For our 11th episode of Full Throttle, we are joined by John Bergstrom, Founder and Chairman of Bergstrom Automotive. Topics of discussion include the state of the automotive industry, how COVID impacted the focus at Bergstrom Automotive, and much more. Tune in and don't forget to subscribe for our upcoming automotive industry podcasts!
Check out The Presidio Group on Linked In - https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-presidio-group-llc/
And The Presidio Group's Website - https://thepresidiogroup.com
For our 11th episode of Full Throttle, we are joined by John Bergstrom, Founder and Chairman of Bergstrom Automotive. Topics of discussion include the state of the automotive industry, how COVID impacted the focus at Bergstrom Automotive, and much more. Tune in and don't forget to subscribe for our upcoming automotive industry podcasts!
Check out The Presidio Group on Linked In - https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-presidio-group-llc/
And The Presidio Group's Website - https://thepresidiogroup.com
This is Full Throttle, The Presidio Group's automotive industry podcast. I'm your host, Jason Stein. Presidio is managing director and host of Sirius XM Cars and Culture on business channel 132. On a monthly basis Full Throttle serves as the industry's meeting point for great conversations with leaders across the automotive world.
We work every day trying to figure out how to get this guest experience, so it has less friction. I'm sure a lot of people are doing the same thing. I'm not sure we would have had the time, or maybe the motivation to have that be our focus. But if you're going to build a long term relationship with people, you got to make it so they want to do business with you not that you're the only guy that sells whatever you're selling. We got to make it in a way that they feel like somebody cares about them.
It's safe to say that John Bergstrom has seen his share of retail transformations. Building an empire in Wisconsin is no easy task. But it gets a little harder when you've witnessed all of the industry changes that have made Bergstrom automotive that much stronger recessions, downturns, upswings, facility requirements, and even the uncomfortable conversations during the downturn of 2008 and 2009 when stores were closed, in some cases for no good reason. But Bergstrom automotive has done the remarkable; diversify, rebuild, reload and prosper. Driving it all is the patriarch, a man who is as kind as he is driven. John Bergstrom, Chairman and Founder of Bergstrom Automotive is all of the above. Today Bergstrom automotive includes 32 dealerships and is one of the top 75 automotive dealer groups in the country. It sells and services every volume brand sold in the United States. But he and his family have more than dealerships across Wisconsin. They have a community and their own extended family of loyal guests and 1800 team members. His entrepreneurship began after graduating from Marquette University when he and his brother Dick Bergstrom, opened a bar in Neenah. He has been a restauranteur owned a hotel and co founder of Bergstrom automotive, which is also headquartered in Nina, not far from Green Bay. His family's Commitment to Excellence, Innovation, and Opportunity has created one of the most unique pockets in America, a place where you can build a life and in the case of Bergstrom Automotive, build bridges to the future. The Bergstrom philanthropic effort is as large as their commitment to their guests. They make their community better by providing more opportunities, and all the while pushing to achieve great relationships and all of that while navigating downturns, COVID, and unforeseen pressures while diversifying their portfolio. Simply put, Bergstrom means excellence and today he shares his story with us. So what's John Bergstrom's view on the industry, on retail transformation, and the future? We hear directly from a leader who has just as much fire today as he did when he started a retail legend. John Bergstrom on full throttle.
Hello, this is John Bergstrom Presidio's Podcast, Full Throttle.
The last time I was with our guest was this was the beginning of something we could not have anticipated. But it was wonderful conversation in about March of 2020, if those who understand timing know the significance of that date, and it was probably one of the last conversations I had with anybody on stage in front of a crowd, and it's been way too long, but he's back now. And he's back better than ever. And he is our guest on Full Throttle. What a pleasure to be with my longtime friend John Bergstrom.
Thank you, Jason, it's a real pleasure to have the chance to talk with you again.
You look great, you sound great. And things are great, you're having a ton of fun. And and you're in your corner of the world. Tell me how things are at Bergstrom Automotive.
Things at Bergstrom Automotive are good. And I kind of look at it as we have a 1800 person staff that all comes to work to take care of our guests automotive issues, and has a good time doing it and makes a difference for their families makes a difference for our community, and quite frankly, they pay me to do this, which is almost unbelievable, because I'm having a great time. We haven't changed. Yesterday, our first thing we did in the morning was go through opportunities where maybe we could buy something and grow. And it's it's a it's a very good time in the car business in our little corner of the world. And we have a new quarterback and our football team.
