2022 40 Under 40

For Brooke English, establishing clear processes has been critical to maintaining the legacy of Coastal Chevrolet-Nissan-Cadillac, the Pawleys Island, S.C., dealership her family has run for more than four decades. 

In January, her father and the president of the store, David English, appointed her general manager after she excelled in the sales, marketing and finance departments.

Under her family’s leadership, the dealership increased its front-end profit last year to $3,339 per vehicle, up from $842 per vehicle in 2020.

“When we realized the market was going the way it was, we took action,” she said. “We spent a lot of time training staff on holding gross on those vehicles.”

Since her promotion, English has brought in trainers to help establish processes and best practices in the service drive. The store added walk-arounds and more credit card machines to enhance customer experience in the service department.

“We went from doing no walk-arounds in the service drive to everybody gets a walk-around,” she said. “Everybody gets basically a thorough inspection of their vehicle.”

Customer-pay hours increased from 1.59 per repair order in January to 2.03 in March for the General Motors brands, which also led to record tire sales in the parts department.

The service department now has set goals that are sent to technicians and advisers daily. 

“We also were telling our service department, ‘Hey, this is where we’re going as a store, as far as the culture, the vision,’ ” English said. “We had some people leave because they didn’t want to have the accountability. But more people have stepped up because they know that we are now providing them with training, with goals.”

Next, English hopes to acquire the other two dealerships in Pawleys Island to create a coastal row. She also wants to open a buy-here, pay-here store.

When English joined the family business after earning a marketing degree, she felt lost. Once she joined the finance office and climbed the management ladder, she fell in love with auto retail and felt honored to continue the work of her grandfather, who founded the dealership and died two years before she was born.

“I get to see his legacy keep on going. A lot of what my dad has taught me is from him,” she said. “I just remember so many times in life where I didn’t know. Now … I see the vision. I see where I want to go, and I’m going to go that way.”

— Hannah Lutz