Honesty and integrity are two ideals that help Byron Oldham of Fruitland Park sell used cars. He has built his business around providing exemplary customer service and it has paid off.

“It all starts with customer satisfaction, allaying someone’s fears when they walk in the door, empathizing with our customers. We have a saying that bad things happen to good people,” Byron said. “My favorite customer is somebody who just left a dealership where someone treated them like they weren’t good enough. That person comes in so guarded, like we just spent all this time at another lot, they wouldn’t do anything, and I say, hey guys, don’t worry. You’re here, this is what we do, we’re here to help you with that and I think just giving that genuine care and concern, people really feel that.”

Byron learned how to be a car dealer from his dad, Gordon, who started the dealership back in 1980. While he grew up washing cars and picking up trash around the lot, Byron was not interested in making it his career. He went to college, studied advertising, went to work for an ad agency and tried his best to “get away from” the car business, until a phone conversation he had with his father in 2012.

“He said, son, I think I’m going to close the dealership. He told me it just wasn’t as profitable the way it used to be,” Byron said. He remembers listening to his dad, looking around at his cubicle office and deciding maybe it was time for a change. 

Byron turned in his office job and moved back home to give it a shot. He worked out a buyout agreement with his dad and slowly started building the dealership back. The first thing on his list was to find a way to stand out from everyone else. He used his advertising experience to zero-in on a message and brand that would speak to potential customers.

“I took a lot of what I knew and one, I felt like the car business has done a really poor job of adapting to today’s consumer. If you just look at surveys and Gallup polls, one of the most distrusted professionals up there with politicians are car dealers, or car salesmen, so for me there was an opportunity there to educate consumers and create a brand that says, hey, you can trust us. We’re going to build a place and a business, we’re going to live by it where we’re going to give you unfettered advice, we’re going to tell you what we would do if we were in your shoes, we’re going to fix and recondition cars as if we were buying them for ourselves and driving them ourselves, so, there was an opportunity there to rebrand and change some of the old adages that people were fearful of but we really do live by at the same time. It’s not just advertising, so to speak,” Byron said.

The original name for the dealership when Gordon started was Central Florida Exports, mainly because in the beginning the business model focused on exporting cars to the Caribbean islands. Recognizing that the name didn’t do a great job of explaining what the dealership is all about, Byron decided it needed to be changed to something much closer to the core of the business today: Honest Autos.

“To me, it’s not just the name Honest Autos. It is a brand, and that’s what makes us different. People can truly come in and be at easy and just know that you’re going to be well taken care of. Yeah, that’s the key. That’s the secret for me,” Byron said.

Since taking over 11 years ago, Byron has led Honest Autos from 60-70 Buy Here Pay Here accounts to 500 and from selling five to seven cars a month to now over 50. The staff has grown from a small team of three to 17 employees. Every car sold at Honest Autos comes with a free 30-day warranty and a 1,000-mile guarantee for peace of mind.

“We tell customers, hey if you get home and next week this car’s got a significant problem; if the motor blows up, you bring it back and we’re going to put a new motor in. And we live and die by that. If somebody’s got an issue I want to be here to fix it for them,” Byron said. Service contracts and extended warranties are offered at a marginal cost, but for Byron it’s more about adding value than an extra dollar to the sale. He believes that if someone pays for a service contract they are more likely to take better care of their car, and as a result the loan performs a little better. 

Fruitland Park, where the dealership is located, is a small suburb of Leesburg. Minutes away from The Villages, which is the largest retirement community in the world, Honest Autos has a wide range of customers, and therefore, a broad offering of inventory. Selling to both the people who live in The Villages as well as the “supporting cast” of staff who assist them makes it hard to narrow down the types of customers who stop in.

“I probably have one of the weirdest demographics of clientele,” Byron said. “My Buy Here Pay Here clients are the teachers, the yard guys, the nurses, the people in medicine that take care of these 120,000 retirees but also I sell a lot of cars to those folks who want a little Mercedes on the weekend or they want a convertible Corvette or whatever. I have $4,000 cars to $90,000 cars all on the same lot and sold with the same guarantee, every single one of them.”

About five or six years ago, Byron felt the dealership needed to have a good footprint in The Villages getting the word out that they buy cars and are the only local business in the area that does. They worked with an ad agency to post creative content on Facebook and place targeted ads for inventory acquisition to get the message across the market. The result not only brought them some great cars but allowed them to earn enough market share in the area to hold their own when competing with the larger chains like Carvana and CarMax. It turned out to be a beneficial move in today’s inventory-scarce environment even though Byron fully admits it was more luck than strategy.

“That was just the right time, right place type of thing,” Byron said. “All of a sudden you have this inventory crunch three years ago and so we were able to lean on that new facet of the business a little bit, just again right time and right place. No foresight here, we just got lucky. Sometimes you’d rather be lucky than good.”

Luck may have been on his side with the decision to focus on buying inventory in the community, but Byron has made it a point to stay educated and aware of the industry as a FIADA member. He remembers as a kid seeing the FIADA stickers on the filing cabinet in his dad’s office and understanding the Association was an essential part of the business. As a member today, he takes advantage of the educational opportunities available like the Annual Convention, NIADA Twenty Groups and just networking with other dealers. 

“I realized hey, this is the next progression. I need to go learn more and get some more information from people who are succeeding in this industry and I came back with some really great and valuable tips and tricks to grow my business. Things that I was completely unaware of. I was old school; I was doing it wrong. There was a better way to do it and you really can’t even put a price on those meeting when you get back and say wow, I learned from this guy and he’s doing it this way and his delinquency is 10% lower than mine. So, I’m a huge advocate for FIADA,” Byron said.

Byron will be at the Annual Convention in Orlando later this month ready to network and learn with everyone. He says it’s easy to get recharged after spending a few days with a group of people who know exactly how you’re feeling and what you’re going through. FIADA is like a fraternity for independent dealers, offering opportunities to work with and support each other.

“I can rarely sit down at a dinner table or in a room and share my grievances or my successes with somebody who truly understands them, and so getting to do that in an environment with a dozen people that I’m sitting with is really just icing on the cake for me. It’s like being with all my best college buddies, they’re just business leaders instead, you know?” Byron said. 

This year was Byron’s first as a member of the FIADA Board and he was eager to help the Association educate dealers on its value.  He believes non-members need to know that yes, it is easy to go to the internet for information or get business advice from strangers on social media but what you’re getting isn’t always accurate. Knowing FIADA is a resource that can be trusted and the education it offers leads the industry is the message that needs to get out to the 11,000 dealers in the state who hold a license. Adding these dealers into FIADA’s fold will help professionalize the industry and lead to better business community for everyone.

“If you don’t adapt, you’re going to die. You have to keep up ahead of the curve, you have to be a trendsetter or try to be and be learning and procuring new knowledge from people who are doing good things in the space,” Byron said.

Challenges in the industry will always cause change at dealerships, but sometimes they can be good. The current credit crunch has surged interest rates to a 22-year high and inflation continues to raise prices on everything from groceries to new cars. Budget-conscious consumers are hesitant to spend $70,000 and up at the franchise dealerships so that could bring a wave of new customers to used lots, and the once mid-tier range of credit seekers might find better terms at a Buy Here Pay Here dealership. Byron’s advice is to be ready, even if it costs more to sell more.

“I was at a Twenty Group meeting a year ago and they said, look 20 years ago we used to say there’s no more $1,000 cars, then 10 years ago it was there’s no more $3,000 cars, now it’s there’s no more $5,000 cars so during Covid, I kind of had a little analysis paralysis with the prices being as high as they were and that’s tough when you’ve been buying cars at a certain trench for a long time, to go pay 20-30% more, but what we just learned is, hey, this is the new normal. If we want to sell cars we have to buy cars and you just got to get back to work and adapt you know? That’s it,” Byron said.

The talk of growth in a shaky economic environment is scary, but necessary if a business wants to stake out a future. For Honest Autos, growth to this point has been about “owning the whole process” like establishing a full mechanic’s shop and bringing a body shop in-house. Putting those pieces in place before growing the retail footprint makes the most sense for Byron but expanding to another location is on the horizon. He says he would like to make that happen while he is still young and has the energy to do it well.

Speaking of energy, outside of the dealership Byron spends most of his time running around with his two boys, Kane and Beckham. His wife, Dana, is a local doctor who keeps him centered and focused. As far as passing on the legacy of Honest Autos down to the boys, Byron says there is no pressure. He just hopes to foster an environment of entrepreneurial success, whether it’s in the car business or not.

Honest Autos tries to give back to the community beyond providing its impeccable customer service. From supporting Little League teams to donating cars for fundraising raffles, they try to make a difference. Byron says there’s no better feeling than having a business strong enough to not have to think twice about writing a check when someone asks. 

“There’s a lot to be proud of,” he said. “When you look back through the rear-view mirror at the long way you’ve come. To be able to give back to the community that I grew up in, my hometown, is really as rewarding as it gets.”