Small Business Week Interview: Car Castle RVA
It feels like eons since March 2020 when we chilled on the couch watching a UVA basketball game on a Sunday afternoon. Paul and Kathy (my parents) politely answered my probing questions about their mom n’ pop shop, Car Castle, and every now and then interjected a “WOOHOO!!” when UVA scored. For eight weeks thereafter, I didn’t see them in person due to COVID-19 restrictions. Basketball and other sports halted. And Car Castle — like many other small businesses and, indeed, humans — struggled to survive.
The idea for Car Castle formed in 2015, when Paul decided to close his Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge dealerships in Kazakhstan after nearly 25 years (more on that another day) and focus on something more local. They put out a call for branding ideas to close family and friends. After seeing where the business would reside, its name was a no-brainer — it’s a 100-year-old building that looks something like an old, Spanish fortress with red tiles adorning the roof, standing out brilliantly against the white plaster siding. Arched doorways give it a distinct feeling of royalty, and you can still see the old metal tiling on the ceiling in the back rooms from its history as a restaurant or club. While customers were at first afraid to enter the ‘funky’ building, they were quickly put at ease interacting with Paul and Kathy.
They opened in January 2016, on the corner of Brook Road and Lakeside Ave in Richmond, Virginia across from a car wash and mom n’ pop burger shop.
Now they have high ratings and they’ve built an A+ BBB-accredited business who recently won the CarGurus Top Rated Dealer Award, but it hasn’t always been a shiny endeavor.
What was it like when you moved in? How did you get the building ready for customers?
“It wasn’t bad because the guy who owned it before had painted it,” Kathy told me. “We cleared the building using bells and incense to get anything bad out of there. Then we drank some champagne. And then we were ready!” She laughed.
“Except we weren’t,” she continued. “I didn’t know how to work the copier. I didn’t know how to work the computer system that sold the cars. Plus, we had these big signs and I spent two or three weeks in my grungy, nasty clothes on the floor sanding off the letters. People would come in and there I’d be on the floor, saying, ‘sorry — just excuse me.’ It was a rough beginning.”
Paul added, “We started with 12–15 cars that we moved in on a snowy day in January. We managed to get them all moved just before the storm.”
What were your expectations when you started Car Castle?
“I didn’t know the area well,” said Kathy, “and I had no clue beyond that what I was doing — not a clue. I had to create the entire accounting system from scratch. One of our first customers came in and I had no idea how to work the computer system because nothing was connecting. It wasn’t a smooth process. We had to get the systems set up to fill out the sales contract and other documents.”
“We were just trying to survive, that’s God’s own truth” - Paul Tashner
“Other businesses wanted us to sell them our customers so they could make more money off of them. I was so disgusted with them I had to leave the office,” Kathy reminisced. “I just wanted to have a nice, smooth-running company using friendly, family values.”
Paul added, “One of the surprises was I didn’t expect we would have such long-term social interaction with the same customers and people. We’ve grown to know their jobs, their lives, some of their families over time. That’s been a rewarding part of the business — getting to know the customers much more than a simple, one-time transaction.”
What’s your top learning from when you started Car Castle?
Paul looked at Kathy with a half-smile and raised eyebrow, expecting her to answer first.
“No you answer that; you’re the one who started the darn thing,” Kathy joked, then she answered anyway. “We learned to do what we do better and to work as a team. Paul is a superior listener and problem solver.”
“We learned how people have unrealistic expectations of what their money will buy and what they can afford,” Paul explained. “When we did in-house financing at first it didn’t work as planned. Some people think they can just turn a car back in like it’s for rent. If we finance a car, we are intimately involved in that person’s personal life until they make their final payment.”
“We see this fantasy of bankruptcy,” Paul continued, who then explained that people use bankruptcy to escape financial debt without realizing the impact it will have on their credit and financial reputation. “We’re a small business and people can go bankrupt and then they don’t have to pay for their car. Just like that,” Kathy explained, speaking from experience.
“We also didn’t know or expect the small community feeling of the dealers, suppliers, repair shops and local customers to be so vibrant and supportive,” Kathy added.
“To have people honking and yelling, ‘hi’ as they drive by, bringing us donuts or oysters, or swinging through the lot just to chat for a while. This is small business,” she stated. “I think about it often when I’m vacuuming before I leave at the end of the night. A whole community of small businesses working together to solve problems and support each other and our customers.”
How many people complete their payoffs?
Paul was quick to cite, “85–90 percent pay off. Not always on time, but they do complete it. Most people have been really good.”
“A lot of people just want to stop in and talk to us. Even if we didn’t finance them, they just come to talk, and plenty of old customers come by to say ‘hi’ and chat for a few minutes,” Kathy added. “You don’t get that at the big dealerships.”
When did you start realizing that your online reviews were so important?
“Day one,” Paul asserted.
“Paul takes everything personally because he’s interacting directly with everyone,” Kathy explained.
Paul added, “We can’t control everything about the used cars but we can control how we manage our company.”
How did you improve your online reviews?
