For dealers' kids, hard work works
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RSS FeedThe writer is an attorney who represents auto dealers mostly in buying and selling auto dealerships.
To the Editor:
I just read "The dealer's kid has to learn and earn respect" (40 Under 40, July 16), and I couldn't agree more.
I have handled many auto dealership purchases or sales for the children -- or for the benefit of the children -- of dealers who gave their children everything, including, essentially, a dealership.
Many of those dealership sales were out of necessity because the kids couldn't cut it, one time even resulting in a lawsuit against the very generous father, based on the assertion that the father and his lawyers conspired to prevent the son from getting anything out of the sale (complete nonsense).
Other times I have seen a small fortune spent on purchasing a dealership so the dealer's son could run it, only to see him run it into the ground. It may be a way to teach a child a lesson, but it is a very expensive lesson for the father.
Better to do what Kent Browning of Browning Automotive Group in Cerritos, Calif., did and make your kid earn it from the bottom up. If your child isn't willing to do that, he or she isn't likely to make it as an auto dealer.
