IAGB SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW:
eNews edition
shines SPOTLIGHT on Mr. Pranav Gill,
General Manager for Herb Chambers BMW of Sudbury
IAGB
:
Welcome to IAGB SPOTLIGHT. Can you share with us your journey tracing back all the way from your childhood to your current employment as the General Manager at a Herb Dealership?
Pranav Gill
:
Both my parents are Indian. My mom grew up in Mumbai and my Dad is from New Delhi. After they got married they moved to Austria. I was born in Austria. My parents worked in the Hotel services industry for fifteen years in Austria before moving to United States when I was five years old. All along we have lived in Massachusetts. My parents worked hard and eventually opened up an Indian restaurant in Framingham, which they operated successfully for a number of years. Unfortunately, my dad passed away when I was 16, at which time my mom shouldered all the responsibility and toiled hard to keep the lights on at the restaurant. At that time, I was in high school and helped out during after school hours and on weekends and holidays. A couple of years after, we suffered another setback. My mom was diagnosed with cancer and she passed away a few years after losing her battle to cancer. During this period, we ended up selling our restaurant when I still was in college. I attended Nichols College in Dudley, MA thanks to a generous scholarship. During her last year I took a year break from my college and went to work to help out with anything I could. After delivering large Poland Spring water bottles to offices in downtown Boston I realized that it was important for me to finish school and work towards building a career.
I graduated with a degree in Business and a stack of loans in a weak job market. But with a willingness to work hard I found a job as sales representative at Herb Chambers. At that time, I knew nothing about sales, nothing about cars and nothing about automobile business, but I did know how to work hard. I rose up through the ranks pretty fast thanks to my hard work, dedication and discipline, and currently I am the General Manager for Herb BMW Sudbury. Under my leadership we have grown to 125-130 employees, we are one of the top BMW dealerships in the country, we have won various awards over the years including BMW center for excellence, the JD power of excellence award last year and are on track to win more and repeat some. The Center for Excellence award is most prestigious and as the winner of the award, it puts us in the top 10% of all BMW dealerships in the country. Also last couple of years I have been personally honored as the ‘General Manager of the Year’ award for the Herb Chambers Group. This is among the 56 dealerships that are part of the Herb Chamber group. Herb has helped me change my life in many ways and I look forward to work for him for many more years.
IAGB
:
What type of skills are needed in this line of work to succeed?
Pranav Gill
:
To succeed in this line of business, success comes out of one’s personality. You have to like people. It’s a sales position, hence the required sills are pretty general. So ‘Likeability’ takes priority. Likeability comes from one’s positive attitude and their enthusiasm. That said there is really no substitute for hard work. One has to be relentless, and prospecting. One has to seek new clients and maintain relationship with existing clients for repeat business. In our new hires we look for people with ability to comprehend the product knowledge and their ability to work hard. This is one of the few businesses where in people even without a college degree can potentially earn six figures salary annually.
IAGB
:
How do you navigate through the ‘negative image’ of ‘car salesmen’ that has been ingrained in people’s minds, especially via pop culture?
Pranav Gill
:
I dealt with this image especially at the beginning of my career. Sales jobs are not particularly encouraged especially in the Indian community. Even folks close to me questioned my career choice and expressed surprise that I would be selling cars after finishing my college. And because of this negative connotation at the beginning of my career even I felt shy at times in talking about my job as car salesman. There is some element of truth to this bad image that got carried over from the earlier times. Some car salesmen took advantage of customers for their own benefit. Also this is not unique only to auto industry. Similar examples can be seen in Real Estate, Banking, Insurance and few other industries where prospective customers were preyed upon. This is unfortunate.
Now, why I like working for Herb is, this is the exact reason why Herb got into this business. Herb personally was at the receiving end of some poor service when he walked in to a dealership to buy a car for one of his relatives years ago. Right then and there he decided that there has to be a better way of doing this business. It was at a time when he had cashed out of his copier business and was flush with liquidity so he ended up buying the dealership at which he had gone to buy a car. That’s when he started his quest to change the way this business was being done. Going forward, now the focus is on who is being hired and how the training is being imparted so the culture of positivity continues. In the current market conditions, once the customer has narrowed down their choice to the brand, the product itself is indistinguishable between dealerships. Thanks to the internet the pricing information too is not a secret sauce anymore. The only distinguishing feature that is left now is the quality of service. For us at Herb Chambers’ Dealership the objective is to not only attend to the needs of the customer at the time of sale but also follow up on any complaints to the fullest extent and continue to provide excellent service throughout the years of their ownership of the car. All this circles back to the fact that we can now proudly say that we sell cars.
IAGB
:
What are your views and plans on ‘giving back’ to the community?
Pranav Gill
:
Giving back to the community can be in a number of different ways. It could be financial, time investment, skills, contributing ideas, resources etc. How I determine what is important – is based on what I experienced growing up. For me personally, I grew up frugally, I grew up with hard working parents that worked 2 and 3 jobs a day to make ends meet and provide us the best. For me couple of things are important. The first is children. I want to start with kids in high school looking for jobs, help them if they don’t know what they are looking for in career, let them shadow for a day. Whether it is kids coming out of college or whether it is kids in lower elementary schools, how do we find them the positive and supportive influence, how do I help create a network of professionals from different fields and work together to help provide needed resources that the kids can rely upon. In 2019 my focus will be on identifying causes specifically related to children and education and poverty alleviation projects.
