A few months ago, Auto Spot Guam acquired the rights to the Buick GMC franchise on the Micronesian island. Landing the brands was the result of several years of lobbying by her son Derrick, the group’s CEO, said Donna Muna-Quinata, the group’s SVP. At the NADA convention in New Orleans in 2014, for example, he went by the GMC booth several times a day asking who he should talk to about landing the franchise, she said.
“My son doesn’t accept no for an answer,” Donna Muna-Quinata told Automotive Buy Sell Report.
Auto Spot Guam is a relative newcomer to the Guam dealership scene, but the Muna-Quinata family are veterans at selling cars. Now that they own their own dealerships, they are determined to succeed, and are applying lessons they learned working for other dealership groups to help grow their sales.
One concept is central to Auto Spot’s operations: “Take care of people the way you want to be taken care of,” said Muna-Quinata. “Take care of people with class and with respect.”
Auto Spot employees– including the CEO – follow the 20-foot approach rule, she said. That is, “If [a customer] is within that radius, ask them if they are being taken care of.”
Auto Spot was founded seven years ago with a single Mitsubishi franchise. The Buick and GMC franchises are the first additional brands for the Group. The two brands are already starting to shift Auto Spot’s predominantly used-car business to more new car sales, said Muno-Quinata.
Guam, which is a U.S. territory, has a handful of dealership groups and a permanent population of less than 200,000. Its economic engines are tourism and the U.S. military base on Guam.
The average local family has three vehicles, said Muno-Quinata. “You can’t really get around Guam unless you own a vehicle,” she said. The legal driving age is 16, and kids start driving as soon as it is legal since their parents are often too busy working to drive them around, said Muno-Quinata.
The dealership business in Guam is very competitive. Other dealership groups there include Atkins Kroll, Triple J, and Prestige. Pretty much every major U.S. and Japanese brand is represented. But, a group has exclusive rights to a brand. So the main way to conquest customers is through good service.
“We go the extra mile,” said Muno-Quinata. “They say, ‘wow, you guys really care.’ That is the difference for us.”
Auto Spot is not just there to sell cars, she said. When a customer walks in the door, “we give them choices,” she said. That means finding them financing for a new or used vehicle, helping them get a longer loan, or finding help for a down payment.
Family business
Selling cars is in the Muno-Quinata family’s blood. Many members of the family – which is large, her father has 13 siblings – have worked for one or more of the local dealership groups.
Donna Muno-Quinata, 52, worked for Atkins-Kroll in the past, as did Derrick, 35. Her first job was selling Mazdas for Triple J — she sold them out of the same building that houses Auto Spot now.
Determination runs in the family. When Donna Muno-Quinata started selling cars 32 years ago, it was very much a man’s world, she said. Men tried to intimidate her out of the business, but her first boss was supportive and she became a top salesperson.
Derrick Muno-Quinata literally learned the business at his mother’s knee. He would come to work with her when he was young. He told her he was going to own his own dealership business one day, said Muno-Quinata.
Still, he didn’t go straight into the dealership business after graduating from college with a business degree, she said. He worked for the government. But he had seen how much money his mother earned selling cars. He left his government job after he was hired by an uncle to work in a dealership. From there, he went to Atkins-Kroll to work.
Seven years ago, around the time his mother retired, Derrick Muno-Quinata decided to start his own dealership group. “I thought I was going to open a chocolate shop,” said Donna Muno-Quinata. Instead, she dove back into selling cars.
Business at the Mitsubishi franchise is mostly for used cars, she said. They have a ready supply of inventory. Unlike other dealerships, Auto Spot buys used vehicles without requiring the owner buy another vehicle, said Muno-Quinata.
About 20 percent of the Group’s business is from the military, she said. That can be a good source of used inventory. When service members leave they need to sell their vehicle.
The U.S. liberated Guam from Japanese occupation in 1944, and there is a reservoir of goodwill towards American car brands. For a long time, “the people wanted to buy nothing but ‘made in the U.S. of A.’,” said Muno-Quinata. “Only in the early 80’s did they start to buy Japanese.”
The next franchise that Derrick Muno-Quinata wants to acquire is Cadillac, for sentimental reasons. It was the first car his grandfather bought his grandmother, said Donna Muno-Quinata. He also wants to add a rental car business, she said.
First, however, they will finish renovating the 40-year-old building they are in, creating separate showrooms for Mitsubishi and Buick-GMC.
Younger generations don’t always want to go into the family business of selling cars, but succession isn’t an issue at Auto Spot, apparently. “Derrick wants us to understand this is a family-owned, family-run business,” said his mother. “Auto Spot will most definitely stay in the family.”