Yes, you do.
Someone named Jordan Love. 16 years with Brett and we had 17 years with Aaron. Now. Now, we just signed Jordan and my older son said, Dad, I'm not so sure that you haven't taken on a new risk profile this time. I said with all that, Christopher, I really appreciate your input. And you go back to putting people back together. And let me have fun with my hobby on the side. So things that
We're gonna get to football at one point. But could you imagine we've talked about this on this program with several other folks, including friends of yours? How much life truly changed from that time that you and I shared the stage together until now. I mean, you this is not something we could have even charted if we imagined it right, John?
Yes, that's totally correct. And we all learned a lot from it. And obviously, we all feel very bad for the family that lost loved ones. In some ways, we've come out better, I do believe. My son Tim and I are very much involved with a Catholic school system. And to see these young high school students volunteering, in the nonprofits and all over the community, with their own initiative, where they want to make a difference. They they feel a responsibility. I've seen that before, but not to this level, it really feels good, and they're very sincere about it. And it isn't about getting paid or anything like that. It's kids are better. I think they learned some. In our car business, I think we've gotten more philosophical and learned some stuff, instead of sell one more car, we work every day trying to figure out how to get this guest experience so it has less friction. And I'm sure a lot of people are doing the same thing. I'm not sure we would have had the time, or maybe the motivation to have that be our focus. But if you're gonna build a long term relationship with people, you got to make it so they want to do business with you now that you're the only one that sells whatever you're selling, you've got to make it in a way that they feel like somebody cares about them. And we're, we're taking that to a new level. Not like we're terrific or anything I think it's just common sense. But it's very doable. So we're frustrated, like everybody's frustrated with supply chain and not the right inventory and all of the challenges that come with that. But with what we do have, we've actually figured out how to run our business a little better, I think. So certainly have a more focused approach towards the guest experience in fixed, whether that's the body shop and service facilities or whatever, try to figure out kind of put yourself in the shoes of that guest and say, they can't get the parts to fix my car. I had an accident, it wasn't my fault, it was my fault, but I need my car. And they're saying too bad. That's not the right answer. So now we got to figure out how to get them transportation, and how to get their parts as quickly as we can, which is really challenging. And if you get if you ordered 26 parts for the repair, and you got 13, or 18, doesn't do any good. So try to figure that all out. And then at the same time, show that guests you care about him. It's it's challenging, but it's a good time in our business.
Well, what you're saying is it gave us a moment of pause, it gave us a moment of reflection and consideration. Because we were kind of on a treadmill. Right, John? We got off the treadmill for a little bit now that we're back onto some moving sidewalk to some extent. Now we consider things differently is what you're saying.
Yeah. And and in, quite frankly, I think we're not alone, I think society might have made those same transitions in a lot of ways. It is absolutely fascinating to me, if I check in at a hospital, which I've done recently, and the lady checking me in looks at me, and she smiles, and she asks me something about me that has nothing to do with my Mayo Clinic number or my date of birth or my social security number. You know, it's she actually acts a little like, she cares that I'm there. And, and I have fun going back, I asked them if they need an oil change or, you know,
A new car maybe?
Yeah, I don't push it. I don't want to sculpt the wall. But the reality is, that's that's kind of a new thing, I believe.
Value for life.
We're, we're in the process of working through a transaction that that Tim and I are working on have been working on for a while, and so you're working with the financial institutions. And it's interesting, where it isn't all about rate and costs, and there's a certain amount of, you know, what can we do to help? Or how's this gonna fit together? Or, with the timing difficult, let's both try and figure out what we can do that works well, for both the bank and for you, John. I mean, that feels a whole lot better. So interesting stuff.
How did the How did the guests change during that time?
In some ways. There, it's about three quarters good and about a quarter not so good. The three quarters good, are they seem more appreciative, if you help them, they have a little more patience. And they understand what you're going through. So those are the three good ones. And that's not everybody, but it's quite a few. The negative side of the whole thing is some of the loyalty that we built up forever, is not as strong as it was because you didn't, you didn't have the same time to talk to them or bump into them or do something else with him whether you're working on United Way or whatever. So you don't have that same closeness that you did on March 20th of 20. You know that that's changed, and you got to put that back in place. And when you lose that relationship, that's the stickiness where they give you the first chance and somehow or other, we got to make sure that we work on that every day.
