Mark Mason

Background

About Mark Mason

Mark Mason Jr took over Mason Automotive Group in 2010 while still enrolled at NADA Dealer Academy in Washington DC. Mason Jr wasted no time in tackling problems he saw as crucial to survival. He installed a cut-costs-first, ask-questions-later approach and turned aggressively to the Internet to increase sales and drive traffic. The results have been impressive and impossible to ignore. He has seen New-vehicle sales more than double, used-vehicle sales have tripled, and profits have soared over 200 percent. Mark Mason Jr. says he couldn't have done it without technology."I'm going to have to give all the credit to the Internet. We started to draw from Charlotte, Augusta, Columbia, Savannah and Charleston through the Internet." He adds:"When I took over, our average store was doing somewhere between 45 and 50 total units a month. Now we're in the ballpark of 120 to 130 new and used" combined per month, he says. So how does Mason do it? By first focusing on cutting costs. “When my father and I first purchase a store, we will come in, print out all the vendors and go through them line by line," he says."My dad has always had the philosophy: Cut it Out. We will cut everything at first and then slowly start to realize what we really need and don’t need." Mason also makes customer satisfaction his top priority, following a policy known as "the three R's." If a customer is not satisfied with a vehicle, then we will repair the vehicle, refund the purchase price or replace the vehicle with something the customer likes better. When asked about the success of Mason Automotive, Mason Jr credits his people, both on the staff and in his community outside of Columbia, SC. “Sometimes we make this business too complicated,” he says. “If you genuinely care about and invest in people, things will work out. This is a people business. It’s all about people.”