Today we’d like to introduce you to Jay Grosman.
Hi Jay, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story started when I was growing up. My parents taught me honesty and integrity and always did the “right thing.” They always said you need to get a college degree to succeed in life. I knew I wanted to make something sales-related, so in 1996, I decided to pick the most trusted profession after just graduating from college. I became a Car Salesperson. I was the leading salesperson at the largest Dealer Group in Missouri and top 20 in the nation. I felt like a doctor coming out of an unsuccessful surgery and having to tell my clients what their car was worth. It was always “bad news” and a low dollar amount for their trade-in. I used to cringe as well as my clients used to cringe having to see their car advertised for thousands of dollars more than they received for their trade. The only option the consumer had was to trade their vehicle for a low amount of money, or they would need to put it on the open market themselves, having to meet strange people they didn’t want to meet and, most importantly, losing their valuable time and potentially their safety. After working 18 years in this grueling industry, I decided to hang up my boots to create a better way for consumers to sell and buy a car. I wanted to share my gift of selling cars a create a new model by turning the old dealership model on its head. I started a company called iAutoAgent. We Are Real Estate Agents For Cars. Currently, I am an Auto Advisor on Fox and CBS here in St.Louis and have my podcast, “The Auto Authorities Podcast.”
Let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
So before I started iAutoAgent, I was going to call it a different name, and it was going to be called eAutoAgent. I and my buddy Joe decided that we would meet every night after work at Panera Bread company, and we used this time to plan our company. It was going to be a fantastic company in our eyes, and if we built it, everybody would come. That is precisely the opposite of what happened. Here’s what happened; day one was January 1st, 2015. We were going to jump into this new business with a full head of steam. We were meeting with attorneys to help represent our business. One attorney looked at the e and e Auto agent and said I don’t know if I can work with you guys because I work for this little company called Enterprise leasing company. We told him that we didn’t necessarily want to work with him and were interviewing with attorneys. So this attorney ran back to Enterprise and asked if he could work with us, and they said not only can you not work with them, they have to change their name. So literally, on day one in this new business, I made a multi-six-figure income, worked on a one-income supporting a family of four, lost my business overnight day one, and took down all my website and marketing everything. Then to make matters worse, my business partner Joe comes to me and says he has to leave the business because he has to go through a divorce. I was devastated. I needed to, at that point, find somebody to work as a partner with me in this new company, and I had to change my name. I wound up changing my name to an auto agent, where I stand for integrity. I brought the same values that my parents taught me growing up to this company. I decided to hire my best friend, who had a lot of experience in this industry, which was a “bad idea.” He was a practicing alcoholic showing up intoxicated at our client’s homes without any of my knowledge until one came to me and told me the story. I had to fire him right on the spot. We’re only 3 months into business now. I haven’t made any money, especially enough to support a family of four in a very nice area here in Chesterfield, Missouri. Then my mentor, my everything, my dad, passes away at a very young age of Lewy Bodies Dementia. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. I was so stressed every day that I would break out hives, and I had no idea what the future would help me. At this point, I had never been through this amount of stress. Then only 3 months later, in June of 2015, my mom called me, and she happened to be at the hospital. I asked her why is she at the hospital, and she said I had to get the paramedics to pick me up and take me here because I thought I had a heart attack. I said a heart attack, mom; you don’t even like doctors. This must have been very serious. I’m very concerned. So after the doctor examined her, it turned out she had three valves blocked in her heart and cancer in her lung, and it required a 7-hour surgery to remove cancer and unclog these arteries. Before the surgery, my mom wrote me a death Note stating some complicated things to read. After the 7 hours were done, she did survive the surgery. However, she had a seizure and a stroke, and her life was going downhill faster than ever, and so was mine. I felt like a boxer in a ring with my hands tied behind my back, and I could never hit back. I used to lay down on my couch in the basement, and I called it the “couch.”
I would look up to the ceiling, and I knew I had two options in my life. Option number one, I stay with I auto agent, and number two, I stay with I Auto agent. There was never another option in my mind, and I would make this work whatever it took. I used to recite quotes by putting them in my mirror at night; that would help me train my brain to only look at the positive things happening to me and not the negative ones. I concentrated on all the beautiful reviews we received for an auto agent. I focused on all the positive comments that people would share with me when I was out and called me a “genius” for coming up with this business model. I had people coming into my company trying to take the business idea right from under my eyes which caused me even more stress.
Do you have any advice for those just starting?
The biggest piece of advice I can give somebody just starting in a business is to get mentors who do not have ulterior motives to help share their wisdom with you about the mistakes they made when they were first starting. Another piece of advice is to make sure that you have at least 6 months of funds saved because, as I learned, when you build it, they don’t necessarily come, and it will take multiple months, if not years, to start making Revenue in your company. It is also important when you are starting to survey people and tell them your business idea and have them put holes in the idea. You never want to start a business unless there is a need, and that will tell you if there is a need.
Pricing:
- There is no cost to sell a car through iAutoAgent
- In our buyer’s agent program our fee is a contingency-based fee paid for by the buyer only if they approve the deal
Contact Info:
- Email: jay@iautoagent.com
- Website: https://www.iautoagent.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iautoagent
- Facebook: Facebook.com/iAutoAgent
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/iautoagent
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/iAutoAgent
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/iautoagent-chesterfield
- Other: https://www.theautoauthorities.com/