The notion of meeting consumer where they are now has probably been accentuated over the course of the last couple of years, because delivery of things changed. Convenience changed. You started, you know, we saw this around the country when dealerships were allowed to reopen again. During COVID they really went out of their way to meet their guests wherever their guests needed them to be met. Do you feel that you also responded in that way to was and are some of those changes the changes that would have taken maybe years to adjust to?
I don't think we changed during college just for the record. We did business more so where they wanted us to but we were picking up cars for delivery and and uh, for service, we would try and do that, like we always have. So, you know, give Carl Sewell credit, a long time ago, he said, if you just pretend you're them, do you want to go to a car dealership and wait in line to drop your car off, and then wait for somebody to pick you up in a Dodge van and give you a ride? And you'd say no. And so he says, Well, why would you ask your people to do that? So we have, for a long time, figured out a way to do that. And through COVID, we continued, I think, what did change when people started being able to go to a dinner or a restaurant or a gathering of people, what did change is there was more of a inner respect with people with each other. They would take time. I live in a small city so every now and then somebody tells me I live in a mushroom. But people say excuse me, or do you want to ride or everybody says hi all that stuff. But if I think that that got accentuated when they were home. And um, I'm a little bit on a kick, actually and I try to keep bringing it out to our people as we talk with them, help these kids have a chance, and kids I'm saying young kids 16 to 25 ish or whatever, have them have a chance to do something in your nonprofits or in your dealerships. We don't need a whole lot of people. Historically, you had people in summer work and you did stuff. We don't need that now, but we got a bunch of them. And we want them to feel like they're contributing. And our company actually is better when a tech can help a young person figure out how to change brakes or something like that. So there's a lot of that type of stuff that is stronger than I remember at all at pre COVID.
One thing that is not changing is a charge towards a completely different propulsion system for vehicles and more cars. And you can say what you want about carbon emissions or reduction in co2 and other things, but the bottom line is, EVs are coming and EVs are here. What is John Bergstrom's view on all of that.
Now, today, I drove a lyriq.
okay
Took it home brought it back. It's a wonderful. Yeah, a wonderful car. And it's 65,000 bucks, which is about the same as what that car would be with ICE. We represent every brand in the US now except for the boutiques. And 30 of those brands are selling electric cars. And we have electric cars in stock in every brand, I think. And frankly, the ICE vehicles are selling about 19 to one over the electric vehicles here. And so we're in a situation where it's gonna take a while. And I have a granddaughter that's working with me this summer. And she's 16 I think. And she said, do you realize grandpa that we're burning coal, to create steam, to create electricity to charge the battery to drive an electric car? And I said yes, I do. Olivia. But we've we've got to work in this in steps and stages and, and windmills in Wisconsin and and solar are not huge. But we're getting there and making progress and we're burning coal more carefully. And we're natural gas. We can use scrubbers now and everybody's working to do their part. And she turned it around and said, I feel so much better about it that I understand that, that it just isn't some kind of a business ploy. Frequently, the difference between ICE and or electrification cars is about $15,000 And where we live and work that that is $250 a month or something like that. And the car payments already $600 And now it's $850 That's an impediment. You know, you've got to sit there and say, I don't care about the rebate or I don't care about the fact you don't have to buy gas you still got to make an $850 car payment. That is a significant situation that we got to continue to work on. But some of these cars are absolutely amazing. I have an electric Corvette on order. I don't know if I'm high enough up the food chain to get one, but I suspect that I might, and I can't wait. Because it's fast as a rocket. I mean, it is just an amazing car. And it is branch specific, is a lightning pickup truck. My very good friend Riley Stevenson that runs Pate has a about 100 Electric pickup trucks right now. And he cannot say enough about it. Because in his business, and his employees, where they're all about trying to cut down the cost and make it easier to electrify whatever they're doing factories, or homes or warehouses around it, they have, they kind of forced it to start with, they had 25 to start with. And they had to figure out a way to recharge them, and it doesn't work for every job, because you can't send a guy too far and expect him to come back. And in this particular situation, they figured out how to do that. The people that had short haul short distances, and I had the chance to be with a group of them. And I asked him, what do you think between your normal f150 nd your ICE? And it was, excuse me, your ICE 150 And your electric Lightning, and they said, it's really cool to have the lightning, because everybody thinks we're really good people and doing good things that they kind of cheer for you, John. And it's interesting, I pick that same thing up in our showrooms where people want to be good want to save the world all that. From a business point of view, I go nuts when some manufacturer says we're going to be totally electric in four years or something, when I know, every, I shouldn't say every nickel, but most nickels, nine dimes out of $1 generated through selling pickup trucks or large sport utilities or something, and there's no way that I can make this gap instead of $250 $500 or something, and so give you the profitability. And so they gotta figure out how to get the cost down, I don't think they can fast enough. And so we're in a situation where I hope that they're in boardrooms saying, we're going to tell everybody, we're going to electrify we're going to get them to move there, we're going to get the investment community to know that we don't have our head in the sand. But we're going to have really, really good looking Silverado internal combustion engine, fuel efficient pull a trailer trucks for a long time to come. And so I get those challenges. Then you get a technician, we have a couple of technicians in one of our Chevy stores that are world class, ASA certified. I mean, you can't believe how on it they are and they've gone through all this work to get certified. One of them came to see me and he said, am I gotta be able to work? And I said, How old are you? That he told me 56? And I said, if you work 10 years past normal retirements, you're still going to be overbooked. Don't worry, everything's going good. You know, we're sitting here with, I don't know, 285 million cars and trucks floating around. And 281 million of them have an internal combustion engine.