“We asked people,” he stated simply. “The best way to get high ratings is to ask your satisfied customers to leave a review, and to try and solve complaints quickly and directly.”
“In the last couple weeks, we’ve had people coming back from years ago. We had two people last week who came back,” he attested.
“We’re fairly confident there’s not another small dealer like us where people actually like being there. They like the office, they like the feeling, they like [a painting you made of RVA],” Kathy surmised.
When did you start your social media strategy and why?
“We started in the first year taking pictures of people after they bought the car and were about to drive away,” Paul explained. “You know the happiest moments in people’s lives are when they buy a boat and sell a boat,” he mused, a former sailboat owner himself.
“We’ve had a few customers who walked in,” he started.
“Walked in to what?” I inquired.
“No, literally they were walking. They had no car. There was one woman who was walking three miles a day to three different jobs in all types of weather — rain or shine, hot or cold,” he reminisced. “We were able to work with her and get her driving in an older but reliable car that fit her budget.”
“Another kid was walking to work — going to school, working — with no car. His mom brought him in. People just want to be treated with respect and Paul is so good at that,” Kathy continued.
Paul explained, “Some people haven’t qualified for loans because it’s their first credit. They’re going to school full time and working full time jobs. I think we’ve had a 100 percent success rate with those people.”
How do you define ‘success rate’?
“Well, in that case, from a financing department perspective, it’s making the payments on time and paying it off,” Paul explained.
He continued with a story, “We had one of our customers — her son was a UVA football player and they came in a month ago and she needed a car. She got a nice Buick. She called a few weeks ago and got pulled over — they said the police said the tags weren’t registered to that car. After looking it up, the tags were correct. But we think she probably got racially profiled by the police.”
“Other customers have said they can’t have a light out or ‘any issues at all that would allow the police to pull us.’ There was another kid who called his grandmother when he got pulled over and had her on the phone for the whole police pullover incident to make sure nothing nefarious happened.”
“We’re interacting with a full cross-section of people — middle class, working class, and some folks living on the edge who need a car to get to work, school, medical appointments, and to run their errands,” Paul asserted. “It’s fascinating to see their stories.”
“People are trying to work ahead so they don’t get behind, but the economy isn’t conducive for these people. They’re trying to keep jobs and get hours but it’s hard for them,” he explained.
What are the primary things people care about when they’re buying a car?
“How it looks,” Paul quickly answered.
“How reliable it is,” Kathy added, but Paul quickly corrected her. “No they don’t really care about that.”
“How the music system works,” he continued, thinking for a moment.
“How much the payments are,” he concluded.
“I think most people come in with higher expectations of what they want and what they think they can afford than what they actually can,” Kathy said.
“Some of the customers we get will have $3K to buy a car, bad credit, or no credit,” said Paul. “And they’ll ask, ‘what’s the best car $3K will buy?’ I’ll show them a Toyota Camry with 100K miles on it and they’ll say, ‘well I definitely can’t buy that.’ They want the car worth $10K. The lack of personal financial training is astounding,” Paul stated emphatically.
How so?
“We do a lot of financial counseling — we’ll warn them about financing costs and what not to do even if they don’t buy from us,” Kathy explained.
“A lot of people are renting or living with relatives (it can be a lifetime thing),” Paul explained. “For some people, the dream of home ownership is just that — a dream. The most expensive thing they’ll ever buy is a car. If they go to the ‘everybody’s approved’ car dealer — they’ll get the easy, fast deal with a 25–30 percent interest rate, which doubles the cost of their car,” Paul said. “There’s no idea of the time value of money and what they’re spending over the course of the life of the car. A $10,000 car in the end can cost $25,000 if financed at a 25 percent interest rate.”
Kathy cited an intriguing statistic that, “Ten percent of the customers are 90 percent of the work.” Then she spoke in a motherly tone, “We have to treat people with respect and try to give them good advice… like we would treat our children.”
Who are your favorite customers?
“Those that pay cash and drive away happy,” Paul laughed.
“No, you don’t even remember them,” Kathy scolded as she looked at him with a furrowed brow and half smile.
“Just personalities you get along with really well. We’ve got a guy who came in a couple days ago — he’s got an unofficial loan with us and comes in irregularly. We have the best conversations,” Kathy stated with enthusiasm. “He had a preemie son who is now a six-foot-two-inch man. When (our premature granddaughter) was born he consoled us and assured us everything was going to be okay,” she reminisced affectionately.
“We have an 85-year-old guy from New Jersey who was a firefighter. We also had some younger guys who were really good people who paid off and still love to come in and talk to us,” Paul said.
“We’ve got a young woman with two or three payments left and is always on time and loves to come in and talk. People are working hard just trying to do the best they can,” Kathy added.
“It comes down to respect amongst each other,” Paul summarized.
“It’s also just nice when really nice people come in and then we’re happy. Even if they don’t buy. Of course, it’s better if they buy,” Kathy chuckled.
Support your small businesses — this week and always!
#NoRegrets
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