Book Outtakes: Benjamin Franklin—The Original Velocity Dealer?

Road to Reinvention Series

My next book, Velocity Overdrive: The Road to Reinvention is in the publisher’s hands! This is an important milestone as it means we’re on target for a November publication date.

It also means I’m sifting through items from the editing room floor.

Here are quotes from founding father Benjamin Franklin I’d collected while researching the book. If we apply them to the challenges dealers face as they adopt velocity principles to maximize used vehicle profitability, the quotes suggest Franklin would have been a very savvy velocity dealer:

History-driven vehicle acquisitions: “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.”

Over-allowances on trade-ins: “Little strokes fell great oaks.”

Holding out for “maximum front-end gross: “He that lives upon hope will die fasting.”

Delays in reconditioning/online merchandising: “Remember that time is money.”

The effects of packs on buyer/appraiser behavior: “The cat in gloves catches no mice.”

The “all in” nature of velocity adoption: “We must all hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”