Profile: Robin Luscombe

The managing director of Luscombe Suzuki Leeds is no car fanatic.

“If I had to get a dream vehicle I’d have to get a van, a posh van to get my bikes in,” remarks Robin Luscombe.

The 15 times British champion in sidecar motorcycle trials admits: “I’m not a car enthusiast. It’s sort of strange really. I’m heavily involved in cars but a car is a car.” It is the business of selling cars that interests him, he explains.

And it was a desire to prove to himself “he could do it” that sparked a decision by Luscombe to buy the Suzuki car dealership in Low Road, Hunslet, Leeds two years ago.

It has since won the award for Suzuki Dealer of the Year 2011 and has seen revenues jump from £6.3m in its first year to £8m, with profitability increasing as well.

Born and bred in Bingley, near Bradford, Luscombe left school at 16, starting work as a parts apprentice at Appleyard of Bradford, before moving to Suzuki motorbike and car dealership, Colin Appleyard, in Keighley, where he spent 28 years and worked his way up to the role of senior director for cars.

“I then took what could have been a stupid decision to leave, walk away from an excellent job because I wanted to see if I could do it for myself,” said Luscombe.

In July 2010, Luscombe bought the family-owned Suzuki dealership in Leeds, which then employed 12 people. Today, the head count is 18 – only two of which are not members of the original team.

Motor giant Suzuki, which started out making weaving looms in 1909 in Japan and first made cars in the late 1940s, manufactures vehicles for the UK in countries including Japan, Hungary, India, and soon Indonesia, with plants in locations such as Brazil and Canada.

It is still a privately-owned family business with more than 1 per cent of the market share in the UK. This year it is on course to increase sales in the UK from 21,000 to 26,000 units.

Luscombe Suzuki Leeds, which sells new and used cars, sold more than 80 in June, compared to 50 in the same period last year. In May, the figures also rose year-on-year from 45 to 68.

“To be up in June and May by 50 per cent is remarkable, and justifies my belief what a brilliant workforce can achieve, when everyone pulls in the same direction, with a great team spirit.

“I would have been more than happy with a 10 per cent increase.”

Generally, in the UK the motor trade is picking slowly up after the problems of 2008, commented Luscombe, with small increases in new car registrations.

“However, Suzuki are doing particularly well this year, due to small, economical cars.

“The whole new car market is likely to be a few per cent up year on year, with sales to private buyers increasing more this year than recently, when the retail market had dropped, and fleet sales were keeping the numbers up.”

Luscombe runs his business according to a certain ethos, he tells me, embodied by the phrase – ‘straight talking salesmen, managers who come out of the office’.

“When I was in the gap between leaving Appleyard and doing this, I did quite a bit of research and I was sourcing cars for people. And the reason why people wanted me to source the cars is because they didn’t like going to the dealership because the dealership experience they didn’t enjoy.

“Because you go and sit and talk to a salesman, the salesman would run off into an office, leave you sat at the desk, talk to someone in an office, then come back and say no, yes, no, and then go back to somebody in an office, back and forth, and the customers don’t like it.”

So Luscombe made a decision to train up his sales staff so customers were dealing with someone who had some authority.

He added: “And when I said we were going to do that everyone said you can’t do that, it doesn’t work. But it does work if you educate and train and involve the staff so that they know what’s happening.”

Luscombe also includes his mobile number in adverts and on the company’s website so customers can get hold of him easily. Taking calls in the night doesn’t bother him, he said.

“When you’re buying a car the most important thing about buying a car is having confidence. The best way you can show you have confidence in what you’re doing is by putting your mobile number up.

“There’s only two reasons why someone is going to ring me, to buy something or to complain about something. Either way I want that phone call. If you’ve got a complaint, the best way to turn someone into a good customer is to deal with the complaint.”

He added: “If we are competing with the motor industry in Leeds, the strengths of our company and the opportunities for our company are that we are a small, privately-owned, owner-driven car dealership and most other car dealerships in Leeds are big groups or plcs.

“For me to compete with the marketing departments and HR departments and everything else of the great big companies there’s no chance.

“But what I can do is offer something they can’t offer which is the direct involvement.”

Luscombe stressed that it is important to keep employees motivated. To celebrate two years since Luscombe bought the dealership, he rewarded employees with a bonus of five per cent of their annual salary, he said.

“If I can give 20 people a good career and a good place to work and a share of the profits that’s good.

“We all wear the same gear. I don’t go to work in a suit. The salesmen wear a fleece and a t-shirt and I wear a fleece and a short sleeved shirt. Everyone dresses the same, there’s no hierarchy, we are all in there together.”

Major expansion is not on the agenda, explained Luscombe. “I’ve got a very successful small business, well not that small, but car dealership-wise quite small, which works really well on one site with basically one franchise, it becomes much harder to get bigger, and if we get much bigger we lose the USP (unique selling point) that we have, because if we have two sites then I’m not as involved.

“So it probably is more sensible to continue doing very nicely as we are and make it a nice place for people to buy cars, but also a nice place for people to work.”

Luscombe said he is not motivated by money, but that it is the challenge of running your own business that captures his imagination.

“I don’t want a palace to live in, I don’t want a Ferrari, I don’t want a yacht in the South of France”, he said.

“I wanted to prove to myself I could do it. I have a drive that drives me to do things for the job satisfaction of doing it.

“It’s like climbing Everest. If there’s a challenge there let’s do that challenge for the sake of achieving a challenge.”

Robin Luscombe Factfile

Title: Managing director at Luscombe Suzuki Leeds

Date of birth: 04/08/1961

Education: O levels at Bingley Grammar School

First job: Parts department apprentice at Appleyard plc of Bradford

Favourite song: Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run

Car driven: Any Suzuki – whichever one has got petrol in.

Favourite film: On Any Sunday

Favourite holiday destination: Italy

Last book read: Alan Sugar’s autobiography

What I’m most proud of: What I’ve done in the last two years since I bought the business.