Ford dealership in Pine River, MN
The Past:
We opened our doors in 1941. The Houston Family, through hard work, perservearance, commitment to customers and an eye for innovation, have managed to become one of Ford’s very finest dealerships. The Houston’s threw away the idea of being just a typical dealership and resurrected the cozy log cabin show floor - complete with fresh cookies, coffee, and popcorn. Their vision was to create an experience that was easy on the eyes, the mouth and the heart. They chose not to fall into the status quo of a large corporate dealership and instead focused on the customer and their wants & needs. What evolved was a dealership that grew to out-pace many of it’s much larger competitors and sell vehicles all over our great country.
The Present:
In 2015 Dick Houston began the process of selling the dealership and brought on a partner and president of the company. In that moment we changed the way we did business. We asked our customers which part of the auto-buying experience they didn’t like. Definitively, the answer was negotiating. With that in mind, we have shopped the competition so you don’t need to. We have hung our Value Price in all of our vehicles for all to see including our competition. It is meant to be an aggressive price that is difficult for our competitors to match. If you have a trade we place an actual cash value on it. It is what the vehicle is worth in real money. Gone are the days where when you switch vehicles, your trade value switches too. Our trade value is good towards any vehicle on our lot. We do this because we know the only number that matters is the trade difference and we believe in getting to that difference as fast and as stress-free as possible. Lastly, we removed all of our salespeople from a commission based pay plan and replaced it with a flat-rate volume based compensation. By doing this we have changed their focus from their paycheck to helping you get the right vehicle at the right price with little to no stress. You may ask why all dealers don’t run their business this way. It’s simple, if they can take advantage of you, they want to.
The Future:
Our future is bright and we invite you to be a part of it. Excellence isn’t found in a huge building or massive inventories. It is found when an entire staff of a company understand that they must ask themselves constantly, “What is the right thing to do?” It is found when they hold themselves accountable to “being so effective at their job that they’re able to help others.” And lastly, it is found when they know that character, integrity and honesty are what matter. We have this at Houston Ford and we work hard at it. Why? Because nobody needs a dealer when things go perfect, but we do need a good one when they don’t.