IAGB
:
What is your motivation towards community service and how do you spread the spirit of community service?
Pranav Gill
:
As much as we struggled growing up and as much as it was challenging to make ends meet, my mom and dad were heavily involved in community service. We were part of the Sai Center growing up and we went to Haley House one Sunday a month. My dad would wake me up at 5 in the morning on those days. We would drive into Boston with 10-15 other people, we would cook breakfast and lunch for homeless folks and serve about 200-300 people. The groceries for that would be split between my parents and number of other members. Now most of these people including my parents who split the expenses could not really afford but that’s how important this was for them. So my motivation comes from the fact that if my parents could do that with much lesser means they had than I have now, so why can’t I.
How do I influence others – mostly by talking about it within my network of people that mostly happen to be second generation Indian Americans.
IAGB
:
Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
Pranav Gill
:
It’s been a great career for me so far - starting off as a salesperson and now as one of the top General Manager for Herb Dealerships. 5 – 10 years from now I see myself being at the Corporate level managing some level of sales operations or overseeing multiple stores. I hope I will be working for Herb till the end of my career or until Herb has this business. But by the same token I am very fortunate to be recognized in Automotive news as one of the top 40 under 40 managers and since then I have been solicited by lot of dealers all over the country. For me Boston is home and I don’t want to leave and I love working for this company so much that as long as this company affords me the opportunities to grow, I will be here at some at some capacity at a higher management level.
IAGB
:
What would be Pranav Gill’s legacy?
Pranav Gill
:
I would categorize the legacy I wish to make a mark on into two levels. On the career front I have been focusing on for the last couple of years, helping people around me grow. I am successful and the store is successful. That is a priority and I need to keep that. Part of my other job is to help guys and girls around me to grow into positions like mine. Over the past three years I have successfully groomed some of the employees here into upper management executive positions and I continue to work for more strong positive results on this front. From a career standpoint I would like to be known for not only as a successful operator but also as someone who has helped many people to grow both financially and career wise.
On the personal front, me and my wife have discussed this, we hope to start a scholarship for a student on an annual basis. We still haven’t figured out the dollar amount and conditions and criteria but we are working on it. I want to be known as a good person that has helped a lot of people. I know as of now I am not anywhere near there, and I have a lot of work to do before I get there but I know that is something I need to focus on and that is a good start.
IAGB
:
What is your favorite pastime?
Pranav Gill
:
I am in the office typically six days a week. So any time I get free that is not dedicated to work activity or community activity, I dedicate that time to my children and my wife. That is what brings me joy. I have a 4-year-old and a new born. Me and my wife Shivani are married for seven years. We are big on family. I met my wife when I was working at a Lexus store where her dad was a customer and she later ended up getting a part time job at the dealership. Our first date was at an Indian restaurant and the rest is history. Two years later we got married and now with two beautiful kids I have the best family. So any time I am not working or attending one of the different events here, I am spending time with my kids and my wife. That said I love sports, I like to go to sporting events, I am a big Patriots fan. Another favorite family pastime is traveling. Anytime we get vacation time we are traveling. I still do have family back in India but I haven’t had an opportunity to travel to India in last 20 years. The challenge for me is I get short vacation days and for India trip I will need to carve out a little longer vacation period to make it worthwhile and I do plan to make it in near future.
IAGB
:
Who do you look up to? Who is your idol?
Pranav Gill
:
I have a couple of role models, starting with my father. I cannot imagine having to move my family across the world and starting a new life with very limited resources. The courage it takes, the confidence it takes, the intensity and the hard work it takes is just another level. For him and my mom to bring us to this country, raise us the way they did is why I am where I am today and I will never forget that. He loved cars but never had an opportunity to buy his dream car. He worked hard but never complained. I remember a story from my middle school days when I came home from school crying because I had some tough time from my friends at school because of the simple sneakers I was wearing. My dad was so upset that he took me to a store right away and asked me to pick a pair of any brand of sneakers of any value. Looking back, I feel bad because I don’t know how much extra hard he had to work to pay that off but just knowing that he did it unselfishly for us, that I can’t thank him enough. These experiences and struggles that I experienced are probably the exact things that put me where I am today. But for his sacrifices I may not have worked so hard today. Maybe I might not have appreciated the opportunities that I have right now. All of this is applicable to my mother too. She was in all of this toe to toe with my father.
Another individual who is my role model is Herb himself. Any meeting that I have with him, I come out of that meeting more pumped up and no matter how much better I might have done that month. I come out with a feeling that I can do so much better. The amount of love and support he provides to someone like me and the motivation that he provides me is unimaginable. It’s an honor to work for him. He reminds me that I have earned every dollar that I have made and thanks me for the way I treat him when I actually feel it should be the other way around.
Then there is uncle Joe, my parents’ very good friend. When both my parents passed Uncle Joe took ownership of my sister and helped watch over her and took care of her and now they help support and guide my way along. He is not my father by blood but he has always treated me like his child.
One additional note I must make is that this business takes a lot from one’s spouse. The long hours on job would mean she too is sacrificing the family life along with me. She has taken charge on the home front that has given me the opportunity to solely focus on my job. So I am very lucky to have a girl like her in my life.
IAGB interviewing team:
Sanjay Kudrimoti / Sanjay Kenchegowda
