing to do with automotive. But when you go I bet if you went out here 90% of the people would be like, Yeah, I know. I kind of found you know, I stumbled. You know, it's either in your family or you stumbled into it. There's no like I set out say, I'm going to be an auto dealer, one near where I'm going to work in automotive. Well, thank you so much. I got two mats. They live right down the road. We have to have it. We have to launch to the stores at some point. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. Thank

Matt Nimey: 15:46

you for having appreciate

Kyle Mountsier: 15:47

Thank you for listening to In The Dirt with

Matt Adams: 15:47

you guys. ASOTU. We love the automotive industry and the people who make it run day in and day out. We would love to connect with you more through our daily dose of fun, a free email that you can sign up for at asotu.com That's a s o t u.com. We put our heart and soul into it every day. Thanks again for listening. Join us next time for more Conversations In The Dirt with ASOTU

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