A poster on the wall behind Tim Kelly’s desk speaks volumes about the car dealership owner’s personality: “The beatings will continue until morale improves,” it reads.
Kelly sets down his coffee mug, which sports a skull and crossbones, and laughs.
The point is not that Kelly holds his staff in a tyrannical grip, but that he has, in his words, “a dark, dry sense of humor.”
“You’d think I was a brutal dictator, but I believe my employees would tell you the opposite. We tend to be careful when hiring people, and once we get them on board, we invest in them, and let them work through their issues rather than saying, ‘You didn’t sell three cars this month, so you’re fired.’” Earlier, the receptionist at Kelly Infiniti on Chapman Drive called her boss “the nicest man” for whom she’s worked. Kelly is pleasant, but that’s true of most salespeople. However, his proclivity for speaking his mind gives his receptionist’s statement an air of credibility.
Just ask Kelly what he thinks about General Motors Company. “Some of the most difficult and frustrating relationships I’ve had in the car business were with GM,” he says.
Kelly Auto Group had been with GM for 70 years when Kelly parted ways with the carmaker in 2009, making the split analogous to a divorce. He says he’s made peace with what happened and moved on, but one has to wonder if a trace of enmity isn’t still coursing through his veins.
“From a dealer’s perspective, it’s hard to be a passenger on a train, and to go up to the conductor and say, ‘Hey, there’s something on the track,’ but he ignores you.”
One major challenge that’s not behind Kelly yet is the recession. He speaks as frankly about its affects on his business as he does about his disappointment with GM.
“The last few years have been difficult. We had to cut everything extraneous, and we’re fortunate to still be here. We’re not out of the woods yet, but we have turned due north, and each month is a little better than the last.”
To remain on his feet following the one-two punch of the recession and losing GM, Kelly turned to a luxury import: Infiniti. The addition gave him Saab and Infiniti at his Chapman Drive location, and Subaru and Mitsubishi at his Riverfront Parkway store. He also owns Southern Honda, located off Rossville Boulevard.
Kelly is almost able to express his appreciation for the Infiniti brand without sounding like he’s trying to make a sale.
“For a lot of years, I sold against Infiniti with Cadillac, and if you’re going to be good at selling anything, you’re going to have to learn more about your competition than your competition knows. Infiniti is the brand I thought did the best job of balancing beauty, reliability, performance, and value. There are brands that do some of those things better, but no car does all of them as well. It’s a well-rounded vehicle, and it has one of the best resale values of any luxury brand.” The exceptional resale value of an Infiniti car has worked in Kelly’s favor during the recession, as his customers have developed a taste for previously owned vehicles. Kelly believes this has less to do with money than with the appearance of having too much of it.
“Before 2007, you wanted to pull into your driveway in a new car and have your neighbor go ‘Wow! That’s nice!’ The opposite is true now. People feel badly about their neighbor being out of work, and they don’t want to seem obsequious, so the demand for used cars is higher. “You can buy one of our certified pre-owned cars, and it looks new, yet when your neighbor says, ‘Oh, you got a new car,’ you can say, ‘No, it’s just a used car.’ You feel better about your decision.”
If Kelly can’t help sounding a little bit like a salesman as he talks about Infiniti, it’s probably because car sales are in his blood. His grandfather founded what would beome Kelly Auto Group in the late ’30s, and went on to sell Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, and LaSalles. He ran the dealership until his death in the 60s, when Kelly’s father took over.
Kelly considered going down a different path. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from Columbia University in New York in the ’80s, contemplated working on Wall Street, and received a job offer from Deutsche Bank in Germany, but in 1989, returned to the family business. He says he’s never regretted his decision.
“While there’s a ton of money to be made on Wall Street, what’s happened there the last few years has been disgusting, in a lot of respects, so I’m glad I did this instead.”
Day to day, Kelly’s job is less glamorous than the shiny Infinities he sells might suggest. As his sales force works the showroom and the lot outside, he handles administrative duties in his wholly unpretentious office upstairs.
“I don’t like this office. But I moved up here because I couldn’t get any work done downstairs. I go downstairs as much as possible, though, because it’s not good to be too far away from what’s going on,” he says. Kelly calls his management approach informal, collaborative, and nonhierarchical. He’s less concerned about who comes up with the answer to a question than someone coming up with the right answer. He’s also willing to roll up his sleeves and wash a car or pick up trash in the lot, if that’s what’s needed.
When it comes to customers, Kelly says his focus is on making the process of buying a car at his dealerships as easy as possible.
“Historically, a lot of nonsense has gone on in the car business, but we respect our customers. This is a business, so we do try to sell our cars for at least one dollar more than we paid for them, but at the same time, there’s no reason we can’t earn a profit and give our customers a great experience,” he says.
Although Kelly works about 55 hours a week, he does squeeze a lot into the remaining time. He’s working toward earning an executive MBA at Emory in Atlanta, and spends as much time as possible with his wife of 19 years, Nichole, and their two sons, Jack and William Cannon.
While Kelly likes to be connected to the civic life of Chattanooga, his busy schedule has forced him to cut back on his board responsibilities and philanthropic work, although he’s still director of the Chattanooga Football Club, a board member of the Chamber of Commerce and River City Company, and a trustee at Baylor School.
Kelly also exercises quite a bit, with running and adult soccer being his cardios of choice.
“They keep me sane,” he says. When Kelly was a teenager, his father tried to discourage him from taking up the reins of the family business. “Don’t even think about it,” he told his son at the time. Kelly understands why his dad said that, but he’s glad he didn’t listen. “This is a tough business with long hours and difficult profit margins, so you have to be nuts to do it. But it’s like a disease; it gets in your blood, and you can’t get rid of it,” he says.
Chattanooga is lucky Kelly didn’t listen, too, as every city needs transparent and sincere businesspeople with a heart for doing good things in their community. It’s also nice when they have a sense of humor, no matter how dark or dry. Kelly picks up a small picture frame that sits near his desk and reads the words printed across the photo it contains: “Sometimes, the best solution to a morale problem is to fire the unhappy people.” He takes a sip of coffee and laughs.