John Wolfe Ford-Dodge in Vernon Texas is a result of years of work.  John Wolfe, now 32, began his car business as a salesman at Hillard Ford in Fort Worth Texas the summer after graduating high school.  He quickly became the top salesman at the dealership his second month in the business.  In mid August of 1991 he reported to football camp at Southern Methodist University. When he left to go to school, the dealership furnished him a fax machine and access to their computer system so that he could sell cars while at school, which he did throughout his years at SMU. His third year at SMU his entrepreneurial nature led him to open his own restaurant and bar at age of 20.  He and his best friend owned and operated the restaurant for two years and sold it right before graduation in 1995.  During the internet boom in the mid 1990’s John designed the ATC (Automated Telenet Computer), applied for patent protection, and rounded up a financial backer, Fortune 500 company Micron Technologies in Boise Idaho.  Quickly after graduation John headed West to Idaho to build and market his invention under the Micron badge.  The machine exists today in many public venues and airports.  It is the terminal that you walk up to, swipe your credit card, and get online access to internet and email functions. “It was basically an internet payphone if you will”, says Wolfe. The hardware was the easy part, the task was giving the user remote access to THEIR individual email accounts.  Today this is a normal process, back in 1996 it was an extremely difficult proposal. The system got completed, and Wolfe’s vision for the project is alive and successful today.  Unfortunately, John’s patents did not hold up and he did not reap the financial benefit of this development. 

However these career experiences at a young age taught him much about technology and business operations. When John got back to Texas he went to work for his cousins car lot just to pass the time while he planned his next career move. One thing led to another and over the next eight years John Wolfe became the owner of one of the largest wholesale companies in the nation. Selling up to 700 units monthly, Wolfe became a king pin in the auto wholesale industry.  He really enjoyed what the business, but the travel and time away from family seemed never-ending. His childhood dream has always been to be a franchise dealer. So here it is today. Wolfe picked the dealership in the rural area of Vernon Texas for two main reasons. 1. There is not a Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep dealer for over two hundred miles to the west or the north of Vernon  2. He could afford to offer razor thin profit margins from this market.  “Advertising,  payroll, taxes, and other expenses are much less in the country than the major markets” said Wolfe.”I can afford to sell them cheaper if I just sell customers the truck, and not have to incur the cost of a 3 million dollar taj mahal dealership and metro advertising expenses”  “We park our trucks on the grass, we live off of a percentage of the holdback and factory interest credits” said Wolfe. In a recent interview, Wolfe made the following comments “We are in the wholesale volume business with new Ford and Chrysler products, just like in the used car wholesale business earlier in my career, that’s where I learned how to do it. .  I don’t make as much money as I used to, but my quality of life has improved drastically….As long as I keep the volume up to this level or greater this dealership can effectively sell behind invoice and still turn a reasonable profit….Our internet sales team is phenomenal, that crew sends cars daily all over the entire United States, it is simply unbelievable the amount of customers we can reach and better their deal from a town of 12,000 population.  My experiences in computer technology and used car wholesale merged together made this possible. 

At Wolfe’s high school graduation the parents videotaped the seniors.  One of the questions asked to Wolfe was “What are you going to do with your career after college?  His answer was “I want to be a new car dealer”  Pretty odd comment from an 18 year old that has no family in the car industry, but it seems that he was serious when he answered that question in 1991.  “Plan your work and work your plan” is what John’s father always taught him.  John told me that he has always heard compliments about how quickly he developed as a young man in the business world.  He says that its not John Wolfe that makes it happen, it’s the family and team members at Wolfe Ford Dodge that make it happen, he feels lucky to be the head coach of his favorite team in the industry.