Tim Kintz, President of Kintz Group, was interviewed by Adam Torres of Mission Matters Innovation Podcast.
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Business leader Tim Kintz aims to give managers — especially middle managers, which he sees as an underserved tier of many industries — the real-world tools they need to succeed in their day-to-day work.
How did your path to leadership begin and take you to where you are today?
Kintz says that, as a kid, he wanted to be a baseball player, but eventually he realized the odds of making it big were stacked against him. One of his first jobs was washing cars, so it’s little coincidence that he’s now spent more than three decades in the retail automotive industry. He worked in virtually every position in the dealership before becoming a General Manager and graduating from the NADA Academy. Now, Tim works directly with dealerships coaching, consulting and training them on how to both stay profitable and deliver exceptional experiences in an ever–evolving industry.
What inspired you to write your first book, “Frictionless: Closing and Negotiating with Purpose”?
Negotiating is a lost art, Kintz says, noting that the internet, namely Amazon, has made the marketplace “one-price focused.” Many salespeople and managers have largely forgotten how to negotiate. In fact, many people are actually scared to.
“They think, ‘I don’t want them to think I’m pushy. I don’t want them to think I’m trying to sell them,” Kintz explains. “Well, I hate to break it to those in sales, if you’re afraid to try to sell somebody or close them, you need to get out of sales…. Because selling is all about closing. It’s a zero-sum game; you close or you lose.”
In order to help people do just that, his first book,“Frictionless,” gives step-by-step instructions for improving their ability to negotiate.
“This book is on selling cars,” he notes, “but you can change the words to fit your industry because selling is selling. Sales is a people business, not the sales business.”
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What can people learn from your latest book, “Fearless: Leading and Managing Unbreakable Teams”?
During the first year of the pandemic, Kintz recalls, managers had to do everything themselves; they were often the only ones onsite at the dealerships, selling cars, keeping things running as best they could. But as for the long-term, Kintz found himself asking, “What are we doing to fuel the future?” This question led to him publishing his second book, “Fearless” — discussing how leaders, managers, trainers, and coaches can help their teams grow day by day.
“You don’t grow your company,” he notes. “Growing the individual people within your company is the whole principle behind it.”
About The Kintz Group
The Kintz Group identifies the factors that make each automotive dealership it works with unique. Rather than providing “training in a box” or advice on outdated, cookie-cutter selling methods, it generates training programs tailored to each dealership’s specific needs, perfectly suited for what’s being sold, how, and to whom.
In addition to advising dealers, managers, salespeople and manufacturers how to achieve their goals, the group works directly with those clients to provide current, informative and effective training programs to take them to the next level.
What’s next for you?
Kintz is spending the foreseeable future selling his latest book, ‘Fearless’ and says he’d like to create even more content in the future to help people improve their quality of life. He’ll also get to work soon on his third book, called “Limitless.”
To learn more, visit https://kintzgroup.com/.
