2020 40 Under 40

Ryan LeBrun embraces challenges. Luckily for him, there seems to be a new one daily in his job as general sales manager at Audi Nashua.

“The job in general is just different every day, and every month, day, brings a new task or challenge,” LeBrun said. “And challenges are something that I love to tackle.”

When he assumed the role at the New Hampshire dealership in 2017, LeBrun turned his attention to the struggling used-car department. Since his expertise was selling new cars, he knew he “had a lot to learn” if he wanted to revitalize it.

For help, he read several books by vAuto founder Dale Pollak to learn how to evaluate performance of used-vehicle departments. He later attended NCM Institute in Kansas City, Mo. What he discovered through these endeavors “changed the entire operations” of the department for the better, he said.

“I came back to our store, broke out a whiteboard and started to build the new blueprint,” he said.

The dealership added more buyers to increase inventory levels and put a sharpened focus on reconditioning time.

“The more cars that we can put through and out front, the more cars they get to work on, the more cars we get to put parts on,” he said.

Thanks to the efforts of LeBrun and his team, the dealership more than doubled its used-vehicle sales from 2017 to 2019. Net profit for the dealership more than tripled in that period, which has the store “healthy and operating well into the black,” LeBrun said.

The used-vehicle department’s success has been felt throughout the store, LeBrun said. Since 2017, he has hired 20 additional sales employees, and a 65,000-square-foot reconditioning center has been built. It celebrated its grand opening in May.

“The last couple of years have just been a whirlwind,” he said.

Now LeBrun has his sights on new goals: bringing the store back to pre-pandemic levels of sales and employment. And he’ll approach those goals as he did the others.

“If you work hard and put everything that you have into anything that you do, you’re gonna be successful,” he said.

— Krystal Hur