An Interview With Lyle King
An Interview With Lyle King

Lyle King got his start in the car business working for a trade association for independent garage and body shop owners. Later he took a position as a field rep for Warrantech, which launched his F&I experience. After a couple of years of life constantly on the road, King says he realized that it wasn’t worth the cost of being away from his wife, Sondrea, and then infant son, Nathanael who is now 18. It was at this point he made the decision to put his family first. Prompted by the desire to stay close to home and gain some freedom as an agent, he decided to start his own business. Fortune had it that he was introduced to Tim Weymouth one afternoon in a meeting they both attended with a provider. They found they had much in common and a fast friendship was formed. Soon, their friendship evolved into the merging of business as Weymouth incorporated King’s service drive model into his existing clientele and they split the profits. This led to their eventual co-founding of AutoGroup Services (AGS) in 2000.

King says he started out with the misguided notion that the business model for AGS would be primarily based on selling in the service drive. Today they do sell hundreds of service contracts in the service drive monthly and they have what King describes as a “groundbreaking electronic-based program” that allows them to do so with ease and efficiency. However, King says the service drive never turned into the market he once believed it would – instead, this niche of their business has become part of a much more inclusive business model with the majority of sales taking place in the F&I office.

AGS is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. Their reach for producing F&I products stretches through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, California, Oklahoma, Hawaii, and Guam. Their headquarters houses an on-site training facility with a complete training department and a full time trainer. They also offer regular off-site training and income development in stores. AGS represents several premier providers of F&I products to its dealer clients.

In 2005, to be competitive with larger national F&I companies, they made the switch from relying on independent contractors to implementing their own employee distribution base. King says the benefits are well worth the change. “The employee-only distribution model allows us to control product distribution, the management of business relationships, and the communication with their clients – how they are treated. We have found it works much better than relying solely on independent contractors distributing our products.”

“It’s a hundred-plus degrees in Texas!” says King. And this is why much of King’s spare time is spent building a home in Manitou Springs, Colorado, where he hopes to spend summers and one day retire to. “It’s in an area nearby Pike’s Peak,” says King, “and I love the mountains and hiking.” King and his wife enjoy entertaining family and friends and look forward to sharing their mountain retreat with them.

Lately, King has been on quite a few road trips as he and his wife took their son, a senior in high school whom he describes as a brilliant kid, to visit colleges. They have been as far as Ireland and Scotland visiting universities, and have also traveled to Boston and New York checking out schools.

King says the highlight of his week is Sunday morning - when he teaches Sunday school to a group of fourth graders. “It’s the most awesome and inspirational thing I do in life. I create order by telling the kids that I have three rules: Show respect; no whining; and if you wear anything with the Texas Longhorns,” warns the Texas Aggie laughingly, “I will hold you upside down and shake you! Whatever comes out of your pockets, I get to keep!” He says he actually gets to deliver on that one occasionally and the kids love it. This time spent on Sundays is a rewarding change of pace from the busy workweek.

Almost Killed by a Giant

During his college days, King sold books door-to-door while renting a modest room in a boarding house in North Carolina. He was excited to learn that Andre the Giant lived in a home that fell within his country route. Andre the Giant was a famous wrestler and stood at seven feet, four inches tall. He had recently played the role of a giant in the movie The Princess Bride.

When King arrived at Andre’s address, he started down a long, narrow, winding road. Beware of dog and no trespassing signs lined the one-lane drive. As the signs increased in number and the drive grew in isolation, King grew uneasy about proceeding finally deciding to turn around. That evening, he shared the experience with his landlord and friend. His landlord said he knew Andre well and encouraged King to go back and not to worry about the warning signs.

The next day, King again proceeded down the isolated drive to the giant’s house with a renewed sense of excitement. At the end of the mile long driveway stood an impressive house on top of a hill, surrounded entirely by woods. The towering giant was seated on the second story balcony. Suddenly three large, ferocious looking dogs surrounded King’s car and he saw a bright flash of light come from the balcony. Half a second later, the sound of a shotgun blast rang out.

Realizing that Andre the Giant was shooting and might easily kill him if he remained on the property, King hit the gas and reversed his way back down the narrow drive as fast as his rearview mirror would allow him to navigate. King never returned to Andre’s house. He now laughingly recalls the experience of “the time that Andre the Giant tried to kill me,” as the defining story of his life.

The Past, the Future, and a Plan for Success

King believes to be successful in this industry, someone just starting out needs to begin their career in an environment that will provide a foundational understanding of the way things work. “The best advice I could give someone who is just starting out is to work in a dealership for a while so you have that experience. Think of your first job as an internship and be a sponge. Learn everything you can as an employee of someone else - not at their expense, but learn all you can without the risk. Then once you are ready to assume the risk, it will be well worth it.” He describes the auto industry as a lucrative, outstanding career field and says what he likes most is the wide-open opportunity that it offers.

“It does come with risks though.” he cautions, “This was the case in 2009 when we all wondered if we would be able to survive, eat and pay our bills. We were forced to become leaner because business was frighteningly bad. We had gotten so used to things being easy and not having to be frugal, that there was a lot of waste.” And while he appreciates the lessons learned from those mistakes, King says he is thankful to have those days behind him. “It forced us to get a lot wiser and we are benefitting from that today. I think we are now better prepared for a situation like that if it occurred in the future.”

King views the growing trend of acquisition by public companies as a threat to agents’ stability since they typically don’t maintain control of the business once it is acquired. “For the most part, they attempt to do internally what we do.

“As agents, the population of independent dealers we work with is smaller than it used to be. To be successful in the future, our role has to be helping our existing dealers expand their own business. Agents who can accomplish that will be valuable partners and trusted advisors in those dealers’ ongoing growth.”

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