AMP Top Ten: Mark Lee, Common Ground

Late last year, Winrock Auto Group invited Mark Lee to be the general manager of Mercedes-Benz of Little Rock. The offer could not have come a moment too soon. Had things shaken out differently, Lee and his family might have closed the Natural State chapter of their lives altogether, since Lee was contemplating a move out of state after nearly two decades in the Arkansas automotive industry.

“Mercedes-Benz has always kind of been just one of those dream jobs for me,” Lee said. “My wife and I went from preparing to sell our house, move and put the kids in new schools to the next day getting ready to drive just 15 minutes down the road from Benton, where I lived, to begin my tenure at the Mercedes-Benz store.”

It could rightly be called a moment of serendipity, but then again, Lee is no stranger to being in the right place at the right time. He came to Arkansas from upstate New York to attend Harding University in Searcy, in part because of its Church of Christ affiliation and in part because both of his parents are Harding alumni. Although the auto industry was never really on his radar, a friend in college told him he would make a great salesperson, Lee said.

“I think a lot of it has to do with just the way that I make friends. I don’t meet anybody that I can’t be friends with,” Lee said. “I always find some sort of common ground and just kind of run with it. Even in college, I hung out with every possible group across campus.”

Lee had the opportunity to see just how correct his friend was thanks to a chance meeting with automotive magnate Steve Landers in downtown Little Rock. In 2004, at just 21 years old, Lee suddenly found himself with Landers’ phone number and an offer that would kick-start his career.

“I showed up at Landers Toyota on University [Avenue] the next day and interviewed with Steve, Steve Jr. and Scott Landers,” Lee said. “I spent 15 years with the Landers group. It was an absolutely fantastic 15 years, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

As he moved into the managerial ranks, Lee said the biggest lesson he learned was the importance of consistency. He said he goes to great lengths to be a reliable presence for customers, no matter what time of day or night they might call.

“A lot of my time is spent in front of the client, making sure that they understand that just because they bought a car from us, that’s not where it ends. That’s really where it begins for us,” Lee said.

Behind closed doors, his focus is on cultivating a culture that reflects the caliber of both the store’s product and its clientele. A cornerstone of that aim is setting his employees up for success. Rather than personal awards or accolades, Lee said his biggest reward is seeing former employees go on to leadership positions at other stores and knowing he had some small part in helping them on that journey.

Lee said he also acknowledges the ways in which the car-buying experience has changed in recent years. Gone are the days when clients make a whole day out of visiting the store and mulling their options with an associate. Now, Lee said, people’s time is money, and most people already know what they want when they pull into the lot.

“A lot of our deals are going to start from either a social media aspect or from online traffic,” he said. “Before they show up at the store, there’s usually been several days, weeks and even months of text messages and emails that have gone back and forth.”

That shift has made Lee’s emphasis on relationships even more paramount to the store’s success. The sale is the easy part, he said, while the hard part is making customers for life. He constantly encourages his sales team to be an active presence in the lives of their clients, checking in regularly and deepening those valuable connections.

“We want to be involved with what’s going on with them, and that’s what keeps our clients coming back to us,” Lee said. “I’d be lying if I said it was because we had the best product in the world, and even though we do, that’s not why they come back. They come back because they know that we truly care about them.”