Doing the Right Thing IS the Business

Disruptive Intelligence delivers dealer-tested, data-backed strategies guaranteed to improve your dealership's results in 2026 (and beyond).

Not richer. Not more productive. Better.

That’s become harder to say out loud in business today, because most people are taught the opposite. We’re taught: Performance. Production. Profit. That’s what business is about, right? That’s how you measure a manager. That’s how you get ahead. Right?

Wrong.

I was fortunate to learn this lesson early in my career. From the day I walked into Smythe European in the Bay Area, I was struck by how they seemed to do everything backward compared to what I had been taught. The owner of the dealership, Bill Smythe, picked up trash off the floor himself. Not because somebody was watching. Because it needed to be done. Every week, leaders publicly recognized associates by name in front of their peers. Not just top performers. Everyone. The porter. The receptionist. The lube tech. The people most organizations overlook.

Then, I saw the org chart. It was upside down. The frontline associates were at the top. Leadership—including me—was at the bottom. Why? Because they believed that leadership exists to support the people doing the work. Not the other way around. That simple idea changed me forever.

The most radical thing we did was something I still haven’t seen another dealer group replicate to this day. We took 10% of all net profit. TEN PERCENT! And we reinvested it directly into developing our people. Not because it would maximize performance and profitability.  But because we wanted to help our people lead better lives. In fact, much of the development we invested in had little to do with improving store performance. It was simply about doing all that we could to help our people live better, more fulfilling lives.

When the Smythes eventually stepped away from the business, they handed me the keys with one request: “Keep growing it. Just don’t do anything that would put our incredible culture at risk.

So we made a decision most traditional dealers would never make. We eliminated all of our advertising. Every billboard. Every radio spot. Every TV campaign. And instead, we redirected those dollars into something we called the SEED Program. Our associates personally vetted hundreds of nonprofit applications and selected nine organizations… one for every ZIP code we served. Every deal we wrote sent a portion back into those communities. And those nonprofits thanked us by sending customers our way. They told their boards about us. They told their churches. They told their neighbors.

Here’s the important part, though: We did not do good in order to do well.

We did good.

And doing well came back to us anyway.

Doing the right thing is never a tax on the business. Doing the right thing IS the business.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize this industry is filled with people quietly doing the right thing, even when nobody is asking them to. People who leave others better than they found them every single day.

I think about legendary Dallas dealer Carl Sewell during the early days of COVID in March of 2020. His children, who had taken over operations of the family stores, came to him after learning they would have to shut their doors. 

Without hesitation, he answered: "Pay them all. Pay them their normal wages, for as long as we are closed, however long that takes. What have we been making money for all these years if not to be in a position to take care of our people when they need us most?"

Bill Smythe. Carl Sewell. Countless other leaders in this industry, including icons such as Jack Fitzgerald, Rick Hendricks and Carter Myers Automotive. They understood something many organizations still miss: Many of the people holding dealerships together are not measured by sales numbers, gross profit, or KPIs.

I’m talking about the people carrying the operational and emotional weight of the business. The porter staying late so the car is perfect before delivery. The receptionist greeting a stranger with kindness on the worst day of their life. The office staff drowning in paperwork after a record month while everyone else celebrates the numbers. The technician working alone on a Sunday because, “If the customer’s car doesn’t work, their life doesn’t work.” Or even the salesperson who spends six months helping a customer rebuild their credit after a failed deal because they believe that person deserves another chance. The F&I manager protecting a family from financial disaster they never saw coming. These people matter. Far more than most organizations acknowledge. And leaving these people better than we find them means investing in them. Their salaries. Their livelihoods. It also means recognizing and celebrating their contributions. 

A record sales month often means record stress somewhere else in the building. More paperwork. More cleanup. More late nights. More emotional labor. Leadership means seeing that. And respecting it. Because when we do, when we leave everyone we touch better than we find them, they turn around and leave others better than they found them. 

In this industry, our employees meet people during moments most professionals never get invited into. The single mother buying her first reliable car. The father who lost his job but still needs to get his kids to school. The young couple buying the vehicle they’ll bring their newborn home in. 

If you take nothing else from this article, remember this: Every day, regardless of your title, you have the opportunity to leave people better than you found them.

Because that’s the business. Not just selling cars. Not just hitting numbers.

People.

I sincerely hope that through this newsletter, through LinkedIn, and through every interaction we’ve had—or ever will have—I’ve left you better than I found you. More importantly, I hope you choose to leave every person you touch better than you found them.

This is such a great example of the positive impact the automotive industry has on the communities it serves.  You may notice that Liza Borches, President of Carter Myers Automotive, is in one of the delivery pictures and a CMA plate frame in another.  That’s because they have been supporting this great cause for years.  Unfortunately, despite NBC’s Laura Jerrett, visiting and interviewing Liza for 45 minutes, not a minute of the interview made it to the final version of the story.

Because CMA’s commitment is, as their mission statement says, to ‘Move Lives Forward’ and not for publicity, they will continue to support this program, and the single moms it serves, for years to come.

What he had was $400, a couch in his mother's house, and a stubbornness that would quietly build one of the most remarkable service companies in the automotive industry.

Today, Danny's Detailed Services processes 125,000 cars a month, employs over 800 people, and generates more than $50 million a year — numbers that would be impressive for any business.

This is not an episode about detailing cars. This is an episode about what a human being can build when they refuse to believe their starting point is their destiny. When they decide that money is not the finish line, it's the fuel. When they realize that the business is the microphone, and the message is what lasts.

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