Yeah, a lot of work to come for sure.
And we bought a couple of Tesla's Tim and I bought them and just to learn and drive and bucks with them, and they're actually nice, nice cars, you can't take that away from them. But we got ourselves in a position here where we were offended when people would buy a Tesla, and not buy it from us because Tesla wasn't doing anything in the community or weren't employing any people. And they didn't think much of it, but they didn't have a service department. I gotta tell you, if you have an accident with a Tesla today, you're gonna make at least two payments before you get your car back. And Tesla isn't gonna give you one to use, you know, it is crazy. And if you're just going for normal brakes or something, you literally got to go 100 miles and wait in line to get that done. So nobody's got this figured out. Everybody, I think says Elon Musk is a genius and he's got this all figured out and everybody's sleeping. He is a genius. There's no doubt about it. And he's done some really cool stuff. But if you have more complaints in the state of Wisconsin, for people that have your cars than any other brand all put together, there's a problem. You know, nobody wants to talk about that. So I actually think electrification is coming, it's gonna take a while it's at a good place. And if I have a two car garage, I'm going to have an electric vehicle for within the range I want. And then I'm going to have a Ram or Silverado or f150, or Toyota, something that that can pull my boat or go to the cottage or go to O'Hare to pick up my daughter who's flying in. So, yeah, we're getting there, but it's gonna be a while.
Well said. Final thing, you mentioned it at the top of the broadcast, but I have to know you, you've lost your, your longtime quarterback, you have a new quarterback that was just drafted a few years ago. So what are the prospects in the NFC North for the Packers this year?
We're gonna be in the playoffs. I can't bet or I get thrown out.
Right? There are plenty of those problems today. Yes.
And I don't want to be a bad example. But I've worked with the Packers for 35 years, had nothing to do with football. I'm in the business side of it. And just is kind of a hobby on the side with a group of friends. I like. But I can tell you in that building 330 Some employees, I've never seen the enthusiasm as high as it is right now. And it gave us some flexibility instead of spending a tremendous amount and Aaron was the best ever. But, and whatever we paid him was fair. But now we have that flexibility. And you can put more money into different positions. We got, we got quality top people in every necessary position. And now now we have a whole different problem. We've got a team that can play and beat anybody on a good day. But now if anybody gets hurt, we're in trouble. We haven't got it figured out but it'll be fun to come to Lambeau Field and fun to watch the NFL season.
You're not solely focused on one propulsion system that being Aaron Rodgers.
Actually, I hope things go well for him.
I'm sure I'm sure. What a treat to have you on the program. Thank you for being with me. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the future on the present. And it's just always good to be with you, John Bergstrom.
Thank you, Jason. It's fun to be with you and I'll make sure when you can come to a little town in northeastern Wisconsin that you get a good seat to watch the ballgame, okay?
Any seat next to you is a good one. Thank you.
God bless you.
Thanks again to my guest, John Bergstrom, founder and chairman of Bergstrom automotive, and thanks for listening to full throttle, come back to us later in the month for our next interview on this platform. Suggestions? Email me at jstein@thepresidiogroup.com and to learn more about the Presidio Group, go to thepresidiogroup.com or follow us on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening