In today’s automotive market, political leanings may influence consumer confidence more than we realize. Our account teams, visiting dealerships nationwide, have observed a trend: online shoppers are active but hesitant to commit—few calls, fewer submissions.

Analyzing dealership performance and perceptions through a political lens reveals intriguing patterns. In North Carolina, red-leaning Charlotte and Raleigh outperform blue-leaning Chapel Hill. In red-leaning Nebraska, a dealer in Omaha, a blue stronghold, is seeing record sales, while in New York, a Bronx dealership is outpacing higher-income, red-leaning Long Island and White Plains locations.

What’s driving this? According to Josh Bradish, Strong Partner and Account Executive, in the markets mentioned, it’s about personal confidence. Red-leaning buyers tend to act decisively, while blue-leaning buyers often adopt a wait-and-see approach, even when financially capable.

This behavior isn’t new. During COVID, uncertainty gripped the nation – vaccines, masks, social distancing. Today, similar hesitation stems from political concerns—tariffs, taxes, immigration. Bradish’s advice remains consistent: stick to your process and be ready when confidence clicks.

The good news? That moment is near. Inventories are solid, July incentives were attractive, and sales are trending upward. When red and blue buyers gain confidence, dealerships see more green.

Certain phrases are music to the ears.

For football fans on Monday nights, the words “Are you ready for some football?” get the adrenaline going.

For big-time awards shows like the Oscars, the words “And the winner is…” precede the thrill of being recognized for excellence amongst your peers.

For Strong Automotive, when the words “We are excited to announce” appear in The Source, our company Share Point site, the excitement is surpassed only by the satisfaction.

That 5-word phrase is used preceding the name of every new client who has chosen us as their agency of record.  It is a high-five thrill, a sigh of relief, and a keen appreciation for every member of the team who played a role in an arduous process – never have two presentations been totally the same.

The statement our Culture Club applied to the core value TEAM says, “We operate as one team united by purpose, aligned in action, and accountable to each other.”  Translated in a get-down sense, when it is our turn to show out in front of the decision-makers, performing with confidence is a given…the work has been done, the standard is exceptional, anticipation is for the best.

While nobody wins them all, legendary Alabama Coach Bear Bryant said it best:

It is not the will to win that matters – everyone has that. 

It’s the will to prepare to win that matters. 

The price of victory is high but so are the rewards.”

The final TEAM comment for our company addresses the dichotomy of competition: “We win together and lose together.”

While there may be days like that, the past few months have been an incredible run of successful client presentations, and to paraphrase Dallas Cowboys’ coach Jimmy Johnson after winning the 1993 NFC Championship…I want to use this forum to say:

“How ‘bout that Strong Team!” 

Philip Coltart would be termed an ex-officio Strong Automotive employee. As a free-lance cinematographer, and our go-to guy for the last 5 years, Philip is familiar to many of our clients at their dealerships for his work in producing on-location footage.  The term we use for his work is ‘sizzle’, one-of-a-kind unique angles, time-lapse, and incredible drone.

But along with his cinematic skill and dignified British-accent, Philip brought something else to Strong Automotive:  his love for serving the less fortunate of the world, and bringing them hope.  Philip’s passion is his long association with Hope for Kenya, a US non-profit organization dedicated to bringing hope to the children of the Ndhiwa community through clean water – a dire need in the country – as well as education.

Since 2006, Philip has bonded with the organization’s original founder Peter Midodo. With help of volunteers who contribute money, sponsor a child, or take part in twice-a-year mission trips, Hope for Kenya has grown from humble origins in Peter’s home where he and his wife, Rachel, invited homeless kids – many orphans – in for some porridge, and lessons in reading and writing.  From a few in 1998, to hundreds attending  Joy School today, supported students are graduating high school with many going on to college or trade schools in Kenya

Since2020, Hope for Kenya has been one of the many organizations Strong Automotive lends financial support…and for 14 days this October, on-location support.  During our agency kick-off meeting this past June, Philip, who is the current US Director, gave our team an in-person presentation and extended the opportunity to participate in the mission trip to Kenya.  The response was incredible, and the passion, humility, and heart reflected in responses was truly inspiring.

After careful consideration, Strong Automotive’s first four ambassadors are Tara Kirk, Reeves Parrish, Josie Green and Amelia Bennet.  They will serve alongside the Hope for Kenya team visiting schools, engaging with local communities and experiencing firsthand the impact of the mission our team has supported for years.

There are Dream Teams, and there are teams that support the dream of a better world.  In the company-wide announcement of the trip, my final comment was “Thank you for being a company that believes in making a difference.”

Continuing to reflect on the new Core Values unveiled at our July 1 kick-off, and created as an acronym by our Culture Club [S – SELF, T – TEAM, R – RESPECT, O – OPTIMIZE, N – NURTURE,   G – GROW], I borrow a line from ESPN personality Scott Van Pelt and his nightly SportsCenter feature, “The Best Thing I Saw Today!”

SVP focuses on a performance that goes above and beyond normal standards, and in discussing TEAM as a Core Value, I want to mention the Faulkner Automotive Group in Pennsylvania. Faulkner has 31 different dealerships and carries 22 different brands.

Featured in an Automotive News article today titled “By investing in an in-house school, Faulkner fixes its chronic technician shortage with a hands-on approach,”  the article highlighted their innovative trainee program that has “not only prevented a technician shortage, but enables new service department employees to start their careers free of student loan debt and hands them a paid-for toolbox worth $12,000.”

Powerful perks for starting a career in the Service Department, and certainly valid.  The shortage of techs is a pressing  issue, especially the number of retiring techs not being replaced by new applicants.

In the employee brochure produced to present our Core Values, the umbrella statement under TEAM simply states, ‘Working Together’, and with over 150 team members, thats a lot of moving parts.

The text goes on to state the importance of operating as one team united by purpose, aligned in action, and accountable to each other.  Precepts for this include following through on commitments: ‘because the team is counting on you’; aligning priorities ‘with the team’s goals, not just your own’; and ‘share knowledge, tools, and context generously.’

I admire dealership Service Departments where the Master technicians share their expertise with the entry-level team members.  In our office, I appreciate the same attitude – it positively leads to continued success.  The final point in our brochure, “we win together and lose together.”  So proud to see our people give credit to others and celebrate group success.

So, the Second-Best Thing I Will Saw Today is when the Bruster’s Ice Cream truck showed up this afternoon to celebrate summer with cool treats for the entire team.

During our July 1st monthly kick-off celebration – when I wear a tux surrounded by cheerleaders with a live DJ, that is a celebration – we introduced a new set of Core Values to our team. After months of consideration, our Culture Team developed the foundational values using our company name: S – SELF, T – TEAM, R – RESPECT, O – OPTIMIZE, N – NURTURE, G – GROW.

We will be talking about each value in detail. Today, we begin with SELF! One Individual.

As a company, we take personal ownership of our performance, mindset, and development. The attributes include owning your work from start to finish with no dropped balls; prioritizing what matters and knowing the difference between urgent and important; showing resilience and poise under pressure.

With a clear understanding that Strong individuals are self-aware, self-motivated, and self-disciplined, problems are addressed before they escalate. Even more important with over 150 employees, it is necessary to reflect on feedback and apply it without being defensive. Key to teamwork is the confidence to ask for help when you need it, and offer help without asking. Demonstrating self-awareness of your strengths, tendencies, and impact on others is always a positive outcome. I firmly believe every day starts with self. Each one of us doing our part as we walk through the doors, committed to our team, our clients, our processes, our success.

And it is only fitting that in the company Morning Announcements e-mail for the 4th, two names were listed under the ‘Celebrating Anniversary’ section. Vice-President Stan Long joined our Perfect 10 club with his start date of July 6, 2015, and Creative Director Gene Gill celebrate his 12th year anniversary date of July 5, 2013. The performance of these two leaders over their years has contributed immeasurably to what our company is today.

Self, Stan Long, Gene Gill…four-letter words all, and the fuel to crafting dominating outcomes for the dealers we serve.

Growing up, we remember watching NASA launch space missions from Cape Canaveral. During the TV broadcasts, animations showed how the primary stage got everything started, escaping gravity and reaching a lower-level orbit before firing the secondary stage. Once that sequence was triggered, the rocket would continue on its full trajectory.

Today, July 1, marks my 21st anniversary with Strong Automotive. It’s been quite the ride. With a special nod to Mike Strong, our company launched in 2004 with a goal of reaching new heights and accomplishing hard-to-imagine goals in a very competitive arena.

But there’s another anniversary being celebrated today. Eleven years ago, I partnered with Josh Bradish, and it would be hard to find a man who has facilitated a company’s flight upward to the elevations of success we now enjoy. I think of it as that Star Trek moment when the captain calls for “warp speed,” and the stars just blur by. Today, it all seems that fast, but the boost of Josh was built on hard work and his keen insight into the automobile business, which had been his life long before 7/1/2014.

Here is the abridged Bradish story:
Growing up in the Charlotte, NC area, Josh began working at Hendrick Honda Charlotte as a Lot Porter while still in high school. He moved up through Parts, Service, and Accounting before joining the sales side in 1998 at the age of 18. In 2004, he became Senior Sales Manager.

That’s a fast track, but Josh was already well into the digital world. He became one of the founding partners in developing Xtream Service, a computer tool and software platform that was one of the first systems for prospecting and database mining in the service drive. Eventually setting up the proprietary program in over 600 dealerships coast to coast, the company was later sold to Reynolds & Reynolds.

I first crossed paths with Josh in 2012, fittingly in Florida, where we were working with Southeast Toyota clients. Our discussions became more serious as we realized the incredible potential of matching our strengths to dominate both digitally and traditionally. On July 1, 2014, Josh Bradish became my first partner.

Recently, we were upgrading company bios, and when emailing back his response to questions about his career, Josh replied, “I pretty much just work!” and included a smiley face emoji.

No doubt about that, but from my viewpoint, Partner, only the rocket blast emoji will do!

The announcement was made agency-wide in an email from Operations Specialist Emma Miller, and read:

Hey SAM!
Yesterday was a big day at Strong Automotive—we officially welcomed 10 new clients to the Strong family in a single day! 🎉 That includes 5 new full-service clients and 5 new Retain clients—all choosing Strong to power their dealership marketing. This is a huge testament to the work each of you do every day.

“A big day,” no doubt—when 10 new clients choose to trust you and the processes that truly do “power” dealership marketing—I’m good with the emoji. But the words “a huge testament to the work each of you do every day” confirm why it is no accident significant moments like this take place. It reflects many of our core values, with Play Like a Champion being high on the list.

Always a fan of Tom Brady, he played with unmatched intensity and success—winning 7 Super Bowls, MVP in 5 of them—all after being the 199th pick in the draft. It’s well worth the search to read Brady’s reflections on belief in self, hard work, mental toughness, and a never-ending pursuit of excellence.

Brady said, “You can’t go out and practice average on Wednesday, average on Thursday, okay on Friday, then expect to play well on Sunday.” My interpretation of this quote is simply: there is no magic sauce. It’s all about giving peak performance every day. This is why dealers are confident in recommending and referring Strong to a fellow dealer—they know we back up our processes with effort and efficiency.

You’ll find the words “Right Now!” in nearly all of our traditional and digital marketing efforts—we want your buyers to realize an immediate call to action. And those two words reflect the effort of every Strong employee when a client needs a big play. Brady said it best: “…I don’t care about two years ago. I don’t care about last year. The only thing I care about is this week.”

Whatever the challenge, people are buying vehicles today. You must win now—no alternative!

Here is the final line of Emma’s email:
To celebrate this amazing accomplishment, we’ll have some delicious Crumbl cookies with our popcorn this afternoon!
#ONETEAM

And the G.O.A.T. is all in on that: “I like to have fun all the time, even if I’m working.”

I’m looking forward to this afternoon, with a lot of questions:
What should I wear?
Who’s going to trigger the fall?
Why am I agreeing to possible humiliation?

The answers will be revealed at the conclusion of our big event for June: Managers Overboard!

We host special events during the summer months in the parking lot behind the office. There’s always a featured attraction, like the time we had a mechanical bull. Tomorrow, it’s a dunk tank. I’m joining several of our managers in taking a seat on the platform and hoping we don’t have too many good pitchers on the team.

Good news on the weather front: the high will reach into the low 90s!
Bad news on the water front: it’s straight-from-the-garden-hose cold!

I’m considering wearing a deep-sea diver’s wetsuit… but someone has to set the standard for courage. It’ll be my first dunk, but I’m ready. If someone hits the target, I will take the splash without even holding my nose.

Some team members are bringing lawn chairs and blankets for this two-hour soirée, and I’m pretty sure no one will be working from home tomorrow. A food truck will be on-site serving a variety of delicious smoothie bowls—like the Powerhouse Bowl: Açaí, almond milk, bananas, peanut butter, strawberries, whey protein, granola, blueberries, and Nutella.

Truth be told, I am looking forward to all the fun and laughs this event will bring to the team. It’s the same level of ‘Have Fun’ excitement and ‘Positive Attitude’ enthusiasm that comes with winning a new account, and you can’t beat that.

Dunk booth pictures will be posted on Facebook (at least the ones I approve).

The Value of Positive… When in Doubt, Google It!

Taking a moment to search “similar words for positive,” my favorites are: confident, upbeat, encouraged, cheerful, enthusiastic, animated, and assured.

A further search for “benefits of positive thinking” lists performance improvement, improved immunity and overall health, increased motivation, and better stress management—among others.

So, if you had been in the main lobby of our office building this past Monday for our monthly agency kick-off, it was Positive Plus!
• Live DJ (coming back next month by popular demand)
• Balloons
• The Account Team with pom-poms doing cheers
• Over 60 employee “Shout Outs” thanking teammates with a compliment and a $20 bill
• Presentation of the Monthly MVP honor with a gift certificate (complete with confetti bombs)
• Invitation for employees to create a recruitment video for social on #WHYILOVESTRONG with a $1,000 prize for 1st place – see the winners’ links below
• In closing, my assessment of the automotive state… it was positive, tariffs and all.

In keeping with the company’s core value, Have Fun, our monthly social connection lasted nearly an hour and concluded with a huge cheer, including a pyramid stunt hoisting former Alabama cheerleader Megan Latham (fortunately, no one was injured).

Making all this happen took planning, but the time and effort were well worth it, as the positive energy transferred from the lobby back to each person’s work area. Account Executive Baylee Clark said it best when accepting her MVP award:

“This is the best job. I’m so thankful to be here every day. Coming back from vacation, I was thinking how much I look forward to being back with the people I love!”

And the #WHYILOVESTRONG winning videos below are worth a look, for the enthusiasm of wanna-be rapper Ann Marie Waldrop, and the assured confidence of Will Giuliani. Both videos validate the power of creating a positive environment, having fun, and working tirelessly to produce results for every client.

Attitude is Everything! (You’ve got to watch Ann Marie and Will’s videos.)

When we introduced our One Team brand for the new year, the tag line was One Goal, One Impression, One Time.  Our intent was to generate the sharpest focus possible on the importance of things big and little in order to WIN, like correct spelling 100% of the time.

We are talking about that sinking feeling that defies gravity when an error is discovered too late, whether it is a key memo to a new client, or in a Direct Mail piece that was approved for, and completed,  a 10,000-copy printing…it blows my mind!

I read a recent article by Mark Heim at Al.com, commenting  on 2025’s most misspelled words, as researched by WordUnscrabler.pro.  They utilized data from Google to find the words most often searched for correct spelling, and the Top 10 are some tough ones, all bold-faced in this non-sensical sentence:

Definitely not surprised that separate and necessary are Top 10, since I believe we use them through efforts to communicate the purpose of a gorgeous TV ad, whether it is directed to a neighbor or a business that is a personal favorite because of a restaurant nearby.

The article noted that our dependence on autocorrect ‘weakens spelling skills over time’, with some researchers labeling it ‘digital amnesia – we simply forget things we delegate to technology.’  This is why our team of proofers is held in my highest regard – not only are they smart, but knowing my fear of undetected misspellings, they are probably borderline paranoia.

One final observation for all of those who think the only word we spell correctly in Alabama is football, this study listed America’s most misspelled words by state.  The word most misspelled in the Heart of Dixie was different, which made me feel good since I usually get it right.  And when I saw the other states where different was the front-runner, it was good company:  New York, Kansas, and Wisconsin.

The biggest surprise by states was for Hawaii, luau, followed closely by Arkansas, with quesadilla, which would not have been my first, or last, guess.  And, in case you missed it, the only two words misspelled in this blog are in the opening theme line, which is why we all need to agree that accuracy is Absolutely Necessary